DR. KRAUS: I am interested to know how many divisions were ready by 1 April 1938? I am interested in this key date because on that day the financial aid of the Reichsbank stopped. Can you tell me how many divisions were ready on 1 April 1938?
JODL: At that time there were about 27 or 28 divisions actually ready—that is, as regards personnel and materiel.
DR. KRAUS: Can you tell me, Generaloberst, how they were made up?
JODL: I cannot say with certainty.
DR. KRAUS: Approximately?
JODL: I do know that only one Panzer division was ready at that time, one cavalry division, one mountain division, and the rest were probably infantry divisions. The other Panzer divisions were not yet equipped, and they existed only as skeleton formations.
DR. KRAUS: I would like to know to what extent this armament was increased between that date and the outbreak of the war on 1 September 1939—that is, increased from 27 divisions?
JODL: From the autumn of 1938 on, the picture became much more favorable because the preparations in the armament industry were now producing results, and plenty of equipment was being delivered for the divisions; also, because from this time on, the trained age groups were beginning to come in. Therefore, in the late autumn of 1938, we were in a position to set up approximately 55 divisions—including reserve divisions—even though some of them may have been only poorly equipped. In 1939—as I said before, according to my recollection—there were between 73 and 75 divisions.
DR. KRAUS: Therefore, the number of divisions set up after March or April of 1938, after President Schacht left the Reichsbank, increased by 200 percent in 15 or 16 months, whereas it took more than 3 years to set up 27 divisions?
JODL: That is true, except that these 55 divisions, or rather these 75, were still very short of equipment in the same way as the small number in the spring of 1938, or in April 1938, which I mentioned. But the fact that from that time on armament went much faster was due—as I have said—to the very nature of things.