High-ranking Nazi official Joachim Ribbentrop was a wine merchant when he joined the Nazi Party in 1932. A year later, he became a foreign policy advisor to Hitler, and was appointed Ambassador to England in 1936. He returned to Germany in 1938, and was named Foreign Minister. In that role, he negotiated the Soviet German non-aggression pact of 1939. Ribbentrop was captured by the Allies at the end of World War II. He was tried at Nuremberg as a war criminal, found guilty and executed. Bibliography: Bloch, Michael. Ribbentrop : A Biography. 1993. Crown Pub.