Yoimbon Ribbentrop, as he is known in historical records, was born on April 30th, 1893 in Wessel, a city situated near the Dutch border. At that time, Wessel was part of Renish, Prussia, a province within the Rhineland region of western Germany. Initially, he was simply named Yookim Ribbentrop. The van prefix was acquired later when he was adopted by a relative of noble lineage leading to his designation as Yoakim von Ribentrop. His father was Richard Olrich Friedrich Yokim Ribbentrop, a lieutenant in the West Failian Field Artillery of the Army. Richard's profession necessitated frequent relocations for the family. As will become clear, Yoim's later political prominence was significantly aided by his multilingualism and international awareness. Skills cultivated early in life due to his father's military career. His mother Johanna Sophie Herwig known as Sophie and Richard had three offspring. Loar the eldest was born in 1890, Yokim the second son in 1893 and their daughter Ingaborg in 1896. The Ribbentrop family moved locations frequently throughout Yookim's early years. During his childhood, they moved to Castle Wilhelm Choa near the town of Castle. In the late 19th century, becoming an officer in the German army typically required a certain degree of personal wealth. Lieutenant Richard Ribbentrop, lacking such financial resources, must have possessed exceptional qualifications to attain his rank. Nonetheless, the ribbon's immersion in a social circle of affluent military families, many of whom belonged to the lesser Prussian and German nobility appears to have profoundly influenced young Yokohim. He would spend a considerable portion of his later life endeavoring to acquire the symbols of wealth and aristocratic status. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tuberculosis remained a lethal illness with limited effective treatments. Its contagious nature also meant that Sophie Ribbentrop often had to isolate herself, spending considerable time in bed and separated from her children to prevent them from contracting the disease. Ultimately, these efforts proved unsuccessful. Her eldest son, Lothar, did contract tuberculosis and eventually died from it years later. It is also highly probable that Yookim himself became tubercular at a young age. Consequently, at the age of 18, he underwent the removal of one of his kidneys, likely to impede the diseases further spread within his body. This procedure resulted in a drooping eyelid for ribbonrop, a condition linked to the infected kidney. Beyond these personal health issues, Lothar's later death deeply affected him. The two brothers were close and depended on each other within a family structure where Lieutenant Ribbentrop was emotionally distant and unaffe. Consequently, during his late teens, Yawwoken became increasingly isolated, exacerbated by the family's continued relocations due to his father's reassignment to different military bases and garrisons. In 1901, Richard Ribbentrop was promoted to major, and the family was once more uprooted from Castle to reside in Mets. Mets, now in Eastern France, had become part of the German Empire in 1871 following Prussia's annexation of Alsace and Lraine provinces after the brief Franco-Russian War. The ribbonrops remained in Mets for the subsequent seven years. In 1902, Sophie Ribbentrop finally succumbed to tuberculosis and passed away. Richard then remarried to Olga Margareton Pritvitz, a pleasant woman, but one with whom Yahakim did not develop a closer relationship. From 1904 at the age of 11, Yohim was enrolled in the Li Fabber School in Mets. Here he did not distinguish himself academically. One teacher commented on his excessive self asssurance which was not reflected in his actual academic performance. At the conclusion of one winter term, he ranked 32nd out of 50 students, a result that led to a paternal beating. However, despite his lackluster academic achievements, individuals who remembered him from this period later recounted that Yoim did possess a certain charm, enabling him to avoid consequences that others could not. This skill in ingratiating himself with those in authority despite lacking genuine substance was a trait he would employ throughout his life. In 1908, a significant change occurred for the ribbonrops. That year, Richard Ribbentrop resigned his commission in the German Imperial Army. He harbored considerable reservations about the direction of German policy under Kaiser Wilhelm II and a moral crisis prompted his resignation which his superiors urged him to reconsider but which he ultimately pursued. Subsequently, the family entered a new phase of parapotetic existence across Europe and even further a field. For a period, they resided in Switzerland in the town of Arosa, followed by a brief period in Britain, a country for which Yoim developed a fondness before relocating to Canada in 1910. By this time, Yoim was reaching adulthood, and in the early 1910s, he undertook various jobs while in Canada. He briefly worked at Molson's Bank in Montreal and subsequently for an engineering firm involved in the reconstruction of the Quebec Bridge over the St. Lawrence River. He also ventured into the United States and was briefly employed as a journalist in both New York City and Boston. Throughout these years, Yoim traveled extensively and also became proficient in English. His linguistic abilities and familiarity with numerous countries in Europe and North America would become a key factor in his later rise to prominence in Germany. The ribbon traveled around Europe and North America during a period of escalating tensions among some of the nations they visited. Yoim's country of birth, Germany, had only recently been formed in 1871 from several smaller German states. This new nation encompassing modern Germany and much of Western Poland was swiftly perceived as a threat by other European powers. This rivalry was intensified by the European powers competition for control of Africa and much of Asia. By the early 20th century, these tensions had resulted in the formation of two major alliances across the continent. One alliance was led by Germany and included the Austrohungarian Empire and Italy. In opposition, Britain, France, and Russia had formed the triple on. By the time the ribbon trops were living in Canada, Britain and Germany were engaged in a naval arms race, while Russia and the Austrohungarian Empire were in conflict in the Balkans, both seeking greater influence as the Ottoman Empire declined. Thus, by the early 19s, Europe was a volatile environment on the brink of a major war. This latent tension finally erupted in the summer of 1914. On June 28th, Archduke France Ferdinand, heir to the Austrohungarian Empire, was assassinated by Gabrielo Princip, a Serbian nationalist during an official visit to Sievo. A regional crisis arose between Austria, Hungary, and Serbia, which escalated when Vienna indicated its intention to intervene in Serbia's internal affairs to conduct an investigation. Russia declared its support for the Serbian government and during July 1914, all other major European powers signaled their intention to become involved should the situation escalate into military conflict. Upon his return to Europe, Ribentrop enlisted in the German Imperial Army. The ensuing war from 1914 to 1918 was a peculiar conflict largely fought over limited territory in northeastern France with smaller fronts in the Alps and Eastern Europe. In his memoirs written much later, Ribentrop described his wartime service as follows. Four weeks after enlisting, the initial deployments moved to the front line. But I was not deemed ready for inclusion. I believed the war would conclude before my training was complete. But in reality, I served with this regiment until early 1918, primarily on the Eastern and then the Western Front, except for periods when I was wounded or seriously ill. During my last wounding in the summer of 1917, I was awarded the Iron Cross first class. Another noteworthy aspect of his wartime service was that towards its conclusion, Ribentrop befriended a staff officer named France Fonpapen in association that would have significant repercussions in later years. However, for the moment, in 1917, the United States entered the war on the side of Britain and France. This shifted the balance of the conflict in favor of the Western European powers. And with domestic unrest emerging within Germany, the Kaiser abdicated on November 9th, 1918. 2 days later, an armistice was signed and Germany conceded defeat in the war. The German Empire ended and a new republic named after the town of Vimar was established. Despite his grandfather and father both having been career army officers, Ribentrop did not seek to remain in the military of the newly formed Bimar Republic. Instead, he embarked on a social ascent based on his relationship with Anna Elizabeth Hankle, whom he initially met in 1919, shortly after his military discharge. However, in 1925, an aunt, Gertrude von Ribentrop, consented to adopt the 32-year-old Yoahim, enabling him to legally add the nobiliary particle vaugh to his name. Thus, Yookim Ribbentrop, the son of a middle-class officer who had faced financial difficulties after resigning from the army in 1908, had within a few years of the war's end transformed into Yoakim von Ribbentrop, a pseudo aristocrat and affluent member of a prominent family of German wine merchants. Subsequently, he settled into this upper middle-class lifestyle in the 1920s, residing in Berlin and traveling throughout Europe, selling the Henkle family's wine. He and Anna also started a family, eventually having five children. While Ribbentrop was engaged in wine sales across Europe, political upheaval was engulfing his homeland. In the aftermath of the war, widespread discontent prevailed in Germany. Hundreds of thousands of German veterans found it outrageous that Germany had accepted the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles, particularly its stipulations demanding German disarmament and prohibiting any military presence in the Rhineland. Furthermore, many Germans who had been career soldiers before the war found themselves unemployed due to the reduced size of the German armed forces. Many of these individuals began to gravitate towards radical political parties in the post-war era. One of these, the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party, gained considerable traction in Bavaria and under its new leader, an Austrian named Adolf Hitler, even attempted a coup in Munich in November 1923. Although quickly suppressed, the Nazis, as they were commonly known, would remain a significant presence in German politics. At the opposite end of the political spectrum, parties like the Communist Party of Germany also enjoyed substantial support during the 1920s. Thus, while the VHimar Republic was largely governed by centrist parties such as the Social Democratic Party, the nation was vulnerable to shifting towards more extremist politics should the economic or political climate change. In 1928, Ribbentrop became involved in this evolving political landscape for the first time. He was introduced to Hitler that year through a mutual acquaintance. From the Nazi leader perspective, he was interested in meeting the Berlin-based wine merchant with connections in high society, both within the German capital and abroad. Perhaps he could prove useful in the future. However, there is no indication that Ribbentrop immediately converted to the Nazi ideology. They met and parted ways and it would be four years before Ribbentrop and his wife formally joined the Nazi party. Moreover, throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s, Ribbentrop maintained closer relationships with numerous members of the Jewish business community in Berlin. In due course, he would recognize this belief as the illusion it truly was. At the time of his first encounter with Hitler in 1928, neither Ribbentrop nor anyone else could have foreseen the central role the Nazi leader would rapidly assume in the German political arena. In the Reichto elections of May 1928, the Nazis had garnered slightly over 2% of the national vote, which translated to a mere 12 seats in the 491 seat rich dog. However, this landscape would dramatically shift in the subsequent years. Following the period of substantial global economic expansion known as the roaring 20s, the stock exchange and markets on Wall Street in New York City began to experience significant downturns as the decade neared its end in the autumn of 1929. Within weeks, the global economy plunged into a devastating economic downturn, later known as the Great Depression. Germany was particularly affected and as its banking system hovered on the brink of collapse, Germans experienced widespread job losses followed by the depletion of their savings. As discontent intensified towards the established political parties that had governed the VHimar Republic throughout the 1920s, the Nazis, Communists, and other radical political factions suddenly gained electoral prominence. When fresh elections were conducted in September 1930, the Nazis ascended to become the second largest party in the nation, securing almost 20% of the seats in the rich. During the early 1930s, the situation in Germany did not improve. Unemployment surged to nearly 30% and many individuals resorted to bartering as the Reichsark had essentially lost its value. Consequently, when yet another round of elections took place in July 1932, the outcome was an even more polarized Reichto. The Nazis now emerged as the largest party in Germany. Their message of resentment and indignation had gained considerable traction, and they managed to attain 37% of the national vote, their most successful election result to date, which resulted in 230 seats in an expanded rice tug comprising 608 seats. Nevertheless, this was insufficient to secure absolute power. And the ascent of the Communist Party of Germany, which secured third position with 89 riceto seats, ensured that the parliament remained divided between right-wing and leftwing blocks. It was clear that the Nazis possessed the strongest mandate in the country, but they had not obtained a majority of the vote, and a significant portion of the population harbored distrust towards their motives and objectives. In this deadlock, the president Paul von Hindenburg opted to appoint a minority government predominantly composed of centrist and center-right independents. This government was led by France vonpapen as chancellor, the former army officer whom Ribentrop had encountered and befriended 15 years prior during the first world war. This long-standing connection would propel Ribentrop into the core of the Nazi party. Following von Papin's appointment as chancellor, he could not simply disregard the Nazis, for whom nearly two out of every five Germans had cast their votes. However, relations between the chancellor and the Nazi leader were strained, often necessitating intermediaries for their negotiations. A key aspect of these discussions was addressing how to prevent the further rise of German communists. Thus, in the early autumn of 1932, Ribbentrop, who had finally become a member of the Nazi party on May 1st, 1932, was asked to become involved in negotiations between the leader of his newly joined party and his old acquaintance, Fawn Papen. Even at this juncture, Ribbentrop appears to have been a politically moderate figure, and it seems evident that his complete conversion to the Nazi ideology transpired during the events of late 1932, in which he played a central role. Upon arriving at Burkus Godden in Bavaria, he found Hitler to be highly agitated by von Poppins reluctance to concede the position of Reich Chancellor to him. However, the Nazi leader conveyed to Ribentrop his willingness to enter into a coalition if permitted. Ribentrop later asserted in his memoirs that by the conclusion of this meeting, he had become convinced that Hitler was the only individual capable of rescuing Germany from the perceived communist threat. While the negotiations in the autumn of 1932 had facilitated Ribbonrop's closer association with Hitler, they ultimately failed. Consequently, new elections were once again scheduled for November 1932, merely 4 months after the preceding national vote. In this election, both the Nazis and the Social Democratic Party experienced seat losses with the Nazi vote share declining from 37% to 33%. The communists made marginal gains sufficient for Hitler to further amplify fears during the winter of 1932 that left-wing parties were advancing at the expense of the right. Thus, when General Kurt von Schliker assumed the chancellorship in December 1932, negotiations resumed between Hitler, von Poppin, and a coalition of political centrists and business community members aimed at establishing an arrangement to fortify the political system against the communists. Ribbentrop played a pivotal role in these negotiations and a crucial meeting took place at his Berlin home on January 22nd, 1933. It was here that von Papen initially conceded his support for Hitler's candidacy to become chancellor of Germany under certain conditions. The meeting at Ribbentrop's Berlin residence marked the beginning of the end for the VHimar Republic, which had governed Germany since 1919. Moreover, days earlier, a fire had erupted in the Reichdog and Hitler had attributed the incident to communist subversives. He subsequently utilized this event in late March to enact an enabling act which effectively authorized Hitler and the Nazi party to govern by decree. Thus, the VHimar Republic effectively ceased to exist within weeks of Hitler's appointment as chancellor and Ribentrop would soon be rewarded for his instrumental role in facilitating Hitler's rise to power. He became a close confidant of the chancellor, enjoying Hitler's favor due to his consistent agreement with Hitler's ideas and the Nazi leaders belief that Ribbon's youthful travels made him exceptionally qualified to offer insights on foreign policy matters. The Nazis were committed to reversing this situation immediately upon entering government. And in 1934, Ribentrop was designated by Hitler as a special commissioner to address the disarmament issue. By the autumn of 1934, he was directing his own bureau known as Deansella Ribbonrop or the Ribbentrop Bureau operating parallel to the German Foreign Office, which was overseen by Foreign Minister Constantin Fenoath, a veteran foreign minister appointed in 1932 prior to Hitler's ascension to power. In the mid 1930s, Ribbentrop was tasked with conducting diplomacy with France, Britain, and other European nations, aiming to persuade them of Germany's peaceful intentions even as the country rapidly rebuilt its military, navy, and air force. Ribentrop achieved further advancement in 1935 when he was appointed as the Reich ambassador planetary at large, a position within the German diplomatic corps subordinate only to the foreign minister. In this capacity, Ribbonrop oversaw negotiations concerning two diplomatic agreements that Nazi Germany entered into in 1935 and 1936. The first of these was the Anglo-German Naval Agreement concluded in June 1935. Through this agreement, Germany theoretically consented to maintain the tonnage of its navy, the marine at 35% of that of the British Royal Navy. This agreement was formulated at a time when Hitler firmly believed that an alliance with Britain remained a possibility. It was also presented as a purported gesture of goodwill by the Nazis intended to persuade Britain and France to agree to rescend other provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. As part of these negotiations, Ribbonrop employed the tactic of suggesting Germany desired the restoration of its former colonies in East Africa, which it had possessed before the First World War, as a leverage to secure the agreement. In retrospect, the agreement's most significant aspect may have been the limited British reaction 9 months later in March 1936 when Germany remilitarized the Rhineland region of Western Germany, an action prohibited under the Versailles Treaty. The second international agreement orchestrated by ribbonrop during this period was the anti-commonturn pact. This pact was finalized in November 1936 between Nazi Germany and the empire of Japan. The treaty's full title was the agreement against the communist international and it essentially formed a coalition of right-wing governments opposing the Soviet Union. Bonito Mussolini's Italy exceeded in 1937, followed by General Franco's new fascist regime in Spain in 1939 and Hungary as well. The agreement held political significance for subsequent events as it fostered closer ties between Germany and Japan and later Italy in ways that would have major repercussions once the impending war commenced in 1939. It also signaled the full ascent of von Ribbentrop as Germany's leading diplomat. Von Nurath remained foreign minister, but he had favored a pro-China stance regarding the conflict in the Far East, which had been ongoing between China and Japan since the early 1930s. Thus, Ribbentrop's negotiation of the anti-comm pact underscored that von Nurath was now a figurehead and ribbon wielded the real authority in overseeing foreign affairs within the Nazi regime. In August 1936, coinciding with the conclusion of the anti-commonturn pact, Ribentrop was appointed as Germany's ambassador to Britain, Hitler instructed him to endeavor to cultivate positive relations in London with the aim of establishing an alliance between Britain and Germany. In hindsight, this may appear as a peculiar aspiration for the German chancellor in the mid 1930s, but it aligned with Hitler's racial ideologies. He considered the British people to be fellow Aryans, nearly as racially advanced as the Germans. From this perspective, they were a natural ally for Germany. And Hitler deemed it simply logical that the British would eventually seek an alliance with Germany against the communist slaves of Eastern Europe and other groups the Nazis considered racially inferior. These assumptions endured in Germany and in part explain Hitler's later decision to turn eastward against Russia in 1941 without first conquering Britain. His tenure as German ambassador to Britain would span a year and a half marked by a series of diplomatic incidents. For example, during a visit to Durham Cathedral in November 1936, he mistakenly identified organ music as the German national anthem and performed a Nazi salute, a gesture he repeated when he met King George V 6 in February 1937. More concerningly, Ribbentrop chose to concentrate his diplomatic efforts on persuading Britain to either join the anti-comm pact or return Germany's former colonies in East Africa. The latter was an issue in which Hitler held no genuine interest and had merely been utilized as a bargaining chip during the negotiations leading up to the Anglo-German naval agreement. All of these endeavors prove feudal and by mid 1937 Ribbonrop was generally regarded as unintelligent by senior British officials or was intensely disliked due to his personality. This sentiment was mutual and a year after his appointment as ambassador, Ribentrop had developed contempt for his British hosts. Moreover, he was now beginning to view the alliance with Japan and Italy as something to be directed against Britain and even considered that an alliance with the Soviet Union should be pursued instead of one with London if necessary. By 1937, Ribbentrop was perceived as such a liability by his own staff and members of the British Foreign Office that many actively sought to keep him away from London to prevent further diplomatic blunders. One tactic employed was to dispatch him to the English West Country, specifically regions like Cornwall and Devon. This particular development would have a bizarre epilogue. Ribbonrop visited this area on several occasions during his time in England, sometimes staying with Colonel Edward Baleitho, the Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall. While there, Ribentrop developed a deep fondness for the region around St. Michael's Mount and St. Ives. The allure of this part of England, the sunny southwest, was such that he reportedly began petitioning Hitler that at some future time when Britain had been conquered or subjugated into a junior alliance position, Ribbentrop would be granted some of the castles and manorhouses he had admired in the West Country and that he would also be awarded Cornwall as a sort of personal thief. Hitler had apparently agreed and Ribentrop even began informing people in Cornwall in 1937 that he would one day become the lord of their shire. Intriguingly, this might also explain why Cornwall was largely spared during German bombing missions over Britain during the blitz of 1940 and 1941. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Ribbon's aspiration to become Lord of Cornwall was that it indicated he might have so intensely disliked being in London at this point that he viewed the West Country as an idilic sanctuary. By late 1937, he sought to leave his ambassadorial position and the opportunity to depart finally arose in early 1938 when Hitler used a series of scandals within the German military as a pretext for removing officials who had held office prior to 1933. Among those removed was the foreign minister von Nurath. Upon von Nurath's dismissal on February 4th, 1938, Ribentrop was appointed as his successor. He assumed office just as Nazi Germany's stance in Europe was becoming increasingly aggressive. Following rearmament in the remilitarization of the Rhineland between 1933 and 1937, the next objective was to establish dominance in central Europe. The initial step towards this was achieved in March 1938 when Hitler exerted military and political pressure on Austria to ensure the anelless the unification of Germany and Austria into a greater Germany was realized. Ribentrop, newly appointed as foreign minister, did not play a central role in this event, but would in subsequent diplomatic negotiations leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War. The first of these initiatives concerned German claims to the Sudatan, a region of Czechoslovakia with a substantial ethnicger population. No sooner had Nazi flags begun to fly in Vienna than Hitler and his associates began pressing their claims on the Sudatinland to Britain and France. As diplomatic tensions over the region escalated in the summer and early autumn of 1938, a diplomatic conference was convened in Munich in September 1938. Germany's foreign ministry endeavored to limit Ribbentrop's involvement at this time, deeming him too inclined towards war with Britain, a country he had grown to despise during his ambassadorial tenure there. Consequently, Ribbentrop played a limited role in the Munich conference which resulted in Britain and France exceeding to Hitler's demands for the Sudatelen on the condition that he would not seek further territorial gains in Europe. However, Ribbentrop became directly involved afterward when Hitler and the foreign ministry swiftly disregarded the agreement and used a combination of military threats and diplomatic pressure to annex the remainder of Czechoslovakia. In March 1939, Ribbentrop was approaching the zenith of his influence at this time as Hitler had finally recognized that an alliance with Britain was unattainable and war with them, which Ribbentrop eagerly anticipated, was inevitable if Germany was to continue expanding. Ribentrop stated that refusal would result in the bombing of Kanis, Lithuania's second largest city, to the ground. Thus, with a single phone call, Ribbentrop acquired this territory for the expanding Third Reich. However, in other instances, his blunt approach proved far less effective, notably concerning Turkey. Germany sought an agreement with the Turkish regime in 1939 to secure an ally in the Eastern Mediterranean for the impending war. But Ribbentrop's heavy-handed tactics drove the Turkish government to conclude a deal with Britain and effectively remain neutral in the Second World War, which would soon commence. Nevertheless, his failure in this instance was mitigated by the finalization of the pact of steel in May 1939, further solidifying the political and military alliance between Germany and Italy. Ribentrop's most significant political and diplomatic achievement came a few months later. Ever since his disastrous tenure as German ambassador to Britain, Ribbentrop had been convinced that the British were Germany's primary adversary and that an alliance should be sought with the reviled Bolevik government of the Soviet Union if necessary to counter London. Now throughout 1939, he had engaged in discussions with his counterpart in Moscow, the Soviet foreign minister Viagoslav Molotov. To this end, despite ideological enmity between fascist Germany and communist Russia, a pact offered considerable advantages to both sides. For Germany, it would neutralize the threat of war with Russia for a period, allowing Hitler to concentrate on defeating Britain and France in Western Europe once war commenced, as it almost certainly would once Germany moved against Poland. Similarly, Russia's experiences in unofficial conflicts with Japan since the mid1 1930s around Mongolia and Manuria in the Far East had demonstrated to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin the Soviet Union's unpreparedness for a major war. Furthermore, an agreement would allow both nations to effectively partition Poland with Russia also gaining influence in Finland, in Germany and other regions. The precise details of the negotiations remained somewhat obscure as they were necessarily conducted in secrecy initially, but by early summer 1939 they were well advanced. It was evident that the negotiations proceeded with the understanding that Germany would soon be at war with Poland. In fact, the agreement between Berlin and Moscow was formally concluded less than 2 weeks before Germany invaded Poland, indicating Hitler had been awaiting the agreement's completion before acting against Germany's eastern neighbor. Thus, the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, named after the foreign ministers who negotiated it, was concluded on August 23rd, 1939. Its publicly stated primary terms were a guarantee of peace between Germany and the Soviet Union. But equally significant was a secret protocol kept private between the two nations. The secret protocol involved partitioning the countries between Germany and Russia between the two powers once war commenced. Poland would be divided with Germany taking its western half and the Soviets the east. Germany would also control Lithuania while Estonia and Latvia would fall to the Soviets. Another clause permitted the Soviets to invade and occupy Finland with the understanding that Germany would soon be occupying territories in Western Europe. The Molotov Ribbentrop pack sent shock waves through the international community. Fascism and communism were, after all, ideological opposites, and much of Nazi rhetoric over the years had centered on the impending clash with the Boleviks of Russia. Britain and France were particularly surprised as their war preparations against Germany had assumed that a German invasion of Poland would confront Hitler with the challenge of a Soviet Union on his eastern border. This risk was now mitigated, significantly weakening the positions of Britain and France. All of this occurred against the backdrop of continued German demands on Polish territory intended solely to provoke war. In response, Britain hastily assembled a defense pack with Poland, announced on August 25th, 2 days after the Molotov Ribbonrop packs announcement. However, this did nothing to deter Hitler. On September 1st, following a false flag operation designed to provide a superficial justification, Germany invaded Poland. 2 days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany in response. Two weeks after that, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland to occupy the area agreed upon with Germany in the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact. The success of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact in the invasion and occupation of Poland, which followed in the ensuing weeks, propelled Ribbentrop to a position of considerable power within the Nazi regime. His influence would continue to rise for the next two years. His diplomatic coup with the Soviets provided the context for Germany to launch the Second World War. And in its early stages, the war progressed exceptionally well for Germany. Ribbentrop's agreement with the Russians had created an opportunity for the Nazis to rapidly conquer much of mainland Europe. Consequently, the German foreign minister reached the zenith of his power between 1939 and 1941, enjoying Hitler's extremely high regard throughout this period. The early 1940s saw Ribentrop primarily managing affairs with Germany's wartime allies. With the conflict fully engaged, negotiations with countries like Britain and France were no longer relevant. A more pressing matter was persuading Italy to honor the pact of steel and join the war, which it eventually did in June 1940. Once Italy joined, Ribbentrop became involved in efforts to diplomatically pressure various Balkan nations into submission. However, this attempt failed, leading to a joint German and Italian invasion of the region. Concerns also arose regarding the situation in the Pacific, where Germany's ally Japan was becoming increasingly jingoistic in its approach to the United States. From 1940 onward, Ribbentrop worked towards the failure of negotiations between the two Pacific powers, encouraging Japan to attack America. In contrast to his astute analysis in 1939 that an agreement with the Soviets was advisable, this later perspective on America demonstrated poor judgment on Ribbentrop's part. When Japan eventually attacked America in December 1941, it drew the United States into the war in ways that would shift the war's balance in favor of the Allies. Ultimately, it was not the United States entry into the war that initiated Ribbentrop's declining influence within the Nazi regime. Rather, Hitler's decision six months earlier to abregate the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact and invade the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 dramatically reduced Ribbentrop's influence. Hitler's decision to leave Britain undefeated in the west and instead invade Russia in the east contradicted everything Ribbentrop had striven for since early 1939. To prevent it, the foreign minister had even suggested Germany should have attempted to bring the Soviet Union into the war against Britain on Germany's side. However, Hitler began acting according to his ideological desire to destroy the Soviet Union in 1941, whereas he had previously behaved strategically in 1939. This tactical shift proved disastrous for the Nazi war effort. After initial successes that brought massive German armies to the outskirts of Moscow and Lennengrad, the onslaught stalled in the winter of 1941. Following a calamitous defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad the following autumn and winter, the Russians began to push the Germans back towards Poland in early 1943. By that point, it was clear that Germany would eventually lose the war. The events of 1941 and 1942 saw Ribbentrop increasingly fall out of favor with Hitler and lose much of his influence within the Third Reich. His ascendancy since 1939 had been predicated on the accord with the Soviet Union and his efforts to preserve this agreement in 1940 and 1941 placed him in opposition to Hitler for the first time. The very figure with whom he had ingratiated himself over the years by consistently agreeing with his ideas. Moreover, beyond the damage to his personal relationship with the furer, the simple reality was that as the war continued, Ribentrop found himself with fewer and fewer opportunities to make an impact on the international stage. As foreign minister, his role was diplomacy. But by 1942, Germany had severed diplomatic relations with a vast number of countries worldwide. Beyond its own allies, Italy, Japan, and central European states like Hungary, Germany only maintained diplomatic ties with neutral European countries such as Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, and Sweden. Consequently, Ribbentrop lacked any viable initiative to rebuild his influence. Moreover, Hitler was reportedly finding his company increasingly tedious and deliberately avoided meetings with the foreign minister, whom he had once considered so agreeable. Ribbentrop's involvement in the Holocaust of Europe's Jewish population, which commenced from 1941 onward, and indeed his broader stance towards Jewish people, has been a subject of considerable debate. As previously noted, during his earlier career as a wine merchant, Ribbentrop knew and collaborated with numerous Jewish business professionals in Berlin. In fact, in the early days of the Nazi regime in 1933, he even hosted a lunchon for some Jewish colleagues to assure them that the openly anti-Jewish sentiments expressed by the Nazi party were largely just for show. Despite initial resistance, German control over France rapidly disintegrated in August 1944. By the end of that month, Paris had been liberated and a separate invasion in the south of the country resulted in the complete expulsion of German forces from the entire region. The stage was now set for an advance into eastern France in the autumn, followed by western Germany in the winter. Concurrently on the eastern front, the Russians persistently drove the Germans back through Ukraine, the Baltic states, and then Poland. By January 1945, they were amassing their armies in western Poland for the final push towards Berlin in the early spring of 1945. The new year ushered in a race by both sides to penetrate German territory as swiftly as possible. Yet Hitler would not permit any discussion of surrender, which might have involved Ribbonrop as foreign minister. It was simply a contest to determine whether the Russians or the Americans and British would seize Berlin first. Ribentrop's final months as German foreign minister witnessed whatever remaining influence he possessed completely vanish. By this point, with no further diplomatic triumphs to be achieved, he attempted to regain Hitler's favor by dedicating himself energetically to the Third Reich's genocidal policies, even as it crumbled. This strategy did not produce the intended result and his standing diminished further in the summer of 1944 when numerous members of the foreign office were implicated in a conspiracy orchestrated by elements within the German army to assassinate Hitler and negotiate a surrender to the allies in July 1944. While Ribentrop was certainly not personally involved, it reflected poorly on him that individuals with whom he had worked were complicit in the attempted coup. By the final months of 1944, he was openly mocked by some of his colleagues within the government, most of whom had always despised Ribentrop, but had tolerated him as one of Hitler's favorite officials. Yet ultimately, he lost even that position. Although Ribbentrop received an invitation to attend the chancellor's 56th birthday celebration in Berlin on April 20th, 1945, when he requested a private audience with Hitler a few days later, he was denied and informed that Hitler had more pressing matters to attend to. By that time, in April 1945, Berlin was encircled by Russian forces, and American and British troops were rapidly advancing through central Germany, attempting to reach the capital before the war concluded. With civilians, including young boys and the elderly men, being armed by the Nazi regime in a desperate attempt to defend central Berlin, Hitler opted against fighting and instead committed suicide in the bunker of the Reich Chancellory on April 30th, 1945. His designated successor, propaganda minister Yseph Gerbles, took his own life a day later along with his wife and children. With the war effectively over, the heads of the German government fled Berlin to northern Germany to the town of Finsburg on the Danish border, an area not yet reached by Allied forces. There, the new president of Germany, Admiral Carl Donuts, organized the country's surrender to the Allies, and on May 8th, 1945, the war in Europe ended. Ribbentrop, who had also fled north towards Flynnburg, offered his services to Donuts, but was rebuffed. He now found himself a fugitive and as a senior minister of the Nazi regime was a prime target for capture. Consequently, it was not long before he was located and on June 14th, 1945, he was apprehended in the northern port city of Hamburg. Ribbentrop would now face prosecution as one of the leading figures of the regime. The allies had decided prior to the final assault on Berlin that only specific groups within Germany would face retribution for the country's wartime actions. These were largely confined to senior members of the Nazi party and regime as well as the SS, the paramilitary organization responsible for operating the concentration camp system across Europe, resulting in the murder of millions of Jews, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and many others. As German foreign minister from 1938 to 1945, Ribbentrop was slated to be tried alongside a group of surviving senior Nazis. These included Herman Guring, head of the Luftwaffa, Albert Shpar, armaments minister, Wilhelm Kaidle, chief of the Vermach and de facto minister of defense throughout the war, and Hans Frank, head of the general government of Poland, the Nazi occupation administration established in 1939. Each was accused of contributing to the outbreak of the Second World War and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by managing the war and being complicit in the operation of the concentration camp system. These individuals were put on trial in the German city of Nuremberg in late 1945, chosen because it was there that the Nazis had held their massive annual rallies during the 1930s. The trial lasted for 11 months. Ribbentrop's legal council attempted to portray him as a mere puppet, a powerless foreign minister whose department was effectively controlled by Hitler. They also attempted to suggest that Ribbentrop himself had been deceived by Hitler's pronouncements between 1933 and 1939 regarding his desire for peace in Europe while allowing Germany to restore its dignity. Thus, when the verdicts were finally delivered at Nuremberg in October 1946, Ribbentrop was found guilty on all four counts. crimes against peace, planning a war of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Like several others, including Guring, Frank, and Kitle, he was sentenced to death by hanging, the sentences for those condemned to death at the initial Nuremberg trial were scheduled to be carried out in a series of executions on October 16th, 1946, just days after the trial concluded. The hangings were to be conducted at the gymnasium of Nuremberg Prison using the standard long drop method. Many who had been tried alongside Ribbentrop, such as Spear and Ribbentrop's predecessor as foreign minister, Constantine von Norath, received prison sentences and avoided execution. Ribbentrop was among a group of 11, including Frank Ernst Colton Bruner, the highest ranking surviving member of the SS and Wilhelm Kaidle slated for hanging that day. However, the number was reduced to 10 when Herman Guring, the most senior surviving member of the Nazi regime, committed suicide by ingesting a potassium cyanide capsule on the night of the 15th. As a result, Ribentrop was the first of the group of 10 to be executed in a final inongruous act that bore no relation to his personal conduct over the preceding 12 years. His last words called for the reunification of Germany and declared, "I wish peace to the world." Afterward, Ribbentrop's body along with those of the other nine in Guring were taken to the crematorium at Ostred Hoff in Munich and cremated. Their ashes were then scattered in the river Isar in southern Bavaria to prevent any graves or monuments from becoming Nazi shrines. Yookim van Ribbentrop was one of the most anomalous senior figures in the Nazi regime. His background differed from individuals like Hitler and Yseph Gobles who had experienced professional and personal failures in their youth leading to resentment towards society. Instead, Ribbentrop was a latecomer to Nazism, only embracing the party in 1932 on the cusp of its rise to power. Prior to this, he had been merely a dilotant with aristocratic aspirations, albeit one whose entry into high society was achieved almost entirely through family and marital connections rather than personal achievement or talent. Furthermore, he exhibited no pronounced ideological leanings after 1933. Instead, his senior position within the party was acquired almost entirely through his personal relationship with Hitler. As a sycophant and a yes man, Hitler enjoyed Ribbentrop's company because he consistently agreed with nearly all of his proposals. This relationship enabled Ribbonrop to ascend rapidly within the Nazi hierarchy, initially appointed ambassador to Britain and subsequently succeeding as foreign minister in early 1938. What is most remarkable about Ribbentrop is that upon becoming foreign minister, he managed to achieve several notable successes in his initial years in that role. Despite his general lack of competence and disagreeable character, he could, for instance, claim some credit for Germany's virtual conquest of central Europe during 1938 and early 1939, largely through diplomatic agreements such as the Munich Agreement with Britain in the autumn of 1938. However, his greatest triumph was undoubtedly negotiating the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact with his Russian counterpart. This provided the foundation for Germany's conquest of much of Europe in the ensuing 12 months. Had Hitler not opted to abandon the agreement in 1941 and invade Russia, Germany might have emerged from the war largely victorious, instead he did invade Russia. And this decision, coupled with the United States entry into the war in December 1941, sealed Germany's military defeat. As diplomatic negotiations became pointless and Hitler's opinion of Ribbentrop precipitously declined, the foreign minister became a marginal figure in the Nazi regime. Despite all of this, there is no question of Ribbonrop's complicity in the crimes of the Nazi regime, both in instigating the war and committing numerous atrocities. It is also evident that he was fully aware of the atrocities occurring at death camps across Europe and facilitated the Holocaust. Ultimately, it was entirely appropriate that despite his lukewarm ideological commitment to Nazism, he was among the first leaders of the regime to be prosecuted and found guilty at Nerburgg. What are your thoughts on Yahim von Ribbentrop? Was he a person who caused great harm by fermenting much of the Second World War? Or was he simply a sickopant of Hitlers who rose to a position of significant power as a consequence? Please share your views in the comments section. And in the meantime, thank you very much for watching.