Thereupon I called the meeting of 12 November with those departments which had jurisdiction over these matters. Unfortunately, the Führer had demanded that Goebbels should be represented on this commission—actually a commission was to be appointed. He was, in fact, present, although I maintained that he had nothing to do with economic questions. The discussion was very lively. We were all irritated at this meeting. Then I had the economic laws drafted and later I had them published.
I rejected other proposals which lay outside the economic sphere, such as restriction of travel, restriction of residence, restriction in regard to bathing resorts, et cetera, as I was not competent to deal with these things and had not received any special orders. These were issued later on by the police authorities, and not by me; but through my intervention various mitigations and adjustments were made.
I should like to point out that although I received oral and written orders and commands from the Führer to issue and carry out these laws, I assume full and absolute responsibility for these laws which bear my signature; for I issued them and consequently am responsible, and do not propose to hide in any way behind the Führer’s order.
DR. STAHMER: Another matter. What were the reasons for the refusal to take part in the Disarmament Conference and for the withdrawal from the League of Nations?
GÖRING: The chief reasons for that were, first of all, that the other states who, after the complete disarming of Germany, were also bound to disarm, did not do so. The second point was that we also found a lack of willingness to meet in any way Germany’s justified proposals for revisions; thirdly, there were repeated violations of the Treaty of Versailles and of the Covenant of the League of Nations by other states, Poland, Lithuania, et cetera, which were at first censured by the League of Nations, but which were then not brought to an end, but were rather accepted as accomplished facts; fourthly, all complaints by Germany regarding questions of minorities were, indeed, discussed, and well-meaning advice was given to the states against which the complaints had been brought, but nothing was actually done to relieve the situation.
Those are the reasons for leaving the League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference.
DR. STAHMER: Why did Hitler decide to rearm and reintroduce compulsory service?
GÖRING: When Germany left the League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference, she simultaneously announced to the leading powers concerned her definite decision to aim at universal disarmament. The Führer then made various proposals which, it can be assumed, are historically known: restriction of active armed forces to a certain number of men; restriction of weapons to be used; abolishing of certain weapons as, for example, bombers; and various other points. Each one of these proposals was rejected, however, and did not reach a general realization, nor were even discussed.
When we and the Führer recognized clearly that the other parties did not think of disarming and that, on the contrary, that mighty power to the east of us in particular, Russia, was carrying out an armament program as never before, it became necessary for us, in order to safeguard the most vital interests of the German people, their life and their security, to free ourselves from all ties and to rearm to such an extent as was now necessary for the interests and security of the Reich. That was the first reason for the necessity of reintroducing compulsory service.
DR. STAHMER: To what extent did the Luftwaffe participate in this rearmament?