Four Year Plan

Q. But, Professor Krauch, another buna plant in the East was first contemplated in the Four Year Plan of 1936, was it not ... 

Q. And within the framework of this Four Year Plan, you took the initiative in forcing foreign workers to produce in the rubber plants ... 

Some 80 per cent of Krauch s "volunteer" workers had wound up "in the East." Nor had Dr. Ambros helped the case any. For when under the Four Year Plan the nameless Auschwitz "to the... 

Until the Four Year Plan began, Germany had imported 700,-000,000 Reichsmarks worth of cotton, wool, and other raw textiles every year. But in 1937, Farben s production of staple fibers reached such gigantic figures that the Vorstand could predict their 1938 achievement — more than half of Germany s textile raw materials. 

All in all, a magnificent achievement since 1933, when Krauch and his longtime friend, Hjalmar Schacht, had begun to dream of it. But Schacht had wanted moderate expansion, because he believed an all-out synthetic economy could not yet be developed by free enterprise. Krauch s talks with Schacht had led him to get up a brochure which he had presented to the new Ministry of Economics in 1933. He called it The Four Year Plan of 1933. 

But this was not significant, really — "Four Year Plan" and "Five Year Plan" were common expressions of the time.. . . Russia had desired a close co-operation with I.G. Farben in the expansion of the Russian chemical industry. The Russians sent a commission in the year 1934 to Germany. I knew the Russians somewhat before, from negotiations in the nitrogen and dyestuffs fields. 

Krauch pointed out that this incident — in which somebody mysteriously pulled the rug out from under his negotiations with the Russians — justified his setting up a Berlin office to stay in touch with the government. This was the year before the Four Year Plan of 1936. Krauch s counsel cleared his throat ... 

Q. But Dr. Krauch, a line between armament needs and peacetime needs could not be drawn because, as you stated, many products in the Four Year Plan were necessary in the same way for peacetime usages ... 

So it came to pass that Professor Krauch went to Berlin before the Four Year Plan to direct the making of "commercial armament products." Ter Meer had told how paint could be used either on a swimming pool or a gunwale. He, Krauch, might remind the court that toluol, a part of TNT, would also make saccharine for your afternoon tea. Listen to Erhard Milch, who had left the Air Ministry to join the Armament Ministry at this time ... 

Loeb s first clash with Krauch was over buna rubber. Loeb had estimated peacetime needs at fifty tons of buna per month. In February 1936, Krauch went over Loeb s head and pushed through a Farben contract for two hundred tons a month. Then four months later, when the Four Year Plan was inaugurated, Krauch held a conference and failed to invite Loeb. To Krauch s office came representatives of the Air Ministry and the Army Ordnance. From Farben came Ter Meer and Kuehne, another... 

Krauch "This confirms what I learned from Goering, that a war was coming perhaps, but not necessarily an aggressive war." And Krauch had told Schmitz of the real aims of the Four Year Plan. Until late in 1938, Krauch had attended all the Vorstand meetings. 

Goering speak to a gathering of industrialists. The most important men present were from Farben. Goering outlined again the purpose of the Four Year Plan "We are already on the threshold of mobilization and we are already at war. All that is lacking is the actual shooting."... 

Goering always recognized that I had a dual responsibility, one to him in the Four Year Plan, and one to I.G. Farben as a private businessman. 

A. In terms of my I.G. relationship. That is quite an interesting question. After I had been in the Four Year Plan for a few months, some people in the Reich were asking me to leave I.G. Farbenindustrie. And they asked Goering to put some pressure on me, and Goering declined to do this. He said, Let this man do what he likes. He is a man of the laboratory, not an administrative man."... 

This was not the first time that "collapse" had reoriented the motives of powerful men. When all of Czechoslovakia was occupied, Professor Krauch s report to the general counsel of the Four Year Plan left no doubt that he knew war was coming, he knew who would attack, and his real fear was that the attacker might lose. This report was made in June 1939. 

By early 1938, even the Minister of Armaments, Speer, was referring to the Four Year Plan as an "I.G. Plan."... 

There were other reverberations of Krauch s power. From October 1936 to May 1937, two-thirds of all amounts spent for the entire German economy under the Four Year Plan went to... 

At first the Four Year Plan had allowed Farben 85 per cent of the "chemical business," apart from explosives. In the summer of 1939, the figure was 92 per cent. Quite apart from munitions growth, the investments of Farben s other subsidiaries (which for the year 1936 to 1937 had grown from a mere 43,000,000 Reichsmarks to 96,300,000) were now tripled. 

Germany s synthetic petroleum industry never reached these goals, but production increased dramatically under the Four Year Plan. In 1933, only three small synthetic petroleum plants (Ludwigshafen-Oppau, Leuna, Ruhrchemie-Sterkrade-Holten) were operating, the last a Fischer-Tropsch plant. At that time, Germany s petroleum consumption was about one-half of Great Britain s, one-fourth of Russia s, and one-twentieth that of the... 

On May 30, 1942, Reichsmarschall Goring established a Generator Central Office for his Four-Year Plan 89... 

The chemical industry s appreciation was also expressed in the conversion of its dyestuff industry to the production of war materials. This was achieved through the institution of the Four-year plan. Carl Krauch, the head of the nitrogen and petrol division of ig Farben, was placed in charge of the Research and Development Department for Raw Materials and Foreign Currency on Goring s staff. A member of the Nazi party from 1937, he took over the Research and Development Department in the Office of German Raw Materials and Synthetics under the Four-year plan. He was also Plenipotentiary General for Special Questions of Chemical Production. On 10 February 1943 Von Schnitzler noted that... 

It was only in war that German chemistry was able to deliver the great test of its worth. It is no exaggeration to say that a modern war would be unimaginable without the results that the German chemical industry achieved under the four-year plan.75... 

Steel production also failed to meet the Four Year Plan s requirements. A second Karinhall revision of 1 January 1939 called for the production of 4.5 million metric tons of steel by the end of 1943. With this amount of steel Germany expected to expand existing plants and construct new plants to increase synthetic fuel production from 3.7 million metric tons in 1938 to 11 million metric tons per year by 1944. According to the US Strategic Bombing Survey s postwar report the required 4.5 million metric tons of steel equaled the amount necessary to build a fleet 3.5 times the size of the British navy that existed on 1 January 1940 [18]. 

Adolf Hitler, memorandum on the Four Year Plan, 1936 ... 

Adolf Hitler s secret memorandum on the Four Year Plan, August 1936, translated in Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds. Documents on Nazism, 1919-1945 (London J. Cape, 1974), p. 406. 

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