2-611-948 - Keystone Archives/Heritage Images

Joachim von Ribbentrop and Count Ciano, Nazi German and Italian Foreign Ministers, 1939. Ribbentrop (1893-1946) was Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was executed in 1946 after being convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials. Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari (1903-1944) was the son-in-law of Italy's Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. He was appointed Foreign Minister in 1936, but as the Second World War unfolded he became increasingly disenchanted with Italy's role in the war and its alliance with Germany. He was removed from his post in 1943 and was executed the following year by order of Mussolini, under pressure from the Nazis.