In April 1945, as the Third Reich crumbled, Hitler clung to a desperate hope: that the Americans and Soviets would turn on each other. He had seen the Allied plan for dividing Germany, captured from the British, and he watched the Americans push into the Soviet zone, crossing the Elbe and moving into Czechoslovakia. German intelligence fed his fantasy, reporting that the Soviets were nervous about the American advance and that the British were preparing to fight the Reds. These rumors kept Hitler going in his bunker.
Then, on April 12, President Roosevelt died. In the bunker, Goebbels was convinced it was an omen that would break the Allied coalition. It wasn’t. But the mood lifted, and Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister, saw his chance to matter again.
Ribbentrop had been sidelined for years. After the July 1944 assassination attempt, many of his diplomats were implicated, and his star fell further. At a tense tea with Hitler, Mussolini, Dönitz, and Göring, Göring had turned on him, shouting, “Ribbentrop, you dirty little champagne salesman, shut your mouth,” and threatened to hit him with his baton. Ribbentrop had shot back, “I am still the Foreign Minister and my name is von Ribbentrop.
” But the truth was, he was being phased out. Desperate to regain favor, Ribbentrop decided to emulate Goebbels and visit the troops. On April 3, he went to the Oder front, studying Soviet positions through field glasses from a trench. He was a former cavalry officer, so he knew combat.
But his real plan was more ambitious. Since Roosevelt’s death, he had been circulating a 14-page memorandum, designed for Allied consumption, warning that Stalin planned to dominate Europe and asking if Britain could allow the Soviets to menace her empire. He hoped to split the Allies. On April 16, the Soviet offensive against Berlin began.
For three bloody days, the Red Army fought through the Seelow Heights. On April 20, Hitler emerged from his bunker for his 56th birthday reception. Ribbentrop was there, along with the other Nazi leaders. That day, Berlin came under Soviet artillery fire for the first time.
Ribbentrop had already sent most of his staff south to his estate at Schloss Fuschl, but he stayed in Berlin, unwilling to leave Hitler’s side. On April 22, Hitler flew into a rage and announced he would die in Berlin. Then Ribbentrop sent word that a diplomatic breakthrough in the West was imminent. The mood in the bunker lifted, but it was an illusion.
On the evening of April 23, Ribbentrop came to the Führerbunker, hoping to see Hitler. Hitler was in a meeting and didn’t want to see him. Bormann persisted, saying, “Ribbentrop says he won’t move from the threshold, and he’ll wait like a faithful dog until you call him. ” Hitler relented.
According to Ribbentrop, Hitler told him the war was lost, but he had one last job: go to northwestern Germany, contact the British, and propose an Anglo-German bloc against the Soviets. He was to write a letter to Churchill and deliver it. Ribbentrop, who had been ambassador to London and spoke fluent English, was the man for the job. Some historians think it was a ruse to get rid of him.
Others think Ribbentrop invented it to save himself. But Ribbentrop took it seriously. That night, he told his aide Steengracht, “I must write this letter to Churchill. At my conference with the Führer, he was quite lucid.
He said he had never had anything against England. His goal had always been a great reconciliation with the Germanic English. ” Steengracht argued, but Ribbentrop was determined. On April 24, Ribbentrop left Berlin by car, just before the Soviets closed the ring.
His party included a driver, a bodyguard, a secretary, a doctor, his adjutant, his valet, and his dog. The trip to Plön, where Dönitz had set up headquarters, should have taken hours. It took a week. Ribbentrop found it hard to leave.
At one point, he tried to go back to Berlin, but was halted at Nauen. He telegraphed Hewel, his representative at the bunker, asking for an aircraft to return and share the Führer’s fate. Hewel relayed Hitler’s reply: “The Führer appreciates your intentions, but has turned you down. ”
Ribbentrop’s party eventually reached the headquarters of General Holste, then got an aircraft and flew to Wittstock, near Kiel, arriving on the night of April 30, hours after Hitler had died.
Dönitz had been named Reich President, but wasn’t told Hitler was dead until May 1. He planned to form a new government and wanted Konstantin von Neurath as foreign minister, but couldn’t find him. Ribbentrop arrived at Plön and was shocked to learn he wasn’t being considered. He demanded a meeting with Dönitz, arguing he had the legal right to the post and that he knew the British.
Dönitz refused, but said he’d hear suggestions. When Ribbentrop phoned back, his only suggestion was himself. Dönitz eventually appointed Schwerin von Krosigk. On May 2, Dönitz moved his government to Flensburg.
Ribbentrop didn’t go. Instead, he headed south to Hamburg, a city still under attack. Why? If he was supposed to contact the British, he did the opposite.
He went into hiding, staying with a vintner he knew from his pre-war champagne days. The vintner didn’t want him, so he arranged for Ribbentrop to stay in the apartment of an attractive brunette in the suburbs. There, Ribbentrop remained for six weeks, working on his letter to Churchill, while the British searched for him. The Dönitz government was dissolved on May 23, and its members were arrested.
The war in Europe was over. Ribbentrop’s letter, all 5,000 words of it, was now superfluous. But the manhunt for him intensified. His photo was circulated, his relatives were questioned.
Living under the false name Herr Reiser, he wasn’t found. He was found by accident. A woman overheard the vintner remarking that he knew Ribbentrop was in Hamburg and tried to blackmail him. The vintner’s son went to British Field Security and told them everything.
Late on the evening of June 14, 1945, Lieutenant Jimmy Adam and three NCOs drove to the hideout. A woman in a dressing gown opened the door. In the fifth room, they found Ribbentrop asleep in bed, in pajamas. He woke up, exhausted and disheveled, and spoke to them in English.
At headquarters, a doctor found a cyanide capsule taped to his leg. The next morning, he was interviewed. Ribbentrop was chatty and jovial, discussing his peace efforts and producing the letter as evidence. It was sent up the chain to Montgomery, then to Churchill, then to Stalin.
When asked why he hadn’t contacted the British instead of hiding, Ribbentrop said he’d been alarmed by the hatred of the British towards Germans and decided to lie low until passions cooled. There was a moment of doubt about his identity when the Americans claimed they’d captured him in Bremen, but his sister confirmed he was her brother. He was flown to Luxembourg, to Camp Ashcan, where he was held with other war crime suspects until the Nuremberg trials. Whether his peace mission ever existed is debatable.
Perhaps he invented it to give his position meaning, or lost interest once Hitler was dead. Joachim von Ribbentrop was found guilty of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. He was the first to be executed, hanged on October 16, 1946.
The execution was botched, and he took fourteen minutes to die.
