for such a war. All of those present at the conference had no moral objections to Hitler's strategy, but were divided on timing only. By February 1938, Neurath, Fritsch and Blomberg had been removed from their positions. Some historians, such as Sir John Wheeler-Bennett and William L. Shirer, believed that Blomberg, Fritsch and Neurath were removed because of their opposition to the plans expressed in the Hossbach memorandum. The accuracy of the memorandum has been questioned, as the minutes were drawn up five days after the event by Hossbach from notes that he took at the meeting and also from memory. Also, Hitler did not review the minutes of the meeting; instead he insisted, as he commonly did, that he was too busy to bother with such small details. British historian A. J. P. Taylor contended that the manuscript that was used by the prosecution in the Nuremberg Trials appears to be a shortened version of the original, as it had passed through the US Army before the trial. Taylor drew attention to one thing that the memorandum can be used to prove: "Goering, Raeder and Neurath had sat by and approved of Hitler's aggressive plans." However, that did not necessarily mean that Hitler laid down his plans for the domination of Europe, as there was no active decision to start a war made in the memorandum, only a decision about when war would be practical. However, Hitler mentioned his wish for increased armaments. Taylor attempted to discredit the document by using the fact that the future annexations described in the 'contingencies' were unlike those that occurred in 1939. However, opposing historians, such as Taylor's archrival Hugh Trevor-Roper, have pointed out that the memorandum still demonstrated an intention for adding Austria, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and Poland to the Reich. Taylor also stipulated that the meeting was most likely a piece of internal politics, and he pointed out that Hitler could have been trying to encourage the gathering's members to put pressure on the Reich Minister of Economics and President of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht, to release more funding for rearmament. In fact, Schacht soon resigned in protest of the pre-eminence of rearmament in Nazi economics. Contending historians have also pointed out that rearmament is an integral part of a preparation for conflict. In response, Taylor argued that Hitler's policy was a bluff (he wished to rearm Germany to frighten and intimidate