Joachim von Ribbentrop – An EU founder
Vernon Coleman
Joachim von Ribbentrop (German 1893-1946) was a Nazi. He was also one of the EU’s founding fathers.
During the Second World War, Ribbentrop’s office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs worked on draft documents for a United Europe. After Germany’s defeat at Stalingrad, Ribbentrop and the SS put extra effort into their plans for the new, expanded Germany. Ribbentrop, who was Hitler’s Foreign Minister, felt it was necessary to mobilise the population of Europe against the threat of the Soviet Union.
In 1942, the Reich Ministry of Foreign Affairs began work on a new European Committee, and Goebbels’ Propaganda Office issued a communique which called for a new European image of German foreign policy. On 21st March 1942, Ribbentrop sent a note to Adolf Hitler in which he remarked that there was need for a new European Confederation to include Germany, Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Greece and Spain.
On March 21, in 1943 Ribbentrop proposed the formation of a European Confederation. The Germans were by this time concerned about the growing might of the Soviet Union and felt that a United Europe would make Germany better able to combat USSR. Ribbentrop suggested abolishing customs barriers between all those countries. (The Americans had the same idea and their enthusiasm for the European Union was in part a response to their fear of the USSR.)
A few months later, on September 9th 1943, the Ministry proposed precise details for the new European Confederation. The plans were pretty well identical to the current structure of the European Union. There were proposals for a European Central Bank, European Monetary Union and a European Economic Council. The European Union has followed the Third Reich’s proposals to the letter.
In June of the same year, a Nazi official submitted the `Basic Elements of a Plan for the New Europe’ to the committee. The paper suggested that Europeans should have a customs union, favouring trade between countries within Confederation. It also repeated Walther Funk’s earlier proposals for European monetary union and the harmonisation of labour conditions and social welfare. It even suggested the formation of separate `conferences’ for all individual areas – such as Labour and Agriculture - and proposed that the bureaucrats working in these `conferences’ should decide policy for the whole Confederation. An official in the Nazi ministry of employment declared that Germany was not fighting for herself but for Europe. And it was declared that: `Every continental state must remain conscious of its responsibility towards the European Economic Community’.
The plan proposed by Ribbentrop and his colleagues is, of course, identical to the way that the European Union operates. The only difference is that the European Union uses the term `commissions’ rather than `conferences’.
Ribbentrop suggested that a new European currency be known as European Monetary Union and that a European Central Bank be created. These names are used today by the European Union. The Third Reich plan was that the other nations of Europe would help promote the development of the German economy. This is, of course, exactly what has happened through the modern European Union.
Ribbentrop should be listed as a major founder of the European Union.
Sadly for the EU, Ribbentrop was executed as a War Criminal so it was difficult for the eurocrats to name a building after him.
Taken, with permission, from The Shocking History of the EU which is available as an eBook and paperback from Amazon. Ribbentrop is listed in the book as one of the 40 founding fathers of the EU.
Copyright Vernon Coleman April 2019
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