What was the rank of Foreign Minister Ribbentrop? The meaning of Ribbentrop, Joachim von in the Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. Diplomacy of blackmail and threats

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III. Joachim von Ribbentrop under a forensic microscope

The wine merchant comes to Wilhelmstrasse

Former Reich Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop looked faded and faded in the dock. He looks dejected, corresponding to the metamorphosis that has occurred in his position.

It is difficult to name any other defendant whose name would have appeared more often in the pre-war years on the pages of the world press. And journalists devoted many admiring lines to Ribbentrop’s elegant figure, his social manners, and his ability to dress. Then he was diligently served by hairdressers, massage therapists, and tailors. Now all this is behind us. And Mr. Reich Minister, who had not learned to take care of his appearance, somehow immediately grew old and deteriorated. He often appears in the courtroom unshaven and unkempt. And his cell is a terrible mess. A bureaucrat by nature, he set up a whole office there, and papers are lying around in the most chaotic state...

It was enough to observe Ribbentrop for several days during the trial to notice that he behaved completely differently from, say, Goering, already known to us. This one behaves modestly, even ingratiatingly. He is somewhat reminiscent of a student who studied very poorly, was retained for the second year and is now trying to atone for his sins.

When the judges enter the courtroom, Ribbentrop somehow manages to get ahead of everyone: his neighbors in the dock, the defense attorneys, and the prosecutors - and is the first to jump up from his seat. He answers questions readily, as if he had long realized that since fate had treated him so harshly, turning the Minister of Foreign Affairs into a defendant, his only concern was to reveal to future generations of the German people the dangerous delusions of Hitler, who led Germany to a terrible tragedy.

Ribbentrop most often sits with his arms crossed: this is his favorite position. Before the start of court hearings and during breaks, he talks animatedly with Goering and Keitel. But as soon as the court resumes its work, it all turns into rumor. There is a mournful mask on the face. Ribbentrop tries to appear depressed by the enormity of the sacrifices and trials that have befallen humanity. He behaves as if he himself was one of the millions of victims and came to the Nuremberg Palace of Justice to present his account.

Ribbentrop prepared different facial expressions for different occasions. As soon as, for example, the prosecutor interrupts the outpourings of the Reich Minister and reminds him of his enormous personal guilt, he immediately puts on the guise of an innocently slandered person...

Listening to Ribbentrop's answers to his lawyer's questions, I was amazed at his brilliant memory. Hitler's diplomat reproduced episodes from thirty years ago with enviable accuracy and easily handled numerous dates. However, as soon as the lawyer was replaced by the prosecutor, Ribbentrop's memory noticeably weakened.

In ordinary criminal trials, it often happens that the defendant speaks through the voice of his defense attorney. At the Nuremberg trial, the defense attorney, of course, could not and did not play such a role. His task was reduced mainly to collecting evidence in defense of the defendant, to the legal qualification of the latter’s actions. The interpretation of this evidence, as a rule, was given by the accused himself. Having applied this “division of labor”, the lawyers acted quite harmoniously with their clients. Only rarely did serious excesses arise when the defense actually refused to fulfill its duties.

In this regard, the story of Ribbentrop's defense is interesting. His interests were initially represented by the famous German lawyer Dr. Sauter, who, however, very soon abandoned his client. On occasion, I asked Sauter what caused this and whether he regretted transferring his client to another lawyer. Sauter smiled:

“You know, Mr. Major, I’m just happy that I got rid of him.” I tried to fulfill my professional duty, and I thought that I would find understanding in this regard on the part of my client. But believe me, I’m terribly tired of this “statesman.” He is indecisive, hysterical, prone to panic... He asks to call some witness. I am taking the necessary measures. The issue is resolved positively, and the witness is about to arrive in Nuremberg. But then suddenly Ribbentrop refuses his request and attacks me, throws a tantrum because I so recklessly agreed to call this witness... Or, let’s say, I agree with him on the defense’s position on this or that episode, in particular regarding his speech at one of the government meetings. He explains to me at length and in detail the meaning of this speech. And the next day, when I inform him of my defense plan taking into account this speech, Ribbentrop’s face changes: “Where did you get the idea that I spoke there? Isn’t it clear to you that such a speech undermines all confidence in me?” No, it is impossible to protect such a person...

To this it should be added that Sauter never felt like the only defender and consultant of the Reich Minister. For hours, Ribbentrop talked with the prison doctor, with guard officers and even with the hairdresser Witkamp, ​​sharing with them his impressions of the process, asking for advice. The prison doctor joked about this that, if he were just a guard, Ribbentrop would still turn to him for advice.

Yes, indeed, from the day Ribbentrop left the luxurious ministerial office and lost his numerous advisers, he felt very confused in this world, bubbling with menacing events and suddenly changing situations. The quick reaction necessary in such a situation and the ability to make independent decisions were almost completely absent from Hitler’s “super-diplomat”. He was overwhelmed only by fear for his fate.

In the first days of May 1945, fear drove Ribbentrop to Hamburg. There he rents a room on the fifth floor of an unremarkable house and, in front of the English military administration, leads the life of a harmless everyman. While counterintelligence officers from different countries are looking for Hitler’s foreign minister, while his portraits with descriptions of special features are carefully studied in all detective departments, Ribbentrop, in his double-breasted suit, black hat and dark safety glasses, walks freely around the city. After an unpleasant conversation with Doenitz, who flatly refused to use him in the new government, and especially after this “government” itself was completely arrested, the former Reich Minister is trying to “retrain.” Fortunately, he also has a profession - a businessman who specialized in the sale of champagne wines.

It was not by chance that Ribbentrop arrived in Hamburg: his former companion lived here. On June 13, 1945 they meet.

“I have the Fuhrer’s testamentary disposition,” Ribbentrop whispers. - You must cover me. It's about the future of Germany.

The companion, apparently, was not moved by this meeting. As for the son of a Hamburg merchant, he immediately informed the occupation authorities about the appearance of Mr. Ribbentrop.

Early the next morning, three British soldiers and one Belgian soldier decisively knocked on the door to the apartment where Ribbentrop was hiding. A young attractive woman in a light hood appeared at the door. She greeted the uninvited guests with a cry of fear, but they, without wasting a minute, rushed into the rooms. The awakening of the former Reich Minister was not a pleasant one.

- What is your name? – asked Lieutenant Adams, who led the arrest.

“You know very well who I am,” Ribbentrop replied and bowed primly.

Mr. Ribbentrop obviously planned to hide for a long time. In any case, in his suitcase the soldiers found several hundred thousand stamps, neatly tied into bundles.

At the very first interrogation, the arrested man admitted that he expected to remain invisible until “passions had subsided.”

“I know,” he said, “that we are on the list of war criminals, and I understand that under the current situation there can only be one sentence: the death penalty.”

– And you decided to wait for the situation to change?

Just in case, Ribbentrop prepared not only money, but also three letters: one to Field Marshal Montgomery, the second to British Foreign Minister Eden, and the third to Winston Churchill.

But the arrest confused all the cards. From this moment on, for Ribbentrop, the “future of Germany” loses all meaning. He is transported to Lansbourg, from there to an internment camp, and finally to Nuremberg.

In the dock, Joachim von Ribbentrop was seated in the first row, third after Goering and Hess. He was not one of the organizers of the Nazi Party, but his share of responsibility was also enormous.

On June 19, 1940, as Nazi Berlin jubilantly celebrated the first “victories of the Fuhrer,” Ribbentrop’s name was on everyone’s lips. It was about him that Hitler said then at a meeting of the Reichstag:

“I could not end this celebration without finally thanking the man who for many years carried out my directives, working faithfully, tirelessly, selflessly. The name of Nazi Party member von Ribbentrop as Foreign Minister will forever be associated with the political flowering of the German nation.

“Super-diplomat” - this is how the bourgeois press called Ribbentrop for many years. But I listened to his testimony in court, listened to the numerous witnesses called in his case, observed the attitude of the other defendants towards him, and a completely different image of Hitler’s foreign minister appeared before me.

Summing up Ribbentrop's testimony, Goering told Dr. Gilbert:

-What a pathetic sight! If I had known this earlier, I would have delved more into our foreign policy. No wonder I tried so hard to prevent him from becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs...

Hans Frank gave an even harsher description of Ribbentrop:

- He is rude, ill-mannered and ignorant. He doesn’t speak German correctly, but he doesn’t know much about international affairs. I don’t understand how Ribbentrop could advertise his champagne, not to mention National Socialism... It was a crime to make such a person foreign minister in a country with a population of seventy million...

– Criminal amateurism! – this is how his neighbor in the dock, von Papen, assessed Ribbentrop’s activities on Wilhelmstrasse. – Criminal amateurism, thanks to which this man lost the empire at cards.

He never missed an opportunity to be sarcastic and to emphasize the ignorance of Ribbentrop and Seyss-Inquart during the interrogation of the “super-diplomat”. When it came to Bulgaria's position in the First World War, he remarked with a smile to Dr. Gilbert:

– Don’t say anything yet, but I think that our Foreign Minister does not even suspect that the Bulgarian question relates to the Treaty of Trianon.

It would be possible to significantly increase such statements by former members of the German government. But even without that it is already clear what kind of reputation the “super-diplomat” enjoyed among his recent colleagues.

And Hitler, apparently, was disappointed in him. Before committing suicide, he draws up a will, appoints his successor and a new government, but Ribbentrop, the one whose name “will forever be associated with the political flourishing of the German nation,” is not on the list of ministers. Hitler replaced him with Seyss-Inquart.

What's the matter? Ribbentrop was praised, fawned over, and the most significant victories of German diplomacy were associated with his name. And then suddenly everyone agreed with rare unanimity that he was just “a combination of vanity, stupidity, amateurism and a generally ignorant person in international affairs.”

Who exactly was Joachim von Ribbentrop?

At the International Tribunal he had to testify after Goering. Clearly wanting to refute the idea that he was simply an “upstart and a careerist,” Ribbentrop began to boast of his nobility.

The same tendency is easy to trace in his memoirs, written in Nuremberg prison. Having reported the place and date of his birth (Wesel, April 30, 1893), he launched into a tedious discussion about how all his ancestors for centuries had been either lawyers or soldiers, one of them even signed the Treaty of Westphalia.

Ribbentrop also talks at length about his first steps in life. Oh, how he wants to convince both the court and his descendants that all his life he was prepared to take on the heavy burden of leading the foreign affairs of Germany.

While still a very young man, Joachim Ribbentrop traveled to Switzerland, then moved to London, where he studied English. In 1910 he was in Canada. And the First World War finds him in the USA. The militaristic past immediately makes itself felt, and Ribbentrop hurries to Germany and enters military service. In 1919, as an adjutant to General Seeckt, he traveled with the German peace delegation to Versailles and soon retired with the modest rank of lieutenant.

New times - new songs. Yesterday's adjutant Sect considered it best to engage in commerce. Joachim von Ribbentrop becomes the owner of a large export-import wine trading company and marries Anna Henkel, the daughter of the owner of another world-famous champagne trading company. The young successful wine merchant grows richer every year and, thanks to his commercial connections with many countries, especially England, acquires acquaintances in some prominent political salons.

It was at this time that his dream of a diplomatic career began. It seems to Ribbentrop that frequent meetings with foreign commercial counterparties have enriched him with solid experience in international relations. Vain by nature, he longs to decorate the Ribbentrop family tree with his own brilliant career. But for some reason the Weimar regime does not notice his diplomatic talents. But the National Socialists, who are striving for power, treat him more than friendly. Fellow soldier Count Geldorf introduces Ribbentrop to Ernst Rehm, and then these two prominent National Socialists arrange a meeting for him with Hitler himself. Ribbentrop convinces Hitler that he has contacts with many political figures in England and France. He comes to the conclusion that this person can be useful to him. Hitler is not very inclined, if he comes to power, to retain diplomats of the old school on Wilhelmstrasse. He intends to usher in an era of new diplomacy, “decisive and without prejudice.”

In 1933, a closer rapprochement between the wine merchant and the Nazi leader took place: Ribbentrop provided his house in Dahlem for Hitler’s business meetings. From that moment the political career of the future Reich Minister began. Immediately after Hitler came to power, the so-called “Ribbentrop Bureau” was born, essentially a special foreign policy organization of the fascist party.

Many Nazi bosses, who had “merits” to the Nazi regime during many years of struggle for power, looked at the newly minted diplomat as an upstart. But this only spurred him on even more, excited his ambitious dreams, and fueled his activity.

Joachim von Ribbentrop was very vain. His devotion to pomp and ceremony reached its apogee when he took over the ministerial office in Wilhelmstrasse. Ribbentrop appeared at the ministry looking as if he had descended from heaven to the sinful earth. When he returned from trips abroad, the entire staff of the ministry lined up with trellises at the airfield or train station. Special rules were developed in case the Reich Minister was traveling with his wife. In this case, not only the employees, but also their wives had to meet him, regardless of any vagaries of the weather. The slightest deviation from the established ritual was considered as disrespect for the “high state personage,” with all the ensuing consequences.

Ribbentrop's morbid vanity often turned into scandals. Once, for example, he prohibited the publication of an agreed communiqué on negotiations between Hitler and Mussolini because in the final paragraph of this document, which listed the participants in the negotiations, the name of the Foreign Minister was placed after Keitel. An even more obscene scene took place between Ribbentrop and Goering at the moment of signing the pact on the creation of the “Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis”. In addition to the government delegations of the three countries, dozens of representatives of the press and newsreels gathered in the hall. The Jupiters burned with a bright, dazzling light. And then suddenly, in front of everyone, the Reich Minister tried to oust the Reich Marshal. This, as Goering put it, “the arrogant peacock Ribbentrop” demanded that the “second man of the Reich” take a place behind him.

- Just think how impudent he is! - Goering choked with anger, recalling this incident many years later during one of his conversations with Dr. Gilbert. – And do you know what I told him that time? Nothing more and nothing less than the following: “No, Herr Ribbentrop, I will sit and you will stand behind me...”

In an effort to retain Hitler's favor, Ribbentrop perhaps surpassed even Goering. He had his own man with the Fuhrer, who systematically reported on what he was talking about in the “close circle.” Based on this kind of information, Ribbentrop drew conclusions about Hitler’s immediate intentions and, assuming extreme importance, appeared in the apartments of the Nazi ruler in order to present to him his thoughts as his own. It was said that Hitler fell for this bait more than once and praised the “phenomenal intuition” and “extraordinary foresight” of the Foreign Minister.

At the beginning of the war, Ribbentrop was given a special train at his disposal, in which he accompanied Hitler everywhere. The train consisted of a salon car for Ribbentrop himself, two dining cars and at least eight sleeping cars, which housed numerous advisers, specialist consultants, assistants, secretaries and security guards responsible for the personal safety of the Reich Minister. All this was reminiscent of a traveling circus, which pitched its tents here and there as needed or at the whim of Ribbentrop. The lack of sufficient education and knowledge put the minister in a humiliating dependence on a huge staff of officials who had to be on hand at all times.

Joachim von Ribbentrop jealously watched the political barometer. He was well aware that Hitler was striving to destroy tens of millions of Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, and French during the war in order to forever weaken these peoples, subject the defeated countries to mass plunder, and destroy all Jews in Europe. Therefore, when the war began, people like Keitel and Kaltenbrunner came to the fore. The generals and the Gestapo were the forces that moved the Nazi empire towards the Fuhrer’s cherished goal. And in this race to world domination, Ribbentrop did not want to lag behind.

To please the Fuhrer, Joachim von Ribbentrop donned the SS uniform back in 1933 and was even a little offended by the fact that he then received the insignificant rank of Standartenfuhrer. But soon Himmler appreciated the young SS man and already in 1935 he promoted him to Brigadeführer, in 1936 to Gruppenführer, and in 1940 Ribbentrop became Obergruppenführer. Then, at the request of Ribbentrop himself, he was enlisted in the SS division "Totenkopf" ("Death's Head"), and therefore Heinrich Himmler personally presented him with the symbolic signs of this division - a ring and a dagger. For others, this kind of trinkets were of no value, but Ribbentrop literally hunted for them.

In earlier times, it was an international custom to present luxurious gifts to foreign ambassadors and other diplomats. Avoidance of such presentations was considered a violation of the rules of politeness. But over the years, this custom has undergone changes: expensive gifts gave way to orders, medals, and silk ribbons.

The pathologically ambitious Ribbentrop did not miss the opportunity to decorate his chest with a new sign of the attention of any government. He, of course, was far from Goering: the Reichsmarshal's uniform looked like a jewelry store window. But Ribbentrop, in full regalia, sparkled with all the colors of the rainbow. Nevertheless, his appetite was not satisfied, but, on the contrary, became more and more intense. And if in some capital they forgot to offer him a reward, Hitler’s Foreign Minister always found a way to remind him of this.

The Soviet prosecutor presented a very interesting document to the International Tribunal: recordings of a conversation between the head of the protocol department of the German Foreign Ministry, von Dernberg, and the Romanian dictator Antonescu. Von Dernberg spent a long time trying to persuade Antonescu to grant Ribbentrop the Order of Charles I. But Antonescu knew the ambitious passion of the Reich Minister and demanded a high price. He wanted Ribbentrop to publicly declare Germany's readiness to resolve the so-called Transylvanian question in the interests of Romania. Somebody, Dernberg well understood how difficult it was for Ribbentrop to do this, who shortly before, while in Budapest, assured the Hungarian rulers that Hungary would receive Transylvania. The situation was delicate. However, the German Foreign Minister did not want to give up the Romanian award. In response to Antonescu’s claims, he said: let him first bestow the order, and only then he, Ribbentrop, will do “everything possible.” The scythe landed on a stone. Antonescu agreed to “provide an advance to Mr. Reich Minister,” but on one condition: the publication of his award will appear only after Ribbentrop makes the statement required of him. That's what they agreed on. Antonescu gave Dernberg the order for his boss, but without presenting the corresponding award certificate to him. And, of course, it never occurred to any of the representatives of the “contracting parties” to ask the opinion of the people of Transylvania, whose fate turned out to be a bargaining chip in this shameless deal.

Ribbentrop was not very upset about the fact that in our time diplomats have ceased to be presented with luxurious gifts from abroad. What he received from the Nazi regime was enough for him. The head of the Reich Chancellery, State Secretary Lammers, said during interrogation that Hitler once presented his Foreign Minister with a gift of a million marks. And the personal translator of the Fuhrer and Reich Minister Schmidt confirmed that if before his appointment to the ministerial post Ribbentrop had only one house in Berlin, then in a short time he became the owner of five large estates and several palaces. In Sonnenburg near Aachen, the Reich Minister bred horses. In the Kitibol area he hunted chamois. The luxurious castles of Fuschl in Austria and Puszte Polje in Slovakia were also used for hunting. As if in passing, Schmidt noted that the former owner of the Fuschl castle, Mr. von Remitz, ended up in a concentration camp and died there.

Well, everyone had their own methods of acquiring property. Ribbentrop, apparently, did not wear the regalia of an SS Obergruppenführer for nothing...

However, he still had other sources of income. Even before his arrival on Wilhelmstrasse, he agreed with Hitler that he would continue to be involved in the wine trade. For this, Joachim von Ribbentrop generously agreed to serve as Reich Minister “for free.”

But let’s return to the Ribbentrop Bureau, which played a significant role in training Nazi diplomats of the “new type,” which included, first and foremost, the Reich Minister himself.

Gradually, this “Bureau” ousted the German Foreign Ministry from the sphere of foreign policy management. Ribbentrop's own position was strengthened by the fact that Hitler appointed him special commissioner for disarmament in the spring of 1934. A piquant situation was created: the responsibility for disarmament was entrusted to a person called upon to clear the way for unleashing aggression through diplomatic means.

Courtesy of Time

Anatole France once said, referring to art: “No one can create masterpieces, but some works become masterpieces thanks to the courtesy of time.” It was this “courtesy of time,” which received historical embodiment in the ominous word “Munich,” and was, perhaps, one of the most important factors that, regardless of Ribbentrop’s personal qualities, played a significant role in his diplomatic successes right up to the attack on the USSR. Only in June 1941 did this factor exhaust itself completely.

Time turned out to be unusually favorable to Ribbentrop. The idea of ​​a “strong Germany” matured in London long before this Hitler emissary appeared there. All he had to do was pick the finished fruit and present it to the Fuhrer: first in the form of the 1935 naval agreement, according to which Germany, despite the Treaty of Versailles, was allowed to build a large fleet, and then in the form of Munich.

It is characteristic that the initiative in these “diplomatic victories” of Hitler’s Germany was made not by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but by the Ribbentrop Bureau. Of course, Hitler understood that the 1935 naval agreement was only one half of the great “ball game” that ensued between Germany and England. But the half was won by Berlin. And as if in reward for this, Ribbentrop was appointed to the post of official German ambassador in London.

From the very first minutes of his stay on English soil, the newly appointed ambassador behaved far from the best, and Goering tried to discredit him in front of Hitler. The Fuhrer was informed that Ribbentrop, as soon as he arrived in London, immediately began to give inappropriate advice to English diplomats, and then disgraced himself before the King of England... Appearing for the first official audience, he greeted the King with the usual exclamation of “Heil Hitler,” which was rightly regarded as an insult His Majesty.

But time worked on Ribbentrop's side again. Civil war broke out in Republican Spain. Franco's rebellion, inspired and openly supported by Berlin and Rome, caused a violent reaction throughout the world. The people of many countries persistently demanded an end to the armed intervention of the fascist powers in Spanish affairs.

Under the pressure of public opinion, a non-intervention committee is created in London. Ribbentrop is presented with a new opportunity to demonstrate his intriguing abilities in order to gradually turn this international body into a convenient screen for new aggressive acts against the Spanish Republic. Hitler's ambassador behaves frankly insolently. When he appears at a meeting, he doesn’t even greet anyone, but silently and as if not noticing those around him, with an arrogant expression on his face, he walks straight to his place at the table.

The Nazis really like it. In Berlin, Ribbentrop is again being smoked with incense. Many are inclined to believe that it was he who paralyzed the work of the non-intervention committee. But is it necessary to prove that here again the same “courtesy of time” played a significant role: Ribbentrop found very influential assistants from the reactionary ruling circles of England and France. It was they who were guided by the motto: “It is better for Spain to be ruled by German fascists than by Spanish communists.”

The muddy waves of political intrigue that raged around the Pyrenees raised Ribbentrop's popularity ever higher in the Third Reich. He becomes an "indispensable diplomat."

In October 1936, Italian Foreign Minister Ciano arrived in Berlin, negotiations and the signing of a pact on the creation of the “Berlin-Rome axis” were to be held. Neurath is sitting on Wilhelmstrasse, but Ribbentrop is urgently called from London to conduct these negotiations. And it is he who signs the agreement.

At the end of 1936, negotiations were accelerated on the accession of a third partner, Japan, to the Berlin-Rome axis. And again, the same Ribbentrop is called from London to negotiate and sign the agreement. Again he negotiates and signs a new agreement on behalf of the German government.

It seems that the entire foreign policy of Germany is directed from the embassy mansion in London.

The year 1938 arrived. The Rhineland has already been remilitarized. The Wehrmacht was created. Germany's new navy is sailing the oceans. Hitler decides to strike at Austria - to carry out the Anschluss. The world is worried again. Goering is nervous: will Ribbentrop be able to convince England not to interfere in the “Austrian Operation”?

Ribbentrop did it. The death sentence of Austrian independence was carried out with the full support of London.

During interrogation in the Nuremberg court, the former Nazi ambassador in London recalled, not without pleasure, the affairs of those days. He promptly and accurately informed Hitler that both Chamberlain and Halifax were very tolerant of Nazi plans. Even when news of Nazi troops entering Vienna arrived in London, British leaders continued conversations with the German ambassador “in extremely friendly tones.” So friendly that Ribbentrop invited the British Foreign Secretary to visit Germany. And he accepted this invitation, asking him to “prepare everything for the hunt.” The “Hunt” turned out to be unusual. This time the “game” was to be Czechoslovakia.

But before starting the “hunt”, Ribbentrop left London. His invaluable services and his diplomatic successes culminated in early 1938 with his appointment to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. The “Czechoslovak operation” was carried out by Ribbentrop, who was already vested with the powers of a Reich Minister.

Now let’s try to figure out what kind of talent was required from the new owner of Wilhelmstrasse in order to weave the network into which Czechoslovakia fell.

One cannot help but recall the sighs of one French newspaper at that time: “And Georges Bonnet, who sits in the chair of the great Talleyrand, is not ashamed that he was so shamefully deceived in Munich.” But it is well known that the easiest person to deceive is the one who wants to be deceived. And it must be said that on nothing else were the Nuremberg defendants so united as in the fact that Hitler did not conquer Czechoslovakia by force, but received it as a gift from London and Paris.

Yes, Nazi Germany, regardless of the intentions of other Western powers, long before the Munich deal, developed the so-called “Grun Plan” (“Green Plan”), which provided for all the details of the armed takeover of Czechoslovakia. But Munich took place. A “gift” was made to Hitler. And this purely military plan for the enslavement of Czechoslovakia was not needed.

This turn of events greatly complicated the position of the Western powers' accusers during the interrogation of Ribbentrop. Even such an experienced lawyer as Sir David Maxwell Fife had a very difficult time.

I remember well one day at the end of April 1946 when, returning from the secretary general of the tribunal, I noticed an extraordinary excitement near the doors leading to the courtroom. I was about to enter there, but I was stopped by the lawyer Servatius (the same Servatius who, many years later, defended Eichmann in Jerusalem and threw mud at the Nuremberg verdict). He started talking about calling some witnesses that he needed, but whom the General Secretariat was in no hurry to call. Servatius spoke Russian very well, and our conversation threatened to drag on. Some English journalist saved me from this.

“Don’t waste your time, Major,” he said as he walked. – The performance begins and the big exam for Sir David begins!

I hurried to the courtroom. The press areas were filled to capacity. Everyone understood that the English prosecutor, with all his experience, would find it difficult to pass the Munich rapids.

The duel between him and the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany immediately became acute. Fife did his best to tear Ribbentrop away from Munich soil, forcing him to talk about the “Grun Plan,” in the preparation for the implementation of which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was assigned an important role. But Ribbentrop, to the best of his abilities, tried to tear Fife away from the “Grun Plan” and reduce the entire Czechoslovak question to Munich.

Goering, smiling sarcastically, leaned over the barrier and touched the lawyer Dr. Seidl on the shoulder. This was a sure sign that he had sensed an opportunity to commit another provocation. In such cases, Hermann Goering, as a rule, turned not to his defender Dr. Stahmer (why put him in an awkward position!), but to Seidl. This formerly active Nazi, very susceptible to foul-smelling sensations, acted flawlessly in such situations. This time, after listening to Goering, Seidl approached Ribbentrop's lawyer, Dr. Horn. They consulted for a short time. Hori immediately stood up and told the court that there was no need to find out the role of his client in the implementation of the “Grun Plan,” if only because the Western powers themselves sanctioned what Sir David was now trying to accuse Ribbentrop of.

This statement significantly inspired Ribbentrop and armed him for further struggle against Fife.

Fife asks:

– You knew very well about the “Grun plan”, didn’t you? The fact that military plans included the conquest of all of Czechoslovakia, right?

Ribbentrop, of course, knew about this plan and took part in the preparations for its implementation, but now he just shrugs his shoulders: why, they say, talk about something that did not happen. And he states quite unequivocally that the British government itself resolved this issue in Munich “the way I wanted it from the standpoint of German diplomacy.”

Following this, the defendant, with epic calm, began to tell how Chamberlain and Daladier pushed Czechoslovakia to Hitler’s chopping block.

- The situation was like this: Mr. Chamberlain told the Fuhrer that he agreed that something should happen, and he, for his part, was ready to hand over the German memorandum on the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia to the British cabinet... He also said that he would advise the British cabinet, that is, his fellow ministers, that Prague be recommended to accept this memorandum...

Ribbentrop reports on conversations that Hitler and he had even before Munich with the British and French ambassadors in Berlin and during which these official representatives of London and Paris loyally assured the Fuhrer that “on the part of England and France there is an intention to resolve the Czechoslovak problem as soon as possible in in the spirit of German wishes."

While listening to Ribbentrop, I followed Fife and saw how this usually calm and confident lawyer was clearly nervous. More than once he caught the defendants lying. He also incriminated Ribbentrop when it came to other episodes of the accusation. Fife knew how to do this better than many other prosecutors. He posed a series of questions to the defendant that apparently did not foretell anything terrible, but somewhere among them lurked a central question that would certainly close the chain, and the defendant would find himself backed against the wall. Alas, when Munich was discussed in the courtroom, this did not happen. Fife was helped neither by his high professionalism nor by his brilliant abilities as a polemicist.

Many years will pass, and some people will need to raise the Munich peacekeepers to their shield. I have already mentioned before that on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Munich Agreement, the reactionary English press raised a terrible fuss and decided to amaze the world with a grandiose sensation. It turns out that "the leading actors in the Munich drama were sincere... they really believed that they had secured peace in Europe." From the pages of the Sunday Express, English MP Beverley Baxter asks: “Should we still be ashamed of Munich?”

Reading this, you involuntarily turn to history. They say that after the end of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, faithful Prussian historians came to Count Moltke. They came then to inform him of their intention to write the history of the victorious war against France. Of course, gentlemen historians really wanted “His Excellency” to help them with his advice and instructions to create a history worthy of the Prussian army. But old Moltke expressed only extreme surprise and even became indignant: “Excuse me, gentlemen, what advice, what instructions can there be here? Write the truth, only the truth... But not the whole truth.”

The Honorable Member of the British Parliament Beverly Baxter, like many other bourgeois historians of the Second World War, went further than this advice and wrote “all lies.” The leitmotif of Baxter's article is that Munich was supposedly a defeat for Hitler's generals. “Nowadays,” says Baxter, “we often hear the phrase: so-and-so went to Munich... But what did the German generals say and write at that time? We learn from captured diaries that they viewed Munich as a complete disaster for themselves... They wrote that Chamberlain bypassed the Fuhrer and the blitzkrieg, just waiting for the signal, was postponed.”

The Nuremberg trials brought complete clarity to this issue. Perhaps the only service Ribbentrop rendered to history was precisely what he told about Munich at this trial.

Ribbentrop does not agree with those who tried and are still trying to present Munich as a disaster for Hitler. He resolutely denied this in his testimony before the International Tribunal, and spoke even more clearly in his own memoirs, written in a prison cell and published after his death as a separate book in England. Here is a short excerpt from these memoirs:

“During the interrogation after my arrest, Mr. Kirkpatrick asked me: “Was the Fuehrer very unhappy that Munich brought about an agreement, since it prevented him from starting a war, and is it true that Hitler said in Munich, being dissatisfied with the decision, that in next time he will bring Chamberlain down from his stairs along with his compromises?

I can say that all this is absolutely untrue. The Fuhrer was very pleased with Munich. I never heard anything different from him. He called me on the phone immediately after the Prime Minister left and told me of his joy at the signing of the additional protocol. I congratulated Hitler... That same day at the station, Hitler once again expressed his pleasure at the Munich agreement.

Any other version regarding Hitler’s point of view or mine is a complete fiction.”

This is a rare case when the German Reich Foreign Minister spoke the truth.

Shadow of the "giant"

Of course, Ribbentrop's successes, so highly valued by Hitler, were not always explained only by the “courtesy of time.” He, like Rosenberg, considered Bismarck’s famous formula long ago and hopelessly outdated: “Politics is the art of the possible.” “The art of making the impossible possible” - Hitler and his henchmen saw this as the basis of Nazi policy.

This concept completely broke with previous ideas about diplomacy and its methods. Even with his not very great mind, Ribbentrop understood this. As soon as he became acquainted with the program of the Nazi Party and was privy to the plans of Hitler's conspiracy against the world, it became quite obvious to him that the tasks of the Reich diplomats were very focused.

There is a large general headquarters. He is entrusted with the main thing - preparing and implementing plans for attacks on other countries. But before these plans begin to be translated into practical actions, it is necessary to create a favorable foreign policy environment. In short, he, Ribbentrop, must place the German diplomatic apparatus entirely at the service of the Wehrmacht. The new imperial foreign minister saw the whole point of his activities in clearing the way for aggression through foreign policy. But the diplomacy of the “third empire” itself received a powerful trump card - the ability to always and everywhere operate with the argument of force.

At the very beginning of his testimony at the Nuremberg trials, Joachim von Ribbentrop stated:

“It was immediately clear to me that I would have to work in the shadow of a giant, that I was obliged to impose certain restrictions on myself, that I was not able to conduct foreign policy in the way that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, responsible to parliament, conducts it.

Although the giant in this case meant Hitler, in reality it was the large general headquarters of Nazi Germany.

The brilliant demagogue Baron Sonino, who was once the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, ordered the following saying to be engraved above the fireplace in his office: “Others can, but you can’t.” Ribbentrop knew this saying, but paraphrased it in his own way: “Others are not allowed, but you are allowed.” It was precisely this motto that guided him as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the “Third Empire”. And this became possible only because his every step in the diplomatic field was supported by military force. Aggressive conspiracies and political assassinations, blackmail and threats, espionage and fifth columns, shameless deals with quislings and the most shameless ultimatums to the legitimate governments of neighboring countries - that was the arsenal of Hitler's diplomat.

The era of martinet diplomacy has arrived, many features of which have now been inherited by the diplomats of the Atlantic Treaty countries, especially the USA and Germany.

Ribbentrop's interrogation lasted several days. He, like everyone else, shied away and tried to evade responsibility. But unlike Hermann Goering, somewhere in the depths of his soul he still had the hope of avoiding the gallows. Therefore, Ribbentrop did not allow himself any excesses at the trial. In a number of cases, realizing the futility of naked denial of the facts, he admitted his guilt. And then his whole appearance seemed to tell the court: look, I’m not at all such a fanatic as Goering, you can deal with me. At the same time, Goering literally went berserk, quite loudly calling the former imperial minister a rag and a nonentity. He once told his neighbors in the dock that even his own mother-in-law considered Ribbentrop a stubborn and dangerous fool. She allegedly stated more than once:

“The stupidest of my sons-in-law became the most famous.”

The defendants reacted vividly to this witticism, and Ribbentrop became terribly angry with Goering and did not speak to him for two days.

But the “willingness to cooperate” with the tribunal was only a ruse by Ribbentrop. He was by no means more sincere than others.

I have already had occasion to note that according to the Anglo-American judicial system adopted at Nuremberg, none of the accused could familiarize themselves with all the materials of the case in advance. Not knowing exactly what specific evidence of their guilt the prosecutors had, they most often tried, just in case, to deny their guilt until one or another document was presented that exposed the liar. So it was with Ribbentrop.

When the question arose whether the German Foreign Office was directing the activities of the Czechoslovak Nazis of Henlein, he began to categorically deny this, carefully looking at the accuser to see if he would swallow his lies. But the prosecutor calmly took out some document and handed it to Ribbentrop. It was a secret directive from the German ambassador in Prague, from which it is abundantly clear that direct directives to the Henleinites came from the Reich Foreign Minister on how to carry out subversive work against the Prague government.

Ribbentrop was extremely upset. I was upset and horrified: God, just think why it was necessary to leave such traces! The secret recording produced by the prosecutor directly stated that “for further joint work, Konrad Henlein was instructed to maintain as close contact as possible with Herr Reich Minister...”

Every step of Mr. Reich Minister was recorded on paper! Only confidence, deep confidence in impunity, in the fact that the “third empire” will be eternal, could give rise to such imprudence. And now please pay for it. The prosecutors present Ribbentrop with one surprise after another.

On August 23, 1938, he and Hitler took a boat trip on one of the most comfortable German passenger ships, the Patria. Their guests at that time were the pro-fascist leaders of Hungary Horthy, Imredi, Kanya. Ribbentrop long ago and well understood the opinion of the leaders of the Imperial General Staff that in order to successfully implement the “Grun Plan” it would not be a bad idea to involve Hungary. And during the walk, he diligently treats the Hungarian guests. Horthy, of course, is also not averse to grabbing a piece of Czechoslovakia, but he is afraid of Yugoslavia. Ribbentrop reassures him: Yugoslavia, being in a pincer movement between the Axis powers, will not dare to attack Hungary.

This whole conversation on Patria also turned out to be recorded...

On January 21, 1939, Joachim von Ribbentrop met with Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Chvalkovsky and strongly demanded that he reduce the Czech army. Somewhat later, Hitler and Ribbentrop met with Tissot, one of the leaders of the then Slovakia. Recalling these two meetings, the Soviet prosecutor asks Ribbentrop to remember what their purpose was and what the results were. The defendant does not know whether the prosecution has any specific documents on this issue, and resorts to his usual trick: he rolls his eyes upward, pretending to be trying to remember what was discussed then. Alas, my memory fails me. The prosecutor comes to his aid and reads out excerpts from the transcript.

I glance around the dock. Goering glared at Ribbentrop. He does not really sympathize with his neighbor, just as he, just a few days ago, in a similar situation, did not at all sympathize with Goering. Neurath talks with Papen. Their sarcastic smiles reveal unanimity in their assessment of what is happening: “Serves this upstart right!”

Meanwhile, the prosecutor reads excerpt by excerpt from the transcript. It turns out that Ribbentrop did not just convince Tissot to separate Slovakia and declare it an independent state. He was rushing Tissot! “The Imperial Foreign Minister emphasized... that in this case the decision must be a matter of hours and not days.” Ribbentrop and Hitler frightened their interlocutor: if, they say, the Slovaks do not act against Prague, then Germany will leave them “at the mercy of Hungary.” Ribbentrop, as the recording states, “showed Hitler the report” that he had allegedly just received. The “report” reported the advance of Hungarian troops to the Slovak border. “A little more delay, and Slovakia will be gobbled up by Horthy.” Then “Mr. Reich Minister, with all his sympathy for the Slovaks ... will absolutely not be able to do anything.”

Ribbentrop was so considerate towards the Slovaks that he personally drafted a law for them on the “independence” of Slovakia and even translated it into the Slovak language. On the night of March 14, he politely escorted his guests home, putting a German plane at their disposal. And on the same day, Bratislava declared Slovakia an “independent” state.

This was one of many cases in Ribbentrop's diplomatic practice when he threatened not with the military force of Germany itself, but with a possible attack by a third country acting on his own orders.

On the evening of March 14, Ribbentrop invited Czechoslovak President Hacha and Foreign Minister Khvalkovsky to Berlin. Only after midnight (at 1:15 a.m. on March 15) were they taken to the imperial office. There they were met by Hitler and Ribbentrop.

For history, two sources have been preserved that reveal the essence of this meeting. One of them is Ribbentrop's memoirs. They are entirely rose-colored, emphasizing in every possible way tolerance, cordiality and the readiness of “both contracting parties” to come to an agreement on the quartering of Czechoslovakia. Haha seemed to be happy that finally “the Fuhrer holds the fate of Czechoslovakia in his hands.” And Khvalkovsky, according to Ribbentrop, unconditionally accepted the Fuhrer’s point of view. “Before signing the agreement,” says Ribbentrop, “Hakha called Prague in order to obtain the government’s consent. There were no protests from the Czechs, and Hakha gave the order to ensure a friendly reception for the German troops."

I read these memoirs, published in England without any commentary, and couldn’t help but think: how important it is that the Nuremberg trials took place. It was as if he had illuminated all the hiding places of imperialist diplomacy with a bright spotlight. Now it is not so easy to falsify the history of the preparations for the Second World War.

Mentally, I returned again to the curtained hall of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.

Finding out the true picture of that terrible night when Czechoslovakia was destroyed with a single stroke of the pen, the prosecutor presents Ribbentrop with another document. The defendant already understands that this is probably an official recording of some other conversation. He no longer feigns surprise or indignation.

Ribbentrop was not mistaken. Before him is a truly detailed, in every detail, recording of his and Hitler’s conversation with Gakha and Khvalkovsky on the night of March 15, 1939. The Nazi bosses were ruthless. They literally terrorized the president and minister of foreign affairs of a sovereign state: they ran after them around the table, poked their pens and threatened that if Hakha and Khvalkovsky did not sign the text proposed to them, then Prague would lie in ruins tomorrow.

At 4:30 a.m., Hacha, supported only by injections, finally decided to put his signature on a document that read: “The President of the Czechoslovak State entrusts with complete confidence the fate of the Czech people and the Czech country into the hands of the Fuhrer of the German Empire.”

The story of the capture of Czechoslovakia perhaps best reveals Ribbentrop's style of diplomacy. He did not forget to invite the head of the Design Bureau, Keitel, and the commander of the Luftwaffe, Goering, to negotiations with Gakha and Khvalkovsky. With such “assistants,” was it any wonder to force the already capitulatory-minded President of Czechoslovakia to hand over his country to Nazi Germany?

By the way, I still remember this detail. When the text signed by Gakha was read out in the courtroom, the Soviet prosecutor turned to Ribbentrop with a final question:

– Do you agree with me that you managed to achieve this document using the most unacceptable pressure and under the threat of aggression?

“In this formulation, no,” Ribbentrop answered humbly.

– What even greater diplomatic pressure could be exerted on the head of a sovereign state?

And here the German Foreign Minister has surpassed himself.

“For example, war,” he blurted out after a short thought.

The audience fully appreciated Ribbentrop's “resourcefulness” and burst into loud laughter.

Diplomacy of blackmail and threats

So, Ribbentrop acted according to a once and for all established scheme: while the German General Staff was developing a plan for an attack on this or that country, the Foreign Ministry had to lull public opinion with broadcast statements about Germany’s respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of that country. Reassurances of this kind became more vociferous the less time remained before the day of the attack. Then, just before the attack, the German General Staff demanded that Ribbentrop “create an incident” in the light of which German aggression would look like a “forced” measure. And here the imperial minister did not disdain to use any means.

At the trial, Ribbentrop is presented with the texts of his speeches in Warsaw, where he solemnly assured Poland of Germany’s peaceful intentions, and secret documents from meetings with Hitler, where the task of capturing Poland was openly set.

Rereading his speeches, Ribbentrop smiles charmingly. Of course, he did not want a war with Poland, he always strived for friendship with this country. And there were no thoughts about war. He never thought Danzig was worth the war.

The minutes of Hitler's meetings make a completely different impression on the former Reich Minister. The charming smile disappears from Ribbentrop's face. He frowns and is silent.

And the prosecutor is already presenting another document. This is the diary of Count Ciano, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Fascist Italy. Ciano, like his father-in-law Mussolini, disappeared into oblivion, but did not take his diaries with him. Among other interesting entries, they contain a story about how Ribbentrop received his Italian friend at Fuschl Castle on August 11, 1938. “...Ribbentrop informed me before sitting down at the table about the decision to start playing with fire. He spoke about this in exactly the same way as if he were talking about the most unimportant issue of an administrative nature.”

“What do you want, the corridor or Danzig? – asks Ciano.

“Nothing more now,” Ribbentrop replies and, flashing ice-cold eyes at his interlocutor, adds: “We want war...”

The ministers started a dispute among themselves about whether England and France would intervene if Germany attacked Poland. Ribbentrop argued to Ciano that the West would treat this action with complete loyalty - after all, having captured Poland, Germany would go straight to the Russian border. Ciano expressed doubts about this. In any case, he wrote in his diary:

“They were convinced that France and Great Britain would look calmly at the destruction of Poland. Ribbentrop even wanted to bet about this with me at one of the gloomy dinners that we ate in the Austrian castle in Salzburg: if the British and French remained neutral, then I should give him an Italian painting, but if they entered the war, he promised me a collection ancient weapons."

Ribbentrop was indeed confident that the “Polish combination” would follow the Munich model. There is a lot of evidence of this. But the most interesting among them, in my opinion, is the testimony of witness Schmidt.

This tall, imposing, tastefully dressed German was the personal translator for Hitler and Ribbentrop. Taking his place at the witness box, he looks at the dock and meets the eyes of his former boss. There is a prayer in Ribbentrop's eyes. Other defendants are also showing increased attention to Schmidt, especially Neurath, for whom he also served at one time. And even earlier, Schmidt had the opportunity to work with German chancellors Müller and Brüning, and with Foreign Minister Stresemann.

The court interpreter takes an oath to tell the tribunal only the truth. And although Ribbentrop had already had the opportunity to see what this oath was worth, when the Nazis took it, this time he was thrown into a fever. Schmidt knows too much about him that he wouldn’t want to make it public at trial.

On August 30, 1939, when Europe was living out its last hours of peace, the extraordinary commissioner of the Polish government was invited to Berlin for negotiations. Hitler deliberately set the deadline for his appearance so that he would certainly be “late.”

The Wehrmacht was already preparing to jump into Poland. The final orders have been issued in accordance with the Weiss Plan. But Berlin and London are still continuing the comedy of negotiations, as a result of which both sides are trying to create a diplomatic alibi for themselves and shift responsibility for unleashing a new world war onto each other.

At 24:00 on August 30, the British Ambassador to Germany, Henderson, met with Ribbentrop. Schmidt was present and gives the following testimony to the court:

- The German Foreign Minister, with a pale face, hard lips and flaming eyes, sat down opposite Henderson at the small negotiating table. He greeted with emphasized firmness, took out a large document from his briefcase and began to read...

These were the conditions under which Germany would agree to “peacefully resolve the conflict” with Poland. Ribbentrop deliberately read them quickly, so quickly that it was impossible not only to write down, but even to remember what was read. The Reich Minister categorically refused to hand over the text of the memorandum to Henderson.

This surprised even the seasoned Schmidt. He looks at Ribbentrop with uncomprehending eyes: has he made a mistake? Or maybe the translator himself misheard?! Neither one nor the other. Ribbentrop repeats once again, turning to Henderson: “I cannot give you this document.”

“After that I looked at Sir Neville Henderson,” Schmidt points out. “I naturally expected that he would offer me to translate this document, but Henderson did not demand... If I had been asked to translate, I would have done it very slowly, almost dictating the text, giving the English ambassador the opportunity to write down not only the general provisions set out in document, but also all the details of the German proposals... However, Henderson did not react to my facial expression. The conversation soon ended, and events took their course...

Exactly twenty-four hours after this meeting, Germany attacked Poland. And three days later, the German-Polish war began to develop into a world war - England and France entered it.

“On the morning of the third of September,” continues Schmidt, “between two and three o’clock the English embassy called the Imperial Chancellery... The British ambassador received instructions from his government, according to which he was to make a very important message to the Foreign Minister at exactly nine o’clock in the morning.” ... Ribbentrop replied that he himself could not have a conversation at such a time, but authorized an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in this case me, to accept this message from the British government in his place ...

It is quite obvious that Ribbentrop did not value his last negotiations with Henderson at all and was only interested in covering with a diplomatic fig leaf the preparations for the attack on Poland that had already been completed by the German General Staff. Ribbentrop's mental resources were quite enough to understand that Henderson, with the conscientiousness of an official, was only trying to create the impression that Great Britain wanted to avoid war. That is why the Reich Minister so easily refused to meet with the ambassador of the state declaring a state of war with Germany, and the ambassador with no less ease agreed to negotiate with... a translator. For the same reasons, three days earlier, Ribbentrop had refused to give Henderson the text of the German proposals, and Henderson did not blink an eye to have Schmidt translate this text for him.

It is well known that a repeat offender is more dangerous than a person who has committed a crime for the first time. At the same time, it is easier to find a repeat offender if he has disappeared. It’s easier, criminologists will tell you, that a repeat offender, as a rule, has his own “criminal style” - the methods of committing crimes that are characteristic only of him are repeated. This repetition of techniques often helps to catch the trail.

Ribbentrop became like a repeat offender: the methods of his treacherous diplomacy were repeated from time to time.

Let us remember again March 13, 1939. In a few hours, Czechoslovakia as an independent state will cease to exist. Under these conditions, it was not difficult to assume that the ministers remaining in Prague would want to contact the German ambassador and, through him, Ribbentrop. In this case, Ribbentrop cabled his ambassador in Prague: “I must ask you and other members of the embassy to take measures to ensure that the Czech government cannot contact us within the next few days.” We were talking, of course, about those less than two days during which Hach was raped in Berlin, forcing him to sign the death warrant for Czechoslovakia with his own hand.

Six months have passed. The days of the Polish crisis have arrived. And again, Ribbentrop’s tactics boil down to depriving the Polish ambassador of the opportunity, in the critical hours preceding the German attack on Poland, to come to him for negotiations.

On September 3, 1939, the British ambassador demands an audience with the Reich Foreign Minister. Ribbentrop understands perfectly well that we will be talking about the entry into the war of England and France. But this time too, he strictly follows his method - to avoid negotiations at decisive moments in order to exclude any delay when the German General Staff is not interested in it. Ribbentrop instructs an interpreter to receive the ambassador.

Two more years passed. A memorable Saturday for us has arrived, June 21... Berlin. Unter den Linden. Soviet embassy. An urgent telegram arrived from Moscow in the morning, ordering an important statement to be immediately conveyed to the German government.

Embassy employee V. Berezhkov is trying, through officials of the German Foreign Ministry, to arrange a meeting between our ambassador and Ribbentrop. Alas, Mr. Reich Minister “is not in Berlin.” Joachim von Ribbentrop gave instructions to respond to persistent calls from the Soviet embassy in this way.

V. Berezhkov recalls:

“We received several phone calls from Moscow that day. We were in a hurry to complete the assignment. Having placed the table clock in front of me, I decided to pedantically, every 30 minutes, call Wilhelmstrasse.”

But in vain. Ribbentrop remained true to himself: for the time being, he avoided contacts and negotiations that could harm the German General Staff. Then the situation changed dramatically.

“Suddenly,” continues Berezhkov, “the phone rang. Some unfamiliar barking voice announced that Reich Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was waiting for Soviet representatives in his office at the Foreign Office on Wilhelmstrasse... I said that it would take time to notify the ambassador and prepare the car.

– The Reich Minister’s personal car is located at the entrance to the Soviet embassy. The Minister hopes that Soviet representatives will arrive immediately..."

It was three o'clock in the morning. The German army had already attacked the Soviet border. Fascist planes suddenly dropped tons of bombs on the fast asleep cities. Now it was possible to turn to the Hague Conventions. True, these conventions require a state of war to be declared before the guns start talking. But from Ribbentrop's point of view, this is nothing more than an anachronism. He told the Soviet ambassador not that Germany would start a war in an hour, but that an hour ago it had already begun hostilities, and tried to present them as a “purely defensive event.”

...Ribbentrop sits in the dock and watches with alarm as such individual strokes of his “diplomatic” activity develop into an ominous portrait of a war criminal.

Soviet prosecutors presented a huge number of documents that completely refuted the version of “defensive measures” and exposed Joachim von Ribbentrop in unleashing aggression.

Here are the folders of the German Foreign Ministry, in which the reports of the Ambassador in Moscow, Count von Schulenburg, and the military attache, General Köstring, are filed. When the prosecutor began to read these documents, Ribbentrop's face became sallow. How he wished that Schulenburg and Kestring had reported then about the military preparations of the Soviet Union, about the concentration of Soviet troops on the western border. But the German ambassador in Moscow observed something completely different at that time.

Schulenburg's reports from June 4 and June 6, 1941 are laid out on the table. In one of them, the ambassador assures: “The Russian government is striving to do everything to prevent a conflict with Germany.” Another emphasizes: “Russia will fight only if Germany attacks it.”

Another document is a memorandum from Schulenburg, embassy adviser to Hilger and military attaché to General Köstring. The trio warned their government in cautious but categorical terms about the dangers that awaited Germany if it attacked the Soviet Union.

Hitler and Ribbentrop summoned Count Schulenburg to Berlin. On April 28, 1941, the ambassador received an audience with the Fuhrer himself. But it was more than short. Hitler got away with a few general phrases, and Schulenburg realized that his memorandum was being rejected. Without allowing the ambassador to finish, Hitler said goodbye to him, throwing him to the curtain:

– I am not going to fight with Russia.

The Fuhrer clearly did not trust Count Schulenburg, although he opposed the Soviet-German war not because he was our friend, but only because, living in Moscow, he knew better than others the enormous economic potential of the Soviet state, its growing defense capability and high moral qualities people.

The documents read at the trial, in particular those coming from Schulenburg, completely undermined Ribbentrop's defense.

German diplomats accredited to the USSR were seriously concerned about the brewing events. More than once, in conversations with each other, they returned to Napoleonic’s campaign against Moscow and its tragic consequences for France, the Marquis Caulaincourt recalled. He was also an ambassador to Russia and turned out to be the only person from Napoleon’s inner circle who decided to warn the emperor about the great dangers awaiting France if war broke out with the Russians.

Caulaincourt, as you know, left memoirs, where the most interesting thing is, of course, the retelling of his conversations with Napoleon, which took place both during the preparation for the campaign against Russia and during this campaign, right up to the shameful flight of the defeated French army led by its master. This volume of memoirs of the French diplomat visited the tables of Hitler’s General Staff when they were developing the “Barbarossa Plan”. But Hitler’s self-confident generals only laughed at him and threw him away with disdain. But in the German embassy in Moscow in the fateful spring of 1941, there were sober people who noticed a lot in Caulaincourt’s memoirs that should have been listened to. The then embassy adviser Gilger wrote later:

“When reading Caulaincourt’s memoirs, I was especially impressed by the place where the author describes how he persistently tried to convince Napoleon to take his point of view regarding Russia and spoke about the need to maintain good Franco-Russian relations. This passage in the book reminded me so vividly of Schulenburg's point of view, which he expressed whenever he had the opportunity to talk to Hitler about the Soviet Union, that I decided to use this coincidence and play the ambassador.

One day, when the ambassador came to see me, I said that I had recently received a confidential letter from a friend in Berlin and it contained a very interesting message about the contents of the ambassador’s last conversation with Hitler. Count Schulenburg expressed surprise, since he had reason to believe that this conversation was known to only very few people in Berlin.

“Be that as it may,” I replied, “here is the text.”

With these words, I began to read an excerpt from Caulaincourt’s book, which I carefully hid from Schulenburg, putting it in a document folder. While reading, I did not add or subtract a single word in Caulaincourt’s text, I only replaced the names of the characters: Napoleon with Hitler, and Caulaincourt with Schulenburg. The Ambassador showed genuine amazement.

“Although this is apparently not the note that I made for myself after meeting Hitler,” he exclaimed, “nevertheless the text matches almost word for word!.. Please show me where this letter comes from.”

...I handed the ambassador a volume of Caulaincourt's memoirs... The coincidence was truly amazing. We both considered this a very bad omen."

But Ribbentrop did not believe in omens, and at that time no doubts as yet assailed him. Spoiled by the “courtesy of time,” he was ready to take seriously the ironic words of Anatole France that “the ability to doubt is a monstrous ability, immoral, contrary to the state and religion.”

On the night of June 22, 1941, Count von Schulenburg was roused from bed at exactly three o'clock. He was given the encryption he had just received from Ribbentrop.

A few minutes later, a black Mercedes drove out of Leontyevsky Lane onto Gorky Street. The German ambassador went to the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR to open Pandora's box.

The count was well aware of the aphorism widespread in the diplomatic world: “an ambassador is an honest man who is sent abroad to lie for the good of his homeland.” Over the long years of his diplomatic career, von Schulenburg lied, of course, no less than other bourgeois diplomats. But, resorting to lies as a method of diplomacy, he was still convinced that he was doing it for the benefit of his country. But that time, driving at high speed through the deserted streets of Moscow, the ambassador was not at all sure that his lie would turn out to be a benefit for Germany.

Nevertheless, the old serviceman “fulfilled his duty to the end.” Having met with Soviet leaders in the Kremlin, he conveyed to them exactly what Ribbentrop had prescribed:

“The concentration of Soviet troops near the German border has reached such proportions that the German government can no longer tolerate. It has therefore decided to take appropriate countermeasures.”

These “countermeasures” were war. The most predatory of all the wars that Hitler’s Germany had waged until then. At the moment when Schulenburg made this statement, bombs were already exploding over Soviet cities, killing and maiming thousands of people.

Schulenburg was very brief. Ribbentrop forbade him to enter into any conversations. He took on the role of interpreter of the events of that night. On the morning of June 22, the Reich Minister spoke at an extensive press conference in Berlin and called on representatives of the world press to consider Germany’s military actions against the USSR as a purely defensive act, as a war of a “preventive nature.”

Joachim von Ribbentrop at one time affixed his signature to the Soviet-German non-aggression pact. But Germany nevertheless attacked the Soviet Union, and the wine merchant from Wilhelmstrasse was among the most active accomplices in the deliberate, criminal violation of this treaty. Ribbentrop tried to do everything so that in the hour of victory no one would dare to say that Mr. Reich Minister did not make his contribution to it. And when the sweet dreams of victory disappeared like smoke and after the bloody feast the Nuremberg hangover set in, he tries to convince the judges that he learned about the preparations for the war against the USSR only a few days before it began.

However, prosecutors help Ribbentrop “remember” that back in January 1941, he, together with Keitel and Jodl (obligatory “assistants” in almost all of his diplomatic negotiations!) persuaded Antonescu in Bucharest to allow German troops into Romania so that they could carry out a flank attack for the troops of the USSR. In the spring of 1941, Ribbentrop again met with Antonescu and now invited him to take part in an aggressive campaign against the Soviet Union. For this, Romania was promised Bessarabia and Bukovina, as well as Soviet Transnistria and Odessa.

Ribbentrop claims that even in May 1941 he knew nothing about the impending attack on the USSR. And the prosecutor reads his letter dated April 20 to Alfred Rosenberg, appointed to the post of Reich Commissioner for the Eastern Occupied Territories. In this message, the Reich Minister reports the name of his official, sent to the eastern headquarters as a representative of the Foreign Ministry...

After Germany's attack on the USSR, a new, much more difficult stage began in Ribbentrop's diplomatic career. In a certain sense, negotiations with Japan can be considered the beginning of this stage. In them, the Reich Minister could not count on the “courtesy of time” or on the terrifying power of the Wehrmacht. Japan had to be persuaded rather than coerced.

Back on March 29, 1941, Ribbentrop met in Berlin with the Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka. In an effort to quickly pit Japan against the USSR, he then made a pompous speech, reminding his interlocutor of the words of the famous Japanese militarist, first heard during the preparation of the attack on Russia in 1904: “Open fire and you will unite the nation.” Matsuoka showed great courtesy, but was careful about his commitments.

Immediately after the treacherous invasion of fascist German troops on Soviet soil, Germany is increasing diplomatic pressure on its Far Eastern partner. Ribbentrop again incites Japan to “stab the USSR in the back.” On July 10, 1941, a telegram was sent from Wilhelmstrasse to Ott, the German ambassador in Tokyo:

"Take all measures to insist on Japan's early entry into the war against Russia... Our goal remains the same: to shake hands with Japan on the Trans-Siberian Railway before the start of winter."

However, the eastern aggressor had his own plans; Japan was intensively preparing to strike the Pacific possessions of England and the United States and preferred not to be drawn into a war against the Soviet Union that was dangerous for it. The Japanese General Staff already had bitter experience of fighting in Siberia and Khalkhin Gol. For all their adventurism, the Japanese militarists well understood that Japan did not have enough strength to simultaneously attack both the Pacific possessions of the most powerful Western powers and the Soviet Union. Tokyo decided to bet on one of these two options. And of course, we chose the more promising one - the Pacific one.

During 1941–1943, Ribbentrop, with the tenacity of a maniac, continued to persuade the Japanese to attack the USSR. But his efforts are in vain. Japan at that time had already dispersed its forces on many fronts. The military situation in Germany became worse and worse every month: the defeat near Moscow was followed by the defeat of German troops on the Volga, then the Battle of Kursk was lost...

Hitler's “super-diplomat” is overcome by confusion. He completely loses his sense of reality. Only this can explain that in a conversation with the Japanese ambassador Oshima Ribbentrop recalled the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Pact. The leader of an ultra-aggressive fascist foreign policy, who had always considered international treaties to be a piece of paper, now suddenly remembered the old diplomatic formula: “Treaties must be fulfilled.” He remembered something that both he and his Japanese ally had always neglected. And Ribbentrop was absolutely ridiculous when he tearfully began to convince Osim that “it’s impossible to overexert the forces of Germany.”

Mobilizing the entire arsenal of Japanese politeness, the ambassador informs Ribbentrop of Tokyo's opinion:

“The Japanese government fully understands the danger that threatens from Russia, and fully understands the desire of its German ally that Japan, for its part, also enter the war against Russia. However, given the current military situation, it is impossible for the Japanese government to enter the war. On the other hand, Japan will never ignore the Russian issue.”

Ribbentrop gets angry and loses his composure. On April 18, 1943, he meets with Oshima again and tries to convince him that Russia "will never be as weak as it is now." It was necessary to say this when, under the powerful blows of the Soviet Army, German troops rolled back, leaving hundreds of kilometers of occupied territory!..

And the result? It turned out to be disastrous for Ribbentrop. The “Japanese operation” - the first major diplomatic action that the Nazi “super-diplomat” tried to carry out, deprived of the opportunity to resort to his favorite methods - blackmail and threats, failed.

Looking for a way out

The further, the more obvious Ribbentrop's actions testified to the hopelessness of Germany's position and to the fact that his diplomacy had lost all connection with reality. The gilding has worn off. The Diplomat's uniform now hung sadly on the shoulders of the bankrupt wine merchant.

Testifying at the Nuremberg trials, Ribbentrop babbles something about his efforts to end the war. He actually took some steps. His emissaries rushed to Madrid, Bern, Lisbon, Stockholm, with their main goal being to persuade the Western powers to separate peace negotiations.

These attempts found a favorable response in some reactionary circles, but nevertheless they also failed. Even the most notorious reactionaries could not help but take into account the great strength of the popular masses who rose up in the war of liberation against Hitlerism.

Then Ribbentrop proposed a new maneuver. “I told the Fuhrer,” he writes in his memoirs, “that I was ready to fly to Moscow with my family to convince Stalin of our good intentions and our sincerity. He can, if he wishes, hold my family hostage.”

In the days leading up to June 22, 1941, Ribbentrop did not even want to listen to the adviser of the German embassy in Moscow, Hilger, who, together with Ambassador Count Schulenburg, warned him about the danger of the adventure being launched against the USSR. But in the spring of 1945, the Reich Minister remembered Hilger. Here's what Gilger writes in his memoirs:

“Back at the end of March 1945, he seriously suggested that I go to Stockholm and try to establish contact with the Soviet diplomatic mission in order to find out the possibility of a separate peace. Only with great difficulty did I manage to dissuade him from this wild plan.”

However, in early April, Ribbentrop again summoned Hilger. Lying in bed, the Reich Minister mutters:

– Gilger, I want to ask you something and I ask you to answer me frankly. Do you think Moscow will ever agree to negotiate with us again?

“I don’t know if I should answer this question,” Gilger doubts, “after all, if I say what I really think, you won’t like it at all.” You may get angry.

Ribbentrop interrupts him impatiently:

– I always wanted complete frankness from you.

“Well,” agreed Hilger, “since you insist, here is my answer: as long as Germany is ruled by the current government, there is not the slightest hope that Moscow will ever negotiate...

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, according to Hilger himself, seemed unable to swallow such a bitter pill. “His face turned red and his eyes rolled out of his head.” The interlocutor noted that Ribbentrop was “choked by the words he wanted to utter.” But at that moment the door opened slightly and his wife appeared:

“Get up, Joachim,” she shouted, “go to the shelter!” Massive air raid on Berlin...

In the last days of the “third empire” Ribbentrop rushes from side to side. Between two regular meetings with Gilger, he arranges an audience with the Swedish Count Bernadotte. In an effort to use him as a mediator for negotiations with the West, the Reich Minister believes it would be useful to “scare the Swedes.”

Bernadotte recalls: “He assured that if the Reich lost the war, then in less than six months Russian bombers would bomb Stockholm and shoot the Swedish royal family, including me.”

And along the way, flattery is also used. Ribbentrop swears that Hitler “has always been most friendly towards Sweden, and the only being in the world for whom he has deep respect is the Swedish king.”

What is the level? What are the arguments? What a rich invention! Truly no comments are needed.

May 1945 arrives. The collapse of Germany is very close. Hitler and Goebbels committed suicide. Ribbentrop had no less reasons for this. But the former owner of Wilhelmstrasse is in no hurry to go to the next world.

For many years Ribbentrop worshiped his idol, and he responded with black ingratitude. The reader already knows that Ribbentrop’s name did not appear in the new government that was to be formed after Hitler’s death: the Fuhrer dismissed him. The offended “super-diplomat” laments about this: wasn’t it even he who telegraphed Hitler on April 27 and asked for permission to return to the capital to die next to him!.. Ribbentrop seeks the only consolation in the fact that it was not Hitler himself who replaced him with Seyss-Inquart; this could not have happened without Bormann and Goebbels. These scoundrels, of course, took advantage of the Fuhrer’s insanity and forced the latter to sign such a will.

But be that as it may, the resentment against Hitler did not go away for a very long time. Even in Nuremberg prison, talking with Dr. Kelly, Ribbentrop complained:

– I’m very sad. I gave him everything... I always stood for him... I had to withstand his character. And as a result, he threw me out...

However, throwing Ribbentrop out was not so easy. He is tenacious and does not give up right away. He still hopes to cling to power and hurries to Flensburg, where Hitler’s successor, Grand Admiral Doenitz, is forming a new government.

Doenitz also cherished dreams of reaching an agreement with the West and was looking for the appropriate foreign minister for this. But he understood perfectly well that Ribbentrop, whose name is associated with Germany’s entry into the war, was not suitable for such a purpose. With emphasized courtesy, the Grand Admiral asked Ribbentrop himself who he could recommend to him for the post of Foreign Minister.

Ribbentrop promised to think about it. The next day they met again, and the “super-diplomat” dismissed by Hitler told the new Fuhrer that he saw no other candidate except... himself. Doenitz had to clearly show him the door. By that time, he had already appointed former Finance Minister Schwerin von Krosigg as foreign minister.

I have already mentioned that during his arrest in Hamburg, a letter addressed to Churchill was found on Ribbentrop. He naively believed that the old political bison would believe his crocodile tears. After what happened in the world during the war years, Ribbentrop wrote to the English Prime Minister that both he and Hitler had always strived for rapprochement with England. Moreover, Ribbentrop considered England his “second homeland.”

Reading this letter in Nuremberg caused laughter and sincere bewilderment. It seemed simply unthinkable that in 1945, after the end of the war, after the atrocities of Hitler’s criminal gang had become known, there could be a person who would try to convince Churchill that “Hitler is a great idealist.” But it was precisely these and similar expressions that Ribbentrop’s letter was full of.

And it ended with the words: “I entrust my fate into your hands.”

Apparently, Goering was not the only one who imagined himself as Bonaparte captured on the Belerophon. Ribbentrop was drawn to the same place. However, if the “Hamburg hero” had been at least a little knowledgeable in history, he would have remembered that the British Empire never showed sentimentality in dealing with its enemies. As for Sir Winston Churchill, he certainly could not be counted among the soft-hearted liberals.

It is known that, having received Ribbentrop's letter, Churchill immediately reported its contents to Moscow. Let them know that the British Prime Minister has nothing to hide from his valiant ally!

The state of panic completely deprived Ribbentrop of the ability to realistically assess the situation and people. This state, which gripped him during the days of the collapse of the “Third Reich,” did not go away even during the many months of the Nuremberg trials.

Ribbentrop was suddenly seized with a desire to call more witnesses to trial. He petitioned to summon his wife, his personal secretary, and a number of English statesmen with whom he dealt as minister. In particular, they filed a motion to call Winston Churchill as a witness. According to the defendant, Churchill should have remembered and told the court about one of his piquant conversations with him; admit publicly that he, Churchill, then praised the German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler. No more and no less!

Ribbentrop immediately called Doctor Horn over and whispered something in his ear. The lawyer immediately asked to speak and, with the air of a man delivering an irresistible blow, declared:

– Sir David, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that Prime Minister Winston Churchill at that time was the leader of His Majesty’s Opposition in Parliament and received appropriate material remuneration for this.

The English prosecutor calmly walked up to the console and began stroking himself in the place where his back loses its noble name. This did not bode well for Horn. It has long been noted that Fife does this when he is about to knock out an opponent. And the knockout followed.

“Mr. Lawyer,” said the prosecutor, “I think that you would not have referred to these circumstances if you had not fallen victim to incorrect information...

Following this introduction, Fife very popularly explained to Ribbentrop and Horne that in England, of the two parties - Conservative and Labor - one is in power, and the other is in opposition. When Ribbentrop was ambassador to England, the Conservative Party was in power, and Chamberlain was the head of government. Churchill, also a Conservative, did not hold any positions. As a member of the Conservative Party, as an ordinary member of parliament from this party, he could not be in the opposition, much less act as its leader in parliament. And to finally satisfy the curiosity of the former Foreign Minister of the German Empire, Fife said that “then the leader of the opposition was Mr. Attlee.”

But the point, of course, is not this obvious example of Ribbentrop's ignorance. What else happened in the life of Mr. Reich Minister! Much more striking was the defendant’s confidence that Churchill would hurry to Nuremberg and, having arrived there, would be most concerned about saving the former German ambassador in London.

The list of witnesses drawn up by Ribbentrop himself, whom he wished to call to the Nuremberg Palace of Justice from the British Isles, also included the Duke of Windsor, the Duke of Baclauf, Lord and Lady Astor, Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Derby, Lord Kemsley, Lord Londonderry, Lord Simon, Lord Vansittart and a lot others. There is no need to talk about each of them here. As an example, let us focus on Vansittart alone, the then permanent undersecretary for foreign affairs of England.

The former Soviet ambassador to London, I.M. Maisky, notes that this man was one of those few English politicians who, guided by sober political calculations, advocated the establishment of friendly relations with the Soviet Union. During the war, only Ribbentrop did not notice that Vansittart was the leader of the Germanophobic movement in England and in his speeches reached the point of open chauvinism. The whole world knows that it was Vansittart who spoke about the need not only to punish German war criminals, but also to find the entire German people guilty of heinous crimes.

Of course, Vansittart did not go to Nuremberg, but he kindly agreed to answer in writing questions of interest to the court and Mr. Ribbentrop personally. Having formulated his questions to Vansittart, Ribbentrop accompanied them with a written reminder of his meetings and conversations with him. Vansittart responded immediately. And this is what this more than strange correspondence resulted in.

Question. Is it true that, on the basis of these conversations, the witness formed the impression of Ribbentrop's persistent and sincere desire to establish a long-term German-English friendship?

Answer. I have always strived to perform my diplomatic duties not only conscientiously, but also observing the established rules of ostentatious politeness. Therefore, I listened to many statesmen and ambassadors. Believing all of them was not part of my function and did not correspond to my character.

Question. Is it true that von Ribbentrop then tried to convince the witness of the need to develop these friendly relations into an alliance between Germany and England?

Answer. I remember even less about the proposal to extend this supposed friendliness to an “union.”

Question. Is it true that Adolf Hitler himself, in a personal conversation with a witness in Berlin in 1936, spoke in the same spirit?

Answer. I actually had a conversation with Hitler during the Olympic Games. It would be more accurate to say that I listened to his monologue. I didn't listen closely because it was more interesting to watch the man than to listen to his chatter, which probably followed the usual formula. I don't remember the details.

Question. Is it true that, according to the witness, von Ribbentrop devoted himself to this task ( establishing a long-lasting Anglo-German friendship. – A.P.) many years of his life and that, according to his repeated statements, he saw the fulfillment of this task as the purpose of his life?

Answer. No. I think that this was not the purpose of Ribbentrop’s life...

I was later told that on the day when Vansittart's answers were read out at the trial, the defendants dined very cheerfully. In the prison canteen - the only place where each of them had the opportunity to fully express their opinions - Ribbentrop was showered with ridicule.

But how did he himself react to Vansittart’s answers? Only in his last word did Ribbentrop tearfully complain about the “callousness and ill will” of the honorable lord:

“I devoted more than twenty years of my life to eliminating hostility between England and Germany, achieving only the result that foreign statesmen who knew about my efforts declare today in their written testimony that they did not believe me.

Against the background of many similar griefs experienced by Ribbentrop during the days of the trial, rare pleasant moments stood out especially clearly. And they were! Here comes Dr. Horn. He is holding the New York Gerald Tribune. The lawyer turned his back to Ribbentrop so that he could freely read the latest news. Ribbentrop reads, and his face brightens. He even pushes Goering. And he also delves into reading, not hiding his joy. Rare unanimity!

This happened on June 6, 1946, when a report appeared in the press about an anti-Soviet speech by James Byrnes, the US Secretary of State. At the same time, Bevin supported him in the British House of Commons.

Ribbentrop immediately somehow changed. During the breaks he acted as a commentator on the thoughts of Byrnes and Bevin. And in the evenings, meeting Doctor Gilbert in his cell, he would maliciously ask:

– Does America really care if Russia devours all of Europe?

Ribbentrop was able to discern in the Secretary of State's speech such a crack into which the entire Nuremberg trial could easily fall through. Even his small mind was enough to understand that imperialist America was “not indifferent” in which direction the development of post-war Europe would go. But what he could not comprehend was America’s truly complete indifference to how the Nuremberg Themis would treat Ribbentrop himself. People like him could easily be dispensed with even if we pursued in Europe the same policies that he pursued.

A drowning man clutches at a straw

Joachim von Ribbentrop could not have complained about the court's lack of attention to his person. The tribunal carefully and in every detail examined the milestones of his life. Not a single bad corner of his career was forgotten.

Ribbentrop is vain. However, here in Nuremberg he would not insist that the tribunal spend time examining his activities, which stemmed more from his high SS rank than from his position as Foreign Minister.

Ribbentrop did not want to admit his knowledge of the existence of “death camps.” But it turns out that in order to get to his own estates - Sonenburg and Fuschl, he had to pass through the zone of such camps. This was shown to him on the map, and he did not argue.

– Wasn’t this a shelter for elderly Jews? - the former Reich Minister asked naively, although every ordinary SS man knew that from there prisoners were released “to freedom” only through the pipes of the crematorium.

Ribbentrop was even less willing to admit that he contributed to the “staffing” of such camps with victims. At his trial, he repeatedly stated that he was not an anti-Semite, that many of his “best friends were Jews.” Moreover, Ribbentrop told the court that in conversations with Hitler he tried to prove that anti-Semitism had no basis. The Reich Minister, it turns out, convinced Hitler that Britain entered the war against Germany “not under pressure from Jewish elements,” but because of “the desire of the British imperialists to maintain balance in Europe.”

“Talking to Hitler,” notes Ribbentrop, “I reminded him that in the Napoleonic era, when the Jews did not yet have any influence in England, the British nevertheless fought with the French emperor...

Alas, the prosecutors were not moved by listening to this testimony, and placed on the judge's table a mass of documents exposing Ribbentrop in the active implementation of Hitler's racist plan.

Here is the official recording of the meeting between Hitler and Ribbentrop with the Hungarian regent Horthy on April 17, 1943. Hitler and Ribbentrop demand that Horthy “carry through” the anti-Jewish measures in Hungary. The recording records: “In response to Horthy’s question about what he should do with the Jews now, when he had already deprived them of almost all opportunities for earning a living, he couldn’t kill them all, the Reich Foreign Minister stated that the Jews should be exterminated or sent to concentration camps – there is no other option.”

Using similar methods, Mr. Reich Minister is trying to solve not only the Jewish, but also many other “problems.” He reprimands the Italian ambassador for insufficient cruelty in the fight against partisans and persistently advises everyone to “destroy the gangs, including men, women, children, whose existence threatens the lives of Germans and Italians.”

Ribbentrop does not hesitate even when the question arises whether one should take a restrictive approach to the lynching of downed Anglo-American pilots or lynching them all. He categorically insists on the latter.

Ribbentrop hoped that prosecutors would be interested only in his diplomatic activities. But the prosecutors of the Allied powers believed that the criminal-political portrait of Ribbentrop would be incomplete if some other, purely SS affairs of Mr. Minister were not revealed to the court.

The Nuremberg trials lasted month after month. All evidence was carefully examined.

The final stage has arrived: the defendants have the right to have their last word.

Ribbentrop, like others, was not limited by time. He spoke for a long time, but could not say anything new. Again and again he insisted on his love of peace, his desire to strengthen peace on earth: not my fault, they say, but my misfortune if people did not understand me or misunderstood me.

Ribbentrop wanted to live and, like a drowning man, clutched at straws. While pronouncing my last word, I believed that it could become, in a sense, the first word.

“When the Statute of this tribunal was created,” said the former Reich Minister, “the powers that signed the London Agreement obviously held a different point of view regarding international law and politics than they do today... Today, only one problem remains for Europe and the world: will Asia take over Europe or Western powers will be able to eliminate Soviet influence on the Elbe, on the Adriatic coast and in the Dardanelles region. In other words, the UK and US today face almost the same dilemma as Germany...

In the autumn of 1946, these words of Ribbentrop were already finding a sympathetic response in some places. The political climate in the world has indeed changed. And yet Ribbentrop miscalculated. He did not understand that what was taking place in Nuremberg was not just a trial, but a Court of Peoples, the progress of which was being vigilantly monitored by world public opinion, limiting the possibilities of political maneuvers of reaction.

On October 1, 1946, Ribbentrop was informed that the tribunal had found him guilty on all counts of the indictment. The second day drew a line: the presiding officer announced that for many years of criminal activity against the peace and tranquility of peoples, for complicity in committing monstrous crimes against humanity, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the “Third Empire” was sentenced to death by hanging.

Pale, with compressed lips, Ribbentrop listened to this verdict. Apparently, at that moment, his whole life flashed before his eyes, as if in a flash of lightning. Once again he could regret that he exchanged the quiet existence of a wine merchant for such a stormy activity of Hitler’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, fraught with fatal surprises.

After the verdict was announced, Ribbentrop had exactly thirteen days to live, but he did not know this. Dr. Gilbert still came into his cell from time to time. The pastor also started visiting. This new visitor, of course, did not please.

Ribbentrop wrote a petition for pardon and at the same time informed Dr. Gilbert that he was ready to write several volumes about the mistakes and miscalculations of the Nazi regime for the edification of posterity. Ribbentrop convinced Gilbert how important it was for the United States to make a “historic gesture” and petition for a commutation of his sentence, or at least a deferment of the sentence for the time he needed to write his planned work.

And soon a ray of hope flashed: Ribbentrop was told that “an American” wanted to meet with him. This American crossed all of Asia and Europe. He came from Tokyo, where at that time the trial of the main Japanese war criminals was already underway.

It was Kenningham, an American lawyer at the Tokyo trial. He came to Nuremberg with the sole purpose of obtaining proof that there was “no cooperation” between the Japanese government and the government of the Third Reich in pursuing an aggressive policy. Understanding the psychological state of the “witness,” Kenningham did not bother Ribbentrop and gave him a ready-made text of the testimony to sign. Ribbentrop hurried to sign this lawyer's essay, believing that his service to the representative of the country of the Stars and Stripes would be properly appreciated. However, the very next day he could be convinced that he found himself in the role of a Moor who had done his job and could leave. The “witness” did not survive his testimony even for a day.

On the night of October 16, the lock in the cell of the former German Foreign Minister clanged for the last time. He was led along the prison corridor. This was the way to the scaffold. A few hours earlier, Ribbentrop was informed that his request for clemency had been rejected.

They say that a person dies the way he lived. Ribbentrop was in a state of complete prostration before his execution. He did not walk along the prison corridor, he was dragged.

Once upon a time, Ribbentrop read Gestapo reports without a shudder, which described the executions of patriots who fought against fascism. These were people of great and noble ideas. Ideas gave them strength, inspired them even on the verge of death. Ribbentrop himself, an unprincipled politician and intriguer, passed away from life as he had lived it.

» radio station “Echo of Moscow”.

“You know, baby, who starts wars? - Hitler once ranted, addressing one of his young fans. — Military? Politicians? No. Wars are started by mediocre economists. It is they who lead the country to a crisis and hand it over to incompetent diplomats, and those to the military. If the military is also incompetent, the country will perish. But if the military is talented, then there is a chance to correct the mistakes of economists and diplomats.”

In this chain: economists - diplomats - military, Hitler clearly considered the middle link superfluous. This “middle link” in the Third Reich was Ribbentrop’s department. In other words, Nazi diplomacy simply did not exist. This is what is commonly believed.

And the very personality of the minister is always presented as somewhat dull: a kind of cold guy with an on-duty smile, who is always being rushed to sign something. Perhaps the deliberate vulgarization of Ribbentrop's personality was intended to hush up for as long as possible the fact how triumphant, brilliant, victorious Nazi diplomacy of the 30s was.

Data? Everything is in front of you: Rhine, Austria, Sudetenland, Munich, Moscow. For these well-known “achievements,” laurels were distributed to everyone: the military with their weapons, Goebbels with his propaganda, and, of course, Hitler, who puffed out his cheeks. Ribbentrop alone seemed to have nothing to do with it. But let us remember his first appearance in the diplomatic world.

In 1935, at a conference in London, Ribbentrop showed aerobatics

1935 Britain sends a note of protest over Germany's illegal military buildup. Hitler is puzzled and scared - he needs to send someone to the island to explain himself. However, not a single serious diplomat from von Neurath's ministry takes on this matter.

Ribbentrop was then just something like a foreign policy adviser to Hess. They send him. He returns to Berlin with a signed Anglo-German naval agreement, the essence of which is the recognition of Germany's equal status with other countries. By the way, this was that same fatal concession, the first in a series, after which the surrender of everyone and everything began, leading the world to disaster. You can even say this: on July 18, 1935, the Second World War began.

Ribbentrop showed aerobatics in London. As they said, he poured water, then threw a stone, namely: with many hours of continuous chatter he brought British diplomats to the point of exhaustion, and then gave a tough formulation that did not allow interpretation, and stood on it to the end. The British simply threw away the last argument of the British about the protests of France, promising to “stop by on the way” to Paris and come to an agreement. I stopped by and made an agreement. The technology was there. In a word, he returned to Berlin in triumph, and Europe then shrugged its shoulders for a long time: how did it all suddenly happen?

We remind you - 1935: Germany has not yet scared anyone, it recognizes all borders, and Hitler is literally in peace-loving convulsions.

And here is the famous episode when, having already become an ambassador, Ribbentrop, at a reception at Buckingham Palace, greeted the English king in the Nazi style, raising his hand and shouting “Heil Hitler!” For some reason, everywhere this scene is given as an example of the ambassador’s absurdity and tactlessness, but at the time it delighted the Germans, and led Europe into dejected reverie, which became a psychological bridge to the policy of wringing out her hands.

The second popular opinion about Ribbentrop is that he always thought and spoke only as Hitler ordered him to. Another example: at the end of April 1941, when the entire inner circle was voluptuously counting the days before the start of the blitzkrieg, Ribbentrop handed over a memorandum to Hitler. We read: “...I have no doubt at all that our troops will victoriously reach Moscow and beyond. But I am far from convinced that we will be able to use what we can capture, because of the well-known ability of the Slavs for passive resistance.”

He further insists that the war with Russia will not be short under any circumstances, it will be very long. Hitler was so angry at this that, in fact, he put an end to his minister. And Ribbentrop broke down internally, although he would still make attempts to object, warn, and so on.

Ribbentrop was convinced that the war with Russia would be long

At the trial, he will call his behavior internal resistance, while insisting that he has always remained loyal to the Fuhrer. In general, compared to other leaders who flexibly and resourcefully lead their lines of defense, he will look stupid. On the eve of his execution, Ribbentrop wrote this: “It has always been the tragic fate of Germany to stop the advancing East at the cost of its own blood... Adolf Hitler was convinced until the very end that intervention in the conflict between East and West was a fatal mistake of the Western powers, intervention directed against the people who defended the world culture."

How many politicians over the years have repeated these words without citing the author, Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Joachim von Ribbentrop

Joachim von Ribbentrop(April 30, 1893 - October 16, 1946) - Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany, Hitler's foreign policy advisor.

He studied in Kassel and Metz, then worked in England, the USA and Canada. He knew French and German perfectly. With the outbreak of World War I, Ribbentrop returned to Germany and volunteered for a hussar regiment. He took part in battles on the Eastern Front, was wounded, was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, and rose to the rank of Oberleutnant. In 1915, Ribbentrop was sent to work in the German military mission in Turkey. After the end of World War I, he began commercial activities. By 1925 Ribbentrop was already a successful businessman. His luxurious Berlin mansion was eagerly visited by industrialists, politicians, journalists and cultural figures. Since 1930, Hitler, Goering, Himmler and other Nazi leaders became frequent guests in Ribbentrop's house. Ribbentrop played an extremely important role in ensuring the Nazis' rise to power. In his house, negotiations were held on the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor between the leaders of the NSDAP on the one hand and representatives of President Hindenburg and the right-wing bourgeois parties on the other.

On May 1, 1932, Ribbentrop joined the NSDAP and received the rank of SS Standartenführer. Hitler put him at the head of the specially created foreign policy body of the NSDAP - the so-called. "Ribbentrop Bureau", designed to act in parallel with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The bureau was gradually filled with people from the SS, and Ribbentrop himself, who was close friends with Himmler, soon received the high rank of SS-Obergruppenführer (general). In the fall of 1934, the Fuhrer instructed Ribbentrop to prepare the ground for close German-Japanese cooperation, assigning him the rank of “plenipotentiary for foreign affairs at the headquarters of Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess” and “ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Third Reich.” He was tasked with negotiating and signing the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935. On August 11, 1936, Ribbentrop was appointed German Ambassador to Great Britain, and on February 4, 1938, Foreign Minister of the Third Reich. On August 23, 1939, Ribbentrop went to Moscow, where he signed the 1939 Non-Aggression Treaty between Germany and the USSR with USSR Foreign Minister V. Molotov.

On June 14, 1945, Ribbentrop was arrested by the British occupation authorities and brought before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. The court found him guilty on all 4 counts, including conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, and sentenced him to death. He was hanged on the morning of October 16, 1946. Tags:

Joachim von Ribbentrop (German: Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop, April 30, 1893, Wesel - October 16, 1946, Nuremberg) - German Foreign Minister (1938-1945), adviser to Adolf Hitler on foreign policy.

Born in the city of Wesel in Rhine Prussia in the family of officer Richard Ulrich Friedrich Joachim Ribbentrop. In 1910, Ribbentrop moved to Canada, where he created a company importing wine from Germany.

During the First World War he returned to Germany to take part in the fighting: in the autumn of 1914 he joined the 125th Hussars.

During the war, Ribbentrop rose to the rank of first lieutenant and was awarded the Iron Cross. He served on the Eastern and then on the Western Front. In 1918, Ribbentrop was sent to Constantinople, (modern Istanbul, Turkey) as an officer of the General Staff.

He met Hitler and Himmler at the end of 1932, when he provided him with his villa for secret negotiations with von Papen.

With his refined manners at the table, Himmler so impressed Ribbentrop that he soon joined first the NSDAP, and later the SS. On May 30, 1933, Ribbentrop was awarded the title of SS Standartenführer, and Himmler became a frequent guest at his villa.

On Hitler’s instructions, with the active assistance of Himmler, who helped with funds and personnel, he created a bureau called the “Ribbentrop Service,” whose task was to monitor unreliable diplomats.

In February 1938 he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. On this occasion, as an exception, he received the Order of the German Eagle.

Immediately after his appointment, he achieved the acceptance of all Foreign Ministry employees into the SS. He himself often appeared at work in the uniform of an SS Gruppenführer. Ribbentrop took only SS men as adjutants, and sent his son to serve in the Leibstandarte SS “Adolf Hitler”.

But after some time, relations between Ribbentrop and Himmler deteriorated. The reason for this was the gross interference of Himmler and his subordinates (primarily Heydrich) in the affairs of the foreign affairs department, and they acted very amateurishly. And Ribbentrop was already furious when he noticed one of his subordinates in an SS uniform.

The discord intensified further after Ribbentrop accused SD officers working in embassies as police attachés of using diplomatic pouch channels to send denunciations against embassy employees.

In November 1939, Ribbentrop sharply opposed Heydrich's plan to kidnap two British intelligence officers from the Netherlands, but Hitler defended the SD so fiercely that Ribbentrop had to give in.

Control over Himmler was found only in January 1941, after the SD independently tried to overthrow the Romanian dictator Antonescu. On January 22, when the situation became critical, Antonescu sent a request to the German embassy to find out whether he still enjoyed Hitler's confidence.

Antonescu defeated the putschists and began to pursue them. But then the SD intervened, sheltering the leadership of the Iron Guard and secretly taking it abroad.

Upon learning of this, Ribbentrop immediately reported to Hitler, presenting the incident as a monstrous SD conspiracy against the official foreign policy of the Third Reich.

After all, the representative of the SD in Romania was the instigator of the putsch, and the leader of the Romanian group of Germans, Andreas Schmidt, appointed to this position by the head of the center for work with Volksdeutsche SS Obergruppenführer Lorenz, sheltered the putschists.

Ribbentrop also did not forget to mention that Schmidt is the son-in-law of Gottlob Berger, head of the SS Main Directorate. Thus, Hitler was under the impression that the top SS leadership was involved in the conspiracy.

Taking advantage of the Fuhrer's anger, Ribbentrop began to act. He appointed a new envoy to Romania, who immediately sent a police attaché to Germany, who upon his return spent several months in the dungeons of the Gestapo.

Ribbentrop also began to demand that Heydrich stop interfering in the affairs of the foreign affairs department. On August 9, 1941, an agreement was reached that official correspondence between police attaches would go through the ambassador.

And later Ribbentrop tried to hurt Himmler for any reason. Thus, having learned of Himmler’s intention to visit Italy, he said that visits by senior leadership are carried out only in agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Representatives of the SA who survived the “Night of the Long Knives” were appointed ambassadors to the countries of South-Eastern Europe. And to SS Gruppenführer Werner Best, who had transferred to the diplomatic service from the SD, Ribbentrop said that Best was now subordinate only to him, and not to Himmler.

Joachim von Ribbentrop was executed by hanging on October 16, 1946 by the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal.

On the night of October 16, 1946, ten men began to be brought into the gym of the Nuremberg prison, one after another. Each of them had to climb 13 steps with their hands tied behind their backs to end up in the hands of the executioner.

"God bless Germany"

Few people managed to walk this path on their own - the condemned were deftly dragged by burly American soldiers.

When a black bag was put on the head of the first of ten and a noose was thrown around his neck, he said:

- God bless Germany. God be merciful to my soul. My last wish is that Germany will regain its unity, that mutual understanding between East and West will lead to peace on Earth.

Some, however, claim that the phrase was actually shorter. American Army Sergeant and Professional Executioner John Woods did not like long speeches, and the first suicide bomber fell into the black hole of the scaffold hatch.

The "pioneer" hanged by Woods really liked to talk. Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, by virtue of his official duties, had to make florid and convincing speeches.

Ribbentrop is remembered in Russia, as a rule, in connection with the non-aggression pact of 1939. Some, finding his name on the lists of those hanged in Nuremberg, are surprised - why was the diplomat treated so harshly?

"Adopted" nobleman

But Joachim von Ribbentrop was not a random person in the dock. He made a great contribution to the construction of the “thousand-year Reich”; unlike many, he did not particularly repent of anything.

Ulrich Friedrich Willy Joachim von Ribbentrop was born on April 30, 1893 in Wesel, Prussia.

For a long time, however, there was no “background” in his name. The vain Ribbentrop received this “noble” prefix to his surname already as an adult, when he was adopted by his own aunt. For his nobility, Ribbentrop agreed to pay a relative a lifelong pension.

Joachim's father was a career military man, his mother a housewife. When the boy was 9, his mother died. The father, having retired from service, moved the family to Switzerland, then to France.

Joachim, having matured, went to Canada in search of happiness, where he opened his own business. When World War I began, Ribbentrop returned to Europe, enlisting in the German army. He finished the war with the rank of senior lieutenant, after which he remained in Germany.

Hitler's confidant

The difficult state of the post-war German economy did not prevent Ribbentrop from entering the champagne trade. And in 1920 he married the daughter of his businessman friend Anneliese Henkel.

The business of selling alcohol brought him money, and his aunt’s complaisance brought him a noble title. By the end of the 1920s, he became a part of the Berlin elite.

Joachim von Ribbentrop's vanity demanded more. And he saw his chance in the leader of the Nazis Adolf Hitler, whose fiery speeches were increasingly popular in Germany.

Hitler also drew Ribbentrop's attention. He needed a person who was fluent in foreign languages ​​and had influence in the circles of the elite.

Joachim von Ribbentrop in 1932-1933 became Hitler's confidant, a man thanks to whose efforts Paul von Hindenburg approved the appointment of the Nazi leader as Chancellor of Germany.

Part of the German elite, while supporting Hitler, remained disgusted towards him. But this is clearly not the case with Ribbentrop.

Albert Speer, the Reich Minister of Armaments, ironically noted that Ribbentrop's office was lined with photographs of him and Hitler. But, looking closer, one could understand that this was the same photograph, reproduced by the owner of the office.

Joachim von Ribbentrop in his office. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Pact in his name

Ribbentrop admired and Himmler, and he, in turn, made him an SS Standartenführer.

The couple's relationship deteriorated much later, when Ribbentrop, dissatisfied with Himmler's interference in foreign policy, began regularly complaining about him to Hitler.

Even before his appointment as Foreign Minister in February 1938, Ribbentrop, on Hitler's instructions, conducted negotiations with European powers. The meaning of these negotiations was attempts to peacefully remove from Germany the restrictions imposed on the country as a result of the First World War.

Historians debate how successful Ribbentrop was. However, one way or another, Germany achieved what it wanted, and the Fuhrer’s trust in “his diplomat” grew.

Ribbentrop made little contribution to the Munich Pact, but succeeded in the summer of 1939 by concluding a non-aggression pact with the USSR, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Hitler needed a guarantee against a possible war on two fronts, and he received it from the hands of Ribbentrop.

The Soviet Union in this situation was also guided exclusively by pragmatic considerations. After Munich, it became clear that Western countries were ready to make huge concessions to Germany, just to push it to attack the USSR. When it became clear that it would not be possible to achieve the creation of an anti-Hitler coalition with France and Great Britain in 1939, the Soviet Union decided to use Hitler's interest, receiving a reprieve from the inevitable war.

Ribbentrop, having achieved such success, hoped for more - in 1940 it was he who was the author of the idea of ​​​​attracting the USSR to the Tripartite Pact. To your negotiating partner Vyacheslav Molotov Joachim von Ribbentrop promised a joint redivision of the world, inviting the USSR to move south to take over the legacy of the dying British Empire.

Moscow avoided such prospects, which became a signal for Hitler to prepare an attack on the Soviet Union.

The predatory "Ribbentrop battalion"

Since 1941, Joachim von Ribbentrop went into the shadows, giving the main role to the Wehrmacht generals. After the victory, he prepared to fix in treaties the contours of a new world, where the Third Reich was to become the main power.

In the meantime, the minister was busy with more mundane matters - for example, plundering the occupied territories. In 1941, a special-purpose SS battalion was created under the German Foreign Ministry, under the supervision of Ribbentrop. The task of the “Ribbentrop battalion” included the seizure of cultural and historical values, libraries, scientific documentation of institutions, archival funds with their subsequent removal to Germany.

In March 1942, an exhibition of the loot was held in Berlin, and the Foreign Minister, apparently, felt proud of such “achievements.”

Ribbentrop remained loyal to Hitler to the end. When there was an unsuccessful coup attempt in Germany in 1944 and the assassination of the Fuhrer, the head of the Foreign Ministry was one of the first to come to Hitler to declare his support.

John Woods is calling

But this devotion did not help Ribbentrop retain Hitler's trust. The Fuhrer was annoyed that German diplomats were unable to split the anti-Hitler coalition. Hints that Germany was protecting Europe from the “Bolshevik hordes” did not impress Western countries.

In his political testament, Hitler even refused Ribbentrop the post of minister. Should have changed it Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who, however, recused himself. It is curious that Seyss-Inquart was also hanged in Nuremberg, but if Ribbentrop became the first on the gallows, then his would-be successor closed the list of those executed.

After the end of the war, Ribbentrop disappeared from view for some time. But he was too prominent a figure to expect that he would be forgotten. On June 14, 1945, he was detained by an Allied patrol in Hamburg. There was a little over a year left before meeting John Woods.