Alliance Without Allies

Abstract

One thing for which we should be grateful to Ribbentrop, Hitler declared once during the war, was that he understood the full significance of our pact with Japan and drew the conclusions of it with great lucidity.¹ The Führer’s evaluation hardly corresponded with the facts, however, because his Foreign Minister was instrumental in almost wrecking the alliance in 1941. Even under the most favorable circumstances the German-Japanese entente was faced with serious problems, but added to these was a conspicuous misconception existing in both Berlin and Tokyo about their political relationship. The factors governing this association were thus complicated by many inter-allied disputes — a situation which tended to make this last year before Pearl Harbor a very full one indeed. Especially the Nazis labored under the impression that they were able to influence Japanese foreign policy. Von Ribbentrop’s excited cables to Ambassador Ott were, nevertheless, the product of his own imagination, and did not represent a truthful picture of Germany’s status with the Japanese. On the other hand, the Tokyo government was always eager to absorb the European colonial spoils after Germany had defeated the home countries. Rather than participate in the coalition’s struggles, the Japanese shrewdly sought to profit from Germany’s military efforts.