“Reich Minister Göring expressed his conviction that the Enabling Act would be passed with the necessary two-thirds majority. Possibly a majority could be obtained by banishing several Social Democrats from the hall. Possibly the Social Democrats would even refrain from voting on the Enabling Act. . . .”
In 1935, with the unmasking of a secret Luftwaffe, Göring became its Commander-in-Chief. He sat as a member and the Führer’s Deputy on the Reich Defense Council, established by the secret law of the 21st of May 1933. The purpose of that Council was, as stated by the Defendant Frick in an affidavit that is in evidence—and I quote:
“To plan preparations and decrees in case of war, which later on were published by the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich.”
His assumption of ever greater responsibility seemed limitless. In 1936 Göring was made Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, whereby he acquired plenary legislative and administrative powers over all German economic life. In 1938 he became a member of the Secret Cabinet Council, which had been established to act as “an advisory board in the direction of foreign policy.”
The Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich, created in 1939, took over, in effect, all of the legislative powers of the Cabinet which had not been reserved otherwise, and Göring became its chairman.
His efficient and ruthless services were recognized by Hitler in 1939, when he designated Göring as his successor, as heir apparent to the “New Order.”
In April 1936 Göring was appointed Coordinator for Raw Materials and Foreign Exchange and empowered to supervise all State and Party activities in these fields. I offer in support of that fact, as Exhibit Number USA-577, our Document 2827-PS, which is an 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.”