
Herbert von Dirksen (2 April 1882-19 December 1955) was the German Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1928 to 1933 (succeeding Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau and preceding Rudolf Nadolny), to Japan from 1933 to 1938 (succeeding Willy Noebel and preceding Eugen Ott), and to the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1939 (succeeding Joachim von Ribbentrop).
Biography[]
Herbert von Dirksen was born in Groeditzberg, Silesia, German Empire (now Grodziec, Poland) in 1882 to a recently-ennobled Prussian family, the son of a fanatical nationalist and monarchist politician. Dirksen served as a lieutenant in the Imperial German Army during World War I before becoming a diplomat, serving as charge d'affaires in Warsaw in 1920 and leaving in 1921 due to his poor relations with the Poles. He served as consul in the Free City of Danzig from 1923 to 1925, and he lamented the impossibility of war with Poland due to the restrictions imposed upon Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. He went on to serve as Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1928 to 1933, to Japan from 1933 to 1938, and to the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1939. Dirksen joined the NSDAP in 1936, and he was a proponent of signing the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan, realigning Germany as an ally of Japan rather than of Chiang Kai-shek's China. As Ambassador to Britain, Dirksen persuaded Britain not to go to war with Germany over Czechoslovakia, but the outbreak of World War II in 1939 resulted in the termination of diplomatic relations between Britain and Germany. He was captured by the Red Army in February 1945, but he was treated leniently due to his former association with Kliment Voroshilov. He was cleared by a denazification court in 1947 due to his inactivity with the NSDAP, and he died in 1955.