Leopold von Hoesch

His reputation among the British as a knowledgeable and able-minded statesman helped to enhance Anglo-German relations in the early 1930s.

However, by 1934, Hoesch was beginning to challenge Adolf Hitler indirectly by sending communiqués to German Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath that detailed Hoesch's distrust of Joachim von Ribbentrop, whom Hitler had appointed to serve as Commissioner of Disarmament Questions.

After the remilitarization of the Rhineland on 7 March 1936, Hoesch wrote to Neurath by denouncing the act as an action designed to provoke the French and ultimately the British.

After his death, he was honoured with a large British-ordered funeral cortège in which his flag-draped coffin was escorted to Dover, where a 19-gun salute was fired as his body was transferred to the British destroyer HMS Scout for transport back to Germany.

[3] Hoesch's dog Giro, who died in 1934 after chewing an electric cable, is buried in London in the garden of the former German Embassy at 9 Carlton House Terrace.