I'm John Baxter with Charles Spicer. His book is Coffee with Hitler, the untold story of the amateur spies who tried to civilize the Nazis. And their failure does not undermine the credit they deserve for seeking peace. They couldn't see the future. They could know the past, which was

the horror of the Great War, a whole generation, generation and a half, dead on the battlefield

for nothing, no gain, and a breakup of families and empires. We now come to Victoria Station,

Charles tells me, Victoria's station arriving are the

Ribbentropes, and Wilhelm Ribbentrop, to represent Germany as the new ambassador, replacing a man

who was extremely successful. What is Ribbentrop's mission as he arrives? What has Hitler told him to do, Charles?

Hitler's asked him to forge an alliance with the British. And this is a simplistic plan to just

pick off all his potential obstacles towards continental domination. If he can neutralize

the British by whatever means,

then he can do what he wants on the continent. So the initial mission then is cynical on

that Hitler's part. He wants Britain in some way blocked by a demonstration of friendship

so he can go ahead and persecute what we know to be his neighbors.

It was starting with Austria and Czechoslovakia and Poland and then eventually the low countries and France.

So is Ribbentrop perfectly aware of this, that his job is to block and befuddle the English and not to be friends with them?

It's to form an alliance by being friends with them, but for those cynical reasons that you

outline. So the desire for friendship was sincere, the motivations were to allow them to do

the rest of their program. They really didn't want to go to

war with Britain. They were comfortable going to war with others. Ribbentrop does us the favor

right of way of being clumsy because he gives press remarks on the station platform,

Victoria's Station, prior to presenting his credentials to the king. And therefore,

he's pilloried in the newspapers immediately. There are other decisions that he and his wife,

Annalise, makes that require, Charles says, you have to understand the British sense of humor.

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