April 11, 2005

Gilwoo Lee; 12V3

Mr. Johnson

 

 

Nazi Germany and Japan: How Do They Differ?

 

I. Introduction

             During the Second World War, both Japan and Germany committed many inhuman crimes against various suppressed peoples, mostly against the Chinese, Koreans, and Jewish peoples. The inhuman activities included biological experiments, rape, slave labor, etc.. Yet, the attitudes Japan and Germany show about the crimes they have done are quite different. Germany admits its crimes almost fully, and deliberately pays compensation money to the UN annually. Japan consistently denies its crimes and refuses to pay comparable amounts of compensation money. This paper will examine the difference between the attitudes of Japan and Germany and show that this difference is mainly due to the different conditions the two nations faced after the Second World War. This paper will establish an argument that urges Japan to take more responsibility and that urges the Asian victim nations to take stronger actions.

II. Attitudes - how do they differ?

A.     Compensation

International law states that the defeated nations pay individual war victims.(Organization for Correcting Japanese Textbooks, 243) Since the Second World War, the new German government has been paying reparations to the Jewish people who claims themselves as having been specially victimized by the Nazi Germany. In 1953, East Germany paid $28 billion to the victims, and by 1993, the money Germany had paid to the victims reached $42 billion. Since 1951, German companies, such as IG, Benz, Volkswagen, have paid out such figures to the victims who were forced to work under inhuman manufacturing conditions. Nazi Germany’s remaining asset in Swiss Banks is being used for compensation as well. Meanwhile, although Japan has paid $40 trillion to the war victims (Organization for Correcting Japanese Textbooks, 245), one remarkable point is that the victims must be "Japanese" in order to get the payment. The Japanese government has claimed that an individual cannot sue the government for compensation - a clear contradiction of the international law. Japanese companies have also refused to pay the foreign victims, saying that the companies must follow the government policy. Though almost 7,000 people died in Japanese companies, only a few were paid compensations.

B.     the Aftermath, relative to the leaders of Germany and Japan in WW2, respectively

After the Second World War, the highest leaders of Nazi Germany were sent before War Crimes tribunals and most of those charged were executed. Many of those who went into exile were tracked down by fervent members of various Jewish communities. The new governments, both in East and West Germany, included virtually no politicians from the previous Nazi Government. Many of the Japanese leaders of the war, on the other hand, were transformed into leading politicians in the subsequent government. Some of the Japanese war leaders were put on trial at an international war crimes court, but most of the key leaders remained free from blame. Some of the dead leaders were even honored in Jinjas – Japanese temples where people go and pray for the honored ones. In the case of the Yasakuni Jinja, fourteen major participants of the Pacific war are honored their, and Koizumi, the prime minister of Japan, visits the temple annually, for memorial services. Korean and Chinese people have demanded unbiased evaluation of the Japanese war heroes, but prematurely instead, the minister is worshipping them. The annual visits may be a Japanese tradition, but the visits have aroused stronger anti-Japanese sentiments in the victim nations.

C.     Whether to admit the crimes or not

The greatest difference between Germany and Japan is that while Germany admits most of its crime fully, Japan does not (which is why so many Koreans and Chinese are furious, currently, at the attitude of Japan.) Many Japanese historians make reports denying Japanese misdeeds during the WW2, for example, the Nanking Massacre, biological experiments on captives, and the forced sex slave of comfort women. In the case of the Nanzing Massacre, Japanese scholars have disagreed on the number of victims. The scholars are divided into three major groups about this issue - the phantom group, the moderate group, and the massacre group. While the massacre group admits that the number of victims is over 200,000 and the moderate group estimates the number to be only a few thousands, the phantom group completely dismisses the massacre and claims it to be a mere tactic of manipulation by Chinese people. Japan’s deliberate attempt to manipulate history has developed even to the extent that the content of history textbooks is manipulated as well. This manipulation has exacerbated Japan’s relationships with China and Korea.

III. Analysis - Why do the East and West differ?

The difference in attitudes between Germany and Japan is caused mainly by the circumstances immediately after the Second World War. Germany lies on the European continent, bordering many other nations which were wary of Germany. Moreover, being itself divided into two states with two different ideologies, Germany had little chance to show an arrogant attitude regarding the Nazi issue. In comparison, Japan, located in the Far East, had much less intervention from Western countries. Other than the U.S, most of the Western countries were too busy dealing with their own problems and with Germany to be concerned with Japan and Asian victims. As most of the victims of the Japanese aggression were Asians, whose nations had little power, Japan was relatively free from harsh criticism. Without much investigation, some Western historians even perceived Japanese aggression as merely a relatively late experssion ofimperialism. This interpretation has softened much of Western attitudes toward Japan’s crimes on these Asian victims as most of the Western countries underwent their own “high imperialism” during the late 1800s.

 

A.     Intense "de-nazification" vs. insufficient Asian proceedings against Japan

Throughout Europe, there was an intense program of denazification after the Second World War. Even minor officers were sent to court, and most of the high officers were executed. The denazification was pan-Europian, for many countries other than Germany were willing to avenge the losses their countries suffered, by punishing the Nazis. The former Nazi members hid themselves among the various refugees, but the Allied Nations and the Jewish victims were eager to find them out.

In 1945, the Allied Nations created a list of war criminals; if found, they could be captured without legal objection. Many Jewish unions such as the World Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation Leagues, whose efforts continue even until today, devoted themselves to capture in the criminals. Most of all, the Israeli government was eager to punish the criminals. In 1950, the Israeli parliament legislated laws that applied to the criminals. The laws could sentence to death those who committed inhuman crimes against the Jewish people. Sometimes, the extradition of captives hiding in other countries could create some political problems with the countries involved, but the Israeli applied the rule that the method used in the extradition did not matter in the court. By such straightforward and aggressive efforts, Israel government could send numerous people to the court.

On the contrary, Japan did not go through any program similar to denazification. Though some of the leaders in the Second World War were sent to international courts, the nation itself remained pretty much untouched. Moreover, the Cold War encouraged America to economically support Japan and protect it from communism, while, in Germany, Russian occupation of East Germany made both East and West alert to denazification. In the Far East, the victim nations, mostly Korea and China, were not mature enough to combat Japanese posturings. Both nations had internal conflicts between nationalists(democrats) and communists. The Korean War in 1950-53 made both Korea and China so unstable that the two nations could not punish Japanese criminals. Meanwhile, Japan benefited greatly by selling ammunitions during the war, recovering quickly from the destruction of WW2.

B.     Intensive research on Nazi's holocaust vs. feeble Asian research, mostly by Japan

One of the main reasons Japan can deny its crimes is that the victim nations have little historical basis to prove the existence of the denied crimes. Most of the research on Japanese wartime practices is done by Japanese scholars. The major countries doing researches are Britain, Japan, and China. While British reports have objective perspectives, the number of such reports is relatively small. China could not produce many reports because of its suppressive, communist policy. Korea, also, had little chance to investigate the Second World War - because of the Korean War and successive coup de tats. As many western countries did not know much about Japanese crimes, the abundant reports made by Japanese historians could work as a basis for dismissing the claims of the Chinese and Koreans.

In the case of Germany, along with intense denazification, the contiguous European nations intensively investigated the Third Reich. Many historical reports were made not only by Jewish but also by Russians, British, Americans, etc.. Though the Western scholars were negligent of Japanese crimes, they were keen for their parts on where their nations were involved. Germany had no option but to fully admit its crimes and make national apologies. With the political instability of its own country - having been divided into two states with different ideology and being under the keen eyes of other nations - Germany has had little time to manipulate its history.

 

IV. Conclusion

Because of the different conditions Japan and Germany faced after the Second World War, their attitudes toward compensating the victims of their respective aggressions differ greatly. Germany went through extensive denazification because it was located in Europe and because the major victims of the Nazis were Europeans. Because the victim nations could not take strong action against Japan after WW2, Japan did not go through a thorough cleansing of the remnants of its war criminals from the Second World War. The difference between the current attitudes of Germany and Japan shows that after a war, the victim nations should take quick, sturdy proceedings.

While most Europeans currently show little hatred toward Germany, many East Asians are still furious about Japan, because of Japan’s consistent denial of war crimes and refusal to pay enough reparations. In order for the Asian nations to grow as world leaders and to achieve true world peace, these nations should take further steps toward reconciliation. Japan should take more responsibility, admitive its crimes during WW2 and paying a rightful amount of reparation money to the war victims. Korea and China, as well as other victim nations, should investigate the war more intensively in order to establish a stronger baseis for their arguments. On the foundation of these stronger historical bases, the victim nations should take more resolute actions.

 

References

Books

Organization for Correcting Japanese Tetxtbooks. Globalization and human rights textbook (글로벌화와 인권교과서), Seoul: Critical History, 2003

Bix, Herbert P. Hirohito and The Making of Modern Japan, New York: Harper Collins, 2000

Turk, Eleanor L. The History of Germany, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1999

Fulbrook, Mary. A Concise History of Germany, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990

            

Newspapers

McCurry, Justin. “Japan’s Sins of the Past.” Guardian 28 Oct. 2004

Hae-in, Shin. “Uri proposes special envoy to N.K.” Korea Herald 8 Apr. 2005

 

Web pages

Wonsun, Park. “Nazi Criminals:Benig Chased Forever (영원히 쫓기는 나치범죄자)” Mar. 2005 <http://bluecabin.com.ne.kr/split99/deutsch.htm>

Wikipedia. “Responses_of_Germany_and_Japan_to_World_War_II_crimes”
Mar.2005 Mar.2005 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responses_of_Germany_and_Japan_
to_World_War_II_crimes>

Wikipedia. “Unit 731” Mar.2005 Mar.2005 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731>

Askew, David. “The Nanzing Incident: Recent Research and Trends” The Electronic Journal Of Contemporary Japanese Studies Nov. 2004 Mar. 2005 <http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/Askew.html>

“Compensation Hope for Holocaust Slave Laborers” Deutsche Welle Mar. 2004
Mar. 2005 <http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1154592,00.html>

Jelínek, Tomáš. “Compensation” Jewish Community of Prague Mar. 2005
<http://www.kehilaprag.cz/en/comp.php>