arms industrialists at the Air Ministry. “The Ministry of Muni-
tions,” he reminded Speer some weeks later, “was set up at my
own suggestion purely to offset the shortcomings of the Army
Weapons Office.” Todt had agreed not to trespass on the
Reichsmarschall’s Four-Year Plan, and now Göring invited
Speer to sign a similar agreement. Realizing immediately what
Göring was up to, Speer raced back to the Wolf’s Lair and per-
suaded Hitler to endorse him personally as the new minister.
Hitler complied in a two-hour speech delivered to the arms in-
dustrialists in the Reich Cabinet room. Göring was informed
that his own presence was not necessary.
For years afterward, Göring seethed over his humiliation at
Speer’s hands. No slouch in the art of power politics, Speer ini-
tially flattered and fawned upon Göring, inviting Göring to ap-
point him as “general plenipotentiary for arms production in
the Four-Year Plan” (to enable him to draw upon Göring’s still
considerable residual authority). He also won Keitel’s arms chief,
the stiff-necked, bureaucratic General Georg Thomas, to the
idea of creating “a small body of men gathered around the
Reichsmarschall to direct central planning policy.” Sitting on
this new central-planning body, Speer and Milch would allocate
all raw materials. It effectively spelled the end of the Four-Year
Plan. That agency now became a hollow shell, represented in
Central Planning only by the witless Pili Körner. The Plan re-
tained control only over manpower allocation, through Labor
Commissioner Fritz Sauckel, and here Göring freely interfered.
When Sauckel, searching for two million more workers, drew
attention to the untapped reserves of female labor in the Reich,
Göring objected: Some women, he averred, were born to work,
while others were not. It was like plough horse and racehorse.
“Reichsmarschall Göring,” Himmler was informed, “also says
that ladies who are the bearers of our culture should not be ex-