When we go to Dallas, I always go by Half Price Books and peruse books on their $2 surplus shelf and lying there in the dustbin was a biography of a name lost in the mist of time “Hitler’s Diplomat, The Life and Times of Joachim von Ribbentrop”. He was Hitler’s Foreign Minister who handled all the negotiated and forced treaties as Hitler swallowed up Europe. His most famous treaty, The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression agreement between Russia and Germany and that would secretly divide the countries that lay between them. This opened the gates to WWII.
Ribbentrop came from a military family and married above his station into a wealthy family, while his wife aspired to be accepted into Berlin’s powerful socially elite. Ribbentrop’s in-laws influence helped him gain the franchise for expensive imported liquors. Ribbentrop was well educated and could speak four foreign languages and was recommended to Hitler as someone who could read foreign newspapers to him. In return, they invited him to parties and gatherings where Ribbentrop’s wife taught him social graces and table manners. As Hitler rose to power, he took Ribbentrop with him.
As Hitler consolidated his power in the 1930’s, his primary associates seemed flawed, but in truth there was hardly a secure, intelligent person who fell completely under Adolf Hitler’s spell while others were less charmed than plain frightened. Bankers stayed rational in his presence and used him opportunistically.
