| witness Kuepper are reproduced. The Krauch testimony (3 below) shows
Krauch's denial of any knowledge of Hitler's secret memorandum on the purposes
of the Four Year Plan, and Kuepper's testimony (4 below) deals with Goering's
speech to industrialists, including defendant von Schnitzler, at the
Preussenhaus in December 1936. This was the speech on the Four Year Plan when
Goering stated: "We are already on the threshold of mobilization and are at
war, only the guns are not yet being fired." |
| |
| |
| 2. CONTEMPORANEOUS DOCUMENTS |
| |
| |
PARTIAL TRANSLATION OF
DOCUMENT NI-4955
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT
411 |
| |
EXTRACTS FROM HITLER'S MEMORANDUM CONCERNING
THE FOUR YEAR PLAN,
1936* |
| |
The Political Situation
Politics is the leadership and
the course of the historical struggle for life of the nation. The aim of these
struggles is the maintenance of existence. |
| |
| * * * * * * * * * * |
| |
| Germany |
| |
| Germany will have to be regarded, as it always was, as the focus of
the occidental world against the bolshevistic attacks. I |
__________
*This document was introduced as Prosecution Exhibit
939 in the Ministries case and is reproduced in full in section VI B, volume
XII, this series. This memorandum was first offered in evidence in the
Nuernberg Trials before the International Military Tribunal as Schacht Defense
Exhibit 48. Attached to the memorandum as introduced, there was an explanatory
memorandum of Schacht's codefendant. Albert Speer, dated 22 August 1945. which
stated: |
"This memorandum was given
personally to me by A. H. [Adolf Hitler] in 1944, with the following statement:
"The lack of understanding of the Reich Ministry of Economics and the
opposition of German business [Deutsche Wirtschaft] against all large-scale
plans induced him to elaborate this memorandum at Obersalzberg.
"He
decided at that time to carry out a Four Year Plan and to put Goering in charge
of it. On the occasion of Goering's appointment as the official in charge of
the Four Year Plan he gave him this memorandum. There are only three copies,
one of which he gave to me.
"Goering was appointed (through decree in
the Reich Law Gazette) as the official in charge of the Four Year Plan, 18
October 1936, so that the memorandum might have been originated in August 1936,
approximately.
"My secretaries, Edith Nagiera and Annemarie Kempf, made
this transcript in my office for my archives in Nuernberg."
|
| From the minutes of the meeting on 4 September 1936 of the
Ministerial Council under the chairmanship of Goering (EC-616, Pros. Ex. 412,
reproduced later in this subsection), at which this memorandum was read by
Goering, it is clear that another copy of this memorandum was originally given
by Hitler to the then Reich Minister of War, General von Blomberg. This
document is discussed in the testimony of defendant Krauch reproduced below in
subsection F 3. |
. 
