MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did you reply to Document 3700-PS? Did you reply to this letter?
GÖRING: I cannot say that today with certainty—possibly.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, the Four Year Plan had as its purpose to put the entire economy in a state of readiness for war, had it not?
GÖRING: I have explained that it had two tasks to fulfill—1) to safeguard German economy against crises, that is to say, to make it immune from export fluctuations, and, as regards food, from harvest fluctuations, as far as possible; and 2) to make it capable of withstanding a blockade, that is to say, in the light of experiences in the first World War, to put it on such a basis that in a second World War a blockade would not have such disastrous consequences. That the Four Year Plan in this respect was a basic prerequisite for the entire building-up and expansion of the armament industry goes without saying. Without it the rearmament industry could not have been shaped in this way.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: To get a specific answer, if possible, did you not say in a letter to Schacht, dated the 18th day of December 1936, that you saw it to be your task, using these words, “within 4 years to put the entire economy in a state of readiness for war”? Did you say that or did you not?
GÖRING: Of course I said that.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, do you recall the report of Blomberg in 1937 in which—and you may examine if you wish Document Number C-175—in which he starts his report by saying:
“The general political position justifies the supposition that Germany need not expect an attack from any side.”
GÖRING: That may have been quite possible at that moment. I took a most reassuring view of the German situation in 1937. It was after the Olympic games and at that time the general situation was extraordinarily calm. But that had nothing to do with the fact that I felt obliged, quite apart from passing fluctuations from a calmer to a more tense atmosphere, to make German economy ready for war and proof against crises or blockades, for exactly 1 year later incidents of a different nature occurred.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well now, does not Blomberg continue: