Page "Joachim von Ribbentrop" Paragraph 42

In February 1937, before a meeting with the Lord Privy Seal, Lord Halifax, Ribbentrop suggested to Hitler that Germany, Italy, and Japan begin a worldwide propaganda campaign with the aim of forcing Britain to return the former German colonies in Africa.

Hitler turned down this idea of Ribbentrop's, but nonetheless during his meeting with Lord Halifax, Ribbentrop spent much of the meeting demanding that Britain sign an alliance with Germany and return the former German colonies.

The German historian Klaus Hildebrand noted that as early as the Ribbentrop – Halifax meeting the differing foreign policy views of Hitler and Ribbentrop were starting to emerge with Ribbentrop more interested in restoring the pre-1914 German Imperium in Africa than conquest of Eastern Europe.

Following the lead of Andreas Hillgruber, who argued that Hitler had a Stufenplan ( stage by stage plan ) for world conquest, Hildebrand argued that Ribbentrop may not have fully understood what Hitler's Stufenplan was, or alternatively in pressing so hard for colonial restoration was trying to score a personal success that might improve his standing with Hitler.

In March 1937, Ribbentrop attracted much adverse comment in the British press when he gave a speech at the Leipzig Trade Fair in Leipzig, where he declared that German economic prosperity would be satisfied either " through the restoration of the former German colonial possessions, or by means of the German people's own strength ".

The implied threat that if colonial restoration did not occur, then the Germans would take back by force their former colonies attracted a large deal of hostile commentary on the inappropriateness of an Ambassador threatening his host country in such a manner.