I was joking about him being excess baggage; well, not really. All humor has a basis in truth.
I don’t think they were looking at whacking Ribbentrop. Some of the rumors about internal German politics flying around Western newspapers are pretty crazy. But if only they knew what was really going inside Germany was crazier still.
I read somewhere that by this time Ribbentrop was urging Hitler to make peace with someone because he could see where this was headed, but Hitler, of course, would have none of it.