Whom did Lord Halifax mistake for a footman in 1937?

Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax was a senior British politician of the 1930s who held several senior ministerial posts and was Foreign Secretary between 1938 and 1940. He was one of the architects of the policy of appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1936–38. However, after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, he was one of those who pushed for a new policy of attempting to deter further German aggression by promising to go to war to defend Poland.

Halifax accepted an invitation from Hermann Göring to go to a hunting exhibition in Berlin and hunt foxes in Pomerania in November 1937 (see picture); he was regarded as acting on behalf of the British government to renew dialogue with the German government.

On being taken to meet Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden, Halifax almost created an incident by nearly handing his coat to him, believing him to be a footman:

"As I looked out of the car window, on eye level, I saw in the middle of this swept path a pair of black trousered legs, finishing up in silk socks and pumps. I assumed this was a footman who had come down to help me out of the car and up the steps and was proceeding in leisurely fashion to get myself out of the car when I heard von Neurath or somebody throwing a hoarse whisper at my ear of 'Der Führer, der Führer'; and it then dawned upon me that the legs were not the legs of a footman, but of Hitler."

A long and barbed meeting with the Führer then ensued.