Anti-Comintern Pact
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The Anti-Comintern Pact, officially the Agreement against the Communist International was an
anti-Communist Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, w ...
pact A pact, from Latin ''pactum'' ("something agreed upon"), is a formal agreement between two or more parties. In international relations, pacts are usually between two or more sovereign states. In domestic politics, pacts are usually between two or ...
concluded between
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and the
Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
on 25 November 1936 and was directed against the
Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...
(Comintern). It was signed by German ambassador-at-large
Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...
and Japanese ambassador to Germany
Kintomo Mushanokōji Viscount was a Japanese diplomat before and during World War II. Biography Mushanokōji was the third son in the 10th generation of aristocratic Mushanokōji family and born in Kōjimachi, Chiyoda, Japan. He graduated from the Law School of ...
.
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
joined in 1937, but it was legally recognised as an original signatory by the terms of her entry.
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
and
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
joined in 1939. Other countries joined during World War II. The Japanese signatories had hoped that the Anti-Comintern Pact would effectively be an alliance against the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, which is certainly how the Soviets perceived it. There was also a secret additional protocol which specified a joint German-Japanese policy specifically aimed against the Soviet Union. However, after the accession of Fascist Italy to the pact and especially the German-Soviet rapprochement after the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those powers to partition Poland between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ri ...
, it gained an increasingly anti-Western and anti-
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
identity as well. After August 1939, Japan distanced itself from Germany as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Anti-Comintern Pact was followed by the September 1940
Tripartite Pact The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy, and Japan signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburō Kurusu. It was a defensive milit ...
, which identified the
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as the primary threat rather than the Soviet Union, however by December 1941 this too was virtually inoperative. The Anti-Comintern Pact was subsequently renewed in November 1941 and saw the entry of several new members into the pact. The Nazi regime saw signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact as a "litmus test of loyalty". The Anti-Comintern Pact ceased to exist with the end of World War II.


Background


Germany


"Anti-Komintern" (GDAV)

The '' Anti-Komintern'', officially the ''Gesamtverband Deutscher antikommunistischer Vereinigungen'' (abbr. GDAV, 'general association of German anti-communist federations'), was a German agency established by
Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
in 1933. Its activities covered a wide range of operations designed to denounce communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular, push
antisemitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
propaganda and garner domestic and international support for Nazi policy. It was placed under the leadership Dr.
Adolf Ehrt Adolf (also spelt Adolph or Adolphe, Adolfo and when Latinised Adolphus) is a given name used in German-speaking countries, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Flanders, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Latin America and to a lesser extent in vari ...
de.html" ;"title=":de:Adolf_Ehrt.html" ;"title="nowiki/>:de:Adolf Ehrt">de">:de:Adolf_Ehrt.html" ;"title="nowiki/>:de:Adolf Ehrt">de Under Ehrt's leadership, the Comintern was denounced as 'godless' in reference to its atheism. Beginning in July 1936, the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
became a main focus for the Anti-Komintern's publications. 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.


Anglo-German Naval Agreement

On 18 June 1935, the United Kingdom and Germany signed the
Anglo-German Naval Agreement The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) of 18 June 1935 was a naval agreement between the United Kingdom and Germany regulating the size of the '' Kriegsmarine'' in relation to the Royal Navy. The Anglo-German Naval Agreement fixed a ratio whe ...
, which came as a surprise to the Japanese. This marked the beginning of a series of attempts by
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
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. 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 The Embassy of Germany in London is the diplomatic mission of Germany in the United Kingdom. The embassy is located at Belgrave Square, in Belgravia. It occupies three of the original terraced houses in Belgrave Square and a late 20th-century ex ...
, declaring British accession into the pact as his 'greatest wish'. In Japan, the treaty was viewed with suspicion. Mushanokōji on 4 July 1935 in an embassy meeting 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.


Competing authorities and ideologies in German foreign policy

The execution of German foreign policy was nominally left to
Konstantin von Neurath Konstantin Hermann Karl Freiherr von Neurath (2 February 1873 – 14 August 1956) was a German diplomat and Nazi war criminal who served as Foreign Minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938. Born to a Swabian noble family, Neurath began his di ...
's foreign ministry, but
Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...
headed the semi-autonomous ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop'', created in late 1934, where he could carry out Hitler's personal foreign policy requests independently from foreign ministry consent. This created a rivalry between the two services. 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.
Hiroshi Ōshima Baron was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, Japanese ambassador to Germany before and during World War II and (unwittingly) a major source of communications intelligence for the Allies. His role was perhaps best summed up by General Geo ...
, 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. 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, 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. 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, thus enabling Japan to be a partner in Ribbentrop's anti-British coalition. 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.


German-Soviet interwar treaties

During the time of the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
, the German government had made major treaties with the USSR, including the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo and the 1926 Treaty of Berlin. 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. Mushanokōji replied on the same day, expressing the Japanese government's "sincere satisfaction" with the German stance. This had been 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.


Japan


Racial Equality Proposal of 1919, Washington Naval Conference of 1922

Japan had fought in the Great War on the side of the victorious
Entente Powers The Triple Entente (from French '' entente'' meaning "friendship, understanding, agreement") describes the informal understanding between the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as well a ...
. However, as part of the Washington Naval Conference of 1922, the United States and United Kingdom successfully managed to both limit Japan's naval forces by treaty and to force Japan to surrender her gains in China made during World War I. While there were some advantages for Tokyo gained during the conference – it was granted parity with USA and UK in the Pacific Ocean and was entitled to build a navy that would outmatch the French and Italian navies, as well as being recognized as the world's only non-western colonial power – the treaty was unpopular in Japan. Japanese nationalists, as well as the Imperial Japanese Navy, denounced the treaty's restrictive aspects. Culturally, the 1922 Washington Treaty was viewed as yet another betrayal by the Western powers, after the Japanese proposals for guaranteed racial equality under the
League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
had been rejected in 1919. This perception of national humiliation was further accelerated by the economic downturn that Japan experienced in the 1920s, exemplified by the 1927 financial panic in Japan (
Shōwa financial crisis The was a financial panic in 1927, during the first year of the reign of Emperor Hirohito of Japan, and was a foretaste of the Great Depression. It brought down the government of Prime Minister Wakatsuki Reijirō and led to the domination of ...
), which had also caused political instability and the fall of the first cabinet of Reijirō Wakatsuki, and by the 1929
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
. German historian Bernd Martin dubbed the Washington Naval Conference the "Japanese '
Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
'."


Japanese societal militarization and aggression against China

The Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931 began the period of Japanese aggression in Asia between 1931 and 1945, sometimes called the ''Fifteen Years War''. The diplomatic reaction of the European great powers to Japan's attack against China was insufficient to stop the Japanese advance, despite continued Chinese appeals to the
League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
. This attack, which had no central order from Tokyo precede it and was rather an autonomous decision by the
Kwantung Army ''Kantō-gun'' , image = Kwantung Army Headquarters.JPG , image_size = 300px , caption = Kwantung Army headquarters in Hsinking, Manchukuo , dates = April ...
leadership, was kept confined to
North East China Northeast China or Northeastern China () is a geographical region of China, which is often referred to as "Manchuria" or "Inner Manchuria" by surrounding countries and the West. It usually corresponds specifically to the three provinces east of ...
by the Japanese commanders in the hopes that this would be enough to keep European responses lukewarm and thus further Japanese advances. This estimation proved to be accurate, and the United Kingdom in particular was more than happy to let Japan proceed in Manchuria as long as British interests in southern and central China remained undisturbed. Even after the Shanghai Incident of 28 January 1932, the British attitude remained on the whole friendly to the Japanese cause and indifferent towards Chinese pleas for assistance. Among the few exceptions to this were British efforts to bring about peace in the city of Shanghai itself, where the UK had direct economic interests. The Japanese
Pacification of Manchukuo The Pacification of Manchukuo was a Japanese counterinsurgency campaign to suppress any armed resistance to the newly established puppet state of Manchukuo from various anti-Japanese volunteer armies in occupied Manchuria and later the Communis ...
on the other hand was viewed in Britain as a positive development that ultimately would help to disperse bandit activity. In February 1932, the Japanese established a puppet state in North East China, the Empire of Manchukuo, nominally headed by
Puyi Aisin-Gioro Puyi (; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), courtesy name Yaozhi (曜之), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final Qing dynasty monarch. He became emperor at the age of two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate on 1 ...
, the dethroned last emperor of the
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
(r. 1908–1912, 1917). Following the Lytton Report, which laid the blame for the conflict in Manchuria firmly at the feet of the Japanese,
Sir John Simon John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon, (28 February 1873 – 11 January 1954), was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second World War. He is one of only three peop ...
, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, failed to condemn Japan in his speech on 7 December 1932, and subsequently earned the favor of Japanese politicians such as
Yōsuke Matsuoka was a Japanese diplomat and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Empire of Japan during the early stages of World War II. He is best known for his defiant speech at the League of Nations in February 1933, ending Japan's participation in the organ ...
, who viewed the lackluster British response as further encouragement for the Japanese course in China. Japan left the League of Nations as a result of the Lytton Report in February 1933. The
Tanggu Truce The Tanggu Truce, sometimes called the , was a ceasefire that was signed between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan in Tanggu District, Tianjin, on May 31, 1933. It formally ended the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which had begun ...
ended the hostilities in Manchuria, but Japanese ambition in China was not yet satisfied. Between 1933 and 1936, Japanese foreign minister
Kōki Hirota was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1936 to 1937. Originally his name was . He was executed for war crimes committed during the Second Sino-Japanese War at the Tokyo Trials. Early life Hirota was ...
pursued the , the 'friendly diplomacy of Hirota'. Summed up by the
Amau Doctrine Amau or AMAU may refer to: * AMA University AMA Computer University, also known as AMA University or simply AMA, is a private, nonsectarian, For-profit education, for-profit higher education institution in Quezon City, Philippines. AMA is curren ...
of 1934, Japan viewed itself as the protective power of all of East Asia, mirroring the role of the United States in the Americas under the
Monroe Doctrine The Monroe Doctrine was a United States foreign policy position that opposed European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. It held that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile ac ...
of 1823. This posturing was again permitted by the European great powers, and Neville Chamberlain even attempted to negotiate an Anglo-Japanese non-aggression pact to improve British relations with Japan in 1934. In secret, Hirota's foreign policy leadership set an array of highly ambitious goals for Japan's diplomacy. This included an industrial buildup in Manchukuo, the acquisition of resources from North China via subjugation, conquest of the western Pacific and South East Asia, and preparations for a war against the Soviet Union.The Japanese army in October 1934 published a pamphlet entitled "The Essence of National Defense and Proposals to Strengthen It", going directly against the attempt of diplomatic reconciliation that was at the same time (at least half-heartedly) attempted by the civilian government in Tokyo (named "Shidehara diplomacy" after former Prime Minister
Kijūrō Shidehara Baron was a pre–World War II Japanese diplomat and politician. He was Prime Minister of Japan from 1945 to 1946 and a leading proponent of pacifism in Japan before and after World War II. He was the last Japanese Prime Minister who was a mem ...
). The pamphlet demanded a complete subjugation of all aspects of foreign and domestic policy to the all-encompassing question of "national defense" and the nation's preparation for total war. It further denounced "cooperative diplomacy", lauded the Japanese decision to withdraw from the League of Nations, and called upon Japan to accept its fate and to formulate a great plan for the next 100 years. The military subsequently continued its practice of publishing pamphlets with overt political content without prior coordination with the civilian government. In November 1936, about the time of the Anti-Comintern Pact's conclusion, the army pamphlet "Perfecting the Army's Preparedness and the Spirit Required" advocated strengthening the army and openly called for the reform of the civilian government and the reform of the Japanese state to better suit the military's goals.


Domestic power struggles about Japanese foreign policy

The Japanese imperial state's system was dubbed "a cone without vertex" by Japanese historian Ken Ishida. The
Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
(IJA),
Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
(IJN) and the Japanese foreign ministry each had its own agenda with regards as to how Japan should orient its foreign policy. The Japanese system, highly traditional and based around the spiritual and socio-cultural value of
Emperor Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...
, also involved the imperial court, which served as a buffer between these three rival groups and the Emperor at the top, which allowed Hirohito to escape direct political responsibilities for any failures and setbacks that the system might produce.


Japanese–Soviet fishery treaty negotiations and border disputes

At the time of the negotiations for the Anti-Comintern Pact, the Japanese government was also in negotiations with the Soviet government over fishing rights in the
Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...
. As the Anti-Comintern Pact's secret additional protocol between Germany and Japan against the USSR was to forbid political treaties by either state with the Soviet Union without the express consent of the other party to the Anti-Comintern Pact, Japanese ambassador Mushanokōji was concerned whether the Pact would result in consequences for the Japanese-Soviet negotiations. He inquired about it in a letter to Ribbentrop after the signing of the treaty on 25 November, and also mentioned the issue of border questions between Japanese-controlled Manchukuo and the USSR. Ribbentrop confirmed the German government's assent that Japan was autonomous and free to proceed in the matters mentioned by Mushanokōji his reply on the same day.


Ideological similarities and contradictions between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan

The Anti-Comintern Pact was more of a statement than an actual political commitment, and the statement was one of mutual ideological alignment and diplomatic attachment to one another. Both countries shared examples of very politically significant racial ideologies, with
Alfred Rosenberg Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head o ...
in Germany and
Shūmei Ōkawa was a Japanese nationalist and Pan-Asianist writer, known for his publications on Japanese history, philosophy of religion, Indian philosophy, and colonialism. Background Ōkawa was born in Sakata, Yamagata, Japan in 1886. He graduated fro ...
in Japan becoming the leading racialist ideologues. Whereas Rosenberg enjoyed government backing and was a central party figure after the Nazis' rise to power in 1933, Ōkawa's audience was more limited. Ōkawa found his main support base with young nationalistic military officers, particularly those in the Kwantung Army, the military unit that instigated Japan's initial invasion of North East China in 1931. Ōkawa's work was in late 1936 furthered by Takeo Nimiya's influential foreign policy pamphlet "The Unique Principles Guiding Japanese Diplomacy", in which Takeo laid out a vision of a long-term orientation of Japanese diplomacy around a racially justified expansionist policy based on traditional Japanese spiritual values rather than western-style imperialism. Nimiya's pamphlet was especially popular with young bureaucrats and students who were about to enter Japanese state politics in the late 1930s and early 1940s.The two countries shared a common ideological antagonist in the communism, which was extensively covered in the German and Japanese media and perceived as a real threat of subversion among German and Japanese political elites. As a result of Japanese reservations about an outright military alliance, the Anti-Comintern Pact was conceptualized as an anti-communist agreement rather than an outright military alliance. However, the Japanese military establishment was concerned about the growth of Soviet military strength, and Japanese military attachés in Europe had held conferences about the potential threat coming specifically from the USSR as early as 1929 to discuss potential countermeasures. The Japanese government on 8 August 1936 issued an internal document that specifically justified the German-Japanese alliance as a response to the growing threat that the Soviet Union posed in Asia and the close parallels between Japanese and German interests regarding the USSR. This document also revealed intentions to include other European, Islamic and Asian countries in the anti-Soviet pact and specifically named
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
as a potential candidate for pact membership. Both the Japanese and German movements shared an aversion towards the League of Nations, and both countries left the League during the year 1933. The two countries shared a similar list of diplomatic adversaries: The United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union. While the German and Japanese racial ideologies of the supposed superiority of the
Aryan race The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern I ...
and the Yamato race, respectively, showed parallels, these parallels should logically have made the alliance less likely, as the two countries' fascisms viewed each other as racially inferior. In fact, Hitler's
Mein Kampf (; ''My Struggle'' or ''My Battle'') is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germ ...
specifically names the Japanese as an example of a racial grouping on the second out of three cultural tiers, a step down from the Aryan race on the top. To prevent diplomatic complications as a result of German racial thought, German racist propaganda in the state-controlled press was directed away from the topic of the Japanese people so as to not irritate Japan.


Seventh World Congress of the Comintern

At the
Seventh World Congress of the Comintern The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) was a multinational conference held in Moscow from July 25 through August 20, 1935 by delegated representatives of ruling and non-ruling communist parties from around the world ...
in July 1935, following the advice of
Georgi Dimitrov Georgi Dimitrov Mihaylov (; bg, Гео̀рги Димитро̀в Миха̀йлов), also known as Georgiy Mihaylovich Dimitrov (russian: Гео́ргий Миха́йлович Дими́тров; 18 June 1882 – 2 July 1949), was a Bulgarian ...
to the Soviet government that had resulted from Dimitrov's experiences in France and Austria during 1934, the Communist International drastically changed the course that communist parties were advised to take in democratic systems. Instead of viewing the democratic and fascist parties as politically allied (''
social fascism Social fascism (also socio-fascism) was a theory that was supported by the Communist International (Comintern) and affiliated communist parties in the early 1930s that held that social democracy was a variant of fascism because it stood in the way ...
''), the communist movements were encouraged to ally with leftist and centrist forces (the policy of the ''
popular front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...
'') in order to prevent the rightists from gaining ground. Diplomatically, the Seventh World Congress also brought on the '
collective security Collective security can be understood as a security arrangement, political, regional, or global, in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and therefore commits to a collective response to threats t ...
' policy in the Soviet Union, wherein the USSR would attempt to align with the western democracies to counteract the fascist regimes. The Seventh World Congress specifically declared fascist Germany and Japan, next to Poland, to be among the world's chief instigators of war. This declaration accelerated Ribbentrop's efforts to secure a German-Japanese alliance against the USSR, or at least a promise of non-support for the Soviet Union in case of a war between one of the countries against it. This change in Comintern policy also made it urgent for the European fascists to prevent the strengthening of leftist popular fronts against them.


Role of China in German-Japanese relations

The
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
was an important partner to the Germans, but a bitter enemy of the Japanese Empire, as Japan had invaded Manchuria in 1931. Although Ribbentrop hoped to involve both China and Japan in his anti-communist bloc, the continued hostilities and eventual outbreak of war made the ambivalent German position, including the Sino-German military cooperation and the status of
Alexander von Falkenhausen Alexander Ernst Alfred Hermann Freiherr von Falkenhausen (29 October 187831 July 1966) was a German general and military advisor to Chiang Kai-shek. He was an important figure during the Sino-German cooperation to reform the Chinese Army. In 19 ...
and other military advisors to
Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...
, a serious concern to both of the Asian states. Furthermore, China was the biggest trade partner for German businesses in Asia. China was also favored by the German military establishment and the armament industry, as the Chinese military was an important customer for German arms manufacturers and heavy industry. Chinese exports to Germany, including deliveries of
tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
and
tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isolat ...
, were also seen as vital. During his time as Japanese ambassador to Germany, Mushanokōji made it one of his goals to undermine German-Chinese economic and diplomatic relations. Within Germany's foreign service, Ribbentrop favored cooperation with Japan, whereas Neurath preferred alignment with China. One of the major questions in the German foreign service in regards to Germany's diplomatic ambivalence between China and Japan was the recognition of the Japanese puppet state in Manchukuo, installed after the 1931 Japanese invasion of North East China. A recognition of Manchukuo, as suggested by German ambassador in Tokyo
Herbert von Dirksen Eduard Willy Kurt Herbert von Dirksen (2 April 1882 – 19 December 1955) was a German diplomat (and from 1936 when he joined the party, specifically a Nazi diplomat) who was the last German ambassador to Britain before World War II. Early lif ...
beginning in early 1934, would have clearly presented a German statement in favor of Japanese expansionism and would have disturbed Germany's Chinese partners. As a result of the possible irritation of the Chinese government and the potential misgivings of the Soviet government about the potential perception of an attempted encirclement by a German-Japanese entente, such a recognition of Manchukuo was initially opposed by Neurath and the foreign ministry. In response to his initial request to recognize Manchukuo, Dirksen was instructed to avoid "any close relations with Japan which might lay ermanyopen to being suspected of wishing to render assistance against Russia". This German caution towards any offense cast against the Soviet Union resulted from the impression in Berlin that Japan during the year 1934 was under serious threat of diplomatic and military encirclement. Specifically, Dirksen was also instructed to pay close attention to any signs of a potential war between Japan and the USSR, which the Germans assumed the Soviet Union would probably receive the aid of the western democracies if it were to break out, although this potential war was not perceived as immediately imminent. Regardless, the German foreign service sought at all costs to avoid entanglement in such a conflict. For their part, the Japanese political and military establishments were by 1934 also less than certain about the usefulness of the new Hitler government in Germany, which Tokyo assumed would attempt to maintain a peaceful relationship with the Soviet Union and avoid any open alignment with Moscow's enemies. The distrust that Japan felt was partially caused by the close relationship between Germany and China, which in turn was perceived as an ally of the Soviet Union against Japan. After the Anti-Comintern Pact's signing, Falkenhausen was recalled to Germany against his will after Japanese pressure in 1938. China eventually declared war on Germany and Italy, along with Japan, on 9 December 1941, in the aftermath of the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, ju ...
and the American entry into World War II, citing German and Italian support for Japanese aggression as the reason.


Instability in France

The domestic situation in the
French Third Republic The French Third Republic (french: Troisième République, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940 ...
was unstable. This provided the opportunity for France's rivals, especially Germany, to expand their influence, while at the same time weakening France's European partners, such as
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
and
Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...
. The cabinet of Léon Blum, supported by France's
popular front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...
, had taken the reins in June 1936. The social instability and political violence within France made the French government careful and ineffective in applying France's otherwise extensive diplomatic and military power. Hitler, who expected France's popular front to result in a situation similar to the Spanish Civil War, openly announced to the French ambassador on 6 October 1936 that a communist takeover in France would not be treated by Germany as a domestic affair. In French foreign policy, the 1934 German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact had caused concerns about the stability of the French alliance system in eastern Europe, leading to a French realignment towards the Soviet Union that resulted in the 1936
Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance The Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance was a bilateral treaty between France and the Soviet Union with the aim of enveloping Nazi Germany in 1935 to reduce the threat from Central Europe. It was pursued by Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet forei ...
.


German, Italian and Soviet involvement in the Spanish Civil War

The
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
, in which Germany supported the
Nationalists Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
and the Soviet Union the Republicans, reinforced the urgency in the mind of the German leadership to create some sort of anti-Soviet military arrangement to counteract a potential aggression by the Soviet Union. The Spanish nationalists also received aid from Mussolini's Italy (
Corpo Truppe Volontarie The Corps of Volunteer Troops ( it, Corpo Truppe Volontarie, CTV) was a Fascist Italian expeditionary force of military volunteers, which was sent to Spain to support the Nationalist forces under General Francisco Franco against the Spanish ...
), but the Italian attitude to a potential anti-communist or anti-Soviet agreement was initially the opposite of the German position: the Italians viewed the signing of an anti-communist treaty as superfluous, as Italy's anti-communist commitment was in the Italian viewpoint sufficiently proven in their support for the Spanish nationalists. The Spanish Civil War was viewed by the Germans as concrete proof that the teachings of the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern, which had been specifically aimed against Germany (and Japan), were indeed affecting geopolitics.


Creation


Early designs by ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop'' and Hiroshi Ōshima

After the
Anglo-German Naval Agreement The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) of 18 June 1935 was a naval agreement between the United Kingdom and Germany regulating the size of the '' Kriegsmarine'' in relation to the Royal Navy. The Anglo-German Naval Agreement fixed a ratio whe ...
and the Seventh World Congress, the German ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop'' envisioned in October 1935 an anti-communist diplomatic system that might involve both the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China. This idea had support on the Japanese side by Hiroshi Ōshima, then the military attaché for Japan in Berlin, although Ōshima was more concerned with a Japanese subjugation of China rather than with an equal Japanese-Chinese alliance against the Soviet Union. The Nationalist government in China was unwilling to make deals with Japan as long as the Japanese occupation of
Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...
persisted, so Ōshima and Ribbentrop drafted a bilateral treaty between Germany and Japan. Originally, the treaty was scheduled for November 1935, and invitations were to be extended to China, the United Kingdom, Italy and Poland. However, the German military and diplomatic leadership stalled the treaty's realization, as they feared a breakdown in the German relations with China. Furthermore, foreign minister
Konstantin von Neurath Konstantin Hermann Karl Freiherr von Neurath (2 February 1873 – 14 August 1956) was a German diplomat and Nazi war criminal who served as Foreign Minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938. Born to a Swabian noble family, Neurath began his di ...
was jealous of Ribbentrop's exalted position in foreign policy outside of the ministry's control. While the initial designs for the pact came from ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop'', Hiroshi Ōshima, who would himself become Japan's ambassador to Germany in 1938–1939 and 1941–1945, became very influential in the pact's outline on the Japanese side. While the government in Tokyo was not particularly proactive in the pact's creation, Ōshima and the staff of the Japanese embassy in Berlin were. When Mushanokōji stated his suspicions of the German intentions to the embassy personnel on 4 July 1935, Ōshima was the main source of disagreement within the staff. Regardless, Mushanokōji ended up making the recommendation to the Japanese government to only pursue an alliance with German insofar as it did not lead to the deterioration of Japanese relations with the United Kingdom and United States. Ōshima was a staunch anti-communist and veteran of the
Japanese intervention in Siberia The of 1918–1922 was the dispatch of Japanese military forces to the Russian Maritime Provinces as part of a larger effort by western powers and Japan to support White Russian forces against the Bolshevik Red Army during the Russian Civil ...
, and used his good connections within Germany, among others to
Wilhelm Canaris Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and the chief of the '' Abwehr'' (the German military-intelligence service) from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi r ...
of the '' Abwehr,'' to, without authorization from ambassador Mushanokōji, further his pro-German and anti-Soviet agenda within the embassy. Initially disgusted with the military and political weakness of the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
when he first arrived in Germany in 1922, he became an admirer of Adolf Hitler following the National Socialists' rise to power in 1933, and concluded that "there were things in the new Germany which were worthy of serious consideration". Ōshima was aided by the fact he spoke the
German language German ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and Official language, official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Ita ...
with a high degree of fluency. His positive predispositions towards the NSDAP government made him useful in the anti-Soviet designs of the Imperial Japanese Army, which aimed to envelop the Soviet Union through an alliance with Germany, eventually planning to strike into Siberia to secure its natural resources for Japan (
Hokushin-ron was a pre-World War II political doctrine of the Empire of Japan which stated that Manchuria and Siberia were Japan's sphere of interest and that the potential value to Japan for economic and territorial expansion in those areas was greater tha ...
). Ōshima's instructions from the high command were to investigate the German government's stability, the future of the German military, and the state of German-Soviet military and diplomatic relations. Ōshima followed his assignment diligently, and the high frequency of his visits to and inspections of the German military establishment was noted even by the American military attaché Hugh W. Rowan, one of whose tasks was to observe Japanese covert activity in Berlin. Rowan was soon convinced that Ōshima was "being given access to important technical information in possession of the German army". The threat posed by the Soviet Union remained Ōshima's principal concern, and he aggressively sought out all German information on Soviet military strength he could attain. His aforementioned relationship with Canaris of the ''Abwehr'' was also largely based on the prospect of a potential German-Japanese intelligence service cooperation against the Soviet Union. By 1937, he would also forge close contacts with
Wilhelm Keitel Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel (; 22 September 188216 October 1946) was a German field marshal and war criminal who held office as chief of the '' Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' (OKW), the high command of Nazi Germany's Armed Forces, duri ...
, the later Chief of OKW.One of Ōshima's old associates from the time of the Weimar Republic, Friedrich Wilhelm Hack de.html" ;"title=":de:Friedrich_Wilhelm_Hack.html" ;"title="nowiki/>:de:Friedrich Wilhelm Hack">de">:de:Friedrich_Wilhelm_Hack.html" ;"title="nowiki/>:de:Friedrich Wilhelm Hack">de had by 1934 joined the new ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop.'' Hack served as the networker between Ōshima, Canaris and German minister of defense Werner von Blomberg, organizing meetings in Freiburg im Breisgau, Freiburg, starting in early 1935. Hack was instrumental in establishing personal contacts for Ōshima and was the most important link between Ōshima and Joachim von Ribbentrop, whom Ōshima viewed as the single most important person on the German side after Hitler himself. Ōshima first met with Ribbentrop in March 1935. Ribbentrop reported to Hitler, according to his (Ribbentrop's) testimony at Nuremberg, that he 'personally had certain connections with Japanese persons'. Historian Carl Boyd interprets this as a reference to the contact with Ōshima established via Hack. With Hitler's tentative approval (Hitler was uncertain of Ōshima's authority and wanted Ribbentrop to ascertain the opinions of the higher-ups in the Japanese military establishment), negotiations between Ōshima and Ribbentrop went into full swing in fall of 1935.


Negotiations


1935

Starting with the meetings in October, which at some point involved Hitler himself, Ōshima presented his idea of a promise of mutual assistance in case of an attack on one of the two countries by the Soviet Union. At this point, Ōshima's telegrams to the Japanese army were enthusiastic about the diplomatic potential of the negotiations, up to and including the possibility of an open German-Japanese military alliance, even though both sides were more immediately comfortable at that point with a less impactful agreement to not aid the Soviet Union in case of a Soviet war against the other party. Such a 'no aid'-agreement was easier to fit into each country's respective grand strategies. Ōshima's extensive involvement was essential to the formation of the Anti-Comintern Pact, but was also the source of some discomfort among the Japanese military and diplomatic leaderships, as Ōshima had far overextended his military assignment with his unauthorized diplomatic cooperation with Ribbentrop and even Hitler himself. But instead of the severe punishment that a junior officer like Ōshima might have otherwise received for his reckless dealings with a foreign head of government, Ōshima's advance was acknowledged positively by the Japanese hyper-militarists, who were sympathetic to Hitler's policies and impressed by Ōshima's successes. In late October 1935, the chief of the Japanese army's general staff,
Prince Kan'in Kotohito was the sixth head of a cadet branch of the Japanese imperial family, and a career army officer who served as Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff from 1931 to 1940. During his tenure as the Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army Ge ...
, signalled that the army was positively disposed towards a pact with Germany. Kotohito had been a close associate of Hiroshi Ōshima's father Ken'ichi Ōshima, Japan's Minister of the Army in 1916–1918, and was thus positively predisposed towards Hiroshi Ōshima's activity in Europe, and likely one of Ōshima's protectors in the question of Ōshima overstepping his initial assignments. Kotohito assigned a general staff intelligence officer, Tadaichi Wakamatsu, with a mission in Berlin that involved ascertaining the German attitude towards a German-Japanese agreement directed against the Soviet Union. Meetings between Wakamatsu, Ōshima and Blomberg in November and December 1935 achieved little, although Wakamatsu signalled the general willingness of the Japanese army to negotiate a treaty with Germany. He was sceptical of the ''Dienststelle's'' semi-official status within the German foreign service. However, the IJA in principle remained open to the idea, and Wakamatsu left Germany for Japan in December 1935 with the understanding that both sides would seek government approval for the pact. Wakamatsu and Kotohito were overall unprepared to deal with the remarkable progress that Ōshima reported in his messages and the potential magnitude of the resulting German-Japanese treaty. Near the end of 1935, Soviet
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
intelligence intercepted several secret telegrams between Ōshima and the Japanese General Staff. This information was forwarded to the Soviet embassy in Japan, from which the American embassy also heard news of the ongoing secret negotiations between Germany and Japan. This marked the first time that the Soviet Union is confirmed to have received word of the ongoing negotiations of the Anti-Comintern Pact.


1936

The inconsistencies between the German foreign ministry and ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop'' showed themselves again in the course of the negotiations. Dirksen, ambassador in Tokyo, was informed about the ongoing talks not by the German foreign service, but instead by the Japanese General Staff. German foreign minister Konstantin von Neurath, when informed about the situation by Hitler, argued against the creation of a German-Japanese pact. Firstly, he was concerned with Sino-German relations and thought Japan less important to Germany than China, and secondly, he wanted to avoid having foreign policy authority slip away from the foreign ministry towards ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop'', where he saw Ribbentrop as a rival to his own position. In Japan, the matter was stalled, as the important documents got lost between January and February 1936 in the bureaucratic apparatus of the Japanese foreign ministry, as they were discarded by low-ranking officials before reaching foreign minister
Kōki Hirota was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1936 to 1937. Originally his name was . He was executed for war crimes committed during the Second Sino-Japanese War at the Tokyo Trials. Early life Hirota was ...
or his deputy
Mamoru Shigemitsu was a Japanese diplomat and politician in the Empire of Japan, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs three times during and after World War II as well as the Deputy Prime Minister of Japan. As civilian plenipotentiary representing the J ...
. Only in March 1936, following the turmoil in Japan related to the failed military coup of February 26 and the German
Remilitarization of the Rhineland The remilitarization of the Rhineland () began on 7 March 1936, when German military forces entered the Rhineland, which directly contravened the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. Neither France nor Britain was prepared for a milit ...
did the matter reach the new foreign minister
Hachirō Arita was a Japanese politician and diplomat who served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs for three terms. He is believed to have originated the concept of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Biography Arita was born on the island of Sado ...
, who discussed it with the ambassador to Germany Mushanokōji, who was in Japan at that time, and several high-ranking army officials. In that meeting, Chief of Military Affairs Ryoki Machijiri was the only one in favor of an outright military alliance between Germany and Japan, whereas Arita, Shigemitsu,
Hisaichi Terauchi Count was a '' Gensui'' (or field marshal) in the Imperial Japanese Army, commander of the Southern Expeditionary Army Group during World War II. Biography Early military career Terauchi was born in Tokyo Prefecture, and was the eldest son of ...
and Mushanokōji favored the more careful way of an agreement specifically aimed against the Comintern. However, they overestimated their own authority in Berlin, where Ōshima was still the main negotiation partner for the Germans and personally unwilling to give up any of his newfound diplomatic importance to officials of the foreign ministry. To prevent a clash with the Japanese army, of which Ōshima as a military attaché was technically the subordinate of, rather than the foreign ministry, Arita and Mushanokōji had to carefully weave a new position. While favoring the Anti-Comintern version of the agreement, they still gave Ōshima as a representative of the military the ability to negotiate a full alliance. Mushanokōji was instructed to take a passive stance towards the Germans and let them initiate negotiations, as to not appear as if the Japanese foreign ministry was making a leap forward. On the German side, the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance of 27 March 1936 increased the demand for a strong partner in the Soviet Union's rear to prevent complete encirclement. Furthermore, Hitler hoped that France's allegiance to the Soviet Union might drive the anti-communist British government into a deal with Germany if Germany only made a strong enough gesture against communism. As such, negotiations resumed on 23 October 1936 and the pact was finalized and signed on 25 November of the same year. The treaty between France and the USSR, as well as the increased cooperation between communists and socialists that had resulted from the
Seventh World Congress of the Comintern The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) was a multinational conference held in Moscow from July 25 through August 20, 1935 by delegated representatives of ruling and non-ruling communist parties from around the world ...
, allowed the communist PCF to double its votes in the
1936 elections in France Events January–February * January 20 – George V of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, dies at his Sandringham Estate. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King E ...
. With infighting on the political left in Europe reduced, it became more urgent for the German government to reassess its position. On the same day that Ribbentrop and Mushanokōji initialed a draft agreement (23 October), Neurath signed a secret nine-point protocol with his Italian counterpart,
Galeazzo Ciano Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari ( , ; 18 March 1903 – 11 January 1944) was an Italian diplomat and politician who served as Foreign Minister in the government of his father-in-law, Benito Mussolini, from 1936 until 19 ...
. However, the German diplomatic ambivalence between the ideological proximity and military potential of Japan and the economic value of China continued, and Neurath remained in favor of German alignment with China. In April 1936, Germany signed a major commercial treaty with China and gave them a credit of 100,000,000 marks for China to purchase German industrial and other products. It was Hitler himself who, unbeknownst to Neurath and the foreign ministry, began to reassess the importance of China and Japan in German foreign relations over the course of the summer of 1936. Hitler sanctioned new negotiations with the Japanese. Later that year, when German military attaché in Tokyo Eugen Ott temporarily returned to Germany to attend army maneuvers, he expressed his optimism about the Japanese army's willingness to conclude the pact to Hitler. Terauchi in May 1936 informed Ōshima that the army was yielding control of the negotiations to the foreign ministry in order to restore harmony between the two factions, but unofficially, Ōshima would remain Japan's key negotiator and Mushanokōji's role would be more ceremonial. In July, Mushanokōji requested a draft of the proposed treaty from ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop'', which was drawn up by one of the ''Dienststelle'''s East Asian specialists, Dr. Hermann von Raumer. But instead of taking this draft immediately to Mushanokōji, Raumer, who probably acted on Ribbentrop's instructions, first presented it to Ōshima, who was attending the
Bayreuth Festival The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...
at the time. On 22 July, Ōshima, Ribbentrop, Raumer and Hitler met in Bayreuth, where Hitler made some personal edits to Raumer's draft. Only then was the draft shown to ambassador Mushanokōji.


Japanese objections and final adjustments

This initial draft signed off on by Hitler appears to be lost to history, as the Japanese ambassador made some changes to it that were intended, according to Shigenori Tōgō's testimony at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, to make it less 'propagandistic' and more 'business-like'. Tōgō, acting on behalf of Arita, who was once again Japanese foreign minister, wanted to scrap all of Hitler's envisioned military provisions. Because Hitler's draft was lost, it is impossible to say what these were, but from the context, it seems likely that they were both a defensive as well as an offensive alliance against the Soviet Union, because Tōgō, when he was unable to have all military provisions scrapped outright, instead took the position that any such provisions should be purely defensive, implying that they were offensive as well at some point. On 24 July 1936, the Japanese government after some deliberation formally requested that the Anti-Comintern Pact should be limited only to an intelligence and information exchange as to avoid unnecessary diplomatic complications with the Soviet Union. The Japanese government also specifically requested to avoid any direct alliance and to instead only require consultation in case of attack, even in the secret protocol. Furthermore, the Japanese government requested clarification to make any obligation in case of a war of one of the parties against the Soviet Union specifically defensive (to avoid being drawn into a German offensive war against the USSR at an inopportune time), and to avoid specifically naming the Soviet Union in the treaty, even in the secret protocol. The first two requests made their way into the final version of the Anti-Comintern Pact, but the third did not. The Soviet Union's name was only avoided in the public parts of the treaty, and the secret protocol of the finalized Anti-Comintern Pact still specifically referred to the USSR. Additionally, the Japanese government also requested clarification on the prohibition on bilateral treaties with the Soviet Union without former consent, fearing that the wording of the treaty would allow Germany to maintain existing bilateral treaties with the USSR, including the
Treaty of Rapallo (1922) The Treaty of Rapallo was an agreement signed on 16 April 1922 bet ...
and the
Treaty of Berlin (1926) The Treaty of Berlin (German-Soviet Neutrality and Nonaggression Pact) was a treaty signed on 24 April 1926 under which Germany and the Soviet Union pledged neutrality in the event of an attack on the other by a third party for five years. The t ...
. Specifically the latter treaty, which was a German-Soviet neutrality pact that had been upheld even by the anti-communist Nazis, was viewed in Japan as contradictory to the proposed terms of the Anti-Comintern Pact. The German government viewed the Anti-Comintern Pact as sufficient to override the terms of the Treaty of Berlin, and the Japanese government was satisfied with this explanation as long as it was attached to the treaty as a secret appendix. The Japanese government in its internal memoranda also stressed the vital necessity to avoid a deterioration of Anglo-Japanese relations as a result of the pact. There was a hope in Japan that the Anti-Comintern Pact could appeal to anti-communist circles in the United Kingdom and mend the two countries' relationship. After the pact's conclusion, this would prove to be a miscalculation. Ōshima, in a final act of insubordination to the foreign ministry, suggested to Hitler that the foreign ministry's objections could be salvaged if the anti-Soviet clauses of the treaty were added to the agreement in secret. Eventually, the foreign ministry yielded to the army's pressure, and agreed to a secret military addendum to the pact. On 16 August 1936, Ribbentrop informed Hitler that negotiations with ambassador Mushanokōji and with Ōshima had resulted in the ambassador's declaration that the Japanese government was willing in principle to approve the agreement. In a note to Hitler, Ribbentrop commented on the Japanese government's aversion to and the Japanese army's support for publication of the treaty . However, some minor adjustments were still made between August and October, when the pact was formally initialed. Its length was reduced to 5 years, down from 10 as had originally been planned. And, against Ōshima's and Hitler's hopes, the military leadership in Japan insisted that the military provisions could be only defensive and not offensive, even if agreed upon in a secret addendum. The military leadership was concerned that, if Japan was caught in a war against China, an offensive clause to the treaty would diplomatically force Japan into a war against the Soviet Union that it was militarily unwilling to fight. As a result, the first article of the secret additional protocol spoke specifically of "unprovoked attack" by the Soviet Union and had no offensive provisions. On the other hand, the Japanese side was unable to gain the upper hand on the topic of the pact's publication, which was advocated for by the Germans and which Japan had attempted to avoid. Furthermore, the secret protocol remained explicitly aimed at the Soviet Union, something that the Japanese had felt was an ineffective provision. The treaty draft was finalized on 23 October 1936.


Approval by the Japanese Privy Council and by Adolf Hitler

The Anti-Comintern Pact required the approval of the
Privy Council of Japan The was an advisory council to the Emperor of Japan that operated from 1888 to 1947. It was largely used to limit the power of the Imperial Diet. Functions Modeled in part upon the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, this body advised the ...
to allow Japanese accession to the treaty. Prime Minister Hirota had expressed his personal relief upon hearing the treaty draft's conclusion on 23 October 1936, and compared the achievement of the IJA in its advancement of the Anti-Comintern Pact to the IJN's success in forging the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The elder Japanese statesman
Saionji Kinmochi Prince was a Japanese politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1906 to 1908 and from 1911 to 1912. He was elevated from marquis to prince in 1920. As the last surviving member of Japan's ''genrō,'' he was the most i ...
, last of the
genrō was an unofficial designation given to certain retired elder Japanese statesmen who served as informal extraconstitutional advisors to the emperor, during the Meiji, Taishō, and Shōwa eras in Japanese history. The institution of ''genrō ...
, had disagreed with the Japanese government's diplomatic step and denounced the Anti-Comintern Pact as exclusively useful to Germany and as without benefit for Japan. Kinmochi instead would have preferred a diplomatic course more in line with Japanese public opinion and geography, both of which made a positive relationship with UK and USA desirable. However, Kinmochi's critical stance remained unheard in the Privy Council. In the view of the proponents of the treaty within Japan, spearheaded by the IJA, Japan was militarily threatened by the Soviet Union's meddling in China, just as Germany was threatened by Soviet support for France and Czechoslovakia. Furthermore, both countries feared subversion by communist forces. This, as a result, made Germany and Japan natural allies against the Soviet Union and the Comintern. The opponents, who gathered around the IJN, cited the likelihood that the Anti-Comintern Pact would increase rather than decrease the threat posed by the USSR and that there would be considerable domestic resistance against the agreement. Ultimately, the supporters won out in the discussions that took place on 13 November and 18 November, and the Privy Council gave the treaty its unanimous support on 25 November 1936. On the German side, all that was required for German accession to the pact was Hitler's approval, which was given quickly, and subsequently supported by a wave of anti-communist propaganda in the state-controlled German press.


Signing

The treaty, which outlined a joint German and Japanese policy to counteract the activities of the Communist Internationale, was initially to be in force for five years, until November 1941. Two additional protocols were signed, one of which was public. The other, which was specifically aimed against the Soviet Union, was secret. The treaty was signed in the offices of ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop'' rather than the German foreign ministry. Ribbentrop, in his Nuremberg testimony, attributed this to Hitler's desire to avoid the usage of official channels of German politics for what Ribbentrop referred to as an "ideological question" rather than a political one.


Texts of the Anti-Comintern Pact and its protocols


Main agreement

The full text was considered in its original form in both the German and Japanese versions, and the date was specified in both countries' versions as 25 November 1936 as well as 25 November in the 11th year of the
Shōwa period Shōwa may refer to: * Hirohito (1901–1989), the 124th Emperor of Japan, known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa * Showa Corporation, a Japanese suspension and shock manufacturer, affiliated with the Honda keiretsu Japanese eras * Jōwa (Heian ...
. The agreement bears the signatures of German ambassador-at-large Ribbentrop and Japanese ambassador to Germany Mushanokōji. The initial length of the treaty was specified to be five years. This reduced length was one of the concessions made after the objections of the Japanese foreign ministry to the initial Bayreuth draft of the treaty, in which the treaty was at first supposed to have a duration of ten years. In the first article of the treaty, Germany and Japan agreed to share information about Comintern activities and to plan their operations against such activities jointly. In the second article, the two parties opened the possibility of extending the pact to other countries "whose domestic peace is endangered by the disruptive activities of the Communist Internationale". Such invitations to third parties would be undertaken jointly and after the expressed consent by both parties. German state media referred to this provision of endangerment by Comintern disruption when, among other examples, the ''Völkischer Beobachter'' recounted various communist activities in Hungary and Manchukuo as the reason for the two countries to join the pact in February 1939.


Protocol supplement

A supplementary protocol was signed along with the agreement on the same day, 25 November 1936/Shōwa 11. Just like the main agreement, it bears the signatures of Ribbentrop and Mushanokōji. In the first article, German and Japan agreed to have their competent authorities "closely co-operate in the exchange of reports on the activities of ..and on measures of information and defense against" the Comintern. The two contracting parties also agreed, in the second article, to have their competent authorities "within the framework of the existing law ..take stringent measures against those who at home or abroad work on direct or indirect duty" of the Comintern.


Secret additional protocol

In addition to the main treaty and the public additional protocol ("Protocol Supplement"), there was also another additional protocol on 25 November 1936/Shōwa 11, this one kept in strict secrecy from the public, which specifically dealt with the establishment of Germany's and Japan's military and diplomatic partnership against the Soviet Union. While the Soviet Union was alluded to with the public protocol's references to Comintern activity, the secret additional protocol is the only one where the USSR is actually mentioned by name. Just like the main agreement and the public additional protocol, the secret additional protocol was signed by Ribbentrop and Mushanokōji. The latter protocol's secrecy was agreed upon in a separate document signed by both Ribbentrop and Mushanokōji, in which the two states created the option to inform third parties about the contents of the secret agreement with mutual consent. Ambassador Mushanokōji informed Japanese foreign minister
Hachirō Arita was a Japanese politician and diplomat who served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs for three terms. He is believed to have originated the concept of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Biography Arita was born on the island of Sado ...
of the successful conclusion of negotiations later on in the day. The secret additional protocol reveals the true intention of the Anti-Comintern Pact. Rather than a vague ideological crackdown on the alleged overreach of communist activists, it was a specific defensive alliance direct particularly against the Soviet Union as a country. Due to its covert nature, the secret additional protocol remained exclusive between Germany and Japan, whereas other countries joined only the two public clauses of the treaty. Starting with Italy, the other countries of the Anti-Comintern Pact did not sign the secret additional protocol.


Reactions

To the international community, the Anti-Comintern Pact signalled the beginning of the German-Japanese partnership, as it marked the first formal alliance between the two countries.


China

The Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan was a direct threat to China, which relied on German military assistance against the threat of the imminent Japanese invasion. The German foreign ministry, which had been opposed to ''Dienststelle Ribbentrop's'' alignment with Japan, made significant efforts to reassure China of German assistance. This lasted until the outbreak of hostilities between Japan and China in July 1937, after which Germany, keeping with Ribbentrop's agenda, aligned clearly with Japan, including the German compliance with Japanese requests to recall the military mission of Alexander von Falkenhausen.


France

In France, the Anti-Comintern Pact, especially after Italy's entry, was viewed as a German power grab in Eastern Europe, particularly to the detriment of Czechoslovakia and Poland.


Germany

The German public was informed of the treaty's entry into legislation by the German '' Reichsgesetzblatt'' in 1937. Ribbentrop justified the Anti-Comintern Pact as a joint German-Japanese act to defend western civilization. The existence of the secret additional protocol and the treaty's anti-Soviet nature was denied in Nazi Germany even after the beginning of the German-Soviet War in 1941. The German government launched a pro-Japanese publicity campaign to improve the general opinion of the German public about Japan. This was part of the German government's attempt to forge a tighter cultural relationship.


Italy

The Italian government, which had still viewed Germany as a potential rival well into the year 1935, had initially abstained from the negotiations of the Anti-Comintern Pact. But starting with the 1936 October Protocols, Germany and Italy had begun a diplomatic rapprochement against the backdrop of the Italian war in Ethiopia and the resulting failure of the Italian Stresa Front with the UK and France. Still, Italy was keen to, at least initially, avoid the implication that it would soon adhere to the Anti-Comintern Pact itself, even though Ribbentrop heavily implied that "Italy will hoist the anti-Bolshevist banner in the south" soon after the pact's creation. Hitler shared that same impression. Italy would end up joining the pact in November 1937.


Japan

The Japanese public as a whole did not receive the Anti-Comintern Pact with any particular enthusiasm. In the aftermath of the agreement, the influx of national socialist ideology into Japanese society after the alignment with Germany caused an increase in
antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
in Japan. The Japanese press, less restricted than its German counterpart, was even partially critical of the pact's apparently sudden and rushed conclusion (the negotiations had been kept in strict secrecy from the public until the pact's publication), and there were doubts in the newspapers' opinion pieces about the willingness of Germany to sacrifice its soldiers in the case of a war between Japan and the Soviet Union. In Tokyo, the government was reluctant to attract any unwanted international antagonists, while it remained focussed on its aims in mainland China. As such, the government had been initially cautious, reluctant to cause a diplomatic incident with the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, but eventually saw itself driven into the treaty when the Soviet Union signed a mutual assistance treaty with the
Mongolian People's Republic The Mongolian People's Republic ( mn, Бүгд Найрамдах Монгол Ард Улс, БНМАУ; , ''BNMAU''; ) was a socialist state which existed from 1924 to 1992, located in the historical region of Outer Mongolia in East Asia. It w ...
in April 1936. However, despite the government's scepticism, the Privy Council had given its unanimous consent. As a result of the Anti-Comintern Pact, the military influence within the government was strengthened. The Japanese government, in response to the upsurge of antisemitism that resulted from the influx of European-style national socialist ideology into Japanese society, began using antisemitic imagery in its media campaigns, particularly those directed against western-style capitalism. Prime Minister Hirota called Germany Japan's foremost diplomatic partner after the treaty, but stressed that the Anti-Comintern Pact did not imply ideological support for Germany's domestic policy. The IJA, which traditionally was an admirer and imitator of German military systems, which employed hundreds of German military experts and advisors by the 1920s, and sent Japanese army hopefuls to Germany for study, was the treaty's main proponent. Prince Kotohito had signalled the army's positive predisposition towards Ōshima's efforts in Berlin. The IJA was closely aligned with its German counterpart and a strong proponent of a joint Japanese-German action against the Soviet Union. The IJN, by contrast, was among the treaty's greatest critics. While the IJN officer class was not necessarily denouncing the pact, its usefulness was seen as very limited. The IJN view of the naval situation was one where Japan had an inferior naval force to that of the United Kingdom and the United States, both of whom were furthermore inclined to cooperate with each other to counteract the Japanese presence if necessary. By contrast, Germany (and later Italy) would be of almost no help to alleviate an Anglo-American naval blockade or aid the Japanese naval efforts in the
Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. The Japanese navy would have preferred to avoid the treaty if that meant a better relationship with the United States and the United Kingdom as a result.


Soviet Union

Publicly, the Soviet government attempted to downplay the significance of the pact. However the Anti-Comintern Pact was seen internally as a clear sign of an attempted encirclement by Germany and Japan. In a political note to the Hungarian government in January 1939, Soviet foreign minister
Maxim Litvinov Maxim Maximovich Litvinov (; born Meir Henoch Wallach; 17 July 1876 – 31 December 1951) was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet statesman and diplomat. A strong advocate of diplomatic agreements leading towards disarmament, Litvinov wa ...
called the Anti-Comintern Pact a "political instrument mainly in the hands of the Japanese, who had hostile intentions against the Soviet Union". Litvinov had also, in speaking to the All-Union Congress of Soviets on 26 November, cast doubt on the completeness of the treaty as presented to the public, declaring it to be "only a camouflage for another agreement which was simultaneously discussed". Soviet diplomats quickly came to the same opinion that had been implied by Litvinov on 26 November: the Anti-Comintern Pact was specifically directed against the USSR. Soviet ambassador in Tokyo
Konstantin Yurenev Konstantin Konstantinovich Yurenev (russian: Константи́н Константи́нович Юре́нев), also known as Konstantin Konstantinovich Krotovsky (russian: Константин Константинович Кротовский ...
believed (correctly) that the pact, behind its facade, contained military provisions against the Soviet Union. Yurenev had even contacted Japanese foreign minister Arita before the pact's publication, on 16 November and 20 November. While Arita had on the first request dodged the issue by pointing to the fact that the negotiations were only concerned with the Comintern and not the Soviet Union, he did not respond to the latter contact by Yurenev, in which the ambassador accused the Japanese foreign service of holding secret negotiations with Germany specifically aimed against the USSR. The Anti-Comintern Pact politically accelerated the downward trend of the Soviet Union's trade relations with Japan. Alarmed by the Anti-Comintern Pact, the USSR had cut down sales to and purchases from Japan: in 1939, Japanese imports from European Russia were the lowest since 1914 and exports to European Russia the lowest since 1926, whereas Japanese imports from Asiatic Russia were the lowest since 1887 and exports to Asiatic Russia the lowest since 1914. The Anti-Comintern Pact's restrictive policy towards bilateral treaties between Japan and the USSR without German consent made this downward spiral hard to fix. Only after the German-Soviet Pact of 1939 and the subsequent decrease of Japanese trust in Germany did the mutual political and economic attitude improve.


United Kingdom

The United Kingdom also saw its colonial empire in Asia and eventually Africa threatened by the Japanese and later also the Italian alliance with Germany. This view was not completely unjustified in the context of the Axis Powers' navies, as the naval high commands of Germany, Italy and Japan mainly aimed their common considerations against the United Kingdom, not the Soviet Union. In the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
, the Anti-Comintern Pact became a subject of debate multiple times. The British armed forces were concerned about a potential military conflict with Germany and Japan, and this feeling was escalated upon Italian accession to the agreement.


United States

In the United States, the German-Japanese agreement was viewed as an indication that Germany might follow Japan's path of satisfying territorial claims with military action, as Japan had done in Manchuria in 1931. In a September 1937 report to the
Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or i ...
(after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War), it was argued that the long-term consequence of a Japanese victory in China would result in other "dissatisfied" powers, such as Germany and Italy, seeking the fulfillment of their objectives in military endeavors of their own. The American armed forces were concerned about the prospect of Japan gaining military allies in the form of Germany and later Italy, as that posed a potential threat to the American
War Plan Orange War Plan Orange (commonly known as Plan Orange or just Orange) is a series of United States Joint Army and Navy Board war plans for dealing with a possible war with Japan during the years between the First and Second World Wars. It failed to for ...
. In 1937, American ambassador to Japan
Joseph Grew Joseph Clark Grew (May 27, 1880 – May 25, 1965) was an American career diplomat and Foreign Service officer. He is best known as the ambassador to Japan from 1932 to 1941 and as a high official in the State Department in Washington from 1944 to ...
analyzed the Anti-Comintern Pact's anti-communist rhetoric as a mere banner for "have-not" countries to unite under while in truth aiming primarily against the British Empire's global dominance.
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
, U.S. President from 1933 to 1945, shared French concerns about the safety of Poland and Czechoslovakia. Roosevelt believed that the pact contained secret clauses outlining an alliance that was both defensive and offensive, and that it divided the world into spheres of influence for each of the signatories. Eventually, the
USS Panay incident The USS ''Panay'' incident on December 12, 1937, was a Japanese bombing attack on the U.S. Navy river gunboat and three Standard Oil Company tankers on the Yangtze River. They strafed survivors in the water. The boats were rescuing U.S. and Ch ...
of 1937 resulted in the President's attempt to break the Anti-Comintern Pact by appeasing Germany and Italy with the goal of isolating Japan from its allies to hinder its progress in China. Cordell Hull noted in his memoirs that " thing could have been more logical and natural than an alliance of Berlin and Tokyo", citing shared values of militarism, conquest and disregard for international treaties as the reason for his conclusion.


Expansion and adaptations

The Anti-Comintern Pact's original provisions had included a specific provision that allowed Germany and Japan to jointly invite additional members into the pact. In Japan, the Anti-Comintern Pact was seen as possibly groundbreaking in freeing the country from its international isolation and to acquire new diplomatic and military partners. Countries whose membership Japan was interested in included the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and especially Poland.


Second Sino-Japanese War

The Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan met its first trial when Japan and China, both of whom were important partners with Germany, went to war. The
Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
, provoked by the Japanese forces through the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, forced Germany to reassess the balance of its economic relationship with China and its ideological and military alignment with Japan. It was evident that Germany would have to abandon one of its partners in favor of the other, and made the decision to favor Japan over China, although Hitler himself had as late as 1936 personally still assured the Chinese ambassador that Germany would maintain the two countries' important relationship. While Germany's policy in regards to the war between Japan and China was one of strict neutrality, it made no particular effort, diplomatic or otherwise, to stop the Japanese aggression against China. The German government and foreign service still remained privately critical of the Japanese course of action. When Japanese ambassador to Germany Mushanokōji explained to state secretary
Ernst von Weizsäcker Ernst Heinrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (25 May 1882 – 4 August 1951) was a German naval officer, diplomat and politician. He served as State Secretary at the Foreign Office of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1943, and as its Ambassador to ...
that the Japanese invasion of China kept in the spirit of the Anti-Comintern Pact in its attempt to vanquish Chinese communism, Weizsäcker dismissed Mushanokōji's explanation on the basis of the German view that the Japanese action would foster rather than stifle the growth of communism in China. Weizsäcker, in his notes with regards to this conversation with Mushanokōji, expressed the fear that the Japanese aggression could lead directly to an alliance between the Soviet Union and China.


Entry of Italy

On 6 November 1937,
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
joined the Anti-Comintern Pact. Italy's decision was a reaction to the failure of the Stresa Front, the Franco-British initiative of 1935 designed to keep Germany from extending beyond its present borders. In particular, both nations tried to block "German expansionism", especially the annexation of
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, which the fascist government in Rome also wanted to prevent at that time. Distrustful relations and
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
's own expansionism furthered the distance between Italy and the two Allied Powers. Italy
invaded An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
in October 1935, in an act of unprovoked aggression that was a breach of the League of Nations policy. Although the attempted Hoare–Laval Pact, designed by its British and French drafters to allow Italy to retain most of its war goals and to maintain the Stresa Front, had failed to gain support, the League of Nations had discredited itself. After the League eventually punished Italian expansionism with economic sanctions, this broke the Stresa Front and resulted in the necessity for Italy to search for a new partner. As a result, Italy was diplomatically driven away from the Stresa Front with the Allies and towards the
Pact of Steel The Pact of Steel (german: Stahlpakt, it, Patto d'Acciaio), formally known as the Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, was a military and political alliance between Italy and Germany. The pact was initially drafted as a t ...
with Germany. Italy's accession to the Anti-Comintern Pact completed the diplomatic triangle between Germany, Italy and Japan later formalized in the Tripartite Pact that was colloquially known as the ''
Axis Powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
,'' inspired by the term used by
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
in reference to the German-Italian relationship on 1 November 1936. Italy's accession into the pact was a trade-off, in which Mussolini agreed to Hitler's goals of Austrian annexation. Italy had been invited to the pact as early as the original German-Japanese agreement in November 1936, but was at the time uninterested in the largely symbolic gesture, as the Italian government believed that its anti-communist attitude was sufficiently represented by the Italian presence in the Spanish Civil War. Italian membership had been considered by Ribbentrop during the earliest drafting stages of the agreement in October 1935. German-Italian rapprochement did not fully begin until October 1936, when the Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan was already nearing its enactment.
Galeazzo Ciano Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari ( , ; 18 March 1903 – 11 January 1944) was an Italian diplomat and politician who served as Foreign Minister in the government of his father-in-law, Benito Mussolini, from 1936 until 19 ...
, Italy's foreign minister, was apprehensive about the potential loss of influence for Italy in South East Europe that a close alignment with Germany and the subsequent German entry into the
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
would entail. The Italian stance towards a ''Third Europe'' or ''Horizontal Axis'', the idea of a power bloc in Eastern Europe that rejected both German and Soviet influence, was not necessarily negative. It was this ambivalence in Italian foreign policy that initially hindered a full Italian alignment with Germany. By 1937, the Italian interest in the pact had changed, as the Mussolini administration desired to have its own military alliance with Japan and felt that accession to the agreement would be the easiest way to forge the triangular alliance with Germany and Japan that the Italian government desired. Ciano commented in his diary on 2 November 1937 that the pact, while anti-communist in name, was instead "clearly anti-British". The protocol of Italy's entry was signed on 6 November 1937. It should be pointed out that, as a result of the phrasing of the treaty, Italy was, from a purely legal argument, required to only adhere to the main text and the public supplementary protocol, but not to the secret protocol that had the specific military directives against the Soviet Union. In reaction to the Italian accession to the pact, the British government saw the traditional British dominance in the Mediterranean (
Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...
,
Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
,
Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
, and
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
(
Suez Canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
)) threatened by a potentially resurgent Italy backed with German industrial and military power. Robert Vansittart, a prominent critic of the British Appeasement policy under Neville Chamberlain, warned that Italy, with its recent acquisitions in the war against Ethiopia, threatened a pincer movement against Egypt and the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ( ar, السودان الإنجليزي المصري ') was a condominium of the United Kingdom and Egypt in the Sudans region of northern Africa between 1899 and 1956, corresponding mostly to the territory of present-day ...
and that Mussolini, due to his personality, could not be deterred even by Italy's economic instability from a potential military adventure against the United Kingdom.


Attempts to develop the pact into a military alliance

After the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact and especially after Italy's entry, Ribbentrop continued his efforts to form it into a full military alliance. This mirrored the thoughts of Ribbentrop, Raumer, Ōshima and Hitler during the treaty's creation, as the original draft that Hitler signed off on in Bayreuth had likely included military terms that were explicitly both defensive as well as offensive. This was prevented by the intervention of Japanese diplomats around Shigenori Tōgō. After the pact's conclusion, Ribbentrop's efforts to transform it into a military alliance continued, although his agenda was driven by the concern with war against the western allies, whereas Hitler's main primary concern had been to eliminate the Soviet Union. Ribbentrop in his function as German ambassador to the United Kingdom recommended to Hitler in his report of 28 December 1937 and his final conclusions of 2 January 1938 the creation of a strong anti-British alliance with the ability to threaten the United Kingdom in a way that would either compel it to stay neutral or in the case of war be able to defeat it. Ribbentrop's political power within the German foreign service grew massively when he was named foreign minister as a replacement for Konstantin von Neurath on 4 February 1938. This was part of the reshuffle of army, air force and foreign service caused by the dismissal of Werner von Blomberg and
Werner von Fritsch Thomas Ludwig Werner Freiherr von Fritsch (4 August 1880 – 22 September 1939) was a member of the German High Command. He was Commander-in-Chief of the German Army from February 1934 until February 1938, when he was forced to resign after he ...
. In this military-political purge, Hitler removed twelve generals (not counting Blomberg and Fritsch) and reassigned 51 other military posts. The removal of Neurath, Fritsch and Blomberg marked the elimination of large parts of the 'moderate' faction in the cabinet Hitler, where as the 'extremists' remained: Goebbels,
Hess Hess or Heß may refer to: * Hess (surname), also ''Heß'' in German, people with the surname Hess * Hess, Oklahoma, a community in the United States * Hess Educational Organization, the largest private provider of English instruction in the Rep ...
, Rosenberg and Ribbentrop. The May Crisis of 1938, when there was a perception of aggressive German troop movements against Czechoslovakia, brought with it strong diplomatic reactions from France and Britain that went contrary to the established
Appeasement Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the UK governm ...
policy. As a result, Ribbentrop renewed his pressure on Hitler to formalize the Anti-Comintern Pact into a full military alliance for the case of war against the United Kingdom and France. He eventually also gained the support of
Bernardo Attolico Bernardo Attolico (17 January 1880, Canneto di Bari – 9 February 1942, Rome) was an Italian diplomat. In 1915 he was appointed to represent the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce at the Commission Internationale de Ravitai ...
, Italian ambassador to Germany, for the idea. In early January 1939, Ribbentrop was certain of his progress in transforming the pact into an alliance. Mussolini, who had by now given up his attempts at Italian diplomatic ambivalence between the United Kingdom and Germany and fully committed to Italian alliance with Germany, gave his agreement as well. Mussolini also advocated to even expand this prospective alliance to include Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania. Henceforth, from January 1939 onward, Italy and Germany cooperated on their draft of a military alliance, but Japan was cautious to commit. While the political lobby of the Japanese army was generally in favor of the conclusion of a military alliance with Germany, particularly in order to contain the Soviet Union, the Japanese navy continued to view the prospect of an alliance with Germany as of no particular use for Japan's naval strategic position and as a potential diplomatic and economic blunder, as Japan's navy alone would not be sufficient to hold off British and American naval forces if an alliance with Germany would lead Japan into war with either of the Anglo-American powers, thus cutting off Japan, dependent on vital shipping routes. The overall Japanese attitude, still anti-Soviet rather than anti-British, did not fit with the German and Italian designs to openly antagonize the United Kingdom. The Japanese foreign service did not wish to be drawn into a war between the nations of Western Europe and as a result aimed to differentiate between the Axis Powers' designs against the UK and those against the USSR. Ribbentrop's designs were thus rejected by the Japanese delegates, who insisted on the Anti-Comintern Pact's initial anti-communist designs and were unwilling to see an anti-British component added to it. Eventually, Japanese caution led Ribbentrop to settle for only a bilateral alliance rather than the trilateral one he had hoped for, and the
Pact of Steel The Pact of Steel (german: Stahlpakt, it, Patto d'Acciaio), formally known as the Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, was a military and political alliance between Italy and Germany. The pact was initially drafted as a t ...
was signed between Germany and Italy on 22 May 1939. The Pact of Steel's capabilities were commented on by Ciano as "real dynamite". The Pact of Steel enabled Germany to proceed in its aggressive posturing against Poland, as this issue did not necessarily require Japanese consent or support, but Ribbentrop also desired to expand the Pact of Steel and include Japan in it. However, Japanese stalling tactics continued, and Germany wanted to eliminate the Soviet Union as a potential factor in its war against Poland. As a result, Ribbentrop started seriously pondering a ''quid pro quo'' with the USSR on the question of Eastern Europe's future. This would mark a complete betrayal of the Anti-Comintern Pact's provision to not make bilateral treaties with the Soviet Union without Japanese consent, but Germany proceeded nonetheless. In May 1939, Ribbentrop instructed Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg to initiate a German-Soviet rapprochement on the basis that the newly forged Pact of Steel marked a turn in Germany's foreign policy, away from anti-Soviet towards anti-British and anti-French diplomacy. Ribbentrop also promised to redirect Japanese anti-Soviet foreign policy into a state where Japan and the USSR would no longer have to stand in rivalry. At this stage, Ribbentrop also started envisioning a bloc of four, where the Soviet Union would be included with Germany, Italy and Japan to form a quadripartite faction against British influence. This marked a complete deviation from Nazi policy, particularly the Hitlerian goal of ''
Lebensraum (, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imper ...
'', and was one of the many iterations of Ribbentrop's all-encompassing foreign political goal of containing by all possible means the influence of the United Kingdom. This ''Euro-Asiatic bloc of four'', as historian Wolfgang Michalka calls it, ultimately failed because of the differences between Germany, the Soviet Union and Japan. Germany and the Soviet Union signed the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those powers to partition Poland between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ri ...
in August 1939.


Entry of Hungary and Manchukuo

Hungary joined the agreement on 24 February 1939. It received the invitation to the pact on 13 January, after the Hungarian foreign minister
István Csáky Count István Csáky de Körösszeg et Adorján (14 July 1894 – 27 January 1941) was a Hungary, Hungarian nobleman and politician, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1938 and 1941. Early life István was born as the only son ...
announced on 12 January that Hungary would accept an invitation if it were to receive one. It was the first member with some independence outside of the big three, and it was subsequently the first country to be denied first-class status among the pact's members, thus establishing the division between Germany, Italy and Japan as the leading nations of the pact and the remaining countries as their subordinates. This superior status of the three leading countries was later formalized in the extension of the pact on 25 November 1941. The pact proved unpopular in Hungary, particularly as Hungary's long-standing ally Poland became Germany's target. In his memoirs, Hungary's strongman
Miklós Horthy Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya ( hu, Vitéz nagybányai Horthy Miklós; ; English: Nicholas Horthy; german: Nikolaus Horthy Ritter von Nagybánya; 18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957), was a Hungarian admiral and dictator who served as the Regent o ...
would later complain that Germany had unduly involved itself in Hungarian domestic affairs even before Hungary's accession to the Anti-Comintern Pact, and that German media had no place to insist that Hungary had a 'bill to pay' after profiting from German diplomatic intervention on her behalf during the
First Vienna Award The First Vienna Award was a treaty signed on 2 November 1938 pursuant to the Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace. The arbitration and award were direct consequences of the previous month's Munich Agreement, which ...
. However, the German archives show that a clear ''
quid pro quo Quid pro quo ('what for what' in Latin) is a Latin phrase used in English to mean an exchange of goods or services, in which one transfer is contingent upon the other; "a favor for a favor". Phrases with similar meanings include: "give and take", ...
'' had been made between Germany and Hungary: in exchange for the German support for Hungarian territorial expansion into southern Slovakia and Carpatho-Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister
Kálmán Darányi Kálmán Darányi de Pusztaszentgyörgy et Tetétlen (22 March 1886 in Budapest – 1 November 1939 in Budapest) was a Hungarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1936 to 1938. He also served as Speaker of the House of Re ...
specifically promised Hungary would leave the League of Nations and join the Anti-Comintern Pact. Another country that joined the pact on 24 February 1939 was the Japanese-established Empire of Manchukuo. Manchukuo received the invitation on 16 January and the accession protocol was signed in
Changchun Changchun (, ; ), also romanized as Ch'angch'un, is the capital and largest city of Jilin Province, People's Republic of China. Lying in the center of the Songliao Plain, Changchun is administered as a , comprising 7 districts, 1 county and 3 c ...
on 24 February. The entry of Hungary and Manchukuo was celebrated by the German state-controlled ''
Völkischer Beobachter The ''Völkischer Beobachter'' (; "'' Völkisch'' Observer") was the newspaper of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 25 December 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from 8 February 1923. For twenty-four years it formed part of the official pub ...
'' as the ''growth of the front against bolshevism'' and the ''consolidation of a world order''.


Entry of Spain

Francisco Franco's Spain joined the pact on 27 March 1939, the same day that the surrender of the
Spanish Republicans Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
at the end of the
Siege of Madrid The siege of Madrid was a two-and-a-half-year siege of the Republican-controlled Spanish capital city of Madrid by the Nationalist armies, under General Francisco Franco, during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The city, besieged from Octo ...
brought about the end of the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
. The accelerated addition of Spain to the Anti-Comintern Pact, with the goal to counteract British influence in Spain, had been pursued by German, Italian and Japanese politicians since at least January 1939. It was specified by German State Secretary Weizsäcker that the invitation to Spain should only come from Germany, Italy, and Japan, but not from Hungary. The Spanish side delayed the accession to the pact, as the Franco leadership feared intervention by the Allied powers on the Republican side should the Nationalists side with the Axis before the war's conclusion. Franco's foreign minister, Jordana, accordingly stalled Spain's entry into the Anti-Comintern Pact until the end of the Spanish Civil War. Spain's membership in the pact was proof of Spanish alignment with the European fascists, and the nationalist success in the Spanish Civil War became a justification for the Anti-Comintern Pact's continued activity and as a confirmation of the pact's value. In the British House of Commons, Spain's entry into the Anti-Comintern Pact was viewed with suspicion, particularly in regards to the safety of
Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...
and by extension
Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
,
British Egypt The history of Egypt under the British lasted from 1882, when it was occupied by British forces during the Anglo-Egyptian War, until 1956 after the Suez Crisis, when the last British forces withdrew in accordance with the Anglo-Egyptian agree ...
and
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...
. The British government, after nationalist victory had become obvious, had attempted to quickly improve relations with the new government in Madrid, but the progress on Anglo-Spanish relations received a setback with the Spanish entry into the pact. France, although nominally also interested in positive relations with the falangists as seen in the
Bérard-Jordana Agreement The Bérard-Jordana Agreement ( French: ''Accords Bérard-Jordana'', Spanish: ''Acuerdo Bérard-Jordana''), also called Berard-Jordan Agreement in English, was a political treaty signed by France and Spain in Burgos on 25 February 1939. Its name i ...
of 25 February 1939, made even less headway than the British. After Spanish entry into the Anti-Comintern Pact, there was a Spanish military buildup in colonial Morocco, and the Franco government further worsened tensions by refusing to allow the re-entry of refugees that had fled the country in the closing days of the Spanish Civil War.


Other considerations, 1938–1939

A candidate for membership in the eyes of the Axis Powers was the
Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...
. Poland had cooperated with Germany on the occupations of Czechoslovak territory after the
Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, Germany, the United Kingdom, French Third Republic, France, and Fa ...
and seemed like an approachable partner, but the German offers of a Polish membership in the pact were tied to a return of Danzig to Germany, something that Poland was unwilling to accept out of concern for its access to the sea and its policy of equal diplomatic distance between Germany and the Soviet Union. In January 1939, the Axis Powers were courting the Stojadinović government in
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
to attempt to induce Yugoslavia to join the Anti-Comintern Pact. The attempts failed when Stojadinović's government fell on 5 February 1939 and Stojadinović was replaced with
Dragiša Cvetković Dragiša Cvetković ( sr-cyr, Драгиша Цветковић; 15 January 1893 – 18 February 1969) was a Yugoslav politician active in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He served as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1939 to 1941. ...
as Prime Minister, which came as a surprise to the Axis Powers, who had believed Stojadinović was secure in office. While there were hopes among the Axis that Stojadinović might return to power, this failed to materialize. In February 1939, the German military leadership, independent from the foreign ministry, increased the pressure on Bulgaria to join the Anti-Comintern Pact. ''
Generalmajor is the Germanic variant of major general, used in a number of Central and Northern European countries. Austria Belgium Denmark is the second lowest general officer rank in the Royal Danish Army and Royal Danish Air Force. As a two-star ...
'' Georg Thomas explained to the Bulgarian delegation during negotiations regarding German armament loans to Bulgaria that such loans could only be extended if Bulgaria made a clear political showing of alignment to Germany in form of joining the Anti-Comintern Pact. Weizsäcker complained to the Wehrmacht high command about this incident. Thomas subsequently claimed to Weizsäcker that he was acting on the direct orders of
Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
. In a subsequent conversation between the Bulgarian delegate and Weizsäcker, it was made clear that Bulgaria was not prepared to join the Anti-Comintern Pact at that time. Bulgaria would not join the agreement until 25 November 1941. In the run up to the establishment of the
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; cs, Protektorát Čechy a Morava; its territory was called by the Nazis ("the rest of Czechia"). was a partially annexed territory of Nazi Germany established on 16 March 1939 following the German oc ...
in the rump territories of
Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...
, Czechoslovak accession into the Anti-Comintern Pact was part of the numerous demands Hitler made on the Czechs as a pretext to justify the invasion after the inevitable non-compliance.


Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

The pact's legitimacy was undermined when Germany blatantly broke it by secretly negotiating the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with the Soviet Union. During the negotiations between Ribbentrop and Stalin in Moscow in August 1939, just a few weeks before the outbreak of World War II, the Anti-Comintern Pact proved only a small obstacle. Ribbentrop explained to Stalin that, in fact, the Anti-Comintern Pact had been aimed against the western democracies, not the Soviet Union. Stalin accepted this for the sake of his country's diplomatic goals, and there were jokes made among the German public that the Soviet Union would end up joining the Anti-Comintern Pact itself. Soviet foreign minister
Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...
had not made the Anti-Comintern Pact an issue during the negotiations with Ribbentrop and German ambassador to the Soviet Union Schulenburg.


Reactions within the Anti-Comintern Pact


= Italy

= On the backdrop of the preparations for World War II, the Italian reaction to Germany's actions was ambivalent. The Italian population's pre-existing anti-German and anti-war sentiments were not helped at all by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but Mussolini's personal opinion was more divided. Mussolini, although sometimes of the opinion that neutrality was preferable, felt compelled by personal loyalty, fear of Hitler's disapproval, as well as the prospect of easy war spoils, that Italy should stand by Germany's side, especially if an Allied act of appeasement in Poland could result in a swift Italian victory in Yugoslavia. Italian involvement in the war was opposed by an anti-war faction in the Italian government around Ciano, who attempted to prevent Italy's entry into World War II and to break the alliance between Germany and Italy, to which Mussolini at times carefully agreed if a long enough time frame was given to dissolve the alliance. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact confirmed numerous suspicions that the Italian public, already unenthusiastic about any diplomatic alliance with Germany, had about the Germans. This diplomatic betrayal, combined with the eventual defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II, fuelled widespread germanophobia in Italian literature and popular culture in the immediate aftermath of World War II.


= Japan

= In the Japanese view, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a violation of the Anti-Comintern Pact, as Germany had not revealed its negotiations with the USSR to Japan. Subsequently, the Japanese sought to settle the Soviet-Japanese Border War and abandoned any territorial aspirations against the Soviet Union. Japan had mainly intended the Anti-Comintern Pact to be directed against the Soviet Union rather than the United Kingdom, whereas the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact made it clear that the Germans, at least in 1939, were willing to aid the Soviets to the detriment of the western democracies. In response to this drastic German change in foreign policy and the Japanese defeat at Soviet hands in the border conflicts, the Hiranuma administration resigned. Japanese emperor Hirohito instructed the subsequent government, led by
Nobuyuki Abe was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, Governor-General of Korea, and Prime Minister of Japan. Early life and military career Abe was born on November 24, 1875, in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, the son of former samurai Abe Nobumitsu. ...
, to be more cooperative towards the United Kingdom and the United States. Ribbentrop attempted to win Japanese support for his ''bloc of four'' with Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union. The German foreign minister argued that if Tokyo and Moscow were to form a military coalition together with Berlin and Rome, Japan would be free to turn its attention to the potential acquisition of European colonies in South East Asia. However, the ideological barriers were too great for comfort for the Japanese leadership, and Ribbentrop failed to compel them into an alliance with the Soviet Union. He had also put himself forward as a negotiator between Japan and the USSR, but was once again cold-shouldered by both as they began to pragmatically wrap up their differences bilaterally and without German oversight. As a result of the diplomatic shakeup, Japan retreated out of Ribbentrop's anti-British designs. Ribbentrop's pro-Japanese diplomacy, which he had pursued in spite of the German foreign ministry's initial favorability towards China since 1934, was now met with the largest diplomatic distance between Germany and Japan since the Nazis' rise to power. In the aftermath of the Japanese change of attitude towards a war against the Soviet Union, Soviet-Japanese economic relations improved. Shikao Matsumisha of the Commercial Affairs Bureau of the Foreign Office and Soviet foreign minister Molotov signaled mutual interest in an improvement of Japanese-Soviet trade relations in October 1939. The two countries agreed to more permanently settle the ongoing question of Japanese fishing in Soviet waters and the payments for the
Chinese Eastern Railway The Chinese Eastern Railway or CER (, russian: Китайско-Восточная железная дорога, or , ''Kitaysko-Vostochnaya Zheleznaya Doroga'' or ''KVZhD''), is the historical name for a railway system in Northeast China (als ...
in Manchukuo. The Soviet Union promised that significant amounts of the money received as part of these deals would be invested back into the purchase of Japanese goods. The Japanese intelligence agencies and foreign service, which had previously supported separatism among the Soviet Union's ethnic minorities, also restricted their activities in this field as a result of the Soviet-Japanese rapprochement. Starting with the German-Soviet War, the Japanese loss of interest in war with the USSR had the consequence that Japan was unwilling to open up a second front against the Soviet Union to relieve German efforts, as Japan interpreted Germany's aggression as an insufficient reason to trigger the treaty. As a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, there was a significant cooling of German-Japanese relations between late 1939 and the summer of 1940, but after Germany's victories in 1940, the elimination of the French and Dutch colonial powers caused Japan, interested in the acquisition of the colonies in question, to approach Germany again.


During World War II

All further additions to the Anti-Comintern Pact were after 1 September 1939 and thus during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The supposed purpose of the pact, as a defensive coalition against communism to counteract the potential of Soviet aggression, became outdated when most of its European member states became engaged in the
German-Soviet War The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Sout ...
.


Effect of German military victories in the ''Westfeldzug''

In March 1940, Joachim von Ribbentrop once again set about mobilizing Italy, the Soviet Union and especially Japan for his vision of a four-power coalition against the British Empire. In June 1940, the overwhelming German victories in the ("Western Campaign") saw the defeat of France,
Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
and
the Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
. With
French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
and the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
now effectively defenseless, the Tokyo government now felt enticed to once again diplomatically approach Germany, which it had previously distanced itself from after the German ''quid pro quo'' with the USSR. The Germans had also won some support with the Japanese ambassadors in Berlin and Rome, Hiroshi Ōshima and
Toshio Shiratori was the Japanese ambassador to Italy from 1938 to 1940, adviser to the Japanese foreign minister in 1940, and one of the 14 Class-A war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine. Shiratori served as Director of Information Bureau under the F ...
, who were swayed by Germany's successes in the Polish campaign and started supporting Ribbentrop's diplomatic agenda. Japan, concerned that Germany might actually take the side of France and the Netherlands, possibly then reshaped to be German vassal states, in the colonial question, sought to assure Germany's support for a Japanese annexation of French and Dutch colonies in South East Asia. Ribbentrop was indeed willing to support such Japanese annexations, which had been part of his initial idea regarding the four-power pact's advantages from the Japanese perspective. He painted Japanese acquisitions in East Asia as preparations for a world order where all of Afro-Eurasia would be divided between Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union. Again, Ribbentrop thus tried to realize his vision of a four-power coalition directed against the United Kingdom. With France eliminated and the
Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
going in Britain's favor, it became more and more clear that the United Kingdom, although on the back foot, would neither seek a truce nor be knocked out by German invasion. As a result, the role of the still neutral United States and the American support for the UK became more and more important for the conduct of Germany's war effort. Ribbentrop still deluded himself that cooperation with the Soviet Union could be permanent or at least last until the war with the United Kingdom had concluded. This opinion was not shared by Adolf Hitler, who still viewed the 'Jewish-Bolshevist' Soviet Union as Germany's inevitable final enemy.


Tripartite Pact

Differences between Germany and Japan, including the Japanese war in China, economic differences, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, led to a growing distance between Germany and Japan. Germany's victories over the European allies in 1940 led to a desire for a reconciliation between the parties. This came to pass as part of the
Tripartite Pact The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy, and Japan signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburō Kurusu. It was a defensive milit ...
of 27 September 1940. However, the Japanese distrust in the German partner remained, and Japan avoided entanglement in Germany's eventual war against the Soviet Union to fully focus on its own struggle in China. In the Tripartite Pact, the Germans and Italians recognized the Japanese leadership in East Asia, and Japan conversely recognized German and Italian leadership in Europe.


Extension of the pact

The Anti-Comintern Pact was scheduled to be renewed on 25 November 1941, as its five-year lifespan since 25 November 1936 was about to run out. One of Germany's primary aims was to keep Japan close and to encourage Japan to intervene in the German-Soviet War on Germany's side, but Japan refused to do so for the rest of the war. The
Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact The , also known as the , was a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan signed on April 13, 1941, two years after the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese Border War. The agreement meant that for most of World War II, ...
, signed in April 1941, would hold up until August 1945, when the Soviet Union violated the pact and invaded Japanese Manchuria. The convention of the various signatories between 24 and 25 November 1941 in Berlin that led to the renewal of the pact was described by Ciano in his diaries as affirmation of the Germans as "masters of the house" within the Axis Powers. Attendants included Galeazzo Ciano of Italy, Serrano Suñer of Spain,
László Bárdossy László Bárdossy de Bárdos (10 December 1890 – 10 January 1946) was a Hungary, Hungarian diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from April 1941 to March 1942. He was one of the chief architects of Hungary's involve ...
of Hungary and
Mihai Antonescu Mihai Antonescu (18 November 1904 – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister during World War II, executed in 1946 as a war criminal. Early career Born in Nucet, Dâmbovița County, w ...
of Romania, among others. The extension protocol was signed on 25 November 1941 and bears the signatures of representatives of the six previous signatories: Ribbentrop (Germany), Ōshima (Japan), Ciano (Italy), Bárdossy (Hungary), Lü Yiwen (Manchukuo), and Suñer (Spain). The previous signatories rejoined the pact. * * * * * * In addition, several new countries that had not done so before 25 November 1941 joined the Anti-Comintern Pact. China under Wang Jingwei submitted its signature ahead of time on 22 November 1941, the other countries submitted theirs on the day of signing, the 25th. * * * * * Nanjing China * * The reaction to the extension in the German state-controlled press, unlike with the previous protocol, was very cold towards Japan and instead emphasized the sacrifices and successes of the European Axis against the Soviet Union in the German-Soviet War. This would not change significantly until 7 December 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.


Bulgaria

Bulgaria had been a country that was stuck between its own expansionist ambitions in the Balkans for which it relied on Italian and German military assistance and diplomatic support, while also trying to avoid major entanglement in Axis operations. Its leader
Boris III Boris III ( bg, Борѝс III ; Boris Treti; 28 August 1943), originally Boris Klemens Robert Maria Pius Ludwig Stanislaus Xaver (Boris Clement Robert Mary Pius Louis Stanislaus Xavier) , was the Tsar of the Kingdom of Bulgaria from 1918 until h ...
, hailed as a "liberator czar" and a unifier of lost Bulgarian territories, could only achieve this status due to the military support of the Axis armies, but was intent in 1941 on avoiding Bulgarian involvement in the German-Soviet War on the Eastern Front. This was successful and Bulgarian troops did not participate in
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
, but the permanence of Bulgaria's territorial claims remained completely at the mercy of the Axis Powers, as Germany in particular was hesitant to view any territorial settlement in the Balkans after the Axis victories over Greece and Yugoslavia as final. As a result, Bulgaria was forced to please the German partner as much as possible while avoiding the final step of open hostilities against the Soviet Union. As part of this pro-German position, Bulgaria was essentially forced into membership in the Anti-Comintern Pact in November 1941. Soon after, on 13 December, the country declared war on the United Kingdom and the United States. Bulgaria tried to maintain neutrality towards the Soviet Union until the end, but after Romania switched sides in favor of the Allies and allowed the Red Army to pass through Romanian territory to invade Bulgaria, the 1944 Bulgarian coup d'état paved the way to the
People's Republic of Bulgaria The People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB; bg, Народна Република България (НРБ), ''Narodna Republika Balgariya, NRB'') was the official name of Bulgaria, when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the ...
. Tsar Simeon II's regents were executed.


Croatia

Croatia, Germany's most important partner on the Balkans during the anti-partisan campaigns, had been created in 1941 following the German occupation of Yugoslavia. It joined the Anti-Comintern Pact in November 1941. Such an accession was done with the goal to legitimize the Croatian state and make it look more independent, but also to take a clear stand against the Soviet Union.


Denmark

Denmark had, along with
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
, been occupied by Germany in the wake of
Operation Weserübung Operation Weserübung (german: Unternehmen Weserübung , , 9 April – 10 June 1940) was Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. In the early morning of 9 Ap ...
that started on 9 April 1940. The government in
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
responded to the German assault by having the Danish army stand down and accepting what was framed by Germany as protective occupation. The Danish decision was vastly different from the Norwegian one, as the government in
Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
chose to fight rather than to surrender, and as a result, the
German occupation of Denmark At the outset of World War II in September 1939, Denmark declared itself neutral. For most of the war, the country was a protectorate and then an occupied territory of Germany. The decision to occupy Denmark was taken in Berlin on 17 December ...
was among the lightest of any of the German occupations in Europe. Still, any notion of Danish independence was merely a sham for the purpose of foreign propaganda, and the German authorities watched their Danish counterparts closely. While there was a considerable spectrum of sympathy for the German cause among the Danish public, most Danish civilians resented their occupiers and the German military authorities doubted Danish compliance and loyalty. German attempts to improve their standing in public opinion in Denmark, through measures such as the establishment of the Danish-German Society with Peter Knutzen as chairman, were unsuccessful. The Danish government requested four key exemptions specific to Denmark. * Denmark takes up no military obligations. * Anti-communist action in Denmark should be limited to police operations. * The treaty should be limited to Danish territory. * Denmark will remain neutral in World War II. The Germans, somewhat unhappy with these requests, moved them into a secret addendum as a compromise, making Denmark appear as a full member of the pact from the outside. This damaged the international reputation of the Danish civilian government among the Allies.


Finland

In
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
, the status of the country during the Second World War remains controversial into the modern day, as historians debate whether Finland was a full member of the Axis Powers or was, as was claimed by the wartime Finnish government, just in a state of co-belligerence (, ) with Germany in the shared Finnish-German struggle against the Soviet Union. Finnish entry into the Anti-Comintern Pact on 25 November 1941, alongside other elements such as the Finland's explicit acknowledgement of having been an ally of "Hitlerite Germany" in the 1947 Peace Treaty, form the case in favour of arguing that Finland was part of the Axis Powers.


Nanjing China

The "
Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China The Wang Jingwei regime or the Wang Ching-wei regime is the common name of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China ( zh , t = 中華民國國民政府 , p = Zhōnghuá Mínguó Guómín Zhèngfǔ ), the government of the pup ...
," also referred to as "China-Nanjing" or the Wang Jingwei regime, a Japanese puppet state established in
Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
by the defeated Nationalist Party politician
Wang Jingwei Wang Jingwei (4 May 1883 – 10 November 1944), born as Wang Zhaoming and widely known by his pen name Jingwei, was a Chinese politician. He was initially a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang, leading a government in Wuhan in oppositi ...
in March 1940, joined the Anti-Comintern Pact on 25 November 1941. It had submitted its signature to the treaty ahead of time, on 22 November.


Romania

Romania was Germany's most militarily important partner in the war against the Soviet Union, but its German partners had done little to actively earn that loyalty. Germany had in quick succession overseen three territorial losses in Romania, when it first awarded the
Bessarabia Bessarabia (; Gagauz: ''Besarabiya''; Romanian: ''Basarabia''; Ukrainian: ''Бессара́бія'') is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Be ...
region to the Soviet Union in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, then granted large parts of the
Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...
region to Hungary as part of the
Second Vienna Award The Second Vienna Award, also known as the Vienna Diktat, was the second of two territorial disputes that were arbitrated by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. On 30 August 1940, they assigned the territory of Northern Transylvania, including all o ...
, and finally approved of Bulgarian territorial gains in the
Dobruja Dobruja or Dobrudja (; bg, Добруджа, Dobrudzha or ''Dobrudža''; ro, Dobrogea, or ; tr, Dobruca) is a historical region in the Balkans that has been divided since the 19th century between the territories of Bulgaria and Romania. I ...
region as part of the
Treaty of Craiova The Treaty of Craiova ( bg, Крайовска спогодба, Krayovska spogodba; ro, Tratatul de la Craiova) was signed on 7 September 1940 and ratified on 13 September 1940 by the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Romania. Under its te ...
. Romania, under the leadership of the fascist Iron Guard, thus had its main enemies not only in the Soviet Union, but also among the ranks of the Axis Powers, especially in the form of Hungary. Still, the Iron Guard, which had before the territorial losses advocated a pro-German position, now viewed alignment with Germany as the only way to avoid another German intervention against Romania and in favor of Hungary. The Romanian participation in the Anti-Comintern Pact on 25 November 1941 thus arose out of the necessity to please the German partner and to further the Romanian campaign against the Soviet Union, to hopefully regain Bessarabia, and to make territorial acquisitions in Soviet Ukraine.


Slovakia

Slovakia, established in 1939 after the German-instigated dissolution of Czechoslovakia, joined the Anti-Comintern Pact on 25 November 1941.


Suggested memberships

Between 1936 and 1945, the Axis Powers used the Anti-Comintern Pact as a diplomatic tool to increase their political and diplomatic leverage, but were often unsuccessful.


Argentina, Brazil, and Chile

There were efforts by Germany to involve the South American (''ABC States"), consisting of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, into the pact. Brazilian President
Getúlio Vargas Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (; 19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 14th and 17th president of Brazil, from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954. Due to his long and controversial tenure as Brazi ...
had established the new November 1937 constitution of the ''Estado Novo'' under the pretext of communist insurgency, and Brazil was thus considered the prime entry point for the Anti-Comintern Pact in South America. The Brazilian government promised that its domestic anti-communist conviction would continue, but declined entry into the Anti-Comintern Pact on the basis that it did not wish to diplomatically offend the United Kingdom or the United States. However, Brazilian minister showed interest in German help for a Brazilian Anti-Comintern Exhibition similar to the ones that had already been held in Germany.


China

China was part of Ribbentrop's vision for the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1935, and had been courted by both Germany and Japan to join the Anti-Comintern Pact as early as 1936. By late 1935,
Wang Jingwei Wang Jingwei (4 May 1883 – 10 November 1944), born as Wang Zhaoming and widely known by his pen name Jingwei, was a Chinese politician. He was initially a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang, leading a government in Wuhan in oppositi ...
was in favor of joining the pact, but
Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...
was careful not to offend the Soviet Union, which was China's only potential partner in case of a Japanese attack. After serious consideration, the Chiang administration refused. They were unwilling to align with Japan without a retreat of Japanese forces from China. Such a retreat was rejected by Japan, which meant that China was unwilling to offend the Soviet Union, the only major power that would be able to effectively aid them in the case of a war against Japan. This war became reality in the following year. On 3 November 1938, Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe in a public broadcast offered peace terms that included Chinese accession to the Anti-Comintern Pact. Between December 1939 and March 1940, preliminary peace talks were carried out under the Japanese ''Kiri Project''. The drafted terms involved Chinese accession to the Anti-Comintern Pact. The Chinese government stalled for time and did not give a definitive answer to the proposal. By 7 September, the Japanese side declared further negotiation useless and ''Kiri Project'' was terminated on 8 October 1940. Another attempt at exploratory peace talks was made by for the Chinese side, who had two delegates with
Yōsuke Matsuoka was a Japanese diplomat and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Empire of Japan during the early stages of World War II. He is best known for his defiant speech at the League of Nations in February 1933, ending Japan's participation in the organ ...
in Tokyo on 12 October 1940. Their proposal for peace between Japan and China and the unification of the Wang and Chiang governments also included the entry of the unified Chinese state into the Anti-Comintern Pact.


Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia's accession to the Anti-Comintern Pact was part of the German demands in the run-up to the establishment of the
Protectorate A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a State (polity), state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over m ...
. These demands were designed by Germany to be rejected.


Netherlands

The Netherlands were a candidate of choice for the Japanese for inclusion in the Anti-Comintern Pact.' Japanese ambassador Iwao Yamaguchi hoped that Dutch concerns about the situation in China and the potential dissent of the ethnic Chinese inhabitants of the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
, as well as communist insurgents in the colony, would lead the Dutch government to attempt to stabilize the relationship with Japan through accession to the pact. Yamaguchi contacted the Dutch foreign minister Andries Cornelis Dirk de Graeff about the matter on 12 October 1936, but the Dutch government saw itself bound by public opinion to reject any diplomatic alignment with Japan, and De Graeff pointed out that communist activity in the Dutch East Indies was not an imminent threat. However, he was willing to at least negotiate an intelligence exchange with Japan for the purpose of anti-communist activity in Asia. A second meeting on 24 October 1936 saw De Graeff outline that only the Dutch East Indies should be included in any intelligence exchange, whereas Yamaguchi hoped to include the Dutch mainland for the purpose of thwarting Comintern operations in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
(and covertly influencing the Dutch newspapers to be less critical of Japan in their reporting). The following day, 25 October 1936,
Tony Lovink Tony may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tony (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Gregory Tony (born 1978), American law enforcement officer * Motu Tony (born 1981), New Zealand international rugby leagu ...
contacted Yamaguchi about a potential Dutch policy in which not only communism but all political ideologies in the Dutch East Indies could be suppressed and supervised in cooperation with the Japanese. This was the first of many signs that the Dutch government was not greatly concerned about fighting communism, but was much rather concerned with suppressing the
Indonesian independence movement The Indonesian National Awakening ( id, Kebangkitan Nasional Indonesia) is a term for the period in the first half of the 20th century, during which people from many parts of the archipelago of Indonesia first began to develop a national conscio ...
in the Dutch East Indies.' Although the Netherlands remained interested in secretive intelligence exchanges, the Dutch government was hesitant to officially undertake a diplomatic alignment with Japan, caused by the fear of domestic and diplomatic backlash.'


Norway

As part of the
German occupation of Norway The occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany during the Second World War began on 9 April 1940 after Operation Weserübung. Conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on 10 June 1940, and Nazi Germany controlled Norway until the ...
and Norway's collaborationist
Quisling regime The Quisling regime or Quisling government are common names used to refer to the fascist collaborationist government led by Vidkun Quisling in German-occupied Norway during the Second World War. The official name of the regime from 1 February 19 ...
, the accession of Quisling Norway to the Anti-Comintern Pact was discussed, most notably in the German ("Memorandum Regarding the Reorganization of Norway"), issued in Oslo on 10 February 1942.''''


Poland

In 1935, Poland had been one of the countries that Ribbentrop had hoped to induce to join the pact.' Poland was also a very desired partner in Japan, which viewed Germany and Poland as rather close because of their 1934 Non-Aggression Pact and which viewed Poland as very committed in its anti-communist and anti-Soviet stances.' When Ribbentrop and Neurath were in contact with
Józef Lipski Józef Lipski (5 June 1894 – 1 November 1958) was a Polish diplomat and Ambassador to Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1939. Lipski played a key role in the foreign policy of the Second Polish Republic. Life Lipski trained as a lawyer, and joined th ...
and
Józef Beck Józef Beck (; 4 October 1894 – 5 June 1944) was a Polish statesman who served the Second Republic of Poland as a diplomat and military officer. A close associate of Józef Piłsudski, Beck is most famous for being Polish foreign minister in ...
about German-Polish anti-communist cooperation, Beck rejected a Polish entry into the Anti-Comintern Pact as impractical.' The Polish entry into the Anti-Comintern Pact was part of the eight-point plan presented to Poland by
Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...
.'' Poland rejected this proposal. The reasons for Poland's rejection of the proposal were the Polish desire for a diplomatic equidistance between Germany and the Soviet Union, as well as military concerns about encroaching encirclement by Germany after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia.'


Portugal

Portugal was of interest as a possible member state, especially after Spain joined. As one of the only three countries to have voted against the Soviet Union's entry into the League of Nations on 18 September 1934 (in addition to the Netherlands and Switzerland), it had a well-established anti-Soviet record. However, its economic dependency on and long-standing diplomatic alliance with the United Kingdom made Portugal unlikely to accept an invitation to the Anti-Comintern Pact in the eyes of Oswald Baron von Hoyningen-Huene, the German ambassador to Portugal 1934–1945.'


United Kingdom

British membership was part of Ribbentrop's original design for the Anti-Comintern Pact in October 1935.' When Joachim von Ribbentrop became ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1936, Hitler made clear to him that it was his 'greatest wish' to welcome Britain into the Anti-Comintern Pact. Ribbentrop was sceptical of Hitler's ambition, but placed some hope in King Edward VIII, who Ribbentrop perceived to be friendly to Germany.'' When asked on 15 November 1937 whether the British government had received an invitation to the Anti-Comintern Pact, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Robert Gascoyne-Cecil answered that no such invitation had taken place.


Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia was Axis-friendly during the tenure of
Milan Stojadinović Milan Stojadinović ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Стојадиновић; 4 August 1888 – 26 October 1961) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and economist who served as the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia from 1935 to 1939. He also served as Fore ...
as Prime Minister, and Germany and Italy were optimistic about its accession in January 1939.' Stojadinović was however ousted in February 1939, and the subsequent Cvetković administration was more cautious and non-aligned.' The Cvetković administration, pressured by the diplomatic alignment of Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria with the Axis Powers, joined the Anti-Comintern Pact's successor, the Tripartite Pact, on 25 March 1941.
Dušan Simović Dušan Simović (; 28 October 1882 – 26 August 1962) was a Yugoslav Serb army general who served as Chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army and as the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia in 1940–1941. Biography Simović, born o ...
, in response, Yugoslav coup d'état on 27 March, cancelling Yugoslavia's entry into the Tripartite Pact. In response, the Axis Powers initiated the
invasion of Yugoslavia The invasion of Yugoslavia, also known as the April War or Operation 25, or ''Projekt 25'' was a German-led attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II. The order for the invasion was p ...
on 6 April.'


Legacy

The Anti-Comintern Pact ended up playing a significant role at the
Nuremberg trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 ...
and was specifically mentioned in the verdict that sentenced Joachim von Ribbentrop to death.'


Historical reception and historiography

American historian
Paul W. Schroeder Paul W. Schroeder (February 23, 1927''International Who's Who 2000'', Vol. 63 (Europa, 1999: ), p. 1391. – December 6, 2020) was an American historian who was professor emeritus at the University of Illinois. He specialized in European interna ...
, professor emeritus of the
University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...
, interprets the Anti-Comintern Pact in his 1958 book ''The Axis Alliance and Japanese-American Relations 1941'' as a diplomatic statement by Germany and Japan that had no actual military value and was "hardly dangerous in itself".' Schroeder also comments on the rather loose German-Japanese ties that resulted from the pact,' as well as the lack of German and Japanese commitment towards the agreement.' Schroeder's conclusion ultimately sees in the Anti-Comintern Pact a continuation of a pattern in Japanese foreign policy since the 1890s in which Japan was opportunistic in grasping at chances at expansion, as in the First Sino-Japanese War 1894, the Russo-Japanese War 1904 and the twenty-one demands of 1915.'
Ruth Henig Ruth Beatrice Henig, Baroness Henig CBE, DL (born Ruth Beatrice Munzer on 10 November 1943) is a British academic historian and Labour Party politician. Family Her parents were Kurt and Elfrieda Munzer, Jewish refugees who came to the Unite ...
, British historian and later politician for the Labour Party, noted in her 1985 book ''The Origins of the Second World War 1933–1941'' the agreement's ideological component, in that the Anti-Comintern pact underlined the "onward march of fascism" in order "to combat the spread of communist regimes", but pointed out that a real threat from the pact also came to the
liberal democratic Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into di ...
United Kingdom.' In a 2001 contribution to ''The Paris Peace Conference, 1919: Peace Without Victory'', Henig also notes that the public in Germany, Italy, Japan and even the United Kingdom itself was largely uninterested in foreign policy and the assurance of international peace, and that those few individuals who took an active interest in global affairs often did so chauvinistically and nationalistically. Henig also commented that the interwar period 1918–1939 was marked by the breakup of old alliances (like the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the Stresa Front).' As part of the German Bundeswehr's Military History Research Office's series ''
Germany and the Second World War ''Germany and the Second World War'' (german: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg) is a 12,000-page, 13-volume work published by the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt (DVA), that has taken academics from the military history centre of the German ...
'', German military historian
Manfred Messerschmidt Manfred Messerschmidt (1 October 1926 – 19 December 2022) was a German historian who specialised in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. He was the longtime research director at the Military History Research Office (MGFA) who concei ...
states in the first volume, ''The Build-up of German Aggression'' (1990), that the Anti-Comintern Pact, just like the Axis Powers as a whole, was just a "patching together of divergent political interests". Messerschmidt also comments on Hitler's ambivalence between including either Italy or the United Kingdom in the pact.' In regards to the role of Japan, Messerschmidt, like Schroeder, sees the Anti-Comintern Pact as a continuation of established Japanese policy, but also notes that Japan's internal political apparatus was so divided between the interests of the Japanese army, navy and government that almost by definition no action by the Tokyo leadership could be seen as any sort of unified opinion of the entire Japanese establishment. Messerschmidt also disagrees with the notion that Italy's accession to the pact necessarily gave it an anti-British thrust, but that Italian accession established a basis of the treaty in the first place. The interests of Germany and Japan were too different and the Japanese position after the beginning of the war against China in 1937 too weak to pose a threat to any enemy, Soviet Union or United Kingdom. As a result, Messerschmidt disagrees with the idea that the pact went from anti-Soviet to anti-British on the basis that it effectively already stopped being anti-Soviet as soon as Japan invaded China in June 1937, not when Italy joined the agreement in November of that same year.' However, Messerschmidt does agree that Hitler's support for Japan, which followed from Ribbentrop's agenda in the far east, was destined to hurt Anglo-German relations, whether Hitler intended it or not. The actions that Germany took that favored Japan and disfavored China included the cessation of aid deliveries to the Chiang government, the recall of advisors from China and open declarations of political support for Japanese actions starting in October 1937. All of these actions, according to Messerschmidt's argument, were bound to offend the pro-Chinese position of the United Kingdom.' In his biography of Adolf Hitler, British historian Sir Ian Kershaw wrote in 2000 that Hitler's approval for the Anti-Comintern Pact marked the diplomatic union of "the two most militaristic, expansionist powers in the world", but that " e pact was more important for its symbolism than for its actual provisions".' Kershaw in his interpretation of the power structures within Nazi Germany is a proponent of the "working towards the Führer" thesis, in which, while Hitler was the guiding ideological figure in the German state whose favor all political actors within the German government (in case of the Anti-Comintern Pact: Ribbentrop) attempted to win, the dictator was in fact rather uninvolved in day-to-day governmental matters.'


See also

* German–Japanese industrial co-operation before World War II *
Germany–Japan relations Germany–Japan relations (; ), also referred to as German-Japanese relations, were officially established in 1861 with the first ambassadorial visit to Japan from Prussia (which predated the formation of the German Empire in 1866/1870). Japan ...
*
Germany–Soviet Union relations, 1918–1941 German–Soviet Union relations date to the aftermath of the First World War. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, dictated by Germany ended hostilities between Russia and Germany; it was signed on March 3, 1918. A few months later, the German ambassador ...
*
Monsun Gruppe The ''Gruppe Monsun'' or Monsoon Group was a force of German U-boats (submarines) that operated in the Pacific and Indian Oceans during World War II. Although similar naming conventions were used for temporary groupings of submarines in the Atla ...
*
Japan–Soviet Union relations Relations between the Soviet Union and Japan between the Communist takeover in 1917 and the collapse of Communism in 1991 tended to be hostile. Japan had sent troops to counter the Bolshevik presence in Russia's Far East during the Russian Civil ...
* Japanese military modernization of 1868–1931 *Specific Events **
Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance The Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance was a bilateral treaty between France and the Soviet Union with the aim of enveloping Nazi Germany in 1935 to reduce the threat from Central Europe. It was pursued by Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet forei ...
(27 March 1936) ** Soviet-Japanese Border War (May–September 1939) **
Pact of Steel The Pact of Steel (german: Stahlpakt, it, Patto d'Acciaio), formally known as the Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, was a military and political alliance between Italy and Germany. The pact was initially drafted as a t ...
(22 May 1939) **
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those powers to partition Poland between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ri ...
(23 August 1939) **
Tripartite Pact The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy, and Japan signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburō Kurusu. It was a defensive milit ...
(27 September 1940) **
Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact The , also known as the , was a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan signed on April 13, 1941, two years after the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese Border War. The agreement meant that for most of World War II, ...
(13 April 1941) **
Soviet invasion of Manchuria The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, formally known as the Manchurian strategic offensive operation (russian: Манчжурская стратегическая наступательная операция, Manchzhurskaya Strategicheskaya Nastu ...
(August 1945)


Notes


References


Sources


Primary sources

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ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs ...
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External links


Appendix to Presseisen 1958 via Springer Link
* ttp://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/tri1.asp The text of the Anti-Comintern Pactbr>The text of the Supplementary protocol of the PactThe significance of the Anti-Comintern Pact
– lecture texts of
Yōsuke Matsuoka was a Japanese diplomat and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Empire of Japan during the early stages of World War II. He is best known for his defiant speech at the League of Nations in February 1933, ending Japan's participation in the organ ...
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