mous secret memorandum outlining the new economic plan. Its
first part had strong echoes of Mein Kampf; its second was so
closely attuned to Göring’s own staff papers and his recent re-
marks in the Berlin conferences that Göring obviously had a
hand in drafting it. This second part was subdivided into “Ger-
many’s Economic Situation” and “A Program for a Final Solu-
tion of Our Vital Needs.” While it defined their long-range ob-
jective as expanding Germany’s living space (Lebensraum),
Göring had persuaded Hitler that the interim objective for the
next years must be to stockpile raw materials as fast as the supply
of foreign currency and the exploitation of their native re-
sources would allow.
It was in this respect that the Hitler document came down
so heavily against the “economic liberalism” preached by
Schacht.
Four precious years have passed [Hitler’s memoran-
dum began]. Without doubt we could by today al-
ready have been wholly independent of imported
rubber and even iron ore. We are now producing
seven or eight hundred thousand tons of our own
gasoline each year; we could have been producing
three million tons. We are manufacturing several
thousand tons of our own rubber each year; it could
have been seventy or eighty thousand tons. We are
expanding our own iron-ore output from . to seven
million tons, but we could be producing twenty,
twenty-five, or even thirty million tons.And so the document went on. Returning with it to Berlin,
Göring summoned all the other ministers to a historic “Little
Cabinet” meeting at midday on September , one that he him-
self declared to be “of greater significance than any that had
preceded it.” Gloating over Schacht’s humiliation, he then read