Page "Joachim von Ribbentrop" Paragraph 105

In April 1942, as part of a diplomatic counterpart to Case Blue Ribbentrop had assembled in Hotel Adlon in Berlin a collection of anti-Soviet émigrés from the Caucasus with the aim of having them declared leaders of governments in exile.

From Ribbentrop's point of view, this had the dual benefit of ensuring popular support for the German Army as it advanced into the Caucasus and of ensuring that it was the Foreign Office that ruled the Caucasus once the Germans occupied the area.

Alfred Rosenberg, the German Minister of the East, saw this as an intrusion into his area of authority, and told Hitler that the émigrés at the Hotel Adlon were " a nest of Allied agents ".

Much to Ribbentrop's intense disappointment, Hitler sided with Rosenberg.

For Hitler, the Soviet Union was to be Germany's Lebensraum and he had no interest in even setting up puppet governments in a region he planned to colonize.