WWII Germany's Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was widely despised in diplomatic circles as well as by many leading Nazis of the day. Most considered him a vain, ill-mannered, unintelligent opportunist: Benito Mussolini's FM Count Ciano quipped "You only have to look at the shape of his head to see that he has a small brain." Yet the charmless dullard was a favorite of Hitler's... and for one simple reason: the Fuhrer always looked well upon those who proposed the most radical solution to a given problem, even if not adopted as policy: Ribbentrop deduced this early-on, and exploited it to the fullest....