Karl Ritter (diplomat)

Karl Ritter (5 June 1883, Dörflas, Marktredwitz – 31 July 1968, Murnau am Staffelsee) was a German diplomat during the Third Reich and was convicted as a war criminal in the Ministries Trial.

A member of the Nazi Party, he was ambassador to Brazil for two years, Special Envoy to the Munich Agreement, and a senior official in the Foreign Office during World War II.

[7] Through Karl Schnurre, he worked on the 1939 negotiations with the Soviet Union that led to the economics part of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact.

Nothing is known of Ritter's life after his release except for attendance at the home of Winifred Wagner along with Edda Göring, Adolf von Thadden, Hans Severus Ziegler and others.

[citation needed] Ritter's illegitimate son Karl-Heinz Gerstner worked as a diplomat in Paris: it was subsequently demonstrated that he had on numerous occasions clandestinely assisted the French resistance; he became a communist and a journalist in East Germany.