In August 1936 he had appointed Ribbentrop as German ambassador in London in an effort to explore the possibility of a settlement with England—on his own terms. Incompetent and lazy, vain as a peacock, arrogant and without humor, Ribbentrop was the worst possible choice for such a post, as Goering realized. “When I criticized Ribbentrop’s qualifications to handle British problems,” he later declared, “the Fuehrer pointed out to me that Ribbentrop knew ‘Lord So and So’ and ‘Minister So and So.’ To which I replied: ‘Yes, but the difficulty is that they know Ribbentrop.’”
