23 Nov. 45
MR. DODD: Yes, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: But you haven't read anything from it.
MR. DODD: I did not; I merely referred the Court to it since
it...
THE PRESIDENT [Interposing]: It would help us, I think, if, when
you refer to a document, you refer to some particular passage in it.
MR. DODD: Very well.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it must be the middle paragraph in the
document: "The Führer has nominated the President of the
Directorate of the Reichsbank, Dr. Schacht.... "
MR. DODD: Yes, that is the paragraph to which I wish to make
reference. If Your Honors please, I refer to the second paragraph, or
the middle paragraph, which states, in a letter dated June 24, 1935
at Berlin:
"The Führer and Reich
Chancellor has nominated the President of the Directorate of the
Reichsbank, Dr. Schacht, to be Plenipotentiary General for the War
Economy."
I might point out, in addition to the second
paragraph, the last paragraph of that letter or the last sentence of
the letter, which reads: "I point out the necessity of strictest
secrecy once more"-- the letter being signed, "Von
Blomberg."
Through Schacht's financial genius monetary measures were devised
to restore German industry to full production; and through the
control of imports and exports, which he devised under his plan of
1934, German production was channeled in accordance with the
requirements of the German war machine.
I shall, with the Court's permission, later discuss the details
of documentary proof of this assertion.
In 1936, with an eye to the experience in the first World War,
the Nazi conspirators embarked on an ambitious plan to make Germany
completely. self-sufficient in strategic war materials such as
rubber, gasoline, and steel, in a period of 4 years, so that the Nazi
conspirators would be fully prepared for aggressive war. The
responsibility for the execution of this program was entrusted to the
office of the Four Year Plan under the Defendant Göring--and at
this point I should like to refer to the document bearing the number
and the lettering EC-408. It is dated the 30th day of December 1936,
marked "Secret Command Matter", and entitled the
"Report Memorandum on the Four Year Plan and Preparation of the
War Economy."
It sets out that the Führer and Reich Chancellor has
conferred powers in regard to mobilization preparations in the
economic field