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When Ambassador von Ribbentrop announced that his new ballroom will be large enough to entertain 1,000 guests it was obvious that the German Embassy is going to lead all others in London during the Coronation season in splurges of superkolossal festivity. It was time last week to review the von Ribbentrops. she the heiress of a German champagne family, he an ex-salesman in England of not only rare German wines but also best Scotch whiskey. Intimate are the Hohenzollern grandsons of Wilhelm II with the von Ribbentrops; intimate too are many radical Nazi party members of the tough type who ordinarily do not get on with bemonocled German bourgeoisie and intimate are von Ribbentrop and Hitler. Last August, when von Ribbentrop's appointment as Ambassador was announced, he had been running for two years in Berlin an amazing personal suite of offices which was known as Das Büo Ribbentrop. He then reputedly gave orders to Foreign Minister Baron Constantin von Neurath. It was said that von Ribbentrop in London would at last have to begin taking the Berlin orders of von Neurath.
Ambassador von Ribbentrop did net hurry in August to his new post. In early October he was still in Berlin and 17 visiting members of the French Chamber of Deputies cornered him at a tea with this question: "Can you assure us that the settlement of the World War is now final insofar as any German claims are concerned?" Flushing darkly, von Ribbentrop finished his tea at a gulp, stalked off to Das Büro Ribbentrop. His 15-year-old son, he presently announced, would go in England to swank Westminster School, although there is in London a special 100% Nazi school to which local Germans are urged by strongest Nazi pressure to send their sons. In late October, Ambassador von Ribbentrop, who nearly always travels by air, finally set out by train for London, arrived at Victoria Station wearing a Storm Trooper's brown shirt. To his official British welcomers he sounded off: "Der Führer is convinced that the only real danger for Europe and the British Empire is the spread of Communism—that most terrible of all diseases—terrible because people only realize the real danger when it is too late! Closer collaboration between our two countries in this sense is not only important, but in my opinion a vital necessity!" To this, British Reds replied by chalking the street in front of the German Embassy in huge letters: "RIBBENTROP MUST GO!" He not only did not go but soon moved in the set of Mrs. Ernest Simpson and King Edward to an extent which started Mayfair wondering and whispering about whether His Majesty's lady could possibly be a "German agent." In the House of Commons excitable William Gallacher, then as now the sole Communist M. P. (see p. 23), stormed: "[The Ambassador] comes with his hands red with murder!" apropos the execution in Germany of a Communist named Andre. Next the leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, Laborite Major Clement Attlee, signed with 40 other M. P.'s a sharp protest, and in Piccadilly Circus a crowd of British Reds & Pinks roared for hours:
"Down with Ribbentrop and the Murder Gang!"