DR. STAHMER: What was the purpose and importance of the Secret Cabinet Council which was created a short time after the seizure of power?
GÖRING: In February 1938 there came about the retirement of the War Minister, Field Marshal Von Blomberg. Simultaneously, because of particular circumstances, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Colonel General Von Fritsch, retired, that is to say, the Führer dismissed him. The coincidence of these retirements or dismissals was, in the eyes of the Führer, disadvantageous to the prestige of the Wehrmacht. He wanted to divert attention from this change in the Wehrmacht by means of a general reshuffling. He said he wanted above all to change the Foreign Office because only such a change would make a strong impression abroad and would be likely to divert attention from the military affairs. At the time I opposed the Führer very strongly about this. In lengthy, wearisome personal conversations I begged him to refrain from a change in the Foreign Office. He thought, however, that he would have to insist upon it.
The question arose as to what should be done after Herr Von Neurath’s retirement or after the change. The Führer intended to keep Herr Von Neurath in the Cabinet by all means for he had the greatest personal esteem for him. I myself have always expressed my respect for Herr Von Neurath. In order to avoid a lowering of Herr Von Neurath’s prestige abroad, I myself was the one to make a proposal to the Führer. I told him that in order to make it appear abroad that Von Neurath had not been entirely removed from foreign policy, I would propose to appoint him chairman of the Secret Cabinet Council. There was, to be sure, no such cabinet in existence, but the expression would sound quite nice, and everyone would imagine that it meant something. The Führer said we could not make him chairman if we had no council. Thereupon I said, “Then we shall make one,” and offhand I marked down names of several persons. How little importance I attached to this council can be seen in the fact that I myself was, I think, one of the last on that list.
Then, for the public at large the council was given out to be an advisory council for foreign policy. When I returned I said to my friends, “The affair has gone off all right, but if the Führer does not ask the Foreign Minister for advice, he certainly will not ask a cabinet council for advice on foreign policy; we will not have anything to do with it!” I declare under oath that this Cabinet Council never met at all, not even for a minute; there was not even an initial meeting for laying down the rules by which it should function. Some members may not even have been informed that they were members.
DR. STAHMER: When was the Reich Cabinet in session last?
GÖRING: As far as I remember, the last meeting of the Reich Cabinet was in 1937, and, as far as I can remember, I presided over the last meeting, the Führer having left shortly after the beginning. The Führer did not think much of Cabinet meetings; it was too large a circle for him, and perhaps there was too much discussion of his plans, and he wanted that changed.
From that time on there were only individual conferences—conferences with single ministers or with groups of ministers from the ministries concerned. But since the ministers found, very rightly, that this made their work difficult, a solution was adopted whereby I, under the title of the Four Year Plan, called the ministers together more frequently, in order to discuss general matters with them. But at no time in the Cabinet or the Ministerial Council was any political decision of importance mentioned or discussed, as, for instance, those decisions—the annexation of Austria, the Sudetenland, and Czechoslovakia—which finally led to war. I know how much importance the Führer attached to the fact that in all these matters only those ministers should be informed who absolutely had to be informed, because of the nature of their work, and that only at the very last minute. Here too, I can say under oath that quite a number of ministers were not informed about the beginning of the war or the march into Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland, or Austria until the next morning, when they learned about it by radio or through the press, just as any other German citizen.
DR. STAHMER: What part did you have in making the Munich Pact of September 1938?
GÖRING: The incorporation of the Sudeten Germans or, better said, the solution of the Sudeten German problem I had always emphasized as being something that was necessary. I also told the Führer after the Anschluss of Austria that I should regret it if his statements were misunderstood to mean that with the Anschluss of Austria this question had been settled.
In November 1937, I stated to Lord Halifax that the Anschluss of Austria, the solution of the Sudeten German question in the sense of a return of the Sudeten Germans, and the solution of the problem of Danzig and the Corridor were integral parts of German policy. Whether they were tackled by Hitler one day, or by me or somebody else the next day, they would still remain political aims which under all circumstances would have to be attained sometime. However, both of us agreed that all efforts should be made to achieve that without resorting to war.