Minister Schacht, who was the expert, had difficulties with the Party. He was not a member of the Party. He was at that time on excellent terms with the Führer and me, but not so much with the members of the Party. The danger arose that the appropriate measures might not be understood by the latter, and in this connection I would be the right man to make these things known to the people and the Party.
That is how that came about. But since I, as Minister of Air, was, as I have explained, interested in raw materials, I played an ever increasingly important role. Then the differences between agriculture and economy in regard to foreign currency came more to the fore, so that I had to make decisions, decisions which became more drastic. Thus I entered the field of economic leadership. I devoted a great deal of time and work to this task, particularly to procuring the raw materials necessary for economy and for rearmament. Out of this the Four Year Plan arose which gave me far-reaching plenary powers.
DR. STAHMER: What was the aim of the Four Year Plan?
GÖRING: The Four Year Plan had two aims: First, that German economy as far as possible and particularly in the agricultural sector, should be made secure against any crisis; secondly, in the event of war, Germany should be able to withstand a blockade to the greatest extent possible. Therefore it was necessary, first, to increase agriculture to the utmost, to control and direct it, to control consumption, and to store up supplies by means of negotiations with foreign countries; secondly, to ascertain which raw materials, imported until then, could be found, produced, and procured in Germany itself, and which raw materials that were difficult to import could be replaced by others more easily obtainable. Briefly, as far as the agricultural sphere was concerned: utilization of every available space; regulation of cultivation according to the crops needed; control of animal breeding; building up of reserves for times of need or crop failures; as far as the industrial sector was concerned, the creation of industries supplying raw materials: First, coal—although there was sufficient coal, its production would have to be increased considerably, since coal is the basic raw material on which so many other things are dependent; iron—our mining industry had made itself so dependent on foreign countries that, in the event of a crisis, a most disastrous situation might arise here. I can quite understand that from the purely financial and business point of view that was all right but, nevertheless, we should have to mine and make available the German iron ores which were at our disposal, even though they were inferior to the Swedish ores; we should have to compel industry to make alloys and manage with German ores.
I recklessly allowed industry a year’s time. As industry by then had still not begun to exploit these ores, I founded the Reich works which were given my name. They were primarily for opening up iron-ore reserves in German soil and using them in the mining industry. It was necessary to set up oil refineries, aluminum works and various other works, and then to promote the development of the so-called synthetic material industry in order to replace necessary raw materials which could be obtained only from abroad and under difficult circumstances. In the field of textiles this involved the conversion of the textile industry and of I. G. Farben.
That, roughly, was the task of the Four Year Plan.
Naturally a third question is of importance in this connection: the question of labor. Co-ordination was necessary here too. The most important industries had to have workers; less important industries had to dispense with them. The control of this allocation of labor, which before the war functioned only within Germany, was another task of the Four Year Plan and the Department for the Allocation of Labor.
The Four Year Plan as such very quickly assumed too large proportions as an official organization. Then, after Schacht had left, I took over the Ministry of Economy for 2 months and fitted the Four Year Plan into it. I retained only a very small staff of collaborators and carried out the tasks with the assistance of the ministries competent to deal with these things.
DR. STAHMER: Was the purpose of carrying out these plans that of preparing for aggressive war?
GÖRING: No, the aim of the plans was, as I said, to make Germany secure against economic crises, and to make her secure against a blockade in the event of war, and, of course, within the Four Year Plan to provide the necessary conditions for rearmament. That was one of its important tasks.