Hitler "who is a visionary rather than a gangster", was the "least evil of the lot", and that "the Germans in themselves are much better people than the Italians and the Russians". Lothian concluded that Hitler was "one of the creative figures of this generation". The Foreign Office greatly resented the activities of Lothian and the other enthusiasts as unofficial diplomats, feeling that the actions of these people caused a great many problems, not the least because Hitler and Ribbentrop seemed to have much difficulty in understanding that the enthusiasts were not speaking for the British government. After Germany militarised the Rhineland in March 1936, Lothian famously remarked that it was no more than the Germans walking into "their own back garden" and that he would not support sanctions against it. Lothian felt it was regrettable that Hitler had chosen to remiltarise the Rhineland illegally by violating both the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Locarno, but argued that "one-sided demilitarisation" violated "the concession of equal rights to Germany". Lothian was opposed to the League of Nations opposing sanctions on Germany for the remilitarisation of the Rhineland. In a letter to his friend Smuts in March 1936 Lothian wrote all of the problems in Europe were caused by France, writing that since 1871 France had been trying to "humiliate and repress Germany" and that French "intransigence had been responsible for the rise of National Socialism". Lothian felt that Hitler should be allowed to develop "an Ottawa economic Mittel-Europa", but felt that neither France nor the Soviet Union would agree to a German-dominated economic zone in eastern Europe as he accused the French and the Soviets of seeking "a rigid encirclement of Germany". Lothian felt that Britain should pressure Paris and Moscow to change their polices by reverting to "the old policy of detachment from Europe", but expressed fears that Baldwin would not take such a radical step. Lothian felt that the diplomats of the Foreign Office were too pro-French to undertake the sort of foreign policy he favored towards Germany, an assessment shared by Smuts. On 2 June 1936, Ribbentrop visited Sandwich, the home of the Conservative peer Lord Astor and his wife, the Conservative MP Nancy Astor. The other guests at Sandwich that day were Lothian, Tom Jones and Sir Thomas Inskip. During the visit, Ribbentrop, Jones and Lothian spent the night working on a long memo on