( In fact, Ribbentrop's efforts had nothing to do with the lack of sanctions ).

At the same time, Ribbentrop's efforts to convert the Anti-Comintern Pact into an anti-British alliance met with considerable hostility from the Japanese over the course of the winter of 1938 – 39, but with the Italians Ribbentrop enjoyed some apparent success.

During the summer of 1939, Ribbentrop sabotaged all efforts at a peaceful solution to the Danzig dispute, leading the American historian Gerhard Weinberg to comment that " perhaps Chamberlain's haggard appearance did him more credit than Ribbentrop's beaming smile " as the countdown to a war that would kill millions inexorably gathered pace.

Ribbentrop's efforts to persuade Molotov to abandon his demands about Europe as the price of Soviet entry into the war as a German ally were entirely unsuccessful.

Despite Ribbentrop's best efforts, Matsuoka was sacked as Foreign Minister later in July 1941, and the Japanese-American talks began.

Because the Foreign Office's diplomats were not so sunny in their appraisal of the prospects for an alliance, Ribbentrop's influence with Hitler increased.

Ribbentrop's civil-war statements were greeted with incredulity by those British people who heard them.

The crisis was resolved when Neurath pointed out to Hitler that under Ribbentrop's rules, if the Soviet Ambassador were to give the communist clenched-fist salute, then Hitler would be obliged to return it.

In September 1937, the British Consul in Munich, writing about the group Ribbentrop had brought to the Nuremberg Party Rally, reported that there were some " serious persons of standing among them " and that an equal number of Ribbentrop's British contingent were " eccentrics and few, if any, could be called representatives of serious English thought, either political or social, while they most certainly lacked any political or social influence in England ".

The appointment of a general as Ambassador to Japan reflected Ribbentrop's belief that German – Japanese relations were in the future to be of a mainly military nature.

Though the Germans were not planning an attack on Poland in March 1939, Ribbentrop's bullying behaviour towards the Poles destroyed whatever faint chance there was of Poland allowing Danzig to return to Germany.

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.

Henderson stated that the terms of the German " final offer " were very reasonable, but argued that Ribbentrop's time limit for Polish acceptance of the " final offer " was most unreasonable, and furthermore, demanded to know why Ribbentrop insisted upon seeing a special Polish plenipotentiary and could not present the " final offer " to Józef Lipski or provide a written copy of the " final offer ".

But Ribbentrop's motives in seeking to have Japan enter the war were more anti-British then anti-Soviet.

It should be noted that the professional diplomats, and not just Ribbentrop's cronies from the Dienststelle, were highly involved in the “ Final Solution ”.

Ribbentrop's own views about the Holocaust were well summarized when, during their meeting, Ribbentrop declared " the Jews must either be exterminated or taken to the concentration camps.

" Stepping out of Joachim von Ribbentrop's plane in 1939, Fish opined that Germany's claims were ' just.

Ryti and Mannerheim did not know the internal balance between OKW and Wilhelmstraße and the stakes were too high to risk Ribbentrop's pressuring the Wehrmacht to withdraw its support from Finland.

Ribbentrop's personality, with his disdain for diplomatic niceties, meshed with what Hitler felt should be the relentless dynamism of a revolutionary regime.

This diplomatic success did much to increase Ribbentrop's prestige with Hitler, who called the day the A. G. N. A.

Ribbentrop's habit of summoning tailors from the best British firms, making them wait for hours and then sending them away without seeing him with instructions to return the next day, only to repeat the process, did immense damage to his reputation in British high society.

In February 1937, Ribbentrop committed a notable social gaffe by unexpectedly greeting King George VI with a stiff-armed Nazi salute: the gesture nearly knocked over the King, who was walking forward to shake Ribbentrop's hand.

Hitler turned down this idea of Ribbentrop's, but nonetheless during his meeting with Lord Halifax, Ribbentrop spent much of the meeting demanding that Britain sign an alliance with Germany and return the former German colonies.

Ribbentrop's time in London was also marked by rumors that he was having an affair with Wallis Simpson, British-businessman Ernest Simpson's wife and King Edward VIII's mistress.

Ribbentrop's first move as Foreign Minister was to sack Mackensen ( who, as Neurath's son-in-law, was totally unacceptable to him ) as State Secretary and replace him with Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker, a former naval officer turned career diplomat who joined the Foreign Office in 1920.

When the news of Ribbentrop's remarks was leaked to the Polish press despite Colonel Beck's order to the censors on 27 March, it caused anti-German riots in Poland with the local N. S. D. A. P headquarters in the ethnically mixed town of Lininco destroyed by a mob.

Ribbentrop's friendship with Papen, which went back to 1918, ended over this issue.

Ribbentrop first seems to have considered the idea of a pact with the Soviet Union after an unsuccessful visit to Warsaw in January 1939, when the Poles again refused Ribbentrop's demands about Danzig, the " extra-territorial " roads across the Polish Corridor and the Anti-Comintern Pact.

Hitler believed that British policy was based upon securing Soviet support for Poland, which led him to perform a diplomatic U-turn and support Ribbentrop's policy of rapprochement with the Soviet Union as the best way of ensuring a local war.

During his trip to Moscow, Ribbentrop's talks with Stalin and Molotov proceed very cordially and efficiently with the exception of the question of Latvia, which Hitler had instructed Ribbentrop to try to claim for Germany.

On 25 August 1939, Ribbentrop's influence with Hitler wavered for a moment when the news reached Berlin of the ratification of the Anglo-Polish military alliance and a personal message from Mussolini telling Hitler that Italy would dishonour the Pact of Steel if Germany attacked Poland.

Because of Ribbentrop's firmly held views that Britain was Germany's most dangerous enemy and that an Anglo-German war was thus inevitable, it scarcely mattered to him when his much desired war with Britain came.

The Greek historian Aristotle Kaillis wrote that it was Ribbentrop's influence with Hitler together with his insistence that the Western powers would in the end not go to war for Poland that was the most important reason why Hitler did not cancel Fall Weiß all together instead of postponing " X-day " for six days.

An area where Ribbentrop enjoyed more success arose in September 1940, when he had the Far Eastern agent of the Dienststelle Ribbentrop, Dr. Heinrich Georg Stahmer, start negotiations with the Japanese foreign minister, Yōsuke Matsuoka, for an anti-American alliance ( the German Ambassador to Japan, General Eugen Ott, was excluded from the talks on Ribbentrop's orders ).

It was Ribbentrop's hope that a striking German success in Iraq might lead to Hitler abandoning his plans for Operation Barbarossa, and focusing instead on the struggle with Britain.

One of the consequences of Ribbentrop's heavy-handed behaviour was the signing of the Anglo-Turkish alliance of 12 May 1939.

The signing of the Non-Aggression Pact in Moscow on 23 August 1939 was the crowning achievement of Ribbentrop's career.

Ribbentrop's intention with pressuring Yugoslavia into signing the Tripartite Pact was to gain transit rights through that country, which would allow the Germans to invade Greece.

Most of Ribbentrop's time was spent either demanding that Britain sign the Anti-Comintern Pact or that London return the former German colonies in Africa.

" From Anti-Comintern Pact to the Euro-Asiatic Bloc: Ribbentrop's Alternative Concept to Hitler's Foreign Policy Programme ".

The abject failure of Ribbentrop's Iraq scheme in May 1941 had a totally opposite effect to the one intended.