rejection, revision or signing when that process was completed. The cabinet was also overshadowed by the numerous ad hoc agencies – both of the state and of the Nazi Party – such as Supreme Reich Authorities and plenipotentiaries – that Hitler caused to be created to deal with specific problems and situations. Individual ministers, however, especially Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, Speer, and Bormann, held extensive power, at least until, in the case of Göring and Speer, Hitler came to distrust them. By the final years of World War II, Bormann had emerged as the most powerful minister, not because he was head of the Party Chancellery, which was the basis of his position in the cabinet, but because of his control of access to Hitler in his role as Secretary to the Führer. Composition The Reich cabinet consisted of the following Ministers: Timeline March 1933: Joseph Goebbels enters the cabinet as Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. April 1933: Franz Seldte leaves the German National People's Party and becomes a member of the Nazi Party. May 1933: Hermann Göring takes a portfolio as Reich Minister of Aviation. June 1933: Kurt Schmitt succeeds Alfred Hugenberg as Reich Minister of Economics. Richard Walther Darré succeeds Hugenberg as Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture. December 1933: Ernst Röhm and Rudolf Hess enter the Cabinet as Reich Ministers without Portfolio. May 1934: Bernhard Rust enters the Cabinet as Reich Minister of Science, Education and Culture. June 1934: Hanns Kerrl enters the Cabinet as a Reich Minister without Portfolio. June 1934: Röhm, Reich Minister without Portfolio, is murdered. July 1934: Göring (already a Reich Minister) is also granted cabinet rank as the Reichsforstmeister in the Reich Forestry Office. August 1934: Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen leaves the cabinet. A new Vice-Chancellor is not installed. August 1934: Hjalmar Schacht succeeds Schmitt as Reich Minister of Economics. December 1934: Hans Frank enters the Cabinet as Reich Minister without Portfolio. March 1935: Göring takes another portfolio as Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe. May 1935: The title of Reich Minister of Defense is replaced by that of Reich Minister of War. Werner von Blomberg retains the office. July 1935: Kerrl takes a portfolio as Reich Minister of Church Affairs. April 1936: Werner von Fritsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and Erich Raeder, Commander in Chief of the Navy, are granted cabinet rank. January 1937: Blomberg, Fritsch, Gürtner, Krosigk, Meissner, Neurath, Raeder and