Evening star., 1939-08-27

There must have been a grim smile of
satisfaction around the lips of Foreign
Minister Joachim Won Ribbentrop when
Fuehrer Adolf Hitler ordered him to
board plane for Moscow and sign q
non-aggression pact with Germanys
erstwhile public enemy No. l, Soviet
Russia.
Nothing could have been more calcu-
lated to annoy the statesmen in London,
whose own military and naval experts,
even then, were attempting to negotiate
with the Kremlin a mutual assistance
pact, aimed directly at Germany. And
for these statesmen, Herr Won Ribben-
trop has very profound and very per-
sonal contempt.
This feeling dates back to the German
diplomats tWo-year assignment as the
Fuehrer's Ambassador to the Court of
st. James. Herr Won Ribbehtrop went
there in 1896 with high hopes of bring
ing the British into the German political
camp. These hopes were not baseless,
for he had just succeeded in negotiating,
in 1885, the Anglo German naval agree
ment by which Britain not only per-
mitted Germany naval tonnage of one
third of its own but, more important,
gave tacit assent to breach Of the Ver-
sailleS treaty which encouraged the
Reich to proceed with rearmament on
land in violation of the same document
But Herr Won Ribbentrop was not
popular in London. He began badly and
he deeply shocked British sensibilties
by greeting King Edward VIII at Buck
ingham Palace with the Nazi salute, in
stead of the traditional bow from the
waist. More, he misled the British for
policy in Spain.
Defeated British Interests.
At time when Germany was sending
new levies of troops and guns and air
planes to Gen. Francisco Frances Ma
tionalist forces almost weekly, Won Rib
bentrop fed the British-inspired Nom
intervention Committee on German
hopes and promises of localizing the
war. He thus kept the British from
adopting any strong policy for the pro-
lection of their own vital interests in the
Iberian Peninsula.
Won Ribbentrop became extremely un-
popular not only with the British foreign
Office but also in British society, which
the Nazi leader adored. In his last
months in London he was treated with
polite contempt of which the British are
masters. The Ambassador left London
11ohorp
grievance:
Even before this week, however, the
German foreign minister has frequently
tasted the fruits of victory during his
relatively brief career as head of Herr
Hitler's foreign department. He saw
the British humiliated at Munich and
again last spring when the Nazi emblem
was established over Czecho- -Slovakia.
He has justified Hitlers faith in his
ability to carry out strong" foreign
policy-the job for which he was chosen
when his urbane predecessor, Baron
Konstantin Won Neurath, was kicked up
stairs into the Fuehrer's secret council"
Son of Army Officer.
Won Ribbentrop, 46 years old, large,
muscular man with quick smile and a
vigorous manner, rose to power in Ger
many on the wave of the Hitler revo-
luton. The son of a lieutenant-colo
in the German army, he was reared in
comfortable circumstances and educated
in Switzerland, England and France He
was not a German noble by birth, but
derived his won" from titled aunt, who
adopted him when he was a boy.
In addition to his title, Won Ribbentrop
at an early age also acquired great
wealth through his marriage to Anna
Henkel, daughter of Germany's cham
pagne tycoon. His marriage gave him
entree to the wealthy social circles of
Berlin-a fact of great significance in his
later rise to power under Hitler
During the World War, Won Ribbentrop
served as an officer in the German army
and later as a minor attache of the Ger
man delegation to the Versailles confer
encs. where he saw the Fatherland