Bonnet's alleged statement ( Bonnet always denied making the remark ) to Ribbentrop was to be a major factor in German policy in 1939.

The Soviet Union denied the existence of the secret protocols to the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact, even though they were widely published by western scholars after surfacing during the Nuremberg Trials.

He viewed Hitler as a half-educated man who never correctly understood the principles of geopolitik passed onto him by Hess, and Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop as the principal distorter of geopolitik in Hitler's mind.

He viewed Hitler as a half-educated man who never correctly understood the principles of geopolitik passed onto him by Hess, and Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop as the principle distorter of geopolitik in Hitler's mind.

On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov – Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, which secretly provided for the dismemberment of Poland into Nazi and Soviet-controlled zones.

After a failed attempt to sign an anti-German military alliance with France and Britain and talks with Germany regarding a potential political deal, on 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union entered into a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, negotiated by Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.

After the Tripartite Pact was signed by Axis Powers Germany, Japan and Italy, in October 1940, Stalin traded letters with Ribbentrop, with Stalin writing about entering an agreement regarding a " permanent basis " for their " mutual interests.

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

Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop ( 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946 ) was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945.

Ribbentrop was educated irregularly at private schools in Germany and Switzerland.

When World War I began, Ribbentrop left Canada ( which, as part of the British Empire, was at war with Germany ) for the neutral United States.

Ribbentrop became Hitler's favourite foreign-policy adviser, partly by dint of his familiarity with the world outside Germany, but also by shameless flattery and sycophancy.

Ribbentrop was tasked with ensuring that the world remained convinced that Germany sincerely wanted an arms-limitation treaty while also ensuring that no such treaty ever materialized.

But because no sanctions were sought against Germany, Ribbentrop could claim success.

Ribbentrop made frequent trips to Britain, and upon his return he always reported to Hitler that most British people longed for an alliance with Germany.

On the basis of Lord Lothian's praise for the natural friendship between Germany and Britain, Ribbentrop informed Hitler that all elements of British society wished for closer ties with Germany.

But there was a certain difference of opinion between Ribbentrop and Hitler: Ribbentrop sincerely wished to recover the former German colonies, whereas for Hitler, colonial demands were just a negotiating tactic: Germany would renounce its demands in exchange for a British alliance.

The origins of the Anti-Comintern Pact went back to the summer and fall of 1935, when in an effort to square the circle between seeking a rapprochement with Japan and Germany's traditional alliance with China, Ribbentrop and Ōshima devised the idea of an anti-Communist alliance as a way to bind China, Japan, and Germany together.

Ribbentrop for his part, who valued Japanese friendship far more than Chinese friendship, argued that Germany and Japan should sign the pact even without Chinese participation.

In 1935, Ribbentrop arranged for a series of much-publicized visits of World War I veterans to Britain, France, and Germany.

Ribbentrop persuaded the British Legion ( the leading veterans ' group in Britain ) and many French veterans ' groups to send delegations to Germany to meet German veterans as the best way to promote peace.

As for the contradiction between German rearmament and his message of peace, Ribbentrop argued to whoever would listen that the German people had been “ humiliated ” by the Versailles treaty, that Germany wanted peace above all, and German violations of Versailles were part of an effort to restore Germany's " self-respect " By the 1930s, much of British opinion had been convinced that the treaty was monstrously unfair and unjust to Germany, so as a result, many in Britain like Thomas Jones were very open to Ribbentrop ’ s message that if only Versailles could be done away with, then European peace would be secured.

Ribbentrop was able to persuade an impressive array of British high society to visit Hitler in Germany.

Goebbels was one of the most enthusiastic proponents of aggressively pursuing Germany's territorial claims sooner rather than later, along with Himmler and Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop.

Joachim von Ribbentrop was born in Wesel, Rhenish Prussia, to Richard Ulrich Friedrich Joachim Ribbentrop, a career army officer, and his wife, Johanne Sophie Hertwig.

A former teacher later recalled that Ribbentrop " was the most stupid in his class, full of vanity and very pushy ".

His father was cashiered from the Imperial German Army in 1908 — after repeatedly disparaging Kaiser Wilhelm II for his alleged homosexuality — and the Ribbentrop family were often short of money.

In 1918 1st Lieutenant Ribbentrop was stationed in Istanbul as a staff officer.

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 ".

But Ribbentrop was not popular with the Nazi Party's Alte Kämpfer ( Old Fighters ); they nearly all disliked him.

During most of the Weimar Republic era, Ribbentrop was apolitical and displayed no anti-Semitic prejudices.

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.

And Ribbentrop was blowing up the whole day and I had to do nothing.

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.

In the first part of his assignment, Ribbentrop was partly successful, but in the second part he more than fulfilled Hitler's expectations.

For example, as Special Commissioner, Ribbentrop was allowed to see all diplomatic correspondence relating to disarmament, but he refused to share it with Neurath or von Bülow.

Though the Dienststelle Ribbentrop concerned itself with German foreign relations with every part of the world, a special emphasis was put on Anglo-German relations, as Ribbentrop knew that Hitler favoured an alliance with Britain.

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

In both cases the praise was limited, with Cerruti going on to write that only in the Third Reich was it possible for someone as superficial as Ribbentrop to rise to be a minister of foreign affairs, while Geyr von Schweppenburg called Ribbentrop an absolute disaster as Ambassador in London.

In April 1939, when Ribbentrop announced at a secret meeting of the Foreign Office's senior staff that Germany was ending talks with the Poles and was instead going to destroy Poland in an operation late that year, the news was greeted joyfully by those present.

The German Embassy in Ankara had been vacant ever since the retirement of the previous ambassador Friedrich von Keller in November 1938, and Ribbentrop was only able to get the Turks to accept Papen as Ambassador when the Turkish Foreign Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu complained to Kroll in April 1939 about when the Germans were ever going to sent a new ambassador.

Furthermore, Ribbentrop had the German Embassy in London provide translations from pro-appeasement newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Daily Express for Hitler's benefit, which had the effect of making it seem that British public opinion was more strongly against going to war for Poland then was actually the case.

In the spring of 1941, Ribbentrop appointed an assemblage of SA men to German embassies in Eastern Europe, with Manfred von Killinger going to Romania, Siegfried Kasche to Croatia, Adolf Beckerle to Bulgaria, Dietrich von Jagow to Hungary, and Hans Ludin to Slovakia.

Ribbentrop took this as an encouraging sign, and cabled the German embassy in Madrid to try to prevent the Duke from going to the Bahamas by being brought back to Spain — preferably by his Spanish friends — and be persuaded, even compelled to remain in Spanish territory.