who pampered Hitler like a son and indulgined him with his favorite teas and chocolates. Dirksen's mother became a "Hitler Mother", launching a salon in which Hitler could meet all of her upper-class friends, and as well as her son, the German ambassador to the Soviet Union. In early 1933, Dirksen was highly concerned that the anticommunist rhetoric of the Nazis might damage the relatively-good state of German-Soviet relations. In response, Prince Bernhard von Bülow, the State Secretary of the Auswärtiges Amt, sought to reassure Dirksen, "The National Socialists faced with responsibility are naturally different people and follow a policy other than that which they have previously proclaimed. That's always been so and is the same with all parties". Despite Bülow's assessment, German–Soviet relations started to decline, which left Dirksen very worried. Schorske called Dirksen "more than a loyal civil servant to the Nazis—a true if not ardent believer in Hitler". In May 1933, Dirksen had a meeting with Hitler in which he advised the Führer that he allowed relations with the Soviet Union to deteriorate to an unacceptable extent. Much to Dirksen's disappointment, Hitler informed him that he wished for an anti-Soviet understanding with Poland, which Dirksen protested implied recognition of the German–Polish border. The American historian Gerhard Weinberg described Dirksen as "a vain and pompous man who believed strongly in German co-operation with whatever country he was assigned to at the moment. His memory was sometimes poor, and his predictions frequently erroneous, but his observations on the situation in countries to which he was accredited were generally accurate...Like Neurath, Dirksen wanted to maintain tension with Poland to push for revision; Hitler preferred to wait until he was ready for wider schemes". In his memoirs, Dirksen argued that there were two fractions in the Narkomindel, a "pro-French" fraction and a "pro-German" fraction, and it was not until Alfred Hugenberg's speech at the London Economic Conference in June 1933 that argued for Germany's right to colonise the Soviet Union that decided the issue for the pro-French. In August 1933, Dirksen was warned by Soviet Premier Vyacheslav Molotov that the state of German–Soviet relations would depend on how friendly the Germany chose to be towards the Soviet Union. In September 1933, a major crisis occurred in relations when journalists from Tass and Izvestia covering the Reichstag Fire trial in Leipzig were beaten up by the SA, and Hitler's response to Soviet