Memorandum on the four-year plan
Hitler's memorandum on the four-year plan is a historical document on the politics of the German Reich . Hitler wrote it in August 1936 and with it ordered the implementation of the four-year plan , which set the course for greater self-sufficiency in the supply of raw materials. In historical research it is considered a key document for Hitler's war plans.
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In the first part he postulated that the Soviet Union was preparing an attack on Europe. In the second part he wrote (as in Mein Kampf ) that Germany was overpopulated and needed new living space in the east . In the third part, the core of the memorandum, he ordered the maximum possible expansion of the production of:
- synthetic gasoline
- synthetic rubber
- domestic iron ores and other ores ( Reichswerke Hermann Göring )
- synthetic fat from coal
The memorandum ended with the sentence
"I. The German army must be operational in 4 years.
II. The German economy must be capable of war in 4 years. "
Hermann Göring presented excerpts from the memorandum in a cabinet meeting on September 4, 1936. a. Reich Minister of War Werner von Blomberg , Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht , Finance Minister Count Schwerin von Krosigk and the Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz took part. Goering introduced them with the words:
"It is based on the basic idea that the confrontation with Russia is inevitable."
In his memoirs, Hans Kehrl reports that he found out about the memorandum from Wilhelm Keppler and that Göring was not allowed to hand it over to his closest colleagues, not even for a short time. At one of his table discussions in October 1941, Hitler said:
"I only produce memoranda on very fundamental questions, such as the four-year plan back then or the Eastern Action in the previous year"
Lore
The document comes from the possession of Albert Speer , who passed a copy of the document to the defense attorney for Hjalmar Schacht, Rudolf Dix , who brought it in as evidence "Schacht Exhibit No. 48" in the Nuremberg trial of the major war criminals . In an explanation of the document, Speer stated that he had received it from Hitler in 1944. The copy was made by his secretaries Edith Margiera and Annemarie Kempf and was certified by the British Captain DIW Goode. The document was sent by the commandant of the Dustbin prison camp , where Speer was being held. Speer stated that it only existed in 3 copies: in addition to his, one for Göring and one for the Reich Minister of War Werner von Blomberg .
In the Wilhelmstrasse Trial , the document was introduced by the prosecution as Exhibit NI-4955.
The memorandum was first published in full in 1955.
literature
- Wilhelm Treue : Hitler's memorandum on the four-year plan 1936 . In: VfZ 2/1955, pp. 184 ff. Online , accessed on March 23, 2015. Also contains the full text of the memorandum.
Individual evidence
- ^ Nuremberg Document EC-416. International Military Tribunal Nuremberg (ed.): The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Tribunal (November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946) . Nuremberg 1949, Volume 36, p. 489 ff.
- ^ Hans Kehrl : Crisis Manager in the Third Reich . Düsseldorf 1974, p. 86.
- ↑ Werner Jochmann (Ed.): Monologues in the Führer headquarters 1941–1944 . Hamburg 1982, p. 81.
- ↑ http://www.phdn.org/archives/www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/07/NMT07-T0787.htm
- ↑ International Military Court of Nuremberg (ed.): The trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Court (November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946) . Nuremberg 1947, Volume 12, p. 568. Online at Zeno.org .
- ↑ Quarterly Issues for Contemporary History Issue 2/1955, pp. 204–210 ( online (PDF))