Plans for the Big Week, intended to destroy Germany's capacity to produce fighter aircraft through targeted airstrikes on final assembly factories, were already underway in 1943.

[1] In response, Adolf Hitler authorized the creation of the Jägerstab, which superseded the Reich Aviation Ministry with the aim of increasing fighter aircraft production.

The task force was established by Albert Speer, the Minister of Armaments and War Production in the Hitler Cabinet, with support from Erhard Milch of the Reich Aviation Ministry.

While Speer and Milch played a key role in directing the activities of the agency, the day-to-day operations were handled by Chief of Staff Karl Saur, a previous head of the Technical Office in the Armaments Ministry.

[3] The Jägerstab was given extraordinary powers over labour, production and transportation resources; its functions took priority over housing repairs for bombed out civilians and restoration of vital city services.

Taking into account the high mortality rate associated with the underground construction projects, the historian Marc Buggeln estimates that the workforce involved amounted to 80,000−90,000 inmates.

Although intended to function for only six months, Speer and Milch discussed with Goring in late May the possibility of centralising all of Germany's arms manufacturing under a similar task force.