Joachim von Ribbentrop

Who was Joachim von Ribbentrop?

Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany from 1938 until 1945. A businessman, he was appointed German Ambassador to Britain in 1936, serving in London.

Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's notice as a well-travelled businessman with more knowledge of the outside world than most senior Nazis, and apparently an authority on world affairs. He offered his house for the secret meetings in January 1933 that resulted in Hitler's appointment as Chancellor. He became a close confidant of the Führer, to the disgust of long-serving party members, who thought him superficial and lacking in talent. Despite this, he was appointed as Ambassador to Britain in 1936, and then Foreign Minister in February 1938.

In the run-up to World War II, he played a key role in brokering the Pact of Steel and the Soviet–German non-aggression pact, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. After 1941, Ribbentrop's influence declined.

Arrested in June 1945, he was tried at the Nuremberg Trials and convicted of war crimes for his role in starting World War II and enabling the Holocaust. On 16 October 1946 he became, due to Hermann Göring's suicide moments before, the first of those sentenced to death to be hanged.