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.

But Ribbentrop told Hitler what he wanted Hitler to hear.

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.

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 regarded the Munich Agreement as a diplomatic defeat for Germany, as it deprived Germany of the opportunity to wage the war to destroy Czechoslovakia that Ribbentrop wanted to see ; the Sudetenland issue, which was the ostensible subject of the German-Czechoslovak dispute, had been just a pretext for German aggression.

Even Ribbentrop ’ s standard line that Germany was only reacting to an unjust Versailles treaty, and really only wanted peace with everyone, which had worked so well in the past, failed to carry weight.

Despite Ciano's efforts to persuade Ribbentrop to put off the attack on Poland until 1942, so as to allow the Italians time to get ready for war, Ribbentrop was adamant that Germany had no interest in a diplomatic solution of the Danzig question and only wanted a war to wipe Poland off the map.

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.

Though Ribbentrop was all for taking Stalin's offer, Hitler by this point had decided that he wanted to attack the Soviet Union.

Sixty-five years after the Second World War, it was suggested based on interviews with contemporaries that the former Nazi foreign minister and one time ambassador to Britain, Joachim von Ribbentrop, had wanted to live on the Mount after the planned German conquest.

Up to the time he became Germany's Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop aggressively competed with Neurath's Foreign Office and sought to undercut Neurath at every turn.

At the same time, Ribbentrop arranged for members of the Frontkämpferbund, the official German World War I veterans ' group, to visit Britain and France to meet veterans there.

That Ribbentrop possessed the power to set up meetings with Hitler and represented himself as Hitler's personal envoy made him for a time a much-courted figure in Britain.

In addition, the fact that Ribbentrop chose to spend as little time as possible in London in order to stay close to Hitler irritated the British Foreign Office immensely, as Ribbentrop's frequent absences prevented the handling of many routine diplomatic matters.

During all this time, Ribbentrop feuded with various other Nazi leaders ; at one point in August 1939 an armed clash took place between supporters of Ribbentrop and those of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels over the control of a radio station in Berlin that was meant to broadcast German propaganda abroad ( Goebbels claimed exclusive control of all propaganda both at home and abroad whereas Ribbentrop asserted a claim to monopolize all German propaganda abroad ).

And as time went by, Ribbentrop started to oust the Foreign Office's old diplomats from their senior positions and replace them with men from the Dienststelle.

As time went by, Ribbentrop took to restructuring the Foreign Office by creating new offices like the Agency for News Analysis which fought with the Propaganda Ministry for control of German propaganda abroad, and by creating an inner circle of loyalists, many of whom had come from the Dienststelle.

During the Munich Conference, Ribbentrop spent much of his time brooding unhappily in the corners.

At the same time, Ribbentrop took to shouting at the Turkish Ambassador in Berlin, Mehemet Hamdi Arpag, as part of the effort to win Turkey over as a German ally.

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.

The Salzburg meeting marked the moment when Ciano's dislike of Ribbentrop was transformed into outright hatred, and of the beginning of his disillusionment with the pro-German foreign policy that he had championed up to that time.

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 ".

" As intended by Ribbentrop, the narrow time limit for acceptance of the " final offer " made it impossible for the British government to contact the Polish government in time about the German offer, let alone for the Poles to arrange for a Polish plenipotentiary envoy to arrive in Berlin that night, thereby allowing Ribbentrop to claim that the Poles had rejected the German " final offer ".

When it came to time for Ribbentrop to present the German declaration of war on 22 June 1941 to the Soviet Ambassador, General Vladimir Dekanozov, Paul Schmidt described the scene :" It is just before four on the morning of Sunday, 22 June 1941 in the office of the Foreign Minister.

As his influence declined, Ribbentrop increasingly spent his time feuding with other Nazi leaders over control of anti-Semitic policies to curry Hitler's favour.

Philby engaged in a concerted effort to make contact with Germans such as Joachim von Ribbentrop, at that time the German ambassador in London.

At the same time, the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop arrived in Finland on an unexpected visit.

In October, German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop proposed to Stalin the idea of a conference to reach a complete understanding about spheres of influence.

As for the Duke of Windsor himself, upon the release of the German papers pertinent to the plot in 1957, he denounced the communications between Ribbentrop and his ambassadors as " complete fabrications and, in part, gross distortions of the truth ", while the British government issued a formal statement declaring the Duke's unwavering loyalty during the war.

* 1893 – Joachim von Ribbentrop, German Nazi foreign minister ( d. 1946 )

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.

" 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.

From 1904 to 1908, Ribbentrop took French courses in a school at Metz, the German Empire's most powerful fortress.

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.

Initially, Ribbentrop planned to emigrate to German East Africa, where he hoped to become a planter.

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 and his wife joined the National Socialist German Workers ' Party on 1 May 1932.

One German diplomat later recalled that " Ribbentrop didn't understand anything about foreign policy.

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.

Hitler and Ribbentrop believed that demanding colonial restoration would pressure the British into making an alliance with the Reich on German terms.

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.

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.

A German diplomat, Truetzschler von Falkenstein, complained after the war that " Ribbentrop, having had contact with only a small group in England – representatives of the so-called two hundred families – did not know the great mass of the English people.

Another German diplomat commented that Ribbentrop had the strange idea to " conduct international relations through aristocrats ".