My Father Joachim von Ribbentrop: Hitler’s Foreign Minister, Experiences and Memories

On 16 October 1946 Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s wartime Foreign Minister, was executed at Nuremberg after being convicted on four counts, including planning a war of aggression and war crimes. In this English-language edition of his memoirs, Rudolf von Ribbentrop examines his relationship with his father during the years when Joachim served as German Ambassador in London and later as Foreign Minister of the Third Reich.

He describes a frequently isolated figure within the Nazi leadership who warned Hitler that Great Britain would fight to preserve its position and later played a central role in negotiating the short-lived pact with Stalin’s Soviet Union. Writing in his nineties, Rudolf attempts to assess his father critically rather than simply defend him. His position within the family and his own wartime service provide a distinctive perspective on the personalities, decisions, and events at the highest levels of the Third Reich before and during the Second World War.