MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Göring also had charge of the Four Year Plan?
BODENSCHATZ: He was commissioned by the Führer to carry out the Four Year Plan.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: He also held several other offices, did he not?
BODENSCHATZ: Hermann Göring, besides being Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, was put in charge of the Four Year Plan. Before that, at the beginning of the seizure of power, he was Minister of the Interior and Prime Minister of Prussia, President of the Reichstag and Reichsforstmeister.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I notice that you use here, as you have used in your interrogations by the United States, the expression “seizure of power.” That was the common expression used in your group, was it not, to describe the coming to power of Adolf Hitler?
BODENSCHATZ: It cannot be used in this sense. At that time it was completely legal because the National Socialist Party was then the strongest party, and the strongest party nominated the Reich Chancellor, and the strongest party had, as such, the greatest influence. It must not be interpreted to mean that they usurped the power, but that they had the most influential and prominent position among the parties, that is, by the completely legal means of election.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You want to change the word “seizure”?
BODENSCHATZ: I have to change that. It is only an expression which was common usage in the press at that time.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Göring got along without any open break with Hitler until 1945, did he not?
BODENSCHATZ: Until the year 1945 there was no open break. The arrest was only quite at the end, as I have said before.