Ribbentrop - Tapa dura

Of all the bizarre individuals projected into high office by Hitler's revolution, none was more improbable than Joachim von Ribbentrop. A successful middle-class businessman with Jewish friends, a romantic conservative who dreamt of restoring Germany's fallen monarchy and colonial empire, Ribbentrop joined the Nazis on the eve of their taking power. In spite of the hostility from both traditionalists and old guard Nazis, he began the spectacular rise which led to his becoming Hitler's Foreign Minister in 1938, a post he held until the end of the Third Reich. Ribbentrop was universally regarded as foolish, incompetent and intolerably arrogant. He owed his position largely to the fact that he was deeply in thrall to two people - an ambitious and dominating wife who pushed him forward; and the Fuhrer who saw him as a creature he might bend totally to his will. Though a yes-man, Ribbentrop nevertheless influenced his master's policy. His brief period as ambassador to London, where he became a laughing stock, made him violently anti-British, and led him actively to plot a war between Germany and England. His grandiose attempts at alliance-building led to a military coalition with Italy and Japan, and the famous pact with the Soviet Union. It was a career which would lead to the gallows at Nuremberg, where he headed the death procession. Other work by the author includes "The Duke of Windsor's War", "Operation Willi", "Wallis and Edward: Letters 1931-1937", "The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor" and "The Reign and Abdication of Edward VIII".