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JOACHIM VON RIBBENTROP, THE GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER, WHO FLEW TO MOSCOW TO S'IGN THE PACT
W
HEN Ribbentrop flew to Mescow, he
knew that the Anti-Comintern Pact
;
,
which he had been building up for three
years was shattered.
.
Forty-s~ven
years old, he has been
Nazi
Foreign
Minister since February,
1938.
He is not
a
pro–
fessional diplomat.
His
first contacts in European
cities were as travelier for a
German
champagne
.firm.
A French papernas said that the champagne
went permanently to
his
head. But by marrying
the daughter of the proprietor of the
firm,
he got
quick promotion and financial independence.
Then he took up politiCs, and became one of the
early members of the
Nazi
party.
Ribbentrop's money and social gifts were useful
to the
Nazi
leaders. During the intrigues which
led to Hitler's
coming
into office in
1933,
Hitler
and von Papen used to meet secretly in Ribben–
trop's house in Berlin.
Ribbentrop's first official appointment came
in
1934,
when Hitler made
him
his Commissioner of
Disarmament, and later his Ambassador-at-Iarge.
He
bas~d
his policy on building.,up an anti–
Communist Front with Japan and Italy.
In
1936
he came to London as
German
Ambas–
sador. As the champion of anti-Communism,
Ribbentrop found
himself
welcome in a small social
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And
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went
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ritain
vised
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or
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the
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ful. Until his flight to Moscow on August
23,
Ribbentrop was working to change the anti-Com–
intern pact into a full
military
alliance:-
19