Three weeks after the Munich Agreement , which Dirksen had predicted would make possible an Anglo-German détente , Weizsäcker wrote to Dirksen : " Things here are moving rapidly , but not in the direction of Anglo-German rapprochement at present " . In November 1938 , Dirsken complained about the '' Kristallnacht '' pogrom solely under the grounds that it damaged Germany 's image in Britain , making no moral condemnation of the pogrom at all . At the beginning of December 1938 , Dirksen formally announced that his government planned to use the clauses in the Anglo-Naval Agreement to build a submarine fleet equal to Britain 's , and would upgrade two cruisers under construction from the 6-inch guns they were meant to have to having 8-inch guns instead . In December 1938 , Dirksen resumed his efforts for Anglo-German détente , hoping to negotiate a series of Anglo-German economic agreements as the starting point . In December 1938 , Chamberlain gave a speech at a formal dinner of the correspondents of the German News Agency in London with Dirksen present . When Chamberlain spoke of the " futility of ambition , if ambition leads to the desire for domination " , Dirksen , who interpreted that remark as an implied criticism of Hitler , led all of the assembled German journalists in walking out in protest . In January 1939 , Dirksen opened up talks with the Foreign Office for an Anglo-German coal agreement . Hitler had authorised the Anglo-German economic talks in January 1939 as a smokescreen for the anti-British turn in his foreign policy , approving the Z Plan on 27 January 1939 for a gigantic fleet that was meant to crush the Royal Navy by 1944 . The Z Plan called for six H-class battleships with 20-inch guns that would have been the largest battleships ever built had they actually been constructed , dwarfing even the '' Yamato '' class battleships of Japan that were in fact the largest battleships ever built with their 18-inch guns . Building such truly colossal battleships took time and money , thus requiring a period of Anglo-German peace . A notable contradiction existed in Hitler 's strategic planning in 1939 between embarking on an anti-British foreign policy , whose major instruments consisted of a vastly expanded '' Kriegsmarine '' and a Luftwaffe capable of a strategic bombing offensive that would take several years to build ( e.g. Plan Z for expanding the '' Kriegsmarine '' was a five-year plan ) , and engaging in reckless short-term actions such as attacking Poland that were likely to cause a general war . Ribbentrop , for his part , because of his status as the Nazi British expert , resolved Hitler 's dilemma by supporting the anti-British line and by repeatedly advising Hitler that Britain would not go to war for Poland in 1939
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Herbert von Dirksen