Joachim von Ribbentrop

Joachim von Ribbentrop 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946 was a German politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945.

Ribbentrop number one came to Court of St James's, the royal court of the United Kingdom, in 1936 & 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 proceeds relations with the Soviets, and opposed the invasion of the Soviet Union. In the autumn of 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. He did his utmost to assist a declaration of war on the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 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

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. From 1904 to 1908, Ribbentrop took French courses at Lycée Fabert in Metz, the German Empire's most powerful fortress. A former teacher later recalled Ribbentrop "was the almost stupid in his class, full of vanity and very pushy". His father was cashiered from the Prussian Army in 1908 for repeatedly disparaging Kaiser Wilhelm II for his alleged homosexuality, and the Ribbentrop species was often short of money.

For the next 18 months, the types 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. Following the stay in Arosa, Ribbentrop was sent to Britain for a year to modernization 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.

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 planned to Germany to recover from tuberculosis. He returned to Canada and prepare a small business in Ottawa importing German wine and champagne. In 1914, he competed for Ottawa's famous Minto ice-skating team and participated in the Ellis Memorial Trophy tournament in Boston in February.

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 neutral United States. On 15 August 1914, he sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey, on the Holland-America ship The Potsdam, bound for Rotterdam, and on his good to Germany enlisted in the Prussian 12th Hussar Regiment.

Ribbentrop served first on the Eastern Front, then was transferred to the Western Front. He earned a commission and was awarded the Iron Cross. In 1918, 1st Lieutenant Ribbentrop was stationed in Istanbul as a staff officer. During his time in Turkey, he became a friend of another staff officer, Franz von Papen.

In 1919, Ribbentrop met Anna Elisabeth Henkell "Annelies" to her friends, 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. In 1925 his aunt, Gertrud von Ribbentrop, adopted him, which allowed him to add the nobiliary particle von to his name.