"I was truly under Hitler's spell, that cannot be denied. I was impressed with him from the moment I first met him, in 1932. He had terrific power, especially in his eyes. Now the tribunal accuses us of conspiracy. I say, how can one have a conspiracy in a dictatorship government? One man and one man only made all the crucial decisions. That was the Fuhrer. In all my dealings with him I never discussed the exterminations or anything of that sort. What I shall never comprehend is that six weeks before the end of the war he assured me we'd win by a nose. I left his presence then and said that from that time forth I was completely at a loss — that I didn't understand a thing. Hitler always, until the end, and even now, had a strange fascination over me. Would you call it abnormal of me? Sometimes, in his presence, when he spoke of all his plans, the good things he would do for the Volk, vacations, highways, new buildings, cultural advantages and so forth, tears would come to my eyes. Would that be because I'm a hysterical weak man?"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
People indicted for war crimesPeople of Nazi GermanyNazisGerman foreign ministersAmbassadors of Germany
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
To Leon Goldensohn (July 15, 1946), from The Nuremberg Interviews by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joachim_von_Ribbentrop
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Joachim von Ribbentrop
1893 – 1946
13 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Joachim von Ribbentrop →
Related Quotes
"When apprehensions abroad threatened the success of the Nazi regime for conquest, it was the duplicitous Ribbentrop, …"
"God protect Germany. God have mercy on my soul. My final wish is that Germany should recover her unity and that, for …"
"Death, death. Now I won't be able to write my beautiful memoirs."
"I think the only way one can arrive at an understanding of his anti-Semitism growing all the time is because in Ameri…"
"I rather liked Stalin and Molotov, got along fine with them."
"I don't mean that it is important whether a few of us like Goering, myself, or the others are sentenced to death or h…"
"I know for a fact that this idea of the Jews causing the war and the Jews being so all important is nonsense. But tha…"
"Tell them in Moscow that I was against this attack."
"Vain, arrogant and shallow, Joachim von Ribbentrop had been trying to foster ties between the British and the Nazis s…"
"On 24 July 1936, Hitler rewarded him by appointing him Ambassador to the Court of St James, though not, as Ribbentrop…"