GÖRING: That is right.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And you have already said that the Four Year Plan had as its purpose to put the economy in a state of readiness for war; and the Hermann Göring Works were organized to exploit ore mining and iron smelting resources and to carry the process through to completed guns and tanks, were they not?
GÖRING: No, that is not correct; the Hermann Göring Works had at first no armament works of their own, but merely produced, as I again repeat, the basic product, steel, crude steel.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, at all events, you continued your efforts and on the 8th of November 1943, you made a speech describing those efforts to the Gauleiter in the Führer building at Munich, is that right?
GÖRING: I do not know the exact date, but about that time I made a short speech, one of a series of speeches, to the Gauleiter about the air situation, as far as I remember, and also perhaps about the armament situation. I do not remember the words of that speech, since I was never asked about it until now; but the facts are correct.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, let me remind you if you used these terms, refreshing your recollection:
“Germany, at the beginning of the war, was the only country in the world possessing an operative, fighting air force. The other countries had split their air fleets up into army and navy air fleets and considered the air arm primarily as a necessary and important auxiliary of the other branches of the forces. In consequence, they lacked the instrument which is alone capable of dealing concentrated and effective blows, namely, an operative air force. In Germany we had gone ahead on those lines from the very outset, and the main body of the Air Force was disposed in such a way that it could thrust deeply into the hostile areas with strategic effect, while a lesser portion of the air force, consisting of Stukas and, of course, fighter planes, went into action on the front line in the battlefields. You all know what wonderful results were achieved by these tactics and what superiority we attained at the very beginning of the war through this modern kind of air force.”
GÖRING: That is entirely correct; I certainly did say that, and what is more, I acted accordingly. But in order that this be understood and interpreted correctly, I must explain briefly:
In these statements I dealt with two separate opinions on air strategy, which are still being debated today and without a decision having been reached. That is to say: Should the air force form an auxiliary arm of the army and the navy and be split up to form a constituent part of the army and the navy, or should it be a separate branch of the armed forces? I explained that for nations with a very large navy it is perhaps understandable that such a division should be made. From the very beginning, thank God, we made the correct, consistent decision to build up a strong—I emphasize the word “strong”—and independent Air Force along with the Army and the Navy; and I described how we passed from a tentative air force to an operative air force.
As an expert I am today still of the opinion that only an operative air force can have a decisive effect. I have also explained, in regard to two- and four-engine bombers, that at first I was quite satisfied with the two-engine bombers because, firstly, I did not have four-engine bombers; and secondly, the operational radius of the two-engine bombers was wide enough for the enemy with whom we had to deal at that time. I further pointed out that the main reason for the swift ending of the campaign in Poland and in the West was the effect of the Air Force.