(Not to be confused with the Anti‐Komintern.)

The Anti‐Comintern Pact, or the ‘German–Japanese Agreement and Supplementary Protocol, Agreement Guarding against the Communistic International’, was the precursor to the Tripartite Pact, and it can also be considered the spiritual predecessor to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

As the name suggests, it was directed against us, but it also acted as an alternative to the liberal order, which is why some anticommunists like Galeazzo Ciano considered it ‘anti‐British’ and why some of its signers were former members of the League of Nations. Its counterliberalism should not be overstated, however: an important reason why the Fascists mistrusted liberalism to begin with is that they considered it insufficiently anticommunist.

Quoting Jason Dawsey:

While one should not exaggerate the parallels with the [Imperial] case, it is not difficult to understand how [the Third Reich] and Imperial Japan could recognize similar paths to this moment. By the mid-1930s, the two countries, along with [Fascist] Italy, chafed under the system dominated by Britain and France. Racism (with the [Third Reich] surpassing the [Imperial] Japanese and [Fascist] Italians), imperialism, anti-communism, and integral nationalism, with all the variations one might expect granted, occupied preponderant positions in the politics of all three. Leaving Fascist Italy aside, the question remains: what actually initiated concrete ties between the Third Reich and Hirohito’s Japan?

Here, the figure of Joachim von Ribbentrop exerted surprisingly significant influence. Well before his appointment as the Third Reich’s foreign minister in 1938, Ribbentrop, the former champagne salesman and ardent [Fascist], had used his office, literally the Ribbentrop Bureau (Dienststelle Ribbentrop), to compete with the Foreign Office directed by the old conservative Konstantin von Neurath. Very attuned to [his class’s] rancid ideological vision, Ribbentrop saw opportunities in reaching out to Japan. He already had a contact, the businessman and diplomat, Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Hack, possessing extensive ties to [Imperial] industrial and military élites. Through Hack, inquiries were made. The response from [Imperial] ruling circles pleasantly surprised Ribbentrop.

[The Imperial] military establishment welcomed Hack’s feelers and expressed considerable interest in moving beyond memories of World War I and creating strong bonds with Hitler’s Germany. It did so for two reasons. First, there was great eagerness to see the German state back away from existing ties with Chiang Kai-shek’s China. Tōkyō continued to construe China as very much within its sphere of interests. Imperialist avarice opened onto the other main source for a rapprochement: concern over the Soviet Union.

[The Imperial] move into Manchuria stirred fears in Moscow about what might come next. [Moscow] had worked to forge links with Chiang in late 1932, even as Chiang and the Kuomintang attempted to crush the Chinese Communists once and for all. Ribbentrop and Hack realized that anticommunism, easily one of the most visible features of [Fascism], might make for more inroads with Hirohito’s government. They not only guessed right but were deeply pleased as [Tōkyō] pursued further communications.

Military Attaché (and later Ambassador) in Berlin, Hiroshi Ōshima, a career army officer, passed on a proposal to Ribbentrop. Ōshima’s offer revolved around a common opposition to communism without explicitly targeting the USSR. Called the Anti-Comintern Pact, the proposal gained Hitler’s enthusiastic support.

[…]

Ribbentrop and Japanese Ambassador Kintomo Mushanokōji signed the Anti-Comintern Pact on November 25, 1936. Two days later, Hitler gave his approval to the agreement. Afterwards, Ribbentrop’s star in the [Reich’s] firmament grew much brighter. A part of the Pact kept secret entailed that neither country would help the Soviets in any way if [Moscow] attacked the other. As Kershaw summarized it,

“the pact was more important for its symbolism than for its actual provisions: the two most militaristic, expansionist powers in the world had found their way to each other. Though the pact was ostensibly defensive, it had hardly enhanced the prospects for peace on either side of the globe.”

This was one of the truly momentous conjunctures in the twentieth century. Hitler’s openness to working with Japan and seeming pragmatism about his otherwise fanatical racism, combined with Ribbentrop’s legwork in feeling out Japanese interests, and Imperial Japan’s own fears of Soviet moves fused in a new Berlin-Tokyo Axis (Mussolini had used the term “axis” the month before signatures were affixed to the Anti-Comintern Pact). Ostensibly a defensive pact, the world would soon shudder at the war, carnage, and mass death associated with it.

(Emphasis added.)

After 1936, the following régimes became members:

It could have been even larger. Candidates included Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Czechoslovakia, mainland China, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Türkiye, and my favourite, the United Kingdom, but their candidacies failed for one reason or another.

Click here for other events that happened today (November 25).

1900: Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss, an SS officer, burdened the world with his presence.
1901: Arthur Liebehenschel, another SS officer, was born, because one wasn’t enough.
1917: Alparslan Türkeş, one of Turkey’s pro‐Axis politicians, arrived to make the world a worse place.
1938: Reich Major General, Otto von Loosow, expired.
1939: Axis submarines U‐28 and U‐43 sank one British ship each.
1940: The Imperial Japanese 11th Army launched an offensive in the Hubei Province.
1941: An Axis torpedo sunk the HMS Barham.