Hitler's Henchmen (9/12) : Ribbentrop - The Errand Boy
For educational purposes
Von Ribbentrop was the archetype of a careerist, who rose from humble origins to the highest levels of power.
He was a versatile adviser and envoy, who quickly won Hitler's favor and was sent to London as Germany's ambassador.
After that, he served as Foreign Minister, and was tasked with preparing the way for Hitler's high-flying attack plans.
Largely thanks to Ribbentrop's efforts to bring about the non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, Hitler received the support he needed to invade Poland.
As war succeeded diplomacy however, he lost prestige and to compensate that he and his entire staff worked to persuade Germany's neighbours to turn over their Jewish citizens for slaughter in "final solution." He would meet his fate at Nuremberg .
Von Ribbentrop was the archetype of a careerist, who rose from humble origins to the highest levels of power.
He was a versatile adviser and envoy, who quickly won Hitler's favor and was sent to London as Germany's ambassador.
After that, he served as Foreign Minister, and was tasked with preparing the way for Hitler's high-flying attack plans.
Largely thanks to Ribbentrop's efforts to bring about the non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, Hitler received the support he needed to invade Poland.
As war succeeded diplomacy however, he lost prestige and to compensate that he and his entire staff worked to persuade Germany's neighbours to turn over their Jewish citizens for slaughter in "final solution." He would meet his fate at Nuremberg .
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LearningTranscript
00:30You had the feeling that he was very manly and overbearing, completely unpredictable,
00:53jumping from one point to another, and that you always had the feeling that you were a little sausage.
01:01And it is a great grace that such a man would even say the word to you.
01:05I think he was more an errand boy than a policy maker, but he carried out some pretty terrible errands.
01:16Why could he have such an idiot like Ribbentrop as Foreign Minister? I said, I can't explain that to you.
01:46I mean, he had ideas of his own, which were very much those which he thought were Hitler's.
02:17He took very good care of the people around him and pampered them.
02:32But I always had the feeling that no one really liked him. He had an eye that was not very likeable.
02:46There was also some change in him. He became more arrogant, he had a more provocative attitude.
02:54He was, how should I put it, an actor, because he tried to make an impression.
03:04I went to Canada in 1910. Originally, I was supposed to go to the German colonies, but then I went to America. I wanted to see the world.
03:35I only remember what my mother and father told me, and they seemed to think that he was a very attractive man.
03:45They enjoyed being with him, and he went to a lot of the parties that they went to, and they thought he was just great.
03:54He was invited, I believe, to many parties. I think he may have been somewhat of a ladies' man, I don't know.
04:06How different my life would have been if I'd stayed there, said the condemned man in his Nuremberg cell.
04:12People are not born war criminals.
04:16Ribbentrop's early career. He moved in the finest circles in Canada, a smart businessman with valuable contacts, even at fancy dress parties,
04:26and a member of ruling class sports clubs, cricket, golf, ice dancing.
04:36With the Minto Six, he gave performances across North America.
04:41Well, he wore bloomers type of pants that went down into high socks.
04:47And then he wore a very tight coat, buttoned up the front.
04:54You're quite willing to dance with anybody, you know.
04:58The music goes on, there's a nice waltz, or there's a nice ten step, and he liked the ten steps best.
05:06Wherever people got together, there was Good Old Ribb, rumours of moonlighting as an agent of the Kaiser.
05:13When my father and mother discovered that he had been written up in the papers as being a spy,
05:24and they said they just couldn't believe it, that, you know, Good Old Ribb was a spy, because he'd been a friend.
05:33The friend disappeared. For his farewell, there was a magnificent party.
05:47He went to war and never saw the new world again.
05:53He became a lieutenant in the Hussars and won the Iron Cross.
06:03Not far away in the trenches was another soldier, from Austria.
06:07Their paths didn't cross just yet.
06:15He was wounded and sent to Constantinople.
06:17Was he the spy who was meant to stir up the Arabs against Britain?
06:21The files had been destroyed.
06:24The war was lost, the peace traumatic, the Patriot disappointed.
06:28He went back to business and to partying, paid for by the profits of his champagne company.
06:34His goal was unchanged, to climb the social ladder.
06:40At that time he was always referred to as Ribbensnob.
06:44And then everything changed.
06:47Because he was a snob, he liked to be seen with princes and the higher, better society of Berlin.
06:57And then he was lucky enough to marry a rich woman.
07:01His coup, marriage to Anneliese Henkel, making him the son-in-law of a champagne company,
07:07was a great success.
07:11His coup, marriage to Anneliese Henkel, making him the son-in-law of a champagne baron.
07:17He wanted to go on and get to know as many people as possible.
07:22Probably to help him sell his champagne.
07:30The more people he knew and the richer they were, the better for him.
07:41He stood apart from the life of the street.
07:44There, his old comrade in arms was beating the drum.
07:47His supporters didn't come from salons.
07:51But Herfen Ribbentrop felt he came from a better class of people.
08:11This gentleman was anti-Jewish and on the way up.
08:15But to win power, he needed more than the smoke from beer cellars.
08:23Ribbentrop was still removed from all this.
08:26He was close to this man, Gustav Stresemann, a democrat.
08:30But his companion in politics turned out to be Franz von Papen.
08:40Politicians, diplomats and economists like Schacht, von Papen, Ribbentrop
08:50and many others in politics, economy and art.
08:54And if it was nice, they could be in the garden and not be seen there.
09:02They could talk about all sorts of interesting things without being observed.
09:23Someone has to come to Germany and say,
09:27we want peace, but we refuse this unceasing repression.
09:33And we won't accept this repression.
09:37Ribbentrop decided to throw in his lot with Hitler.
09:40What did he think?
09:42For Hitler, Ribbentrop had a meaning because he came from a so-called better house.
09:50And Hitler didn't have many people around him who were educated or came from good families.
10:20Hitler, Frick, Göring, Koerner, Meissner, Hindenburg's son, Papen, Joachim.
10:25Papen wants to push Hitler's chancellorship through.
10:32Tuesday, 24th of January. Tea in Dahlem.
10:35Frick, Göring, Papen, Joachim.
10:38Decision to form a national front to help Papen enlist old Hindenburg's support.
10:45Friday, 27th of January.
10:47Joachim suggested to Hitler that the national front be formed as fast as possible
10:51and that they meet with Papen in Dahlem in the evening for final discussions.
10:55Subsequently, a lengthy talk with Göring in which further tactics were discussed.
11:05Sunday, 29th of January.
11:07Hitler announced that everything had been settled.
11:10New elections will have to be called, however, and empowering legislation passed.
11:14As Hindenburg doesn't want elections,
11:16Hitler asked Joachim to tell Hindenburg that these would be the last.
11:23In the afternoon went with Göring to see Papen.
11:25Papen said that all obstacles had been removed
11:28and that Hindenburg is expecting Hitler at 11 o'clock tomorrow.
11:34Monday, 30th of January.
11:36Hitler was named Chancellor.
11:45He knew what he wanted and he was a very strong personality.
11:52Ribbentrop had found his master.
11:54He would never be far from his side.
11:59I heard with incredible strength and conviction
12:06that he could express his opinion with brutality and force
12:13if he believed that resistance was on the way.
12:22In his ability to listen to Hitler, no one could match the new henchman.
12:28He had another quality.
12:30He always tried to determine in advance
12:33what Hitler wanted and what he was going to do.
12:37Ribbentrop on his way up.
12:39He would do anything to get there.
12:44We were all surprised that he had made such a career.
12:49We thought that he wasn't very academic.
12:56But he must have been a genius.
13:04Now he was at the top, one of the inner circle.
13:07And the Fuhrer trusted him.
13:09But the old party fighters didn't.
13:11They never overcame their distrust of the upstart,
13:14the new boy who had never got his hands dirty.
13:20Only one man suspected the Champagne Baron's hidden talents.
13:26Himmler.
13:27He supported his personal friend on his way up in the SS.
13:31This friendship was useful to Himmler to the end.
13:35Ribbentrop belonged to the staff of Rudolf Hess,
13:38who was Hitler's deputy.
13:43There was a so-called Ribbentrop office in Hess's staff.
13:48Ribbentrop brought along some people
13:51who understood foreign policy and history.
13:55He did all kinds of special tasks with them.
14:04The Treaty of Versailles was being undermined.
14:07Hitler was allowed to increase his navy's armaments
14:10to a third of the power of the British.
14:35The next piece of pacification, the Rhineland was occupied,
14:39Versailles broken again.
14:41The master and his mouthpiece.
15:11...has restored its sovereignty,
15:15and which will never allow this sovereignty to be discussed again,
15:20but also a nation which wants nothing but freedom,
15:26equality and peace.
15:31The faithful errand boy was made ambassador to London.
15:34Hitler's farewell?
15:36Ribbentrop, you're the best horse in my stable.
15:40Ribbentrop had come to London
15:44with the reputation of wanting to carry out
15:49Hitler's old policies of trying to come to some arrangement
15:53with the British.
15:55The world divided between the old British Empire and the new Germany.
15:59Ribbentrop the Anglophile was to enlist support in London.
16:09Everything had to be in English,
16:11from the clothes to the tea.
16:14The dog had to be of English origin.
16:18Everything had to be in English,
16:20including the flints, the purdy and the holland holland.
16:24Not everything had to be in English.
16:28The German embassy, meeting place of the British aristocracy,
16:32Hitler's henchmen intended to conduct politics with them, an illusion.
16:37He only became hostile to England
16:40when he blamed himself in England
16:44and made himself impossible.
16:49Like the reception given by the British king,
16:52Herr von Ribbentrop, the guest of honour.
16:57Ribbentrop, of course, was not a professional diplomat.
17:00He'd been a businessman.
17:02He'd been engaged in the champagne business before.
17:05But he was very much anxious to show what a good Nazi he was
17:08and how close he was to Hitler.
17:10And the first thing that did not go down at all well here
17:13was when he gave the Nazi salute to the king,
17:16I think when he was presenting his letters of accreditation.
17:20MUSIC
17:42Hitler forgave him the faux pas.
17:44His credit seemed inexhaustible.
17:51Hesse could not achieve anything,
17:53because Hitler supported, in principle,
17:57always the one who was pursued by the party paladins.
18:03The loner and his boss, a team to the very end.
18:06We regarded Ribbentrop as having no Hausmacht, as it were.
18:10He didn't have the position in the party
18:13that people like Goering or Goebbels or Himmler had.
18:17And, therefore, he was just Hitler's Hitler's.
18:21And he himself, I think, felt that very strongly,
18:24because he was always going back to keep in touch with Hitler
18:28and frightened that other people might undermine his influence.
18:33As an ambassador, he was a dilettante.
18:35But he continued to push Hitler's foreign policies.
18:38In 1937, a pact with Japan and Italy
18:41without consulting the foreign office.
18:44Another success for Ribbentrop.
18:47An alliance against Bolshevism,
18:49for the war that he wanted because his master did.
18:54Hitler read in the German newspapers
18:57and suddenly said to Ribbentrop,
19:00my Führer, we will soon have to draw the sword.
19:05And now I thought, now Hitler will eat him up.
19:08Hitler said, no, Ribbentrop, not now.
19:13Hitler was still counting on his Aryan cousins
19:16in the British Isles to divide the world with him.
19:19But they didn't want to.
19:26If not with the British, then against them,
19:29said the spurned, anglophile Ribbentrop.
19:33He turned into a, well, a rejected suitor,
19:37you might put it that way, and became anti-British.
19:41And so his influence with Hitler,
19:43instead of being pro-British, was anti-British.
19:47March 1938, the Anschluss of Austria.
19:50Hitler, Führer!
19:52Hitler, Führer!
19:54Hitler, Führer!
19:56Hitler, Führer!
19:58March 1938, the Anschluss of Austria.
20:17Hitler's henchmen almost missed his entrance.
20:20The freshly appointed foreign minister
20:22had only a walk-on part.
20:24Hitler wanted a willing errand boy in the foreign office.
20:28Hitler, Führer!
20:30Hitler, Führer!
20:32Hitler, Führer!
20:34Hitler, Führer!
20:36Now it was a matter of winning Mussolini over to Hitler's side.
20:39That wasn't difficult.
20:41The two men got on well.
20:43Hitler, Führer!
20:45Hitler, Führer!
20:58They were a bit difficult to interpret.
21:03Ribbentrop was the classic diplomat.
21:06Kind words.
21:08But Ribbentrop's Italian colleague, Count Ciano,
21:11wrote in his diary uneasily,
21:13he has got the idea of war into his head.
21:16He won't say against whom,
21:18but in the next three or four years, he wants war.
21:23That was exactly why Hitler had appointed Ribbentrop.
21:28It was known that Hitler didn't like the foreign office at all.
21:32He didn't like the foreign office
21:34and considered it a weak society
21:36that he couldn't rely on.
21:39He probably hoped through Ribbentrop as a party leader
21:42to have someone at the top of the foreign office
21:46who could introduce a certain reorientation in the foreign office.
21:54Munich, September 1938.
21:57British Prime Minister Chamberlain and Ribbentrop
22:00met to discuss the question of the Sudetenland.
22:03Chamberlain made concessions to Hitler.
22:10But really he wanted more.
22:12Hitler wanted all of Czechoslovakia.
22:18Two weeks later, Chamberlain was back in Germany.
22:21People wanted peace, as did Chamberlain.
22:24Hitler wanted war, as did Ribbentrop.
22:34But Goering and Mussolini prevailed.
22:36War was postponed.
22:41Hitler signed the agreement but felt deceived,
22:44as did his errand boy.
22:47As Ribbentrop complained
22:49that he had signed the peace treaty
22:52signed by Chamberlain,
22:54which Chamberlain surprised him with,
22:57he said,
22:59that has nothing to say,
23:01that has no meaning at all.
23:10Five months later, the breach of the agreement.
23:14Hitler smashed Czechoslovakia
23:16and Berlin cheered the aggressor.
23:27It was the last successful piece of extortion.
23:31The British began to stand up to him.
23:35From then on, Chamberlain was no longer
23:38an appeaser in the old sense.
23:43Clarifying his position.
23:45If an attempt were made
23:51to change the situation by force
23:55in such a way as to threaten Polish independence,
24:02by then,
24:04that would inevitably start a general conflagration
24:09in which this country would be involved.
24:14He knew we would have to stand up to Hitler.
24:18Now, the first way to do that
24:20was to try and bring the Russians,
24:22which he never wanted to do before,
24:25into an alliance with England and France
24:28to support the Poles,
24:30who were to be the next target for Hitler.
24:34Ribbentrop's job was to prevent the alliance
24:37and to reassure Poland.
24:39He went to Warsaw and laid a wreath
24:41in memory of those who had died in the First World War.
24:44The second was already being planned.
24:58April 1939.
25:00Hitler ordered preparations for war against Poland.
25:03His errand boy was jubilant.
25:11They would no longer be denied this war.
25:22Then, more hectic activity.
25:25Paris and London appeared to come to an agreement
25:28with Moscow over Poland.
25:30Hitler hadn't reckoned on this.
25:42So he sent his errand boy, Ribbentrop,
25:45to steal a march on the British and French.
25:51The Foreign Minister had no scruples
25:54about shaking the hands of Bolshevists.
25:57He was a politician, not an idiot.
26:00He was a man of his word.
26:02He was a man of his word.
26:05He was a man of his word.
26:08He was a man of his word.
26:10He was a politician, not an ideologue.
26:14The Herrenmensch in the land of the class enemy.
26:17What no one had believed possible happened in Moscow.
26:20Hitler's henchman was on his way to see the arch-enemy, Stalin.
26:28We had no idea that Ribbentrop was going to Moscow.
26:31I mean, we knew that there had been contacts,
26:35but much, much less important ones,
26:39or at least at a much lower level.
26:43The race had begun.
26:45Who would win favour with the Kremlin?
26:49Ribbentrop held good cards because he could offer Stalin land.
26:53The Foreign Minister of the Third Reich
26:56wanted this alliance with the Soviet Union.
27:04This was his greatest hour, the high point of his career.
27:08Never again was Ribbentrop so valuable to Hitler
27:11as on this day in the Kremlin at the side of the Red Dictator.
27:38Nervousness at the Berghof.
27:40Hitler was afraid Ribbentrop might fail.
27:43Messages from Moscow were immediately taken to him.
28:08The dictator's diabolical pact.
28:38The Kremlin.
28:40The Kremlin.
28:43Stalin was extremely loving towards him,
28:46unlike Hitler.
28:48He was a monster, a big criminal.
28:51But he was extremely loving and friendly.
28:55And that made a big impression on Ribbentrop.
29:02Ribbentrop himself always said
29:04that he felt like an old party member.
29:08Stalin and Molotov praised Hitler a lot.
29:14He was a very important statesman.
29:19Poland was divided before the first shot had been fired.
29:24After the agreement was signed,
29:27photographer Laux was there.
29:30He made recordings.
29:32Stalin said,
29:33we'd rather not publish them.
29:35Our people will get the wrong impression
29:37if we have a glass of champagne in our hands.
29:39Laux wanted to take his film out.
29:43He said,
29:44Stalin, no,
29:45if a German gives me his word, that's enough for me.
29:52Back in Germany,
29:53these cheers were just for him.
29:58In the name of the party leader von Ribbentrop,
30:00with the political achievement of the German nation,
30:03I hereby become Foreign Minister for all time.
30:09He goes down to history,
30:11the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement.
30:13And in one sense, I suppose,
30:15it did appear to be a great diplomatic success.
30:19But of course, it did not stop the war.
30:22It made the war inevitable.
30:25Ribbentrop was more relaxed than he'd ever been.
30:28And it showed.
30:29He had played world politics
30:31and influenced the course of history.
30:33Hitler was pleased.
30:34That he knew.
30:35He could only hope that his critics
30:37would be impressed by his success.
30:45The euphoria soon faded.
30:47Mussolini didn't want war.
31:00I think there was.
31:01Even Ribbentrop knew.
31:03I don't know to what extent he was sincere,
31:06to what extent they could be sincere.
31:09My father's sincerity for this treaty,
31:13I tell you honestly, is undisputed.
31:16Berlin, August 1939.
31:19Still at peace.
31:25But the Wehrmacht had already been mobilised.
31:27Once again, hectic activity.
31:30Our ambassador in Berlin, Sir Neville Henderson,
31:33was instructed to go and see Ribbentrop several times
31:36to impress upon him that if Hitler did attack Poland,
31:40then we would carry out our commitments
31:43under the Anglo-Polish agreement.
31:46But these two men were prepared to gamble.
31:49They didn't think Britain would stand by Poland.
31:53September 1, 1939.
31:56The invasion of Poland.
32:11Two days after the attack,
32:13Britain and France declared war on Germany.
32:16Ribbentrop and Hitler had been wrong.
32:22Two weeks later, Stalin picked up his share of the booty.
32:27After four weeks, Poland was vanquished.
32:31War saw in flames.
32:34At the end of September,
32:35Hitler sent Ribbentrop to Moscow one more time.
32:38Now the Soviets received the Reich Foreign Minister
32:41with military honours.
32:48Poland had to be partitioned properly.
32:51Stalin and his new friend in Berlin
32:53insisted on readjustments.
32:55The border was moved to the valley.
32:58There were difficulties later
33:00because the border was drawn with a thick pen.
33:03This thick pen was several kilometres long.
33:08It had to be drawn more precisely.
33:19With these signatures, free Poland ceased to exist.
33:26September 1939.
33:32Brest-Litovsk, September 1939.
33:35The Germans and Soviets now had a common border.
33:38They celebrated their new neighbourliness
33:40with a military parade.
33:44Poland was crushed.
33:45Now they turned their sights westwards.
33:48Ribbentrop looked for brothers in arms.
33:50Mussolini was still hesitating.
33:55Until the end, my father hoped,
33:59even after the war,
34:02in 1939, he hoped to be able to
34:05repeat a second Monaco.
34:08Finally, the Italians entered the war.
34:11After the rapid German victory in the west,
34:13they were called Harvest Hands.
34:19It wasn't enough.
34:21Hitler made a personal appeal
34:23to his fellow fascist in Spain, Franco.
34:30In vain, despite Germany's help with arms
34:32in the Spanish Civil War,
34:37El Caudillo stayed out of Hitler's war.
34:46The Commander-in-Chief was left with just Italy and Japan.
34:49With them, he signed the Tripartite Pact,
34:52the only useful war alliance that
34:54Foreign Minister Ribbentrop managed to bring about.
35:03November 1940.
35:05Foreign Minister Molotov in the Reich Chancellery.
35:08Long before, Hitler had given the order
35:10for the invasion of the Soviet Union
35:12for his old goal,
35:14the mania of Lebensraum in the east.
35:17Ribbentrop wanted to use Molotov's visit
35:19to salvage the alliance with Moscow.
35:23He sat and listened carefully to what Hitler said,
35:27to what Molotov said.
35:30But at the same time, he never intervened.
35:33He never took any initiatives
35:35to suggest anything or add anything,
35:38even when there was a pause,
35:40until Hitler asked him.
35:44Ribbentrop wanted to crush Britain
35:46and share the empire with the Soviets.
35:49Molotov had other concerns,
35:51the German units in the east.
35:53Then, Ribbentrop's attempts to carve up the world
35:56were rudely interrupted.
36:20The unequal partners hurried down
36:23to the air raid shelter under the Foreign Ministry.
36:43The visit was a flop.
36:45Worried, Molotov returned to Moscow.
36:48Stalin, however, believed in the alliance
36:51and was prepared to trust his partner in Berlin.
37:03June 22, 1941.
37:05The invasion of the Soviet Union.
37:08Operation Barbarossa.
37:10A war of annihilation was proclaimed a freedom crusade.
37:19The Soviet army took the city.
37:24The Soviet army was now sitting on the Kremlin.
37:29The Soviet army was now sitting on the Kremlin.
37:32The Soviet army was now sitting on the Kremlin.
37:39Ribbentrop announced that the German troops
37:42had crossed the border two hours ago.
37:45It was at night, around 3 a.m. in Berlin time.
37:49In Moscow, it was probably 5 a.m.
37:52They crossed the border at 3 a.m.
37:55Ribbentrop's darkest hour.
37:57He, of all people, had to announce
37:59Hitler's belated declaration of war to the world press.
38:05All that remained for him, one last message for the Kremlin.
38:09I followed him, and then Ribbentrop followed me,
38:14and almost ran away.
38:16He began to whisper in my ear,
38:18please tell Moscow that I was against this war,
38:21that this war would bring catastrophe to Germany,
38:25that I tried to persuade Hitler not to start this war,
38:29that he did not want to listen to me.
38:31By that time, the ambassador had already descended.
38:35The minister had failed.
38:37Now the military was governing.
38:39Foreign policy had practically ceased to exist.
38:44Ribbentrop travelled around in his Führer's wake,
38:47like him, in a special train
38:49decorated with the insignia of power.
38:54No one took them away from him,
38:56but they no longer meant anything.
39:02Close to Hitler, and in the circle of the military,
39:05the minister without a mission
39:07was on the lookout for new work the war might bring.
39:11In the war, he led a fierce war
39:14against the Ministry of the Interior,
39:17against Rosenberg, against Koch and the Ukrainians.
39:20But he didn't do it because he was involved in politics,
39:23but because he wanted to determine what was going on in the Soviet Union.
39:27I don't know if that would have been better.
39:31The errand boy sought constant contact with his master,
39:34the only one who could protect him.
39:37He always stayed close to Hitler,
39:40in his headquarters,
39:42with his own special train to Westphalia.
39:45To always be close to Hitler
39:47and to remain in constant contact with him,
39:50he was always afraid
39:52that Göring or Himmler or Goebbels or anyone else
39:56could take the rank from Hitler
39:59and that he would lose his power
40:03and that he would be affected by it.
40:11His personal welfare was not under threat.
40:14He bought an estate in the Oderbruch area
40:16and planned to settle the von Ribbentrop's there,
40:19the family seat of a new German aristocratic line.
40:22An idyllic family life in a war that he helped start.
40:27And the war was going badly.
40:29Unlike his champagne company, it was posting profits.
40:34The foreign minister did not have to give up his hobbies
40:37nor his love of luxury.
40:41The victories had come to a standstill.
40:44His profits were increasing.
40:48The minister had a golf course put in.
40:52He knew how to make a grab for booty,
40:55like his Italian colleague.
40:59In Austria, he lived, among other places,
41:02in Fuschel Castle.
41:04Here, even in bad times,
41:07the war profiteer had a good view,
41:10at the owner's expense.
41:12Herr von Ribbentrop,
41:14machst du das?
41:16Ja.
41:18At the owner's expense.
41:20Herr von Ribbentrop machte meinem Mann ein Kaufangebot.
41:23Aber wir wollten unser Schloss nicht verkaufen,
41:25und mein Mann lehnte höflich ab.
41:27Bald darauf wurde er verhaftet
41:29und in ein Konzentrationslager gebracht.
41:32Nach einigen Wochen wurde mir eine Urne mit seiner Asche zugedankt.
41:37A trifle.
41:39The only thing that mattered to the minister
41:41was the Führer's favour.
41:44Wenn er merkte, dass Hitler etwas nicht wollte,
41:48dann ist er sofort auf die Meinung von Hitler übergesprungen.
41:53Later, Ribbentrop would say that he had been the only one
41:56to give Hitler advice,
41:58but Hitler had seldom heeded it.
42:02Er machte eben alles mit, was der Hitler wollte.
42:05Ihm lag vor allem an guten Beziehungen zu Hitler.
42:09Das war eben die Hauptsache.
42:13He wanted to prove that he could still be useful to his master in wartime.
42:26SS-General Ribbentrop did not merely know what was happening.
42:29He lent a helping hand.
42:31He instructed his bureaucrats to deport the Jews
42:34from the occupied countries to their deaths.
42:36Ribbentrop, an errand boy for the Holocaust.
42:43As usual, the details didn't interest him.
43:13The minister knew enough to know full well that he didn't want to know any more.
43:44The Holocaust
43:48The Holocaust
43:53The Holocaust
43:58The Holocaust
44:03The Holocaust
44:08The Holocaust
44:13The Holocaust
44:18The Holocaust
44:23Himmler was convinced that he would do good to humanity
44:27if he destroyed the poor Jews.
44:31And probably Ribbentrop thought something similar.
44:36He was concerned with the appearance of power.
44:39The real power in his ministry had long been wielded by Himmler,
44:42a mutually satisfactory arrangement.
44:45After Hitler, Himmler was the only one to protect the conceited Ribbentrop.
44:52Then the end at his estate.
45:06Early in the morning he said to the manager,
45:11now the Russian is over the Oder.
45:14The Berlin Wall
45:32They got into a car and drove off to Berlin.
45:36That was on the 18th of April.
45:40Ribbentrop went underground, but in mid-May was traced to Hamburg.
45:56The British resorted to a trick, using a relative of Ribbentrop's.
46:10They immediately arrested him.
46:33Ribbentrop was alone at the end.
46:36Adolf was his only support.
46:39He was of no use to him either.
47:06Because he didn't pass the daily inspection,
47:08his personal appearance, didn't make his bed properly,
47:11didn't shine his shoes.
47:13This I found ironic,
47:15that a Jewish sergeant in the American army
47:18would restrict someone with a general rank in the SS
47:24and a foreign minister of Germany,
47:26a perfect example of the super mensch,
47:29to his room for not being neat enough and clean enough.
47:33Once again he was the upstart, the outsider, without retinue, alone.
47:39Even in prison he wasn't one of the boys.
47:45Von Ribbentrop was looked down upon by his colleagues at Mundorf
47:51because he had married the boss's daughter
47:54and it was claimed that he only rose to success
47:57because he married his boss's daughter.
48:02Ribbentrop showed no remorse,
48:04no feelings of guilt,
48:06no understanding.
48:13Mr. von Ribbentrop issued a directive
48:17to instigate a staged uprising of Poles
48:23as a ruse, I'm quoting,
48:27so that all farms and dwellings of the Poles
48:31would go up in flames and all Jews be killed.
49:02Robbery, extortion, genocide.
49:06Just ordinary politics.
49:09He also intervened with Mussolini
49:13to deport the Italian Jews
49:17to concentration camps or labor camps
49:22and this, in the judgment of the tribunal,
49:26was his participation in crimes against humanity.
49:31Ribbentrop was found guilty of war crimes.
49:34The sentence of the Nuremberg judges, death by hanging.
49:41I think it was evident that he was not surprised.
49:48My recollection is that he slumped a bit
49:54but made no outcry, no comment at all.
50:05October the 16th, 1946, 1.19 a.m.
50:10Ribbentrop was the first to be taken from his cell.
50:14What followed was a gruesome spectacle.
50:19The hangman had not taken into account
50:21that the men had lost weight.
50:25The condemned men were too light.
50:35I noticed that his neck bone did not break.
50:38That's why he was alive.
50:40So I jumped on the rope with him.
50:42I put my weight with him.
50:44With my right hand on his left ear,
50:46I give it a jerk and you hear bones go,
50:48and he's dead.
51:18© BF-WATCH TV 2021