The memorandum for the establishment of the Four-Year Plan was written by Adolf Hitler himself in August 1936 and kept secret because of possible opposition from economic circles. It was seen as a watershed in the German economy, marking Hitler's first intervention in German economic policy, and for the first time stating his war aims and a self-imposed timetable of intensified rearmament. In the memorandum, Hitler set a twofold task: to make the German army operational and the German economy fit for war within four years. To achieve this goal, the plan aimed at creating a self-sufficient and independent German economy and particularly at protecting German agriculture against war conditions, making it able to withstand a blockade to the maximum. Hitler sought the goal of self-sufficiency through the pursuit of an expansionist policy and through stress on making Germany less dependent on outside raw materials. For this purpose, the Goring Reich Works (Reichswerke Hermann Goering) were founded and refineries and aluminium works established. The plan also promoted the development of a synthetic-materials industry. Hermann goring, in spite of his ignorance of economic affairs, was nominated as commissioner for the implementation of the plan, receiving extraordinary general powers in the economic sphere. During the war, these powers were extended to the economic structure of the occupied countries so as to extract everything possible from them in a policy of ruthless plundering. Goering also directed the deportation of millions of people from the occupied territories for forced labour. The increased self-sufficiency of Germany had a direct effect on the potential for speeding up the Reich's anti-Semitic policy. In order to begin Germany's economic mobilisation, Hitler had the thought of issuing a law making the whole of Jewry liable for all the damage allegedly inflicted by individual Jews upon the German economy.
