Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich-Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop[1] (German: [joˈʔaxɪm fɔn ˈʁɪbəntʁɔp]; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945.
"Ribbentrop" redirects here. For other people with the surname, see Ribbentrop (surname).
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Adolf Hitler
30 April 1893
Wesel, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
16 October 1946 (aged 53)
Nuremberg Prison, Nuremberg, Allied-occupied Germany
Nazi Party (1932–1945)
5, including Rudolf von Ribbentrop
Businessman, diplomat
1914–1918
12th Hussar Regiment
Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's notice as a well-travelled businessman with more knowledge of the outside world than most senior Nazis and as a perceived authority on foreign affairs. He offered his house Schloss Fuschl for the secret meetings in January 1933 that resulted in Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany. He became a close confidant of Hitler, to the disgust of some party members, who thought him superficial and lacking in talent. He was appointed ambassador to the Court of St James's, the royal court of the United Kingdom, in 1936 and then Foreign Minister of Germany in February 1938.
Before World War II, he played a key role in brokering the Pact of Steel (an alliance with Fascist Italy) and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact). He favoured retaining good relations with the Soviets, and opposed the invasion of the Soviet Union. In late 1941, due to American aid to Britain and the increasingly frequent "incidents" in the North Atlantic between U-boats and American warships guarding convoys to Britain, Ribbentrop worked for the failure of the Japanese-American talks in Washington and for Japan to attack the United States.[2] He did his utmost to support a declaration of war on the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor.[3] From 1941 onwards, Ribbentrop's influence declined.
Arrested in June 1945, Ribbentrop was convicted and sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials for his role in starting World War II in Europe and enabling the Holocaust. On 16 October 1946, he became the first of the Nuremberg defendants to be executed by hanging.
Early life[edit]
Joachim von Ribbentrop was born in Wesel, Rhenish Prussia, to Richard Ulrich Friedrich Joachim Ribbentrop, a career army officer, and his wife Johanne Sophie Hertwig.[4]
From 1904 to 1908, Ribbentrop took French courses at Lycée Fabert in Metz,[5] the German Empire's most powerful fortress.[6] A former teacher later recalled Ribbentrop "was the most stupid in his class, full of vanity and very pushy".[7] His father was cashiered from the Prussian Army in 1908 for repeatedly disparaging Kaiser Wilhelm II for his alleged homosexuality, and the Ribbentrop family was often short of money.[8]
For the next 18 months, the family moved to Arosa, Switzerland, where the children continued to be taught by French and English private tutors, and Ribbentrop spent his free time skiing and mountaineering.[9]
Following the stay in Arosa, Ribbentrop was sent to Britain for a year to improve his knowledge of English.
Fluent in both French and English, young Ribbentrop lived at various times in Grenoble, France and London, before travelling to Canada in 1910.[10]
He worked for the Molsons Bank on Stanley Street in Montreal, and then for the engineering firm M. P. and J. T. Davis on the Quebec Bridge reconstruction. He was also employed by the National Transcontinental Railway, which constructed a line from Moncton to Winnipeg. He worked as a journalist in New York City and Boston but returned to Germany to recover from tuberculosis.[11] He returned to Canada and set up a small business in Ottawa importing German wine and champagne.[12] In 1914, he competed for Ottawa's famous Minto ice-skating team and participated in the Ellis Memorial Trophy tournament in Boston in February.[12][13]
When the First World War began later in 1914, Ribbentrop left Canada, which, as part of the British Empire, was at war with Germany, and found temporary sanctuary in the neutral United States.[14] On 15 August 1914, he sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey on the Holland-America ship Potsdam, bound for Rotterdam,[14] and on his return to Germany enlisted in the Prussian 12th Hussar Regiment.[15]
Ribbentrop served first on the Eastern Front, and was then transferred to the Western Front.[14] He earned a commission and was awarded the Iron Cross. In 1918, 1st Lieutenant Ribbentrop was stationed in Istanbul as a staff officer.[16] During his time in Turkey, he became a friend of another staff officer, Franz von Papen.[17]
In 1919, Ribbentrop met Anna Elisabeth Henkell ("Annelies" to her friends),[18] the daughter of a wealthy Wiesbaden wine producer. They were married on 5 July 1920, and Ribbentrop began to travel throughout Europe as a wine salesman. He and Annelies had five children together.[19] In 1925, his aunt, Gertrud von Ribbentrop, adopted him, which allowed him to add the nobiliary particle von to his name.[20]
Early career[edit]
In 1928, Ribbentrop was introduced to Adolf Hitler as a businessman with foreign connections who "gets the same price for German champagne as others get for French champagne".[21] Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff, with whom Ribbentrop had served in the 12th Torgau Hussars in the First World War, arranged the introduction.[22] Ribbentrop and his wife joined the Nazi Party on 1 May 1932.[23] Ribbentrop began his political career by offering to be a secret emissary between Chancellor of Germany Franz von Papen, his old wartime friend, and Hitler.[24] His offer was initially refused. Six months later, however, Hitler and Papen accepted his help.[24]
Their change of heart occurred after General Kurt von Schleicher ousted Papen in December 1932. This led to a complex set of intrigues in which Papen and various friends of president Paul von Hindenburg negotiated with Hitler to oust Schleicher. On 22 January 1933, State Secretary Otto Meissner and Hindenburg's son Oskar met Hitler, Hermann Göring, and Wilhelm Frick at Ribbentrop's home in Berlin's exclusive Dahlem district.[24] Over dinner, Papen made the fateful concession that if Schleicher's government were to fall, he would abandon his demand for the Chancellorship and instead use his influence with President Hindenburg to ensure Hitler got the Chancellorship.[25]
Ribbentrop was not popular with the Nazi Party's Alte Kämpfer (Old Fighters); they nearly all disliked him.[26] British historian Laurence Rees described Ribbentrop as "the Nazi almost all the other leading Nazis hated".[27] Joseph Goebbels expressed a common view when he confided to his diary that "Von Ribbentrop bought his name, he married his money and he swindled his way into office".[28] Ribbentrop was among the few who could meet with Hitler at any time without an appointment, however, unlike Goebbels or Göring.[29]
During most of the Weimar Republic era, Ribbentrop was apolitical and displayed no antisemitic prejudices.[30] A visitor to a party Ribbentrop threw in 1928 recorded that Ribbentrop had no political views beyond a vague admiration for Gustav Stresemann, fear of Communism, and a wish to restore the monarchy.[30] Several Berlin Jewish businessmen who did business with Ribbentrop in the 1920s and knew him well later expressed astonishment at the vicious antisemitism he later displayed in the Nazi era, saying that they did not see any indications he had held such views.[30] As a partner in his father-in-law's champagne firm, Ribbentrop did business with Jewish bankers and organised the Impegroma Importing Company ("Import und Export großer Marken") with Jewish financing.[21]
Early diplomatic career[edit]
Background[edit]
Ribbentrop became Hitler's favourite foreign-policy adviser, partly by dint of his familiarity with the world outside Germany but also by flattery and sycophancy.[31][32] One German diplomat later recalled, "Ribbentrop didn't understand anything about foreign policy. His sole wish was to please Hitler".[32] In particular, Ribbentrop acquired the habit of listening carefully to what Hitler was saying, memorizing his pet ideas and then later presenting Hitler's ideas as his own, a practice that much impressed Hitler as proving Ribbentrop was an ideal Nazi diplomat.[33] Ribbentrop quickly learned that Hitler always favoured the most radical solution to any problem and accordingly tendered his advice in that direction as a Ribbentrop aide recalled:
In popular culture[edit]
In Famous Last Words, a novel by Timothy Findley, Ribbentrop conspires with the Duke of Windsor to kill Hitler, take over the Nazi Party and Europe. The Robert Harris novel Fatherland (1992) explores an alternate history where the Nazis won the war, and Ribbentrop is still the foreign minister in 1964. In Philip Roth's alternative history The Plot Against America, Charles Lindbergh wins the presidential election of 1940 and allies the United States with Nazi Germany; Ribbentrop visits the White House as part of the two countries' new friendship. In Guy Walters' The Leader (2003), Oswald Mosley becomes Prime Minister in 1937, allying the United Kingdom with the Axis Powers, Ribbentrop is seen talking to Diana Mitford in London after the creation of the new alliance. In Harry Turtledove's Worldwar: Striking the Balance (1996) imagining an alien invasion of Earth during World War II, Ribbentrop represents Nazi Germany in negotiation of an armistice between the Allied and Axis powers.
Ribbentrop has been portrayed by the following actors in film, television and theatre productions: