The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy, and Japan signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Galeazzo Ciano, and Saburō Kurusu and in the presence of Adolf Hitler. It was a defensive military alliance that was eventually joined by Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia's accession provoked a coup d'état in Belgrade two days later. Germany, Italy, and Hungary responded by invading Yugoslavia. The resulting Italo-German client state, known as the Independent State of Croatia, joined the pact on 15 June 1941.
Signing of the Tripartite Pact. On the left-hand side of the picture, seated from left to right, are Saburō Kurusu (representing Japan), Galeazzo Ciano (Italy) and Adolf Hitler (Germany).
Japanese version of the Tripartite Pact, 27 September 1940
Adolf Hitler
Benito Mussolini
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, is a term used to describe the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945, after only 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin, ending World War II in Europe.
Adolf Hitler became Germany's head of state, with the title of Führer und Reichskanzler, in 1934.
Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
German soldiers march near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, 14 June 1940.
Death and destruction during the Battle of Stalingrad, October 1942