In September 1941, Stalin told British diplomats that he wanted two agreements: ( 1 ) a mutual assistance / aid pact and ( 2 ) a recognition that, after the war, the Soviet Union would gain the territories in countries that it had taken pursuant to its division of Eastern Europe with Hitler in the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact.

His report delighted Hitler, causing him to remark that Ribbentrop was the only person who told him " the truth about the world abroad ".

Ribbentrop told the head of Hitler's Press Office, Fritz Hesse, that the Munich Agreement was " first-class stupidity ... All it means is that we have to fight the English in a year, when they will be better armed ... It would have been much better if war had come now ".

Along the same lines, Ribbentrop told the Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano on 5 May 1939 " It is certain that within a few months not one Frenchman nor a single Englishman will go to war for Poland ".

When Ciano asked if there was anything Italy could do to broker a Polish-German settlement that would avert a war, he was told by Ribbentrop that " We want war !".

Ribbentrop told his Italian guests that " the localization of the conflict is certain " and " the probability of victory is infinite ".

Ribbentrop told Hitler that his sources showed that Britain would only be militarily prepared to take on Germany at the earliest in 1940 or more probably 1941, so this could only mean that the British were bluffing.

It would be a dangerous illusion to think that, if war once starts, it will come to an early end even if a success on any one of the several fronts on which it will be engaged should have been secured " Ribbentrop for his part told Hitler that Chamberlain's letter was just a bluff, and urged his master to call it.

Ribbentrop told Welles that only a total German victory " could give us the peace we want ".

On 29 March 1941, during a conversation with Matsuoka, Ribbentrop as instructed by Hitler told the Japanese nothing about the upcoming Operation Barbarossa, as Hitler believed that he could defeat the Soviet Union on his own and preferred that the Japanese attack Britain instead.

Dekanozov was told that von Ribbentrop wished to meet with him at once.

Ribbentrop told Hitler that because of his four years in Canada and the United States before 1914, he was an expert on all things American, and that the United States in his opinion was not a serious military power.

On 4 December 1941, the Japanese Ambassador General Hiroshi Ōshima told Ribbentrop that Japan was on the verge of war with the United States, which led to Ribbentrop promising him on behalf of Hitler that Germany would join the war against the Americans.

Three days later, Ribbentrop attempted to meet with Hitler, only to be told to go away as Hitler had more important things to do.

In April 1941, Hans Thomsen, a diplomat at the German embassy in Washington, D. C., sent a message to Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, informing him that " an absolutely reliable source " had told Thomsen that the Americans had broken the Japanese diplomatic cipher ( that is, Purple ).

She also told Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Ambassador who later became the Foreign Minister of Germany, that Hitler looked too much like Charlie Chaplin to be taken seriously.

Joachim von Ribbentrop, Germany's Foreign Minister, told Hitler that in his opinion Franco had no intention of ever joining the war.

Ribbentrop told Coulondre that because of Bonnet's alleged statement of 6 December 1938 accepting Eastern Europe as Germany's zone of influence meant that " France's commitments in Eastern Europe " were now " off limits ".

During the drawing of his line, Ribbentrop contacted Italy and told her to drop the plans for a four-power conference, because Germany preferred to act " behind the scenes ".

" After a conference in Berlin between Hitler, Molotov and Ribbentrop, Germany presented Molotov with a proposed written agreement for Axis entry.

He ranked along with Joachim von Ribbentrop, Göring, Himmler, and Martin Bormann as the senior Nazi with the most access to Hitler, which in an autocratic regime meant access to power.

Following the Allied invasion of Italy and the fall of Benito Mussolini in September, he and Joachim von Ribbentrop raised with Hitler the possibility of secretly approaching Joseph Stalin and negotiating a separate peace behind the backs of the western Allies.

" In his diaries, he expressed the belief that German diplomacy should find a way to exploit the emerging tensions between Stalin and the West, but he proclaimed foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, whom Hitler would not abandon, incapable of such a feat.

In 1928, Ribbentrop was introduced to Adolf Hitler as a businessman with foreign connections who " gets the same price for German champagne as others get for French champagne ".

Ribbentrop began his political career that summer by offering to be a secret emissary between Chancellor Franz von Papen, his old wartime friend, and Hitler.

Ribbentrop, in turn, greatly admired Hitler.

In particular, Ribbentrop acquired the habit of listening carefully to what Hitler was saying, memorizing the Führer's pet ideas, and then later presenting Hitler's ideas as his own – a practice that much impressed Hitler as proving Ribbentrop was an ideal National Socialist diplomat.

Ribbentrop quickly learned that Hitler always favoured the most radical solution to any problem, and accordingly tended his advice in that direction as a Ribbentrop aide recalled: When Hitler said ' Grey ', Ribbentrop said ' Black, black, black '.

I listened to what Hitler said one day when Ribbentrop wasn't present: ' With Ribbentrop it is so easy, he is always so radical.

Despite this, Hitler never quite trusted the Foreign Office and was always on the lookout for someone like Ribbentrop to carry out his foreign-policy goals.

But in November, Ribbentrop arranged a meeting between de Brinon, who wrote for the Le Matin newspaper, and Hitler, during which Hitler stressed what he claimed to be his love of peace and his friendship towards France.

In August 1936, Hitler appointed Ribbentrop Ambassador to Britain with orders to negotiate the Anglo-German alliance: ... et Britain to join the Anti-Comintern Pact, that is what I want most of all.

Following the lead of Andreas Hillgruber, who argued that Hitler had a Stufenplan ( stage by stage plan ) for world conquest, Hildebrand argued that Ribbentrop may not have fully understood what Hitler's Stufenplan was, or alternatively in pressing so hard for colonial restoration was trying to score a personal success that might improve his standing with Hitler.

As the Germans had broken the Turkish diplomatic codes, Ribbentrop was well aware as he warned in a circular to German embassies that Anglo-Turkish talks had gone much further " than what the Turks would care to tell us ".

In July 1939, Ribbentrop's claims about Bonnet's alleged statement of December 1938 were to lead to a lengthy war of words via a series of letters to the French newspapers between Bonnet and Ribbentrop over just what precisely Bonnet had said to Ribbentrop.

When on the morning of 3 September 1939 Chamberlain followed through with his threat of a British declaration of war if Germany attacked Poland, a visibly shocked Hitler asked Ribbentrop " Now what?

Welles asked Ribbentrop what terms Germany might be willing to negotiate a compromise peace under, before the Phoney War became a real war.

Ribbentrop also worked closely with the SS for what turned out to be his last significant foreign-policy move: Operation Panzerfaust, the coup that deposed Admiral Horthy on 15 October 1944.

When the Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17, 1939, following the terms of the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocol, much of what had been eastern Poland was annexed to the BSSR.

This led to a long war of words between the two foreign ministers in the summer of 1939 over just what precisely Bonnet actually said to Ribbentrop.

Ribbentrop, who was determined to succeed at his mission, no matter what, began his talks by stating the British could either accept the 35: 100 ratio as " fixed and unalterable " by the weekend, or else the German delegation would go home, and the Germans would build their navy up to any size they wished.

The issue of what the Ryti – Ribbentrop Agreement was " in reality ", remains somewhat controversial, as also the issue of whether Finland's co-belligerence with Nazi Germany " in reality " was a concealed alliance, and whether the Continuation War " in reality " was a Finnish war of aggression although initiated as a defensive war against a Soviet pre-emptive attack.

Fitzroy Maclean, then a young diplomat in the British Embassy, states in his memoir Eastern Approaches that von Herwarth condemned the appeasement of the Munich Agreement, predicted a Soviet-German commitment to non-aggression ( which came to pass as the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact ), and saw ahead to what he called " the destruction of Germany ".

The German minister to Lisbon reported this to Ribbentrop on July 11 and added the Duke " intends to postpone his departure as long as possible ... in hope of a turn of events favourable to him ," and basically reiterated what was reported by Minister Beigbeder.