Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

The menacing image became global when, within weeks of the formation of the Axis, Hitler entered a further pact with the one power outside Italy he had singled out in his August memorandum as standing firm against Bolshevism: Japan.¹¹⁹ Hitler had told Ciano in September that Germany had already made considerable progress towards an agreement with Japan within the framework of an anti-Bolshevik front. The anti-British thrust had been explicit.¹²⁰

The driving force behind the pact, from the German side, had from the beginning been Ribbentrop, operating with Hitler’s encouragement.¹²¹ The professionals from the German Foreign Office, far more interested in relations with China, found themselves largely excluded as a new body of ‘amateurs’ from the Dienststelle Ribbentrop (Ribbentrop Bureau) — the agency for foreign affairs founded in 1934, by now with around 160 persons working for it, upon which Hitler was placing increasing reliance — made the running.¹²²

Neurath was not alone in disapproving of the overtures to Tokyo (once he had belatedly come to learn of them).¹²³ Schacht, Göring, and Blomberg, along with leading industrialists (including the Ruhr armaments magnate Krupp von Bohlen), were also among those keen not to damage relations with China — a source of extensive deliveries of indispensable raw materials for the armaments industry, notably manganese ore and tungsten.¹²⁴

In ‘Official’ German foreign policy, Japan was still little more than a sideshow. But in the ‘alternative’ foreign policy being conducted by Ribbentrop, keen to establish his credentials as Hitler’s spokesman in international affairs and attuned to Hitler’s ideological interest in a symbolic anti-Bolshevik agreement, Japanese relations had a far higher profile.

Ribbentrop used his intermediary, Dr Friedrich Wilhelm Hack, who had good connections to the Japanese military and important industrial circles, to put out feelers in January 1935. The Japanese military leaders saw in a rapprochement with Berlin the chance to weaken German links with China and to gain a potential ally against the Soviet Union.¹²⁵ The prime initiative during the second half of 1935 appears, in fact, to have been taken by the Japanese military authorities, through Hack, in close collaboration with Ribbentrop.¹²⁶

Proposals for an anti-Soviet neutrality pact were put forward in October by the Japanese Military Attaché in Berlin, Hiroshi Oshima. Ribbentrop took the proposals — couched as a pact against the Comintern, not directly against the Soviet Union — to Hitler in late November, and gained his approval. Internal upheaval in Japan in the wake of a military revolt of February 1936, and the rapidly changing international situation, led to almost a year’s delay before the pact finally came to fruition.¹²⁷ On 27 November 1936 Hitler approved what became known as the Anti-Comintern Pact (which Italy joined a year later), under whose main provision — in a secret protocol — neither party would assist the Soviet Union in any way in the event of it attacking either Germany or Japan.¹²⁸ The pact was more important for its symbolism than for its actual provisions: the two most militaristic, expansionist powers in the world had found their way to each other. Though the pact was ostensibly defensive, it had hardly enhanced the prospects for peace on either side of the globe.¹²⁹