Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 4, p. 537
		8 Jan. 46 excerpt from Rühle, Das Dritte Reich. I read from the fourth paragraph of the excerpt, if Your Honor pleases, which is an excerpt from a decree signed by Hitler, and it reads as follows: "Minister President, Colonel General Göring will take the measures necessary for the accomplishment of the tasks given to him and has the authority to issue decrees and general administrative directives. He, for this purpose, is authorized to question and issue directives to all authorities, including the highest Reich authorities, and all agencies of the Party, its formations and attached organizations." In this capacity Göring convened the War Minister, the Defendant Schacht as Minister of Economics and President of the Reichsbank, and the Finance Minister for the Reich and the State of Prussia to discuss inter-agency problems connected with war mobilization. At a meeting of this group on the 12th of May 1936, when the question of the prohibitive cost of synthetic raw material substitutes arose, Göring decided: "If we have war tomorrow we must help ourselves by substitutes. Then money will not play any role at all. If that is the case, then we must be ready to create the prerequisites for that in peacetime." A few days later, on the 27th of May 1936, at a meeting of the same group Göring opposed any limitations dictated by orthodox financial policies. He said that "all measures are to be considered from the standpoint of an assured waging of war." The well-known Four Year Plan was proclaimed by Hitler at the 1936 Nuremberg Party Day. Göring was appointed Plenipotentiary in charge of the program, which was intended to achieve national self-sufficiency. Furthermore, Göring commented in 1936 that his chief task as Plenipotentiary was "to put the whole economy on a war footing within 4 years." I would like to offer into evidence, as Exhibit Number USA-579, our Document EC-408, so that I may direct the Tribunal's attention to a memorandum, dated the 30th of December 1936, of the Defense Division of the Wehrmacht, entitled, "Memorandum on the Four Year Plan and Preparation of the War Economy"; and in the third paragraph of the translation, or at Page 2, in the middle of Paragraph Number 3 in the German original, there is the statement registered in the protocol, in the memorandum, that: "Minister President General Göring as Commissioner for the Four Year Plan, by authority of the Führer and Reich Chancellor, granted 18 of October 1936. 537
		Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 4, p. 537     Last modified: January 2, 1999 Copyright © 1998 The Mazal Library and The Holocaust History Project. All rights reserved. Technical/administrative contact: webmaster@holocaust-history.org Find a typo? Let us know.