Joachim von Ribbentrop
Joachim von Ribbentrop was a prominent German diplomat and politician, born on April 30, 1893, in Wesel, Germany. He began his career as a businessman and entered politics with the Nazi Party shortly before Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Ribbentrop quickly gained Hitler's favor and held several important positions, including Germany's ambassador to Britain and later, Foreign Minister. He played a crucial role in shaping Nazi foreign policy, facilitating Germany's aggressive territorial expansions in Europe before and during World War II.
After the war, Ribbentrop was indicted at the Nuremberg Trials for war crimes, including conspiring to wage aggressive war and crimes against humanity. He was held responsible for misleading Allied powers and for his involvement in the brutal occupation policies in Europe, particularly concerning the treatment of Jews and other persecuted groups. Ribbentrop was found guilty and executed on October 16, 1946. His legacy is intricately linked to the broader impact of Nazi diplomacy and the catastrophic consequences of its warmaking strategies.
Subject Terms
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Foreign minister of Nazi Germany, 1938-1945
- Born: April 30, 1893
- Birthplace: Wesel, Germany
- Died: October 16, 1946
- Place of death: Nuremberg, Germany
Major offenses: Conspiring to wage aggressive war, waging aggressive war, war crimes, and crimes against humanity
Active: January, 1938-May, 1945
Locale: Germany
Sentence: Death by hanging
Early Life
Joachim von Ribbentrop (YOH-ah-kheem fahn RIHB-ihn-trohp) was born to a German army officer and his wife in Wesel on April 30, 1893. As a child he was well traveled, attending school in Switzerland and visiting France and Britain before World War I. In 1911, he worked briefly in London for a German importer, moving soon to Canada, where he worked on the Canadian-Pacific Railway, and the United States, where he worked as a journalist in Boston and New York. The war brought him back to Germany in 1914, and he joined the 125th Hussars, winning an Iron Cross. A serious wound landed him in the hospital, and eventually he joined the Ministry of War and then the German peace delegation that signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. He left the army after the peace and became a champagne salesman for a French firm in the Rhineland. He also married into the wine business in 1920; he and his wife made quite a fortune in the midst of the continental depression.
As a businessman, Ribbentrop tended to steer clear of politics but joined the Nazi Party on the eve of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Hitler took a liking to him and appointed him his adviser for foreign affairs. Ribbentrop created a small fiefdom within the Nazi empire and soon had several hundred people under his direction. In 1934, Hitler appointed him Delegate for Disarmament Questions; in 1935, ambassador-at-large; and between August 11, 1936, and February 4, 1938, as Germany’s ambassador to Britain. Ribbentrop riled his English hosts with his habitual Nazi salutes and liberal use of swastikas in decorating. In the reordering of the German hierarchy in February, 1938, Ribbentrop replaced Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath. As Hitler’s foreign minister, Ribbentrop helped lay the diplomatic groundwork for the German successes in the early stages of World War II.
Nazi Career
After the war, the International Military Tribunal indicted Ribbentrop on all four general counts: conspiring to wage aggressive war, waging aggressive war, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. With regard to the waging of aggressive war, Ribbentrop’s activities clearly displayed his key roles in the absorption of Austria (the Anschluss) and the Czechoslovak Sudetenland in 1938 and 1939. He worked closely with pro-German groups in both countries and knew that his guarantees to the French and British of no further German territorial demands were a sham. He continued to mislead the French and British in the months before the invasion of Poland, conspiring with Hitler to keep them in the dark and carrying out negotiations with the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov for the division of Poland. Ribbentrop knew of Hitler’s plans against Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and France well in advance of their enactment, and when the Germans turned west in the spring of 1940, Ribbentrop defended the aggression against world outrage. He also participated in the negotiations with the fascist Italian government over the Axis invasion of the Balkans in 1941 and with the Japanese over the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In general, he was the architect of Hitler’s extraordinarily belligerent foreign policy.
Regarding Ribbentrop’s indictment for war crimes, or breaches in the commonly accepted rules of the conduct of war, the Tribunal cited his presence at key meetings at which the Nazi leadership agreed to the brutal treatment of captured Allied combatants. They also attributed to him the guilt of all of his underlings who ran the Nazi-occupied states of Europe. Guilt for the atrocities and general brutality of Nazi military occupation was placed squarely on his shoulders. Here is also where the court found the justification for indicting him of crimes against humanity. As Germany’s chief diplomat, Ribbentrop helped force compliance with Hitler’s “final solution” of the “Jewish problem” from Axis allies and puppet states, on several occasions insisting on speedy mass deportations. He was also present at meetings at which specific policies for the destruction of European Jewry were discussed and planned. After Hitler’s suicide, Admiral Karl Dönitz, his successor, dismissed Ribbentrop as a prelude to opening negotiations for surrender.
Legal Action and Outcome
Ribbentrop was captured by the Allies and placed on trial before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. He was found guilty on all of the tribunal’s four counts. He tried to defend himself by attributing all of the impetus to Hitler and distancing himself from his allegiance to him. The court, however, found that Ribbentrop was an active and very sympathetic participant in planning and carrying out the Reich’s monstrous policies and that Ribbentrop was loyal to the end. On October 16, 1946, he was the first of the Nazi war criminals to be hanged in Nuremberg.
Impact
The damage inflicted on the world by the Nazi policies and warmaking, in which Joachim von Ribbentrop conspired, is beyond any accounting. The importance of his appearance before the international court was highly significant in that the victorious Allies modeled for the world a radical intolerance of the kind of bellicose diplomacy practiced by Ribbentrop and his foreign office.
Bibliography
Bloch, Michael. Ribbentrop. London: Abacus, 2003. Very well-documented study of the man and his influence in Hitler’s government.
Ribbentrop, Joachim von. Documents on the Events Preceding the Outbreak of the War. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2004. Originally complied by Ribbentrop and the German Foreign Office in the midst of World War II as a response to anti-Nazi propaganda and defense of Nazi belligerence.
Vizulis, Izidors. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. New York: Praeger, 1990. A careful study of the agreement that opened the way for Nazi conquest of western Poland and the opening of World War II.
Weitz, John. Hitler’s Diplomat: Joachim von Ribbentrop. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992. More biographical than analytical in its treatment of Ribbentrop’s roles in laying groundwork for the Nazi hegemony in Europe.