An additional reason for the growing interest in the Nazi’s racial doctrines in Japan was their so-called scientific base. Both Hitler and Rosenberg based
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Nazi Antisemitism and its Influence in Japan in the 1920’s and 1930’s
their ideology on scientific theories that had been developed in France and Britain, not to mention Germany, at the end of the ninetheenth century.
Since there was a great deal of admiration in Japan for Germany’s scien-tific achievements in various fields, it seems that certain Japanese scholars were also impressed by the Nazi antisemitic doctrines, which appeared to them to be scientifically valid. As early as the second part of the Meiji era, some Japanese writers began to develop racial doctrines that were aimed at explaining to the Japanese people the divine origins of the Yamato race and its uniqueness, and mainly its holy mission to purge Asia of foreigners and establish a new order on that continent in which Japan would be the leading nation. The basis of this belief was the argument that since the Yamato race is the race of the gods, and Japan is the land of the gods and the rising sun, the Yamato people of Japan have the privilege, the right, and the duty of leading the Asian nations.
A number of Japanese people who were acquainted with the so-called
“Jewish Question,” including General Higuchi Kiichiro, in whose headquar-ters both Colonel Yasue and Captain Inuzuka served, knew Germany from previous service there or from occasional visits. General Higuchi had served in Germany as the military attaché in the Japanese Embassy in Berlin in the 1930’s. Colonel Yasue visited Germany during the very same 1927-28 trip in which he visited Palestine. Captain Inuzuka was in Germany in the late 1920’s. Since these officials were already considered experts on Jews and the “Jewish Question” even before they arrived, they wanted to broaden their knowledge on Jewish matters while in Germany and read everything available. Naturally, in the antisemitic atmosphere of Germany in the 1920’s and especially in the 1930’s, they were bound to be influenced by what they heard, read, and witnessed. Initially it was somewhat difficult for the Japanese visitors to accept the Nazi racial doctrine. As noted earlier, this doctrine created problems for Germany in its relations with Japan, since ideologically the Japanese race was seen as inferior to the Aryan one. Asians were relegated to the role of “transferers” of culture, and thereby were placed a notch below the German master race but still well above the despised Jews, who were at the bottom. This second-rate position was unacceptable to Japanese academics, intellectuals, diplomats, and even traders who resided in Germany. Since each country was interested in developing commercial relations with the other, there was a need to somewhat blunt this part of the Nazi racial ideology. Shortly after the ascent of Hitler to power in March 1933, the German foreign ministry invested much effort in relieving the sensitivities of Japanese diplomats and assuring them that Germany had no
intention of acting against Japan in any way. On the contrary, Germany was seeking Japanese friendship and support against the Western powers and the Soviet Union. Germany was still smarting from its defeat in 1918, and Japan felt that the other Western countries were determined to keep it a second- or third-rate power,5 and so they were in some ways natural allies.
However, while the Nazi racial doctrine spoke of the need to eliminate Jewish influence, and later of the Jews themselves, some Japanese diplomats and army officers questioned whether Japan should be far more cautious about the way it viewed the Jews, since they apparently played a key role in the world’s economy and exercised a great deal of influence over Western leaders, especially in the United States. As a result, they suggested, per-haps it would be a good idea to maintain good relations with at least some influential Jews in the United States. One of the nightmares of all Japanese governments was that the United States would impose economic sanctions against Japan because of her expansionist policy on the Asian continent.
Eventually the nightmare would come true, and the economic sanctions imposed on Japan by the United States in 1941 were among the main causes for Japan’s fateful decision to attack the United States. However, in the 1930’s some Japanese leaders, certainly the more moderate ones, thought that if the Jews played such a key role in the international economic system, it would be counterproductive to hurt them or take steps against them. Once again, the absence in Japan of deep knowledge and understanding of Jewish matters is glaring. Since there were only a few hundred Jews living in Japan at the time, they were still seen as merely a part of the foreign community and not viewed specifically as Jews. The majority of the Jews who resided in Japan held German, Austrian, British, American, French, or even Russian passports. Why, then, these leaders asked, should they quarrel with the Jews instead of using their international connections to help Japan’s cause? This approach would be evident in the late 1930’s in what two American writers would later call the Fugu Plan.6
In the early 1930’s, Nazi antisemitism and—to a greater extent—Hitler’s racial doctrines were greeted with growing skepticism by the Japanese public and the international media. Some writers, both academics and journalists, failed to understand the depth of Nazi hatred for the Jews and raised doubts about the intent of their anti-Jewish doctrine. Perhaps, some wrote, Hitler was trying to unify the German nation, to purge it of pernicious thoughts, to provide it with a sense of direction and guidance, and above all to instill a new spirit in the German people. Antisemitism, they argued, was merely being used as a lever to enhance Hitler’s control of Germany.
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Nazi Antisemitism and its Influence in Japan in the 1920’s and 1930’s
The reports that appeared in Japanese and international media on the rise of the Nazis to power and the beginning of the persecution of Jews elic-ited a number of responses from liberal Japanese academics. It appears in retrospect that they, too, failed to understand Hitler’s intentions, the nation-alist-racist ideology of the Nazi party in Germany, and above all Hitler’s aspirations regarding the future of Europe and Germany’s leading role on that continent. Some Japanese correspondents even thought that like Japan, Hitler needed the Jews due to their pivotal role in the international economy. Indeed, like some Japanese leaders, Hitler and his associates in their first few years after acceding to power were careful not to antagonize what they considered international Jewish economic and financial interests (mainly in the United States) so as to avoid harming their own economy, which was still reeling from the 1929 crash. Some scholars in Japan even thought naively that Nazism in Germany was a passing phenomenon, and that very soon the German voting public would realize what it did to itself by choosing Hitler and his antisemitic ideology.7
Another reason for the growing uncertainty over what was occurring with the Nazi persecution of German Jews was the growing number of ques-tions asked in Japan regarding what would happen if anti-Jewish persecu-tion caused hundreds of thousands of German Jews to leave Germany. Since it was obvious that they were not wanted in Western Europe and they were virtually barred from the United States, Britain, and countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, some of them would surely try to make their way to East Asia and might even seek shelter in Japan. Japan’s reputation as being neutral on Jewish matters was already known in Europe and supported by its policies.
If a wave of Jews sought to settle in Japan, that country could find itself burdened with an acute “Jewish Problem,” something that Japan had never before faced, apart from dealing with some 15,000 Jews living in Manchuria.
Nazi ideas began to infiltrate into Japan mainly at the end of the 1930’s.
Mein Kampf was retranslated and once again distributed there in 1937.
Alfred Rosenberg’s The Myth of the Twentieth Century was also retranslated and widely distributed in 1938. All this aroused greater awareness and even some fear of the Jews, irrespective of the fact that there were hardly any Jews in Japan.
Reports of the first days of the Nazi regime in Germany appeared in the Japanese media, encouraging a group that was seeking a new course for Japan. This group consisted mainly of army officers who were developing an idea that became known later as the “Showa Restoration.” Their intention
was to return political power to the emperor, taking it away from the corrupt politicians and business tycoons who they perceived as having it. In addi-tion, of course, they wanted to see the reins of government being granted to the armed forces, the only pure and patriotic element in Japan that knew exactly what the Imperial wishes were. A growing number of Japanese offi-cers, mainly in the junior and middle ranks, watched with great interest as the Nazi party slowly took over all German government institutions, elim-inated criticism and opposition, purged the universities, the bureaucracy, and the judiciary from their Jewish professors, civil servants and jurists, instituted new content in the state educational system, and strengthened the German national spirit, and they wondered if Japan should not emulate this model. These ideas aligned well with other forces—the fear and hostil-ity felt for Western liberal democracies and resentment at what was seen as the West’s determination to block Japan’s ambitions in Asia. However, there were a number of military leaders who feared that Japan was not yet ready to embark on a road that would lead it to inevitable military confrontation with the West. It was obvious to many army and navy officers and senior civil servants that Japan was not in the same position as Germany. At its head stood an emperor with links to the nation’s mythological founding gods; there was no charismatic leader like the German Führer or even the Italian Duce Benito Mussolini (1882-1945). There was no single mass party that ruled in Japan: its government was in the hands of a coalition con-sisting of political parties, the armed forces, the bureaucracy, and heads of large corporations (known as zaibatsu). Unlike Germany, Japan had not been defeated in the recent war, had never been occupied by foreign powers, and had never been forced to submit to humiliating terms such as those imposed on Germany by the victorious allies (including Japan herself) at the end of the First World War.
What was the place of Jews in the thinking of the average Japanese citizen? Unlike Germany, where the Jews became the main focus and target of the Nazi regime from its inception, there continued to be no “Jewish Question” in Japan. Most Japanese people had still never seen a Jew in their lives, and thus knew nothing about and subsequently had no interest in this issue. Very few studied, knew about, or understood the “Jewish Question.”
Among the minority who did was the small group of officers who became specialists or experts on Jewish affairs. The initial goal of their research on this topic was to help the Japanese military authorities deal with Jews in Manchuria. As time went on, however, they came to play an important role in formulating Japan’s policies toward Jews until 1945.
Chapter 5