Reception for Soviet's Foreign Minister at Hotel Kaiserhof

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Date: Wednesday, 13 November 1940
Place: Hotel Kaiserhof, Berlin, Germany
Photographer: Unknown

At the Hotel Kaiserhof, left to right: Head of the personal staff of German Foreign Ministry Walther Hewel (2 January 1904 – 2 May 1945), German Minister of Foreign Affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop (30 April 1893 - 16 October 1946); Head of the Defense and Economic Office of the Wehrmacht General der Infanterie Georg Thomas (29 February 1890 - 29 December 1946), State Minister of the Rank of a Federal Minister and Chief of the Presidential Chancellery of the Führer and Reich Chancellor Doctor Otto Meissner (13 March 1880 - 27 May 1953); and Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (9 March 1890 - 8 November 1986). Ribeentrop threw a lavish reception for the Soviet delegation at the Hotel Kaiserhof, just down Wilhelmstrasse from the German Foreign Ministry. Molotov was in Berlin to discuss joining the Axis Powers. the day before, Reichkanzler Adolf Hitler could not convince Molotov to give up Soviet interests in the Balkans. Hitler did not even attend the Kaiserhof reception or the Soviet reception at their embassy the next day. Molotov left Berlin without the Soviet Union joining the Axis. General Thomas, in charge of economic cooperation with the Soviet Union, wrote after the war, "The Russians executed their deliveries up to the eve of the attack, and in the last days the transport of rubber from the Far East was expedited by express trains." After being implicated in the July 20 plot, Thomas survived a concentration camp. He died in American captivity in 1946. Ribbentrop was hung as a war criminal. Meissner survived the war and wrote his memoirs. The Hotel Kaiserhof was leveled by British bombs in 1943; the North Korean Embassy stands there today.

Source :
https://worldwar2database.com/gallery/wwii0244