This is part one of the fifth volume in the comprehensive and authoritative series, Germany and the Second World War. It deals with developments in wartime administration, economy, and manpower resources in Germany and its occupied territories from 1939-1941. The detailed analysis is underpinned by an extensive apparatus of maps, diagrams, and tables.

PART I: TOWARDS CONTINENTAL DOMINION ; 1. Plans for the administration of occupied territories before the outbreak of war ; 2. Stages in the territorial 'new order' in Europe ; 3. The preferred 'new order': territories annexed de jure and de facto ; 4. Administration and safeguarding of the German sphere of power ; 5. The exploitation of the occupied territories ; 6. German rule in the occupied territories: pretension and reality ; PART II: THE MOBILIZATION OF THE GERMAN ECONOMY FOR HITLER'S WAR AIMS ; 1. Preparations for total war ; 2. Improvisation in lieu of planning: the 'transitional economy' ; 3. Makeshift solutions in Spring 1940 ; 4. The victor's hubris: Germany loses its lead in armaments after the French campaign ; 5. The crippling of armaments production ; 6. The road into crisis ; 7. Beginnings of a reorganization of the war economy at the turn of 1941/1942 ; PART III: THE MANPOWER RESOURCES OF THE THIRD REICH IN THE AREA OF CONFLICT BETWEEN WEHRMACHT, BUREAUCRACY, AND WAR ECONOMY, 1939-1942 ; 1. Organization and implementation of military mobilization ; 2. The wehrmacht manpower situation at the outbreak of war ; 3. 'Man management': population distribution in the area of tension between wehrmacht and war economy (Sept. 1939-June 1941) ; 4. The development of military manpower control up to the summer of 1941 ; 5. The winter crisis of 1941-1942: The distribution of scarcity or steps towards a more rational management of personnel ; 6. Blitzkrieg or total war? Ideological and political-military implications of the reaction to the trauma of the First World War ; CONCLUSION ; BIBLIOGRAPHY ; INDEX OF PERSONS