KÖRNER: He got in touch with the Führer immediately to ask for the action to be stopped at once.
DR. STAHMER: What were your tasks within the framework of the Four Year Plan?
KÖRNER: I was Chief of the Office of the Four Year Plan.
DR. STAHMER: What were your tasks?
KÖRNER: The management and supervision of that office.
DR. STAHMER: How did the Four Year Plan come about? When and how did it start?
KÖRNER: The official Four Year Plan was announced in October 1936, but its origin goes back to the food crisis of 1935. In the autumn of 1935 the Reich Marshal received the order from the Führer . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, try not to go quite so fast. It is very difficult to get the translation.
KÖRNER: Yes, Sir.
In the autumn of 1935 the Reich Marshal received the order from the Führer to make the food for the German people secure, as the food situation was serious because of the bad harvests of 1934 and 1935. At the time we were short of at least 2 million tons of bread-grain and several hundred thousand tons of fat, which had to be procured by some means or other.