page_title: Joachim von Ribbentrop
section_title: Relations with wartime allies
hierarchical_section_title: Joachim von Ribbentrop / Foreign Minister of the Reich / Relations with wartime allies
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 und Ion Antonescu Reichsaußenminister von Ribbentrop begrüßt Marschall Antonescu Der Staatsführer Rumäniens, Marschall Antonescu, weilte bekanntlich in Begleitung des stellvertretenden Ministerpräsidenten Mihai Antonescu und weiterer rumänischer Persönlichkeiten im Hauptquartier des Führers. Unser Bild zeigt Reichsaußenminister von Ribbentrop als er Marschall Antonescu [r.] am Zuge begrüßte. Bei Abdruck nennen: Scherl Bilderdienst (Laux) 14.1.1943 [Herausgabedatum] 756-43 Abgebildete Personen: Antonescu, Jon: Ministerpräsident, General, Rumänien (PND 11864968X) Ribbentrop, Joachim von: Außenminister, NSDAP, Deutschland
context_page_description: Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop, better known as simply Joachim von Ribbentrop, was Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany from 1938 until 1945.
  Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's notice as a well-travelled businessman with more knowledge of the outside world than most senior national socialists and as a perceived authority on foreign affairs. He offered his house Schloss Fuschl for the secret meetings in January 1933 that resulted in Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany. He became a close confidant of Hitler, to the disgust of some party members, who thought him superficial and lacking in talent. He was appointed ambassador to the Court of St James's, the royal court of the United Kingdom, in 1936 and then Foreign Minister of Germany in February 1938.
  Before World War II, he played a key role in brokering the Pact of Steel and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. He favoured retaining good relations with the Soviets, and opposed the invasion of the Soviet Union.
context_section_description: Ribbentrop, a Francophile, argued that Germany should allow Vichy France a limited degree of independence within a binding Franco-German partnership. To that end, Ribbentrop appointed a colleague from the Dienststelle, Otto Abetz, as Ambassador to France with instructions to promote the political career of Pierre Laval, whom Ribbentrop had decided to be the French politician most favourable to Germany. The Foreign Office's influence in France varied, as there were many other agencies competing for power there. But in general, from late 1943 to mid-1944, the Foreign Office was second only to the SS in terms of power in France.
  From the latter half of 1937, Ribbentrop had championed the idea of an alliance between Germany, Italy, and Japan that would partition the British Empire among them. After signing the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, Ribbentrop expanded on this idea for an Axis alliance to include the Soviet Union to form a Eurasian bloc that would destroy maritime states such as Britain. The German historian Klaus Hildebrand argued that besides Hitler's foreign policy programme, there were three other factions within the Nazi Party who had alternative foreign policy programmes, whom Hildebrand designated the agrarians, the revolutionary socialists, and the Wilhelmine Imperialists. Another German diplomatic historian, Wolfgang Michalka argued that there was a fourth alternative to the Nazi foreign policy programme, and that was Ribbentrop's concept of a Euro-Asiatic bloc comprising the four totalitarian states of Germany, the Soviet Union, Italy and Japan. Unlike the other factions, Ribbentrop's foreign policy programme was the only one that Hitler allowed to be executed during the years 1939–41, though it was more due to the temporary bankruptcy of Hitler's own foreign policy programme that he had laid down in Mein Kampf and Zweites Buch following the failure to achieve an alliance with Britain, than to a genuine change of mind. Ribbentrop's foreign policy conceptions differed from Hitler's in that Ribbentrop's concept of international relations owed more to the traditional Wilhelmine Machtpolitik than to Hitler's racist and Social Darwinist vision of different "races" locked in a merciless and endless struggle over Lebensraum. The different foreign-policy conceptions held by Hitler and Ribbentrop were illustrated in their reaction to the Fall of Singapore in 1942: Ribbentrop wanted this great British defeat to be a day of celebration in Germany, whereas Hitler forbade any celebrations on the grounds that Singapore represented a sad day for the principles of white supremacy. Another area of difference was Ribbentrop's obsessive hatred for Britain – which he saw as the main enemy – and view of the Soviet Union as an important ally in the anti-British struggle. Hitler saw the alliance with the Soviet Union as only tactical, and was nowhere as anti-British as his Foreign Minister.
  In August 1940, Ribbentrop oversaw the Second Vienna Award, which saw about 40% of the Transylvania region of Romania returned to Hungary. The decision to award so much of Romania to the Hungarians was Hitler's, as Ribbentrop himself spent most of the Vienna conference loudly attacking the Hungarian delegation for their coolness towards attacking Czechoslovakia in 1938 and then demanding more than their fair share of the spoils. When Ribbentrop finally got around to announcing his decision, the Hungarian delegation, which had expected Ribbentrop to rule in favour of Romania, broke out in cheers, while the Romanian foreign minister Mihail Manoilescu fainted.
  In the autumn of 1940, Ribbentrop made a sustained but unsuccessful effort to have Spain enter the war on the Axis side. During his talks with the Spanish foreign minister, Ramón Serrano Súñer, Ribbentrop affronted Súñer with his tactless behaviour, especially his suggestion that Spain cede the Canary Islands to Germany. An angry Súñer replied that he would rather see the Canaries sink into the Atlantic than cede an inch of Spanish territory. An area in which Ribbentrop enjoyed more suc
caption: Ribbentrop (left) with Marshal Ion Antonescu, in 1943
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