Editing Anti-Comintern Pact (section)

=== Germany ===

==== "Anti-Komintern" (GDAV) ====
The ''[[Anti-Komintern]]'', officially the ''Gesamtverband Deutscher antikommunistischer Vereinigungen'' (abbr. GDAV, 'general association of German anti-communist federations'),<ref name="Waddington-2007">{{Cite journal |last=Waddington |first=Lorna L. |date=2007 |title=The Anti-Komintern and Nazi Anti-Bolshevik Propaganda in the 1930s |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |volume=42 |issue=4 |pages=573–594 |doi=10.1177/0022009407081488 |issn=0022-0094 |jstor=30036470 |s2cid=159672850}}</ref>{{Rp|576}} was a German agency established by [[Joseph Goebbels]] in 1933.<ref name="Waddington-2007" />{{Rp|573}} Its activities covered a wide range of operations designed to denounce communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular,<ref name="Waddington-2007" />{{Rp|580}} push [[antisemitic]] propaganda and garner domestic and international support for Nazi policy.<ref name="Waddington-2007" />{{Rp|574}} It was placed under the leadership Dr. [[Adolf Ehrt]] [<nowiki/>[[:de:Adolf Ehrt|de]]]. Under Ehrt's leadership, the Comintern was denounced as 'godless' in reference to its [[atheism]].<ref name="Waddington-2007" />{{Rp|581}} Beginning in July 1936, the [[Spanish Civil War]] became a main focus for the Anti-Komintern's publications.<ref name="Waddington-2007" />{{Rp|580}}

One of the Anti-Komintern's most significant outputs was the 1936 international release ''Der Weltbolschewismus'', in which it connected various anti-communist and anti-semitic conspiracy theories for the consumption of the international audience. The book was not released in Germany itself to avoid conflict between the book's varied accounts with German state propaganda.<ref name="Waddington-2007" />{{Rp|581}}

==== Anglo-German Naval Agreement ====
{{Main|Anglo-German Naval Agreement}}

On 18 June 1935, the United Kingdom and Germany signed the [[Anglo-German Naval Agreement]], which came as a surprise to the Japanese.<ref name="Boyd-1977">{{Cite journal |last=Boyd |first=Carl |date=1977 |title=The Role of Hiroshi Ōshima in the Preparation of the Anti-Comintern Pact |journal=Journal of Asian History |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=49–71 |jstor=41930226}}</ref>{{Rp|53}} This marked the beginning of a series of attempts by [[Adolf Hitler]] to improve relations between the two countries. In Hitler's mind, a positive relationship towards the United Kingdom would weaken Britain's allies France and Italy (at that point still a German rival) and contain the Soviet Union.<ref name="Shirer-1960">{{Cite book |last=Shirer |first=William L. |title=The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany |publisher=Simon and Schuster, Inc. |year=1960 |edition=1st |location=New York |lccn=60-6729 |author-link=William L. Shirer}}</ref>{{Rp|289}} Hitler would later also send Ribbentrop to London with the specific task of securing British membership in the Anti-Comintern Pact during his 1936–1938 tenure as [[German Ambassador to the United Kingdom|German ambassador to the United Kingdom]], declaring British accession into the pact as his 'greatest wish'.<ref name="Michalka-1980">{{Cite book |last=Michalka |first=Wolfgang |url=https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00046007_00001.html |title=Ribbentrop und die deutsche Weltpolitik |publisher=Wilhelm Fink Verlag |year=1980 |isbn=3770514009 |location=Munich |language=de}}</ref>{{Rp|154–155}}<ref name="Steiner-2011">{{Cite book |last=Steiner |first=Zara |title=The Triumph of the Dark: European International History 1933–1939 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2011 |isbn=9780199212002}}</ref>{{Rp|262–263}}

In Japan, the treaty was viewed with suspicion. Mushanokōji on 4 July 1935 in an embassy meeting{{Efn-la|Attendees of the embassy meeting: Kintomo Mushanokōji, Hiroshi Ōshima, Kojiro Inoue, Dr. Hiroo Furuuchi, Tadao Yokoi.|name=|group=}} stated his opinion that it would be unwise for Japan to rush into an alliance with Germany, as he (correctly) interpreted the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as a German attempt to ally the UK. The United States and Britain had been hostile towards Japan ever since the [[Mukden Incident]] of 1931, and Mushanokōji feared that Japan might isolate itself if Germany ended up choosing a partnership with Britain over a partnership with Japan.<ref name="Boyd-1977" />{{Rp|53}}

==== Competing authorities and ideologies in German foreign policy ====

The execution of German foreign policy was nominally left to [[Konstantin von Neurath]]'s foreign ministry, but [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]] headed the semi-autonomous ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop'', created in late 1934,<ref name="Stratman-1970">{{Cite book |last=Stratman |first=George John |url=https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3469&context=etd |title=Germany's diplomatic relations with Japan 1933–1941 |publisher=University of Montana |year=1970 |series=Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers |volume=2450}}</ref>{{Rp|14}} where he could carry out Hitler's personal foreign policy requests independently from foreign ministry consent. This created a rivalry between the two services.<ref name="Boyd-1977" />{{Rp|62}} While Hitler favored Ribbentrop as his personal foreign policy champion, he at least initially maintained Neurath's staff of career diplomats to maximize his government's diplomatic legitimacy abroad.<ref name="Stratman-1970" />{{Rp|12}} [[Hiroshi Ōshima]], Japanese military attaché in Berlin and the single most important individual on the Japanese side of the Anti-Comintern Pact's negotiations, interpreted the German foreign service structure as one where the power structure was such that "it was only Hitler and Ribbentrop who decided foreign policy, and that it was therefore of no use to talk to their subordinates". Ōshima thus attempted to get any important step of the negotiations to Ribbentrop's or Hitler's desks directly.<ref name="Boyd-1981">{{Cite journal |last=Boyd |first=Carl |date=1981 |title=The Berlin-Tokyo Axis and Japanese Military Initiative |journal=Modern Asian Studies |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=311–338 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X00007095 |jstor=312095 |s2cid=145782449}}</ref>{{Rp|316–317}}[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H04810, Joachim von Ribbentrop.jpg|thumb|[[Joachim von Ribbentrop]]]]

While Ribbentrop was Hitler's personal diplomat of choice, his personal view on geostrategic diplomacy varied quite distinctly from Hitler's during the late 1930s. Whereas Hitler favored a friendly policy towards Britain to eliminate the Soviet Union,<ref name="Michalka-1980" />{{Rp|154–155}} Ribbentrop saw the western allies as Germany's main enemy and designed much of German foreign policy, including the Anti-Comintern Pact, with the goal to contain the British Empire in mind as well.<ref name="Macmillan-1985">{{Cite book |title=Aspects of the Third Reich |publisher=Macmillan |year=1985 |isbn=9781349178919 |editor-last=Koch |editor-first=Hannsjoachim W. |location=Houndmills}}</ref>{{Rp|268}} When it came to Japan, Ribbentrop believed that the Japanese focus on the Soviet Union as its main antagonist could be redirected towards the United Kingdom also, thus enabling Japan to be a partner in Ribbentrop's anti-British coalition.<ref name="Macmillan-1985" />{{Rp|271}}

German alignment with Japan, against the wishes of the traditionally sinophile German foreign service and German public at large, began at the end of 1933.<ref name="Martin-1970">{{Cite journal |last=Martin |first=Bernd |date=1970 |title=Zur Vorgeschichte des deutsch-japanischen Kriegsbündnisses |url=https://freidok.uni-freiburg.de/data/2049 |journal=Wissenschaft und Unterricht |language=de |volume=21 |pages=606–615 |via=FreiDok plus}}</ref>{{Rp|609}}

==== German-Soviet interwar treaties ====
During the time of the [[Weimar Republic]], the German government had made major treaties with the USSR, including the [[1922 Treaty of Rapallo]] and the [[Treaty of Berlin (1926)|1926 Treaty of Berlin]].{{Efn-la|The Treaty of Berlin had built on the Treaty of Rapallo and designated it the basis of German-Soviet relations. This declaration by Weimar Germany had been seamlessly carried over into the Nazi state, which affirmed and extend the Treaty of Berlin on 5 May 1933.|name=|group=}}<ref name="Deist-1990">{{Cite book |last1=Deist |first1=Wilhelm |title=The Build-up of German Aggression |last2=Messerschmidt |first2=Manfred |last3=Volkmann |first3=Hans-Erich |last4=Wette |first4=Wolfram |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1990 |isbn=019822866X |series=Germany and the Second World War |volume=1 |location=Oxford |translator-last=Falla |translator-first=P. S. |display-authors=1 |author-link=Wilhelm Deist}}</ref>{{Rp|575}}

Germany was already agitating against the Soviet Union in 1935 when after a previous [[German–Polish declaration of non-aggression]], through [[Hermann Goring]] proposed a military alliance with Poland against the Soviet Union, but this was rejected. Germany made later approaches to Poland nevertheless.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Weinberg |first1=Gerhard L. |title=Hitler's Foreign Policy 1933–1939: The Road to World War II |date=1 March 2010 |publisher=Enigma Books |isbn=978-1-936274-84-0 |page=152 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o5FiQbU_nAkC&dq=goring+poland+alliance&pg=PA152 |access-date=25 July 2024 |language=en}}</ref>

In a note on the day of the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact, 25 November 1936, Ribbentrop informed Mushanokōji that the German government viewed these two treaties' terms as void under the secret additional protocol.<ref name="Weinberg-1954" />{{Rp|199}} Mushanokōji replied on the same day, expressing the Japanese government's "sincere satisfaction" with the German stance.<ref name="Weinberg-1954" />{{Rp|199–200}} This had been partially a result of the Japanese government's insistence, most notably in a request on 24 July 1936, to clarify the treaty's implications for past bilateral treaties between either party and the Soviet Union.<ref name="Ohata-1976" />{{Rp|33–34}}