The final act of the Third Reich was not merely a military death spiral, but a desperate, delusional struggle for political survival, culminating in a secret diplomatic gambit that saw Germany’s beleaguered Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, dispatched on a phantom mission to forge an alliance with Britain against the Soviet Union. As the Red Army’s artillery thundered in the suburbs of Berlin in late April 1945, Adolf Hitler, entombed in his subterranean Führerbunker, clung to a single, catastrophic hope: that the Western Allies would recognize their true enemy was not Germany, but Stalin’s Bolshevik horde. This belief, fueled by intercepted intelligence and wishful thinking, led to one of the most bizarre and futile diplomatic missions of the war, a mission that would end not in a peace treaty, but in a Hamburg apartment, a 5,000-word letter, and a botched execution on a Nuremberg gallows.
The seeds of this final, desperate gambit were sown in the ashes of Hitler’s strategic vision. Throughout the final months of the war, the Führer and his inner circle, including Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, had become convinced that the Allied coalition was a fragile, artificial construct. They pointed to the capture of a British document outlining the post-war division of Germany, a plan that placed the western zones under American, British, and French control and the eastern territories under Soviet administration.
To the Nazi leadership, this was not a blueprint for peace, but a map of future conflict. The rapid American advance to the Elbe River and their incursions into Czechoslovakia, areas designated for eventual Soviet occupation, seemed to confirm their suspicions that a clash between the capitalist West and the communist East was inevitable.
German military intelligence, the Abwehr, fed this narrative with reports of intercepted Soviet communications. These intercepts allegedly revealed Moscow’s nervousness over the American advances and the preparation of contingency plans to withdraw from certain areas once peace was declared. Even more fantastical to modern historians, German intelligence also reported that the British were preparing to fight the Soviets.
These rumors, however baseless, were the oxygen that kept Hitler’s delusion alive. He believed that a rump Nazi state could survive if the Allies fell out, and that the remnants of the Wehrmacht, fighting desperately against the Red Army, could be reinforced by Western divisions to stem the “Bolshevik tide.” The sudden death of President Franklin D.
Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, was seized upon as a divine omen. Goebbels, in a state of euphoria, phoned Hitler, declaring it a turning point in the war, a sign that providence had intervened to shatter the enemy coalition. It was a fatal misreading of history.
Into this maelstrom of delusion stepped Joachim von Ribbentrop, a man whose star had long since fallen. The former champagne salesman and ambassador to London had been sidelined by Hitler, who had grown tired of his foreign policy failures and actively avoided him. The July 20, 1944 assassination attempt had further tarnished Ribbentrop’s reputation, as many Foreign Office diplomats were implicated in the plot.
Humiliated in front of the Führer by Hermann Göring, who had called him a “dirty little champagne salesman,” Ribbentrop was desperate to regain relevance and, most importantly, the favor of his leader. On April 3, 1945, he made a highly publicized visit to the Oder front, posing in a trench with field glasses, a futile attempt to project strength and loyalty. Unbeknownst to Hitler, Ribbentrop had also been circulating a 14-page memorandum via diplomatic channels, a document designed for Allied consumption that laid out a stark warning about Stalin’s post-war plans for Europe, asking if Britain could allow the Soviets to menace her traditional routes to her empire in the Middle East and India.
The Soviet offensive against Berlin opened on April 16, 1945. For three bloody days, the Red Army fought its way through the Seelow Heights, the last major German defensive line east of the capital. The end was now in sight.
On April 20, Hitler emerged from his bunker to attend a formal reception in the battered Reich Chancellery to celebrate his 56th birthday. Ribbentrop was in attendance, along with the other senior Nazi leaders. Later that day, Berlin came under direct Soviet artillery fire for the first time.
Ribbentrop returned to his headquarters in the city, unwilling to give up his close physical proximity to the Führer, even as he had ordered almost all of his staff evacuated south to his estate, Schloss Fuschl in Austria.
It was on April 22 that Hitler, his latest military idea for the relief of Berlin frustrated, flew into a terrible rage and announced he would die in Berlin. Soon after, he received a message from Ribbentrop suggesting a diplomatic breakthrough was imminent in the West. This changed the mood in the bunker immediately.
Inquiries were made, and the Luftwaffe reported that US air attacks had seemingly been suspended. However, it was an illusion. On the evening of April 23, Ribbentrop came to the Führerbunker, hoping to meet with Hitler.
Hitler, however, was in a meeting with Albert Speer and was not happy to be reminded that Ribbentrop was waiting. Martin Bormann, Hitler’s powerful private secretary, persisted, telling Hitler that Ribbentrop “won’t move from the threshold, and he’ll wait like a faithful dog until you call him.” Hitler eventually relented.
What we know of this last meeting comes entirely from Ribbentrop’s account, making it a highly unreliable source. According to Ribbentrop, Hitler allegedly told him the war was lost, but that he still had a job for him. He ordered Ribbentrop to leave Berlin at once and go to northwestern Germany to make contact with the British.
He was to tell them that Hitler had always desired close relations with them and to propose an Anglo-German bloc to confront the Soviets. Ribbentrop was also to write a letter to this effect to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and deliver it into British hands. For Hitler, Ribbentrop was the man, after all, he had been German ambassador to London and spoke fluent English.
Some historians suggest this was just a ruse on Hitler’s part to get Ribbentrop away from Berlin and stop bothering him. It could also have been a ruse on Ribbentrop’s part to save himself, though his subsequent actions suggest otherwise. Perhaps Ribbentrop imagined the plaudits if he was successful in splitting the enemy alliance.
Later that night, Ribbentrop reported all of this to his top aide, Gustav Steengracht von Moyland. The two men argued over the mission before Ribbentrop said, “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 in a great reconciliation with the Germanic English.” This was familiar territory for Ribbentrop, who had been involved with Hitler’s peace offers to Britain in 1939 and 1940, all of which Churchill had refused.
On April 24, Ribbentrop managed to leave Berlin by car just before the Soviets completed the encirclement of the city. His party consisted of a driver, a bodyguard, a secretary, a doctor, his adjutant, his valet, and his dog. The distance from Berlin to Plön, where Grand Admiral Dönitz had set up his headquarters, was less than 200 miles, yet it took Ribbentrop a week to arrive.
It appears he found it very difficult to give up his proximity to the Führer. At one point, he tried to go back to Berlin, being halted at Nauen, some miles west of the capital. From there, he telegraphed Walter Hewel, his personal representative at Führer headquarters, and told him that he and his party wished to share the Führer’s fate in the capital and asked for an aircraft to pick them up.
Hewel relayed a message from Hitler: “The Führer appreciates your intentions, but has turned you down.”
Had Ribbentrop realized he had been sent on a fool’s errand? Perhaps. Did he not fancy surrendering himself to the British to deliver his letter?
Again, perhaps. A little while later, Ribbentrop’s party turned up at the headquarters of General Lieutenant Rudolf Holste, commanding the 56th Panzer Corps on the lower Elbe. Ribbentrop wanted information on the local military situation.
At some point thereafter, Ribbentrop managed to get his hands on an aircraft, and he and his party were flown to Wittstock airfield near Kiel, arriving on the night of April 30, some hours after Hitler had died in the bunker. Martin Bormann had telegraphed Dönitz at Plön, informing him that he was now Reich President, but didn’t tell him that Hitler was dead until May 1. Dönitz determined to continue the war for the time being for his own reasons.
He could appoint his own cabinet and wanted Konstantin von Neurath, a career diplomat and former foreign minister until 1938, to be the new foreign minister, but he couldn’t be found.
Ribbentrop arrived at Plön soon afterwards and established a small headquarters nearby. Dönitz’s adjutant actually phoned Ribbentrop’s adjutant to ask if anyone knew of the whereabouts of von Neurath. Ribbentrop was shocked.
He was the foreign minister and should be under Dönitz as well. He demanded an interview with the new Reich President. The meeting took place late on May 1, with Ribbentrop arguing that he had the legal right to be the foreign minister and that he knew the British and they had always been pleased to deal with him.
Dönitz, however, stuck to his guns. He would not appoint him foreign minister, but he would be happy to hear any suggestions Ribbentrop might have for the post. When he phoned back on May 2, his only suggestion was himself.
Ribbentrop also drafted a memorandum for Dönitz arguing that his government must obtain Allied recognition and serve as the nucleus for a new Nazi government of Germany. Dönitz would eventually appoint Count Schwerin von Krosigk as foreign minister.
On May 2, due to the advance of British forces, Dönitz moved his seat of government to the Naval Academy at Flensburg-Mürwik on the Danish border. Ribbentrop did not go with him. For some reason, he headed south to Hamburg, the last major German city on the Western Front to be captured, which was an active battle zone at the time.
It would fall to the British on May 3, 1945. If Ribbentrop’s intention was to contact the British as per Hitler’s alleged instructions, he did the opposite by going into hiding soon after arriving in the city. He visited the home of a vintner he knew from his pre-war life as a champagne salesman.
The vintner didn’t want Ribbentrop at his own home, so he arranged for him to stay in the apartment of an attractive brunette in the suburbs. Here, Ribbentrop remained for the next six weeks working on his letter to Churchill while the British searched for him.
The Dönitz government itself was dissolved on May 23, 1945, by order of the British, and its members hauled off to prison. The manhunt for Ribbentrop, however, was intensifying. His photo was circulated widely and his relatives were brought in for questioning.
But Ribbentrop, living under the false name of Herr Reiser, was not found. He was only located accidentally when the vintner, a friend of his, was overheard by a woman remarking that he knew Ribbentrop was in Hamburg. This woman attempted to blackmail him with this information, but the vintner’s son went to the British Field Security Headquarters in Hamburg and told them everything.
Late on the evening of June 14, 1945, the British sprang into action. The officer on duty, Lieutenant Jimmy Adam, gathered three NCOs and drove to Ribbentrop’s hideout. Adam knocked on the door, which was opened by the aforementioned attractive brunette wearing a dressing gown.
The British soldiers marched inside and began searching. In the fifth room, they found Ribbentrop dressed in pajamas, asleep in bed. He was woken up and looked exhausted and disheveled, but spoke English to his captors.
At the British Field Security Headquarters at Osterufer in Hamburg, Ribbentrop was examined by a doctor. He was found to have a small cyanide capsule in a case taped to one of his legs. The next morning, June 15, he was interviewed by Major Morris Hockliff and Captain Harold Harris.
Ribbentrop was chatty and jovial and discussed his efforts to make peace with Britain. He also outlined his secret peace mission given to him by Hitler, producing the long letter he had written as evidence. Hockliffe sent the letter up the chain of command to Field Marshal Montgomery, who sent it on to Winston Churchill, who sent it on to Stalin for his information.
Hockliffe also asked Ribbentrop why he had not contacted the British authorities instead of hiding for six weeks. Ribbentrop’s explanation was that he had been alarmed by the hatred and bitterness of the British towards the Germans and had decided to lie low for a while to allow passions to cool.
Whether this man was even Ribbentrop was brought into question by Hockliffe’s superior, Colonel Neil McDermott, who had been told by the Americans that they had just captured Ribbentrop in Bremen. A proper identification was required. The British obtained Ribbentrop’s sister, Ingeborg Jenke, and she confirmed that the prisoner was indeed her brother.
Following this, Ribbentrop was flown to Luxembourg, to Bad Mondorf, in a converted hotel known as Camp Ashcan, where he was housed with other war crime suspects until the Nuremberg trials opened later in 1945. Whether Ribbentrop’s peace mission ever existed is debatable. Perhaps it was simply invented by Ribbentrop to give his position some meaning towards the end of the war, or was simply some kind of opportunistic tactic that he had lost interest in carrying through once he knew that Hitler was dead.
Joachim von Ribbentrop was found guilty of crimes against peace, deliberately planning a war of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. He was the first to be executed, hanged on October 16, 1946, in a botched execution. He took 14 minutes to die.
