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Position: Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany
Position: Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany
Ribbontrop (center) shaking hands with Viacheslav Molotovm, they would later sign the infamous non-aggression pact between German and Soviet Union in 1939.
"In the winter of 1930 to 1931 it became clear that neither the bourgeois parties nor the Churches were able to save Germany from communism, and that the only chance to avert this fate lay in National Socialism. I stood close to the German People's Party and was alarmed when I observed the disintegration of the bourgeois parties."
Before the War
Joachim von Ribbentrop worked overseas until the First World War, when he returned to Germany to fight for his country. He was wounded in 1917. Von Ribbentrop joined the War Ministry and was a part of the German delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Fearing the growth of Communism, von Ribbentrop joined the Nazi Party and became Hitler's foreign affair advisor before becoming foreign minister. In that position, he was intimately involved in almost all of the actions to expand Germany.
First, von Ribbentrop was present in the negotiations between Hitler and Austrian Chancellor von Schuschnigg which led to the Anschluss of Austria in 1938.
Second, von Ribbentrop helped Germany annex Czechoslovakia peacefully through a series of negotiations with the Sudenten Germans and the Slovakians.
Third, Ribbentrop was also the key German diplomat in the secret negotiations with the Soviet Union in 1938. These discussions led to the infamous Non-Aggression Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which resulted in the joint plan to conquer and divide Poland amongst each other. It was Ribbentrop's negotiations that would directly lead to the beginning of the Second World War and the destruction of Poland.
Joachim von Ribbentrop (left), Josef Stalin, and Vyacheslav Molotov (right), on August 23, 1939.
"To seek a settlement with Russia was my very own idea which I urged on Hitler because I sought to create a counter-weight to the West and because I wanted to ensure Russian neutrality in the event of a German-Polish conflict."
Wartime Role
After the German invasion of Poland in Sep 1939, Ribbentrop's work shifted to the persuasion of other European nations to join the Axis alliance. Nations such as Romania and Hungary, to name some examples, joined the Axis under his directorship. He was not able to convince the careful Francisco Franco of Spain, but the Spanish dictator remained friendly to the German cause. He signed the Tripartite Pact with Japan and Italy (Sept. 27, 1940), which provided for mutual assistance against the United States. As for the Holocaust, Ribbentrop was responsible for arranging the deportation of Jews in allied or conquered territories to concentration and extermination camps. As the war progressed, however, especially with Germany losing ground, Ribbentrop and the Foreign Ministry began to lose their usefulness and influence.
Ribbentrop was captured in Hamburg on June 14, 1945.
Joachim von Ribbentrop (left) shakes hands with Ion Antonescu, the Prime Minister of Romania (right) with, 1943.
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