COL. AMEN: You speak English pretty well. VON RIBBENTROP: I spoke it well in the past and I think I speak it passably well today. Col. Amen: Almost as well as you speak German? VON RIBBENTROP: No, I would not say that, but in the past I spoke it nearly as well as German, although I have naturally forgotten a great deal in the course of the years and now it is more difficult for me. COL. AMEN: Do you know what is meant by a 'yes man' in English? VON RIBBENTROP: A 'yes man'---per se. A man who says yes even when he himself..... It is somewhat difficult to define. In any case I do not know what you mean by it in English. In German I should define him as a man who obeys orders and is obedient and loyal. COL AMEN: As a matter of fact, you were a 'yes man' for Hitler, isn't that correct? VON RIBBENTROP: I was always loyal to Hitler, carried through his orders, differed frequently in opinion from him, repeatedly tendered my resignation. But when Hitler gave an order, I always carried out his instructions in accordance with the principles of our authoritarian state. At the conclusion of this there was a pause, then the following. VON RIBBENTROP: Without ever taking any steps or doing anything myself in the SS, yes, that is correct. SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Just look. It is a document.....GB-294. The correspondence is 744B. That is your application with all the particulars. I just want to ask you one or two things about it. You asked to join, did you not, the 'Totemkopf', the Death's-Head division of the SS? VON RIBBENTROP: No, that cannot be true. SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Don't you remember getting a special Death's-Head ring and dagger from Hitler for your services? Don't you? VON RIBBENTROP: No, I do not remember. I never belonged to a Death's-Head Division. SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And the ring, too. Here is a letter dated the 5 November 1935, to the Personnel Office of the Reichsfurher-SS: "In reply to your question, I have to inform you that Brigadefurher von Ribbentrop's ring size is 17....." Do you remember getting that? VON RIBBENTROP: .....I do not remember precisely. No doubt it is true. And that was all. The screen then showed an old and dusting black and white photograph, with letters in white across the bottom: A MOTHER AND CHILD EXECUTED IN THE UKRAINE The computer waited for him to acknowledge, but the young East German stood mute. Twenty times that day he had thought he could be brought no lower. And yet the picture froze his heart.