page_title: Anti-Comintern Pact
section_title: Competing authorities and ideologies in German foreign policy
hierarchical_section_title: Anti-Comintern Pact / Background / Germany / Competing authorities and ideologies in German foreign policy
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Joachim von Ribbentrop Reichsaussenminister v. Ribbentrop. 19.7.40. [Herausgabedatum] AV. 59951 [Berlin.- Joachim von Ribbentrop. (Porträt) Aufgenommen im April 1938 in Vorbereitung zum 45. Geburtstag am 30.4.1938 auf Gut Sonnenburg bei Freienwalde.] Abgebildete Personen: Ribbentrop, Joachim von: Außenminister, NSDAP, Deutschland
context_page_description: The Anti-Comintern Pact, officially the Agreement against the Communist International, was an anti-Communist pact concluded between Germany and Japan on November 25, 1936, and was directed against the Communist International. It was signed by German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Japanese ambassador to Germany Kintomo Mushakoji. Italy, Spain and other countries joined it until November 1941.
  The Japanese signatories had hoped that the Anti-Comintern Pact would effectively be an alliance against the Soviet Union, which is certainly how the USSR perceived it. There was also a secret additional protocol which specified a joint German-Japanese policy specifically aimed against the Soviet Union. However, after the accession of Italy to the pact and especially the German-Soviet rapprochement after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, it gained an increasingly anti-western and anti-British identity as well.
  After August 1939, Japan distanced itself from Germany as a result of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact.
context_section_description: The execution of German foreign policy was nominally left to Konstantin von Neurath's foreign ministry, but Joachim von Ribbentrop headed the semi-autonomous Dienststelle Ribbentrop, created in late 1934, where he could carry out Hitler's personal foreign policy requests independently from foreign ministry consent. This created a rivalry between the two services. While Hitler favored Ribbentrop as his personal foreign policy champion, he at least initially maintained Neurath's staff of career diplomats to maximize his government's diplomatic legitimacy abroad. Hiroshi Ōshima, Japanese military attaché in Berlin and the single most important individual on the Japanese side of the Anti-Comintern Pact's negotiations, interpreted the German foreign service structure as one where the power structure was such that "it was only Hitler and Ribbentrop who decided foreign policy, and that it was therefore of no use to talk to their subordinates". Ōshima thus attempted to get any important step of the negotiations to Ribbentrop's or Hitler's desks directly.
  While Ribbentrop was Hitler's personal diplomat of choice, his personal view on geostrategic diplomacy varied quite distinctly from Hitler's during the late 1930s: Whereas Hitler favored a friendly policy towards Britain to eliminate the Soviet Union, Ribbentrop saw the western allies as Germany's main enemy and designed much of German foreign policy, including the Anti-Comintern Pact, with the goal to contain the British Empire in mind. When it came to Japan, Ribbentrop believed that the Japanese focus on the Soviet Union as its main antagonist could be redirected towards the United Kingdom, thus enabling Japan to be a partner in Ribbentrop's anti-British coalition.
  German alignment with Japan, against the wishes of the traditionally sinophile German foreign service and German public at large, began at the end of 1933.
caption: Joachim von Ribbentrop
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