Finally, as the invading Nazi armies marched into Poland, Hitler announced the designation of Goering as successor designate, the heir apparent of the “New Order.”
(d) Economic Preparation for War, 1933-1939.
In April 1936, Goering was appointed Coordinator for Raw Materials and Foreign Exchange and empowered to supervise all State and Party activities in these fields (2827-PS). In this capacity he convened the War Minister, the Minister of Economics, the Reich Finance Minister, the President of the Reichsbank, and the Prussian Finance Minister to discuss inter-agency problems connected with war mobilization. At a meeting of this group on 12 May 1936, when the question of the prohibitive cost of synthetic raw material substitutes arose, Goering said:
“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 peace.” (1301-PS)
At a subsequent meeting of the same men on 27 May 1936, Goering suggested a program of plant construction for the production of synthetic substitutes but warned against the financial strain involved in excessive overexpansion. He opposed any limitations dictated by orthodox financial policy and stated:
“All measures are to be considered from the standpoint of an assured waging of war.
“Ready reserves must ordinarily be accumulated already in
On the Nurnberg Party Day in the fall of 1936, Hitler proclaimed the establishment of the Four-Year Plan, a comprehensive program of national self-sufficiency, and announced the appointment of Goering as “Plenipotentiary” in charge. In October, a decree was promulgated which implemented this announcement and provided for the execution of the plan. (1862-PS)
It is clear from Goering’s own statements in an interrogation on 25 June 1945 that the purpose of the Plan was to place Germany on a war footing economically:
“Goering: ‘My job was to organize the German economy and my energy was put to work to get things started and carried through * * *. My main task was to secure the food supply for Germany for many years ahead and to make Germany self-sufficient. The most important items were iron, petroleum and rubber. * * * The industry only wanted to have very high grade Swedish iron for business reasons. There was danger that during the war Germany would not be able to get iron from Sweden and there would be no iron.’