As Count Ciano noted in his diary, the Anti-Comintern Pact was " anti-Communist in theory, but in fact unmistakably anti-British ".

During that meeting, both Ciano and Attolico were horrified to learn from Ribbentrop that Germany planned to attack Poland that summer, and that the Danzig issue was just a pretext for aggression.

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 !".

After the Italo-German summit at the Brenner Pass on 18 March 1940, which was attended by Hitler and Mussolini, Count Ciano wrote in his diary: " Everyone in Rome dislikes Ribbentrop ".

The end result of these talks was the signing in Berlin on 27 September 1940 of the Tripartite Pact by Ribbentrop, Count Ciano, and Japanese Ambassador Saburo Kurusu.

Ciano was amazed at the way that Laval fell in with the German demands, and thought it all typical Ribbentrop that he should remind Laval in a very tactless way how this forest had once served as Napoleon's headquarters.

The pact was signed by representatives of Nazi Germany ( Adolf Hitler ), Fascist Italy ( foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano ), and Imperial Japan ( Japanese ambassador to Germany Saburo Kurusu ).

Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari (; 18 March 1903 – 11 January 1944 ) was an Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Benito Mussolini's son-in-law.

In early 1944 Count Ciano was shot by firing squad at the behest of his father-in-law, Mussolini, under pressure from Nazi Germany.

Ciano was born in Livorno, Italy, in 1903, to an aristocratic family.

He was the son of Count Costanzo Ciano and his wife Carolina Pini ; his father was an Admiral and World War I hero in the Royal Italian Navy, founding member of the National Fascist Party and re-organizer of the Italian Merchant Marine in the 1920s.

The elder Ciano ( he was nicknamed Ganascia, meaning " The Jaw ") was not above making a private profit from his public office ; and as a side effect his son was soon used to living a high-profile glamorous life, which he continued to maintain until almost the end.

Ciano took part in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia ( 1935 – 36 ) as a bomber squadron commander ( his unit, 15ª squadriglia da bombardamento, was dubbed " La Disperata ") where his future opponent Alessandro Pavolini served as lieutenant.

In 1937, prior to the Italian annexation, Count Gian Galeazzo Ciano was Honorary Citizen of Tirana, Albania.

Ciano was skeptical of Mussolini's war plans and knew that Italy's armed forces were ill-prepared for a major war.

Ciano, having been dismissed from his post by the new government, attempted to find shelter in Madrid, Spain, alongside Edda and their three children ; but their plane was forced to land by the Nazis, with Mussolini's agreement.

Ciano was effectively executed for dissenting against Il Duces will.

At a memorial concert for Italian composer Giuseppe Martucci on May 14, 1931 at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, he was ordered to begin by playing Giovinezza but he refused even though the fascist foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano was present in the audience.

Due to this disagreement, the pact was signed without Japan and became an agreement between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany signed on May 22, 1939, by the foreign ministers of each country and witnessed by Count Galeazzo Ciano for Italy and Joachim von Ribbentrop for Germany.

Ciano complained in his diary that his arguments " had no effect " ( niente da fare ) on Ribbentrop, who simply refused to believe any information that did not fit in with his preconceived notions.

Rise and Fall is based upon captured Third Reich documents, the available diaries of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, General Franz Halder, and of the Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano, evidence and testimony from the Nuremberg trials, British Foreign Office reports, and the author's recollection of six years reporting on the Third Reich for newspapers, the United Press International ( UPI ), and CBS Radio — terminated by Nazi Party censorship in 1940.

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 ".

* Fabrizio Ciano, 3º Conte di Cortellazzo e Buccari ( Shanghai, 1 October 1931 – San José, Costa Rica, 8 April 2008 ), married to Beatriz Uzcategui Jahn, without issue.

The Italian commander, General Alfredo Guzzoni, lands in Tirana and shortly afterwards the Italian foreign minister, Galeazzo Ciano, also arrives by air and tells an Albanian delegation that the Italian troops have come to ensure order, prosperity, and progress, without interfering with Albania's existence as a nation.

Ciano complained furiously that Ribbentrop had violated his promise given only that spring, when Italy signed the Pact of Steel, that there would be no war for the next three years.

In December 1942, during a meeting with the Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano, who brought a message from Mussolini asking for the Germans to go on the defensive in the Soviet Union in order to focus on North Africa, Ribbentrop joined with Hitler in belittling Italy's war effort.

During the same meeting in East Prussia with Count Ciano, Pierre Laval arrived and promptly agreed to Hitler's and Ribbentrop's demands that he place French police under the command of more radical anti-Semitics and conscript and send hundreds of thousands of French workers to work in Germany's war industry.

" After 1939, Ciano became increasingly disenchanted with Nazi Germany and the course of World War II, although when the Italian regime embarked on the ill-advised " parallel war " alongside Germany, he went along fairly convinced, even through the terribly-devised Italian invasion of Greece and its subsequent setbacks.

In the spring of 1943 following the Axis defeat in North Africa, other major setbacks on the Eastern Front, and the Anglo-American assault on Sicily looming on the horizon, Ciano turned against prosecution of the doomed war and actively pushed for Italy's exit from the conflict.

After war was declared, Lady Listowel urged both Count Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law, and her kinsman, the Hungarian prime minister Paul Telecki, not to side with Hitler.

Facing no opposition, the Italian Royal Air Force ( Regia Aeronautica ) has played a decisive role in Italys victory in the eight-month war, but has engaged in a brutal campaign – in which Benito Mussolinis sons Vittorio and Bruno and son-in-law Count Ciano voluntarily participate – of indiscriminate terror bombing and widespread use of mustard gas.

Soon after, he learned from Count Galeazzo Ciano that Italy would declare war on France and Britain between 10 and 15 June 1940.

In response, Bonnet sent out a message to André François-Poncet, now the French Ambassador in Rome, to inform him that he should see Count Ciano to complain, " Such behavior may appear rather unusual in the presence of the French Ambassador and immediately following the unconditional recognition of the Italian Empire ", referring to the annexation of Ethiopia.

Consequently on October 27, in Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Ciano persuaded Ribbentrop — who meanwhile had changed his mind and now supported a four-power conference — that German-Italian arbitration was a good idea as it would be a major move against Franco-British influence.

Later that same day, Bonnet during a phone conversation with Count Ciano made a great point of insisting that the French démarche of 1 September was not ultimantum, urging that the Italians call the peace conference as soon as possible.

However, certain members of the Italian government, including the signatory Ciano, were opposed to the Pact.

The Secret Supplementary Protocols of the Pact of Steel, which were split into two sections, were not made public at the time of the signing of the Pact by Ribbentrop and Ciano.

Only two of the 19 were in RSI custody ( Emilio De Bono and Mussolini's own son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano ).

On 30 November 1938, there were " spontaneous " demonstrations in the Italian Chamber of Deputies organized by Benito Mussolini and his Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, who demanded that France cede Tunisia, Corsica and French Somaliland to Italy.

During a meeting between François-Poncet and Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister claimed that the demonstrations were purely " spontaneous " and did not reflect the views of his government.

Ciano and Roatta were two of the most influential men in Italy at the time.

One of the customers was Count Galeazzo Ciano, Foreign Minister of Italy, whose forthright opinions about the Führer were not particularly positive.

As a diplomat, Grandi created a net of connections that were only rivaled by Mussolini's son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, and attempted to use it for his own gains.