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Anti-Comintern Pact
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==== 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}}
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