Forgive me for the vagueness of this description, it's possible multiple scenarios like this occurred within the gap bridging WW1 and WW2. I was at a lecture where the speaker was talking about some assumed peacemaker in the aftermath of WW2(who I think was a German national? I might be wrong.) who went out to various European countries and implored their leaders to abandon their weapons of war to prevent a tragedy like WW1 from ever happening again.
To every country he went to, he decried the inhumanity of war and basically convinced these countries to destroy/disable weapons and maybe military capabilities. Though, he never got Germany to disband. For all of his talk of peacemaking and no more brother wars, he essentially got Germany's rivals to give up their own weapons as Germany began re-militarizing and expanding. Basically a peacemaker who claimed to operate with benevolent intentions likely helped set the groundwork for WW2.
The speaker talked about this allegory as part of a larger narrative, but for the life of me I can't remember the peacemaker's name. I assume he was a big enough deal to justify citing him, I can't for life of me remember who he was. He might or appealed to the league of nations but I'm not sure.
I hate how open ended this question is but if there are any infamous/famous peace initiatives that involve disarmament between the the two world wars, can anyone cite them fitting the description above?
There's been a number of disarmament and limit-of-armament treaties in the interbellum period; from the pragmatic ones like the Washington Naval Treaty (1922.) and London Naval Treaty (1936) to the ones being regarded as idealistic like the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928.). There's also a matter of Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points, and the most important - forming of the League of Nations. The interbellum period's historical bread and butter can be summarized around economical crisis, armament policies and the cultural impact of the Great War (rising of avantgarde and modernism). The failings of the political enforcements (or rather, lack of it as was shown in 1931. and 1935.) of the League of Nations allowed us as a civilization to sort out United Nations in 1945. much better though.
However, I'm afraid your speaker is guilty of using cherry picked history in lieu of his own political agenda (very perfidiously even, with the 'we must be ever vigilant of the 'others' rhetoric) . While the interbellum disarmament notions were carried on the PR wings of pacifism ( "The War To End All Wars", "Why die for Danzig?", "No one will fight over a mud hut in Manchuria.") , they were mainly driven by the economical hardships of the time.
Disarmament treaties were designed to keep the arms race and its respective waste of resources in check before it spirals out of control. For example, the Herbert Hoover administration at a certain point had a naval rearmament plan that included construction of 48 (fourty-eight) new battleships, and the required supply and fleet screen train. A US Navy Standard-Type Battleship has about 28.000 tons of displacement. That's total displacement tonnage of 1.3 million. Spent on an economical cul-de-sac that is armament, in the middle of the Great Depression.
TL;DR : The idea that a single German went around and single-handedly used his power of pacifism to 'fool' Britain and France to demilitarize themselves is absurd to say the least.