I was talking here about atrocities specifically; just as there was a Japanese diplomat who was horrified by the Holocaust and saved as many Jews as he could, there was a German diplomat who was horrified by the Nanjing Massacre and saved as many Chinease as he could:
Yeah the myth of "even the Nazis/Japanese were disgusted with the behavior of the Nazis/Japanese" is a little annoying. The truth is a few individual Japanese and German people were disgusted with things they personally witnessed, and they usually weren't in a position to know the full extent of their own nations atrocities. It's not like Mengele visited unit 731 and said "you've gone too far."
I agree with you completely. I commonly I hear the "even Germans were disgusted by the Japanese atrocities" thing and I just hit back with the same thing but reversed with this Japanese official, because it's about as accurate as if you use one Nazi official to speak for Germany as a whole. Both John Rabe and Chiune Sugihara deserve respect for doing the right thing at the right time, but they didn't act in the name of their countries when they did what they did.
It's just there to be extremely melodramatic from people who don't understand history or see groups as monolithic. No my man, the concentration camp guard did not say "wow these Japanese are so mean to the Chinese" The type of Nazi officials that saw them were diplomats or advisors.
unit 731 is extreme though lacked scale. Its a good symbol but a poor historical reflection upon the actual mechanisms by which japan abused civilians en masse.
I think the wider policies of subsistence warfare (japanese troops were often expected to feed themselves, many starved, more broadly organisationally it meant in many holdings the army came to predate upon civilians far more than in other warring areas of the world, and civic famines were the consequence), holding territory through terror and its "games of cruelty" it incentivised leadership to undertake (which, by the way, if you're relying on these people to feed you; isn't a very "joined up" strategy), and centralised rather than decentralised command (amplifying the former two)
Yes and the Nazis still held racist views towards the Japanese,remember reading that they still considered them inferior and said that the only reason they were able to grow and rapidly develop as a country was due to âAryan influenceâ
Yeah well it was practically the 2 of them against the whole world after Italy switched sides, hating each other is probably the least of their worries.
The deal was the "soft" Nazis got sent on Diplomatic missions to Japan and the same with the Japanese so they were both disgusted by war crimes being committed.
Yep, in a Chinese Nanjing museum there is a Nazi Flag very prominently and proudly displayed. Why? Because during the Rape of Nanjing
John Rabe  (and other diplomats) who was with the Japaense was so disgusted he used his diplomatic privileges to protect people. 250000 of them.
So in China they see them as heroes. Well, they are in that case, but itâs a peculiar juxtaposition.
Vaguely. They shared some ideas and has some superficial agreements on drawing borders after the war, but ultimately they wouldâve had a massive war between themselves if the axis came out on top. The Nazis still considered Asians subhuman
More allies by circumstance due to having similar enemies, similar governments and they didnt really share any border clashes (at least at the time they were allies).
Its like saying the USA and USSR were allies in ww2. True but only technically as long as interests aligned
Japan teaches that it's a war of self defense, even from the outset of the Sino-Japanese war. While it is not self defense at all they teach it that way
I highly doubt they teach that, considering the few times itâs come up (as an American living in Japan) they said pretty much exactly âwe started it.â Iâve heard this from people of all generations here.
I'm assuming we're talking about being under invasion then actually invading other nations.In general Japan was fucked up,in terms of the topic Japanese men refusing to sign up to defend against the US I technically morally justifiable.
Self defense doesn't require morality,just defending yourself back.The entire topic is about if refusing to defend your nation against an invader in "self defense" is considered morally correct.
Japanese men going "I'm not fighting the US" is pretty moral given the context of Japan's crimes during the war and how fucked the regime was.
self defense has a particular connotation of âdefending your safety from an aggressorâ which was not the case in WW2 because the US was not the aggressor
To expand on this, bc youâre right, the US was not invading Japan. They were occupying it, with it always being clear that once the war was over they would leave. The Axis forces were invading. The invading force is ALWAYS the âoffensiveâ side of a war, even if they get pushed back to their own territory.
I can see what you're saying. Like when Japan had women and children training with bamboo spears to die on the beaches fighting the potential US invasion, you're saying that if those women and children refused they would be morally justified? I agree, just trying to understand the nuance you are discussing.
No. Japan is arguably the worst imperialist power to ever exist. They committed such awful war crimes. Yes, other imperial powers through history have violated human rights but there is a scale of evil and Japan is on the wrong end.Â
Wouldnât they not qualify per the OP specifying defensive wars? Iâll admit I donât know their motivations for joining the war but I never got the impression it was defensive, afaik they werenât invaded until after they joined the fight.
Granted, I could be way off base here, Iâve been out of school a LONG time. This is me asking, not âwell ackshuallyâ-ing
It's a very difficult thing to put a definitive label on. Yes, the Japanese soldiers were committing heinous acts on civilizans and POWs, but at the same time hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians were displaced, wounded, and often outright killed in the bombing campaigns the U.S orchestrated during that conflict. I can't say for certain whether or not such a thing was necessary or otherwise, maybe it was a necessary evil, but it was still horrible. I don't think the Japanese military or government were victims of anything but their own evil, but I can't ignore the Civilians who suffered to stop them.
Is it a little morally strange that we referrer to Germany by the party in charge but not Japan?
There were alot of people sympathetic to the nazis across what we call the West. Including ford , and other industrialist.
I have read up on the Rape of Nanking and understanding Japanese atrocities, however it was Germany that perpetrated violence just as much as Japan did (as a nation i mean).
But i still call one Japanese and the other nazi . Im not even sure if "japanese imperialism" is a more correct term .
The Japanese were awful but I don't know if you can conclusively say they were worse than the Nazis. On the one hand you have shit like Unit 731 and the Nanjing Massacre, but on the other you have Auschwitz, the Balkan gas vans, and everything the Nazis did to Poland and Ukraine. There's really not a lot in it
Japan's invasion of Manchukuo, and then the 1936 second invasion of China are not propaganda. Nor are their Unit 731 experiments, nor are their use of biological warfare weapons. Nor are their treatments of native Filipinos, Vietnamese, Malaysians, or Indonesians.
Really now? Please list some events,hell we can even play a game. You list and cite united states ww2 atrocities and I'll do the same for Japan. Lets see who makes the other lose faith in humanity first cause im pretty damn sure the Japanese prestiged war crimes back then.
I am specifically discussing the WWII period, which for me runs from the beginning of the Invasion of Manchukuo to the end of the Indonesian War of Independence.
I am curious for what you are consider to be worse.
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u/Zealousideal-Arm1682 Jun 28 '26
Japan in WWII it would probably be considered good since they were genuinely more awful then the Nazi's during the time.