Germany in the prewar period had the second-largest domestic economy in the world: http://www.zuljan.info/articles/0302wwiigdp.html http://www.zuljan.info/arti

Germany in the prewar period had the second-largest domestic economy in the world: http://www.zuljan.info/articles/0302wwiigdp.html http://www.zuljan.info/articles/0302wwiigdp.html China is still second in the world by nominal GDP, although they're closer to us now than Germany was then.