Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (April 30, 1893 – October 16, 1946), better known as simply Joachim von Ribbentrop, is Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany from 1938 until 1945.

Ribbentrop first comes to Adolf Hitler's notice as a well-traveled businessman with more knowledge of the outside world than most senior national socialists and as a perceived authority on foreign affairs.

He offers his house Schloss Fuschl for the secret meetings in January 1933 that result in Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany.

He becomes a close confidant of Hitler, to the disgust of some party members, who think him superficial and lacking in talent.

He is appointed ambassador to the Court of St James's, the royal court of the United Kingdom, in 1936, then Foreign Minister of Germany in February 1938.

Before the Second World War, he plays a key role in brokering the Pact of Steel (an alliance with Fascist Italy) and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact).

He favors retaining good relations with the Soviets, and opposes the invasion of the Soviet Union.

In the autumn of 1941, due to American aid to Britain and the increasingly frequent "incidents" in the North Atlantic between U-boats and American warships guarding convoys to Britain, Ribbentrop works for the failure of the Japanese-American talks in Washington and for Japan to attack the United States.

He does his utmost to support a declaration of war on the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

From 1941 onward, Ribbentrop's influence declines.

Arrested in June 1945, Ribbentrop is convicted and sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials for his role in starting the Second World War in Europe and enabling the Holocaust.

On October 16, 1946, he becomes the first of the Nuremberg defendants to be executed by hanging.