From the conclusion of the Naval Agreement onwards, Hitler began to see in Herr Von Ribbentrop the man who could help him in the fulfillment of his pet wish—and also, we may say, of that of the German people—to achieve a general political alliance with England. The inclination to realize these intentions had practical as well as ideal motives.
The practical motives can be condensed into the short statement that it is the misfortune of our nation and of all Europe that Germany and England were never able to understand each other, in spite of earnest attempts on the part of both countries during the last 50 years. The ideal motives were grounded in Hitler’s indisputable preference for many approved internal institutions of the British Empire.
Politically the Naval Agreement represented the first important break with the Versailles policy as sanctioned by England with the final approval by France. And thus the first actual and practical armament limitations were put in effect after many years of fruitless negotiations.
Simultaneously with all these factors a generally favorable political atmosphere was created. The Naval Agreement and its effects may also have been the reason for Hitler to appoint Herr Von Ribbentrop Ambassador to the Court of St. James the following year, after the death of Hoesch.
However surprisingly fast Herr Von Ribbentrop succeeded in concluding the Naval Agreement, in offering a general alliance to England he had not the slightest success. Was it the fault of Herr Von Ribbentrop’s diplomacy or the basic difference of interests?
Whoever is familiar with Anglo-Saxon psychology knows that it is not advisable to pester these people at once with proposals and requests. Germans, at first sight, may recognize many common traits in the British, but upon closer observation profound differences will be noted. Both nations have their roots in a different soil. Their spiritual heritages have different sources. The deeper the Germans and the British penetrate, the greater will appear the difference in their faith and their mentality. The deeper the British and the French penetrate into one another’s nature, the more they will find in common with each other. These harmonies between the British and the French were still further enhanced in the past 50 years through the affiliation of their political interests.
In the course of modern history England has always had the desire to ally herself with a continental military power and has sought and found the fulfillment of this interest, depending on the direction of British aims, sometimes in Vienna, sometimes in Berlin, and from the beginning of the 20th century in Paris. England’s interests, at the time of Herr Von Ribbentrop’s activity as Ambassador, did not demand a departure from this line. This was supported by the basic British attitude that Great Britain did not wish to commit herself on the continent. From the Thames the complications which lay dormant beneath the surface on the continent were clearly seen. Added to this was the fact that authoritative men in the Foreign Office were still thinking too much in terms of a policy conducted at the turn of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. This thinking was still, now as then, directed towards an alignment with France.
The voices of those who advocated closer contact with Germany were negligible, their political weight succumbed to that of the opposition. To this were added the difficulties which resulted for Herr Von Ribbentrop from Germany’s participation in the Non-Intervention Committee, which at that time met in London in order to keep the powers out of the Spanish civil war.
The Prosecution raised the question of how Herr Von Ribbentrop regarded German-British relations on his departure from London as Ambassador. The answer to this will best be furnished by Document TC-75, which contains the views of Herr Von Ribbentrop on the then prevailing foreign political situation of Germany and on the future possibilities of German-British relations.
In this, Herr Von Ribbentrop presupposes that Germany does not want to bind herself to the status quo in Central Europe. It is his conviction that the implementation of such foreign political aims will necessarily force Germany and England “into different camps.” For this reason he advises the formation of alliances, loose at first, with powers having similar interests (Italy and Japan). Through this policy he hopes to engage England at the danger points of her Empire and still to keep the door open for an understanding with Germany.