Ribbentrop, Annelies von, née Henkell

Born: 12.01.1896 in Mainz

died: 05.10.1973 in Wuppertal

Ribbentrop was the daughter of the sparkling wine producer Otto Henkell senior. After graduating from high school and studying art history, she married the import merchant Joachim Ribbentrop in 1920. In 1925, an aristocratic aunt adopted her husband, who made a great career in the so-called Third Reich.

The couple had already joined the NSDAP in 1932. Joachim von Ribbentrop became ambassador in London in 1936 and Reich Foreign Minister in 1938. In 1939, he played a key role in the Hitler-Stalin Pact, which made the invasion of Poland possible and triggered the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1945, as one of the main war criminals, he was found guilty of all charges in the Nuremberg Trial and sentenced to death by hanging. His wife considered the verdict to be the result of victor's justice and worked until her death to rehabilitate the Foreign Minister.

In 1954, she published her husband's memoirs and last notes "Between London and Moscow" from his estate. In 1962 and 1967, she wrote the books "Verschwörung gegen den Frieden" and "Deutsch-Englische Geheimverbindungen". Her last book was published posthumously with the title "Die Kriegsschuld des Widerstandes, britische Geheimdokumente aus den Jahren 1938/39".

In all his publications, Ribbentrop vigorously denied that the Hitler government was to blame for the outbreak of war. In 2001, the Office for the Protection of the Federal Constitution in Cologne called her an "apologist" (defender) of Hitler and regarded her publications as examples of revisionist efforts by right-wing extremism in Germany to retrospectively justify the crimes of National Socialism.