23 Nov. 45

In September 1936 the Defendant Göring announced -- at a meeting attended by the Defendant Schacht and others--that Hitler had issued instructions to the Reich War Minister on the basis that the show-down with Russia is inevitable, and added that "all measures have to be taken just as if we were actually in the stage of imminent danger of war."

I refer the Court to the document bearing the letters EC-416 and particularly . . . Before I discuss the quotation I might indicate that this document is also marked a secret Reich matter in the minutes of the Cabinet meeting of the 4th of September 1936, at 12 o'clock noon. It tells who was present: the Defendant Göring, Von Blomberg, the Defendant Schacht, and others.

And on the second page of that document, in the second paragraph, is found the quotation by the Defendant Göring. It starts from the basic thought that:

"The show-down with Russia is inevitable. What Russia has done in the field of reconstruction we too can do."

On the third page of that document, in the second paragraph, the Defendant Göring stated: "All measures have to be taken just as if we were actually in the stage of imminent danger of war."

In the same month the office of the Four Year Plan was created with the mission of making Germany self-sufficient for war in 4 years. I refer back, at this point, to the Document Number EC-408, and particularly refer Your Honors to the third paragraph, again, of that document, where the statement is made as regards the war economy:

"Minister President Generaloberst Göring sees it as his task, within 4 years, to put the entire economy in a state of readiness for war."

The Nazi Government officials provided the leadership in preparing Germany for war. They received, however, the enthusiastic cooperation of the German industrialists, and the role played by industrialists in converting Germany to a war economy is an important one, and I turn briefly to that aspect of the economic picture.

On the invitation of the Defendant Göring, approximately 25 of the leading industrialists of Germany, and the Defendant Schacht, attended a meeting in Berlin on the 20th day of February, 1933. This was shortly before the election of March 5, 1933 in Germany. At this meeting Hitler announced the conspirators' aim to seize totalitarian control over Germany, to destroy the parliamentary system, to crush all Opposition by force, and to restore the power of the Wehrmacht.