Biographical article on Ribbentrop, including his background, early life, diplomatic work (especially Munich), and the early years of the war (1939-42)

INTERNATIONAL BIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVES [Internationales Biographisches Archiv] 22-4-1943
Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister for Foreign Affairs,
S.S. Obergruppenfuehrer
1. Joachim von Ribbentrop who adopted in 1925 the particle "von" as a title was born on 30 April 1893 and was the son of a retired Lt. Colonel Richard Ribbentrop who died in Berlin on 1.1.1941 and his wife whose maiden name was Rittwitz and-Caff-ron. Ribbentrop's family came originally from Lipperland.
Ribbentrop spent his childhood and his school years mainly in Metz where his father's garrison was stationed for a time. Between the ages of 15 and 17 he lived in Switzerland, then he spent a year with a family of a professor in England. At the age of 18 he went to Canada where he had to earn his living. He obtained work on the construction of the great Quebec bridge, across the river of St. Lawrence and was engaged for two. years on building caissons and railway trucks. With the outbreak of the 1914 war he made his way through to Germany on a Dutch ship. He entered, as a volunteer, the 12th Hussar Regiment where he received a commission in 1915. After being wounded, he was made, in the spring of 1918, Adjutant to the Plenipotentiary of the War Ministry in Turkey; at the end of the war he worked at the War Ministry and was later appointed Adjutant of the peace delegation. He retired ias a first lieutenant.
Ribbentrop turned now into a tradesman and started an import and export business, limiting himself mainly to dealings in wines. These activities led to his marriage on 5.7.1920, to Anna Henkell, the daughter of the owner of the well-known German champagne
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vaults. Up to the present there are five children of this marriage. Having already made connections abroad he now established fresh links with England and France. He succeeded in extending these to political circles, having joined in 1930 the service of N.S.D.A.P.
At the time of the final struggle for power in the Reich, Ribbentrop played an important, if not strikingly obvious part in the bringing about of the decisive meetings between the representatives of the president of the Reich and the heads of the N.S.D.A.P., who had prepared the entry of Nazis into power on 30.1.1933. Those meetings as well as . those between Hitler and von Papen took place in Ribbentrop's house in Berlin Dahlen.
After the 30.1 too Ribbentrop remained something of a confidential deputy of the Fuehrer in his discussions with foreign statesmen and politicians until in April 1934 he was appointed by the president of the Reich, von Hindenburg, Special Commissioner on the question of disarmament. In this capacity he undertook, in May 1934, journeys to London and Rome, where he established contact with Mussolini; in June he was received by Barthou and Doumergue in Paris, in December by Laval. In September 1933 he was the guest of the Leader of the French Ex-Servicemen's Association Coy, with whom he had in common the desire to bring about closer co-operation between France and Germany through the activities of the ex-servicemen's organizations of the two countries. But in particular he prepared in this capacity diplomatic achievement of the equality of Germany in political and military matters which became a reality with the declaration of her sovereign rights to re-arm on 16.3.1935.
On 31.5.1935 Ribbentrop was appointed ambassador of a special mission and on 21.5.1935 charged with securing a Naval treaty with England on the basis of 35 to 100, the signature of which followed on 18.6.1935. After the re-occupation of the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland on 7.3.1936, Ribbentrop represented the Reich at the extraordinary session of the League of Nations in London as a special envoy and explained before that assembly the reasons for Germany's attitude. Soon after this Council meeting Ribbentrop handed over to the British Government the Great Peace Plan which had been developed by the Fuehrer and Reichschancellor in Reichstag on 29.3.1936.
On 11.8.1936 the Fuehrer and Reichschancellor appointed Ribbentrop as ambassador in London. At this difficult post Ribbentrop strove to achieve an understanding with England. During his activities in London Ribbentrop was at the same time German representative at the non-intervention conference, which was ex-D-472
pected to localize the Spanish Civil War. In his capacity as the extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador, Ribbentrop led in autumn 1936 the discussions in Berlin with Muschakoji, the Japanese Ambassador at that time, on the German-Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact, which was signed on 25.11.1936. On 6.11.1937 Italy too entered this pact.
On 4.2.1939 the Fuehrer and Reichschancellor appointed Ribbentrop to the post of the Foreign Minister in succession to Baron von Neurath, who in his turn was appointed President of the Secret State Council. In that capacity Ribbentrop took part, as early as 12.2.1938 in the conversations of the Fuehrer in Obersalzberg with Dr. von Schuschnigg then Austrian Reichschancellor. The Anschluss of Austria on 13.3.1938 must be marked as the hour on which the Great German Reich [Grossdeutschen] was born. On 14.3. Ribbentrop took over also the work of the Austrian Foreign Ministry. Between the 2. and 9.4 he remained in attendance with Hitler during his seven days' state visit in Italy.
After a summer full of crises, including the threat of war, the question of the Sudeten-Germans was cleared up at the conference of the "Four Great Men" (Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain, De-ladier) in Munich (29-30.9.1938), when the purely German parts of Czecho-Slovakia were awarded to the Reich. On the following day, the tension which was felt throughout the world was eased by the declaration made jointly by Hitler and Chamberlain on the German-British relations. A German-Italian Court of Arbitration called by the Governments of Hungary and Czecho-Slovakia and presided over by Ribbentrop settled, on 2.11.1938, territorial disputes between these two countries.- Still under the retrospect influence of the Munich discussions, the Reich's Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, who had travelled specially to Paris, and the French Foreign Minister, Bonnet, issued on 6.12.1938, as a result of their deliberations, a declaration, similar to the British-Ger-m'an one of Munich, on the mutual relations of their respective countries. As the relations between the Reich and Poland (5.1.39, Beck was in Munich, 26-27.1—Ribbentrop in Warsaw) as well as with other European countries could at that time still be regarded as friendly, the Fuehrer felt himself justified in stating, in his Reichstag declaration of 30.1.39, that, during the historic year of 1938, "Ribbentrop's correct and bold judgment, and sometimes excellent ways of dealing with all problems of foreign policy, meant to him extraordinary help in carrying out his policy." In May 1939 in order to ensure the policy of the Reich, the pact of
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alliance with Italy was concluded. Soon, however, the animosity between the Slovaks and the Czechs degenerated into a threat to the peace of Central Europe. Thanks to the foresight of the President of the Czech Protectorate, Dr. Hacha and his Foreign Minister Chvalkovsky, also this crisis would be solved without fight. On the 14th March 1939, Dr. Hacha, in view of the invasion by German troops, laid the fate of the Czech people and country into the hands of the Fuehrer of the German Reich. (16th March institution of the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia.) At the same time Slovakia announced her autonomy and asked for the protection of the Reich. After previous negotiations between Ribbentrop and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Urbsys also the Memel-land could return into the Reich on 22nd March 1939.
Although it had been possible to regain without conflagrations all the territories, cut off the Reich by the Dictate of Versailles, all endeavours to settle with Warsaw the questions of Danzig and the Corridor were frustrated through the interference of England. An English promise of guarantee stiffened Poland's attitude to such an extent, that in the course of the summer the crisis, which had existed since the spring 1939 increased to a danger of war, although the Fuehrer had offered a guarantee of the Polish frontiers in return for the return of Danzig into the Reich and a very magnanimous solution of the Corridor question. When the Western Entente already thought the ring round the Reich closed, the German Foreign Policy succeeded in coming to an agreement of consultation and non-aggression with Russia which was signed by Ribbentrop in Moscow on 23rd August 1939. On the 28th and 29th September, when Ribbentrop was in Moscow for the second time, the negotiations on a frontier—and friendly agreement and German-Russian economic planning were ended.
Polish frontier violation released on the 1st September 1939 the 18 days' victorious campaign through Poland. All previous negotiations between Ribbentrop and the British and French Ambassadors and an offer of mediation by Mussolini proved unsuccessful; on the 3rd. September first the British and three hours later the French Ambassador handed their Governments' declarations of war to Ribbentrop. In spite of that on the 5th October 1939 the Fuehrer in the Reichstag addressed another peace appeal to Britain and France, but again in vain.
During the lull in the winter of 1939/40 President Roosevelt tried to use his influence on European events. On the 1st February 1940 his emissary, the Under-Secretary of State for For-
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eign Affairs, Sumner Welles, had talks with the Fuehrer and the Reich Foreign Minister.
With the occupation of Denmark and Norway on 9th April 1940, only a few hours before the landing of British troops in these territories, the battle began against the Western Powers. Simultaneously with the marching of the German Armies into Holland and Belgium, on the 10th May von Ribbentrop disclosed, in front of representatives of the foreign press, the English-French intentions which had been made known in Berlin, to invade the Ruhr district via Belgian and Dutch territory. After Marshal Petain had asked for an Armistice on 17th June 1940, shortly after Italy's entry into the war, the Fuehrer in the presence of the high generals and the Reich Foreign Minister, received in the wood of Compiegne on 20th June the French Delegation, which had come to accept the terms of armistice.
After the victory in the West, the Fuehrer turned to the realization of his plans for a United Europe. In agreement with allied Italy, shown clearly by the repeated meetings of the Foreign Minister, von Ribbentrop, and Count Ciano, and by decisions of importance in talks between Hitler and Mussolini themselves, began at first an economic infiltration of the South Eastern States and the building up of mutual conditions of confidence. The latter induced the Hungarian and Rumanian Government in their negotiations on territorial reconciliation to ask for an arbitrator's decision by the Axis, which took place under the chairmanship of von Ribbentrop on the 30th August 1940 in Vienna. After that, at first Hungary, which since February 1939 adhered to the Anticomintern Pact, joined on November 1940 the Tripartite Pact, which had been signed between Germany, Italy and Japan on the 27th September 1940. The necessity to transform the Anticomintern Pact into a security pact with a possibility of other countries to join, had resulted from the attitude of the U.S.A. becoming more and more threatening towards Japan and the Axis and from the increasing help being given to Britain, which culminated in the U.S.A. law for help to Britain in March 1941. Rumania, under her new Head of State, General Antonescu followed the example of Hungary. General Antonescu himself performed the signing of Rumania's declaration of adherence to the Tripartite Pact in Berlin.
On the 12th. November 1940 the Chairman of the Committee of the People's Commissar, the Foreign Commissar Molotov, returned in Berlin the Reichsforeignminister's visit of autumn 1939.
The year 1941 brought Bulgaria into the Three Power Pact on
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1/3. Later, on 25/3 Jugoslavia also joined the Three Power Pact. However, a few days after the signing of the Pact in Vienna, a revolution took place in Belgrade, brought about by London and Moscow and resulted in a German invasion of Jugoslavia on 6/4. On the same day, Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop issued a declaration of the Reich Government's resolution concerning Jugoslavia and Greece. The conclusion of the German-Turkish Pact of Friendship (18.6.41) was regarded as a German diplomatic victory over England.
The Foreign Office communique issued the morning of 22.6. contained extraordinary significant information regarding the treacherous activities of the Soviet Government since the conclusion of the German-Soviet Pact of Friendship, at the same time the German invasion armies crossed the Russian frontier.
On 25.11.1941., a State Government meeting was held in the Ambassador's Hall of the new German Chancellery. A Pact was signed by the representatives of the signatories of the Anti-comintern Pact, prolonging the Agreement, and the representatives of the Governments of Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Croatia, Rumania and Slovakia joyfully acclaimed the participation of their respective countries in this Pact.
Rules were laid down for mutual operations against the Anglo-American enemy and after the entry of Japan and U.S.A. in the war, a military convention was signed in Berlin on 18.1.1942 between Germany, Italy and Japan.