After establishing the " Rome-Berlin axis " with Benito Mussolini, and signing the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan – which was joined by Italy a year later in 1937 – Hitler felt able to take the offensive in foreign policy.

) in 1935 and the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936.

The Anti-Comintern Pact of November 1936 marked an important change in German foreign policy.

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.

By November 1936, a revival of interest in a German-Japanese pact in both Tokyo and Berlin led to the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact in Berlin.

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.

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.

When Ribbentrop travelled to Rome in November 1937 to oversee Italy's adhesion to the Anti-Comintern Pact, he made clear to his hosts that the pact was really directed against Britain.

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

Besides converting the Anti-Comintern Pact into an anti-British military alliance, Ribbentrop argued that German foreign policy should work to " furthermore, winning over all states whose interests conform directly or indirectly to ours ".

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.

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.

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

In 1936, Germany and Japan entered the Anti-Comintern Pact, and were joined a year later by Italy.

* 1936 – In Berlin, Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, agreeing to consult on measures " to safeguard their common interests " in the case of an unprovoked attack by the Soviet Union against either nation.

Foreign labour, both slave labour and labour from neighbouring countries who joined the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany, was used to augment German industrial labour which was under pressure by conscription into the Wehrmacht ( Armed Forces ).

A month later, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy would join in the following year.

Germany and Italy improve relations by forming an alliance against communism in 1936 with the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact.

* February 2 – Hungary joins the Anti-Comintern Pact.

* November 26 – The Anti-Comintern Pact is signed by Germany and Japan.

* November 6 – Italy joins the Anti-Comintern Pact.

The Axis grew out of the Anti-Comintern Pact, an anti-communist treaty signed by Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan in 1936.

" Good friends in three countries " ( 1938 ): Japanese propaganda postcard celebrating the participation of Italy in the Anti-Comintern Pact on November 6, 1937.

These two nations had also signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936.

The Anti-Comintern Pact was an anti-Communist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan ( later to be joined by other, mainly fascistic, governments ) on November 25, 1936 and was directed against the Communist International ( Comintern ).

The Anti-Comintern Pact was revised in 1941, after Germany's assault on the Soviet Union that commenced with Operation Barbarossa and on November 25 its renewal for another five years was celebrated.

* After the assault on the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, Denmark joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, together with the fellow Nordic state of Finland ; the Communist Party was banned in Denmark.

After Italy had joined Germany in the Anti-Comintern Pact, quickly removing the main obstacle of an Anschluss of Austria, Germany announced the annexation on March 12, 1938, making it the province " Gau Ostmark " of what was now Greater Germany.

In 2010, Timothy Snyder linked the improvement in Nazi-Soviet relations in 1939 to Stalin's objective of disrupting the Anti-Comintern Pact and waging war on Japan.

The Spanish Falange supported Spanish intervention during World War II against the Soviet Union in the name of anti-communism, resulting in Spain supporting the Anti-Comintern Pact and sending volunteers to join Nazi Germany's foreign legions on the Eastern Front to support the German war effort against the Soviet Union.

He dedicated his efforts until the end of the war in Europe to build closer relations between the two countries, including military cooperation in the Indian Ocean area ( in the form of anti-merchant submarine warfare ); thus he was instrumental in the forging and signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact on 25 November 1936 and the Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940.

German businessman John Rabe was elected as its leader, in part because of his status as a member of the Nazi Party and the existence of the German-Japanese bilateral Anti-Comintern Pact.

Rabe was elected as its leader, in part because of his status as a member of the Nazi party and the existence of the German – Japanese bilateral Anti-Comintern Pact.

However, it was widely regarded as a puppet state and enjoyed no diplomatic recognition, except from the states of the Anti-Comintern Pact.

The origins of the Anti-Comintern Pact go back to the autumn of 1935, when various German officials both within and without the Foreign Ministry were attempting to balance the competing demands upon the Reichs foreign policy by its traditional alliance with China vs Hitler's desire for friendship with China's archenemy, Japan.

Cooperation between Japan and Germany began with the Anti-Comintern Pact, in which the two countries agreed to ally to challenge any attack by the Soviet Union.

They characterized Britain as always attempting to disrupt Soviet-German relations, stated that the Anti-Comintern pact was not aimed at the Soviet Union, but actually aimed at Western democracies and " frightened principally the City of London the British financiers and the English shopkeepers.

In 1937 Italy left the League of Nations and joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, which had been signed by Germany and Japan the preceding year.

On 25 November 1941, Hungary was one of thirteen signatories to the revived Anti-Comintern Pact.

His rule was marked in the first decade by an open policy towards Western Europe and the United States, which deviated from that of the other Warsaw Pact states during the Cold War.

After the Soviet invasion of Poland following the corresponding German invasion that marked the start of World War II in 1939, the Soviet Union annexed eastern parts ( so-called " Kresy ") of the Second Polish Republic ( see Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ).

On August 23, 1987, on the 48th anniversary of the secret protocols of Molotov Pact between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin that ceded the three independent Baltic states to the Soviet Union in 1940, thousands of demonstrators marked the occasion in the capitals of all three Baltic Republics to sing anthems of independence and to hear defiant speeches honoring the victims of Stalin.

It marked the 50th anniversary of the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

Further throwing the Hungarian Communists into disarray were the inconsistent policies of the Comintern throughout the 1930s, culminating in the 1939 Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact and the abandonment of the Popular Front tactic that had marked Communist ideology for the last decade.

The Lucknow Pact also marked the establishment of cordial relations between the two prominent groups of the Indian National Congress – the bold, fierce leaders or garam dal led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and the moderates or the naram dal led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

It marked the 50th anniversary of the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

His rule was marked in the first decade by an open policy towards Western Europe and the United States of America, which deviated from that of the other Warsaw Pact states during the Cold War.