The Board was formally established on 22 April 1942 by a decree of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring in his capacity as Representative (Beauftragter) of the Four Year Plan.
The Board initially was composed of: (1) Albert Speer, the Reich Minister of Armaments and Munitions, as well as the General Plenipotentiary for Armament Tasks in the Four Year Plan, (2) Generalfeldmarschall Erhard Milch, the State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Aviation, and (3) Paul Körner, the State Secretary for the Four Year Plan and a close associate of Göring.
The Board determined the total number of laborers needed for German industry and required Sauckel to produce them, usually by deportation from occupied territories.
Speer and Funk were indicted by the International Military Tribunal in the trial of the major Nazi war criminals and, on 1 October 1946, they were found guilty.
[7] Milch was tried separately by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, convicted on 17 April 1947, sentenced to life imprisonment (commuted to 15 years in 1951) but released in 1954 and died in 1972.