1937 to May 1945 he was a State Secretary in the Reichsministry of Foreign Affairs. Because of his British heritage, Bohle was reported to be Hitler's choice to become the future Gauleiter of Britain. His influence at the Foreign Office was greatly exaggerated, to the extent that Bohle was mentioned in the foreign press as a likely successor to Reichsminister Joachim von Ribbentrop. He was also a confidant and on the staff of Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Führer until Hess' failed peace-mission to Great Britain in May 1941. Trial and conviction Bohle surrendered to US forces on 23 May 1945 at Falkenau and was interned in Camp Ashcan with other high ranking Nazi officials. Bohle appeared on the 25th of March 1946 as a defense witness at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. Subsequently, Bohle was tried as a defendant in the "Ministries Trial" ("Wilhelmstraßen-Prozeß"), one of the Nuremberg follow-up trials. Although he was acquitted of crimes against humanity, Bohle, in an unusual move, became the only defendant in the Subsequent Nuremberg trials to plead guilty to any charge. Bohle pleaded guilty to having been a member of the SS and assisted the prosecution in their case against the other defendants. Before entering his guilty plea, Bohle read a formal statement: I think it should be the solemn pledge and foremost duty of every German who held a leading position during the National Socialist regime, to do all in his power to remove from the name of Germany the blot which the deeds of criminal brains have cast upon it. We know that a low estimate of human life and carelessness to human misery is not and never has been a trait of the German character, and for that very reason I think that we should frankly admit the atrocities that have been committed and that have defiled the German name in the world. I do not think that we should attempt to vindicate our own national honor solely by referring to crimes and misdeeds committed by others, some of which are undoubtedly on a par with what national socialism is accused of. I think we should be too proud for that. And I think – it is my firm conviction that the world will regain its belief in our national honesty only if we ourselves are honest and straightforward in our confessions and thereafter also in our will to