Joachim Ullrich Friedrich Willy von

Joachim von Ribbentrop, the son of Oberstleutnant Richard Ulrich Joachim Ribbentrop a career Army officer and his wife, Johanne Sophie Hertwig, was born in Wesel, Germany, on 30-04-1893.  Educated at a boarding school at Switzerland he also spent time in France and England as a child. In 1911 he began working as clerk with a German importing form based in London before moving to Canada where he worked as a timekeeper on the reconstruction of the Quebec Bridge and the Canadian Pacific Railroad. This was followed by employment as a journalist in New York City and Boston. On the outbreak of the First World War Ribbentrop returned to Germany where he joined the German Army.  While serving with the 125th Hussar Regiment he won the Iron Cross. Ribbentrop's father was a Oberstleutnant in the Weimar Reichswehr. After being seriously wounded in 1917 Ribbentrop joined the War Ministry and was a member of the German delegation that attended the Paris Peace Conference. After leaving the German Army Ribbentrop worked as a salesman for the French firm of Pommerey in the Rhineland. He later became a partner in a Berlin sales agency. In May 1932 Ribbentrop joined the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). He quickly moved up the hierarchy and in 1933 became Hitler's foreign affairs adviser. Joseph Goebbels (see Joseph Goebbels) (did you know) and Martin Bormann (see Bormann) disliked Ribbentrop very much. The following year he established the Ribbentrop Bureau an organization that eventually had a staff of 300 people. Adolf Hitler (see Adolf Hitler) (did you know) appointed Ribbentrop as the ambassador to London in August, 1936. The foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was such a cocky that they called him "Ribbensnob". At home his wife Annelies Henkell (see Ribbentrop-Henkell) was the boss and adviser in different political affairs. (see Did you know)  His main objective was to persuade the British government not to get involved in Germany territorial disputes and to work together against the the communist government in the Soviet Union. When Ribbentrop presented his credentials to George VI (see George) on 05-02-1937, the British were outraged when he gave the Hitler salute. He also upset the British government by posting Schutz Staffel (SS) guards outside the German Embassy and by flying swastika flags on official cars. On 04-02-1938, Ribbentrop replaced Constantin von Neurath (see von Neurath) as Germany's foreign minister. He worked closely with Adolf Hitler in his negotiations with the British and French governments, in March 1939 is the Agreement was signed in room 105 of the Führerbau in Munich on the Königsplatz, the room didn't change at all, and in August 1939 they arranged the signing of the

  more spectacular Nazi-Soviet Pact. In 1940 Hitler once again began to consider invading the Soviet Union and he sent Ribbentrop to negotiate a new treaty with Japan. On 25^th  September, 1940, Ribbentrop sent a telegram to Vyacheslav Molotov (see Molotov), the Soviet foreign minister, informing him that Germany, Italy and Japan were about to sign a military alliance. Ribbentrop pointed out that the alliance was to be directed towards the United States and not the Soviet Union. Molotov already knew about the proposed German-Japanese Pact. Richard Sorge (see Sorge), a German journalist working in Tokyo, was a Soviet spy and had already told Molotov that Adolf Hitler was involved in negotiations with Japan. In Sorge's view, the pact was directed against the Soviet Union but it was not until December, 1940, that he was able to send Molotov full details of Operation Barbarossa. Ribbentrop became a background figure during the Second World War but was arrested and charged with war crimes in June, 1945. Joachim von Ribbentrop denied knowledge of German concentration camps and racial extermination policies, but was found guilty at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial and was hanged on 16-10-1946, age 53, by John Woods (see Woods).

     Like  all in the Nuremburg process sentenced to death men, Keitel (see Keitel), Julius Streicher (see Streicher), Alfred Jodl(see Jodl), Wilhelm Frick (see Wilhelm Frick), Fritz Sauckel (see Sauckel),   Alfred Rosenberg (see Rosenberg), Seyss Inquart (see Seyss Inquart), Ernst Kaltenbrunner (see Kaltenbrunner) and Hans Frank (see Frank) and Hermann Goering (see Goering) (did you know),)  Ribbentrop was secretly transferred in Army trucks to the Ostfriedhof, Eastern Cemetery of Munichon 16-10-1946 and cremated. The coffins had faked names and they gave Streicher's coffin ironical a Jewisch name. The same night four Generals, an American, an Englishman, a Frenchman and a Russian were secretly driven straight to the closest bridge, the Reichenbachbrücke over the river Isar and they scattered the ashes downstream.     The family Henkell of his wife Annelies  put a remembrace stone on their family grave, on the Stadtfriedhof of Biebrich in Wiesbaden.