Differences Between Germany And Japan

While coming up with a topic for this paper, one of my questions dealt with war and cultural groups. I will be the first to admit, Racism was the last thing on my mind. The original question being, “How does war affect a Social Culture and how does it stand today?” When I started thinking about Cultures that had been so deeply affected by war, one of the first that came to mind were the Japanese in World War II. Then I recalled what one person had told me of their younger days at college, when they were attending school. Their name will remain anonymous; I do not want to make the victim’s name public as it has a very personal nature.

John Dower's War without Mercy describes the ugly racial issues, on both the Western Allies and Japanese sides of the conflict in the Pacific Theater as well as all of Asia before during and after World War II and the consequences of these issues on both military and reconstruction policy in the Pacific. In the United States as well as Great Britain, Dower dose a good job of proving that, "the Japanese were more hated than the Germans before as well as after Pearl Harbor." (8) On this issue, there was no dispute among contemporary observers including the respected scholars and writers as well as the media. During World War II the Japanese are perceived as a race apart, a species apart referred to as apes, but at

Japan was a very nationalistic country in which the purpose of the civilians was to fight until death for their emperor. This was evident in the fact that they had practiced an extremely nationalistic concept of Bushido. This concept made surrender unacceptable for all Japanese people and they lived to die for the emperor. There nationalism was fueled by the fact that they won 2 large battles (Sino Japanese War and Russo Japanese war) against larger countries. Along with this, the Japanese also had Kamikaze pilots who suicide by deliberately crashing planes into American warship as a tactic of fighting. This extreme nationalism shows that they could not be fought with regular weapons and so posed a threat for the whole world.

The United States put Japanese people in camps, stealing their rights, and placed them in inhumane facilities that no human being should be forced to withstand.

Introduction The Second World War had been fought between the Axis nations (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan and their smaller allies) and the Allied nations, led by Britain (and its Commonwealth nations), the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America (Source D). The war changed many things internationally. This included changes to do with technology and the end of European colonialism (Source D).

"In the United States and Britain," Dower reminds us, "the Japanese were more hated than the Germans before as well as after Pearl Harbor. On this, there was no dispute among contemporary observers. They were perceived as a race apart, even a species apart -- and an overpoweringly monolithic one at that. There was no Japanese counterpart to the 'good German' in the popular consciousness of the Western Allies." (8) But there are two answers in the book that gives us a reason on why there was more hatred towards the Japanese than the Germans. These are the same Germans that engaged in a systematic genocide against millions of Jews. But why the Japanese were more hated than the Germans despite the latter’s orgy of violence, is surely in large part racial. It’s not a

The Japanese held themselves as the superior Yamato race destined to conquer all of Asia. The United States wasn’t far behind this supremacist thought. In fact, it had a long history of white supremacy and would go on to establish authority in many strategic areas of Asia just as Japan had attempted. MacArthur’s secretary/advisor goes on saying “[t]here are those among us who advocate slaughter of all Japanese, a virtual extermination of the race.” This statement carries supremacist tones that cannot be confused with the ideologies of the Axis powers.

soil. Even propaganda showed more dislike towards Japanese. In a cartoon by David Low, there shows an ape stomping on Cebu, with Hitler in the back looking on acceptingly. The mere fact that they depicted Japan as a monkey and Germany as a human, illustrates the obvious preferred hate of the Japanese over the Germans. They also consider the acts Japan is taking as more threatening. All of this evidence further supports Dower’s argument that Japan was more resented than Germany by the United States.

There was also prejudice in the judicial system during this time. One example is shown in the case of Korematsu V.S. United States. This case was about a Japanese-American named Korematsu who didn’t want to go to his internment camp. His lawyers complained that it was unconstitutional to take people out of their homes and put them in internment camps solely on the basis of their race. It was noted that other so called enemy allies lie Italians and Germans had not been relocated (Korematsu 1). The verdict was that in this circumstance, the government was allowed to deny the Japanese their constitutional rights. This decision was prejudice only against the Japanese looks. The Japanese must have looked more dangerous than the Italians and Germans, and therefore they were the only ones to be treated so unfairly and have their

This event displayed that each gruesome mass killing, “does not highlight, but instead blurs the distinctions between us” (Yew). Japanese troops were trained to believe the Chinese were inferior to them, therefore they must be killed. Similarly, the Nazis were trained to believe the Jews were inferior. The Nanking Massacre also showed how no

Every day in my middle school eighth grade social-studies classroom, I often found myself asking the questions, “Why study history; shouldn’t we let go of the past; why is studying the past important?” Oddly enough, I found my answer to these very questions in a quotation in my social studies textbook. The quote profoundly stated, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” After reading the article, “Then Came War”, the story of unjust racial prejudice against Japanese-Americans in WWII, the answer to my question finally clicked. The story of Japanese Americans in WWII has brought forth many lessons, can be applicable to prejudicial events of our time, and has explanations and the impact of racial prejudice and stereotypes.

Fujitani does not solely describe the cruelty exhibited by the Japanese and the Americans; he includes positive measures that were taken by both as well. Fujitani claims that “A historically responsible and empirically sound critique of wartime racism in these two nation-state-based empires cannot simply deny their life-enhancing efforts, but must somehow account for the uneasy fit between what can only be recognized as their gross cruelty toward minority and colonial subjects and their apparent concern for the life, reproduction, welfare, and sometimes even happiness of these same peoples” (Fujitani 13). The paradox that exists is dutifully acknowledged as Japan and the United States are not treating the minority populations with complete respect, but consequently, respect them out of necessity.

To the Americans, the Japanese, unlike the Germans, were all a race to be hated. Because the Germans

The conflict between the Allies and the Axis was a horrific and deadly one, which consisted of genocide and mass bombings. Innocent citizens were killed with the estimated sixty million casualties, which lead to the question as to the morality of the different actors—Germany, Japan, England and America— in WWII. In order to truly assess their guilt, meaning their moral innocence, each country will be measured upon the morality of their intent and execution of the different controversial mass killings that Germany (the Holocaust), Japan (Nanking), and the Allied forces (Dresden and Hiroshima) took part in. This hierarchy of evil can be judged upon how Japan’s tyranny and the Allies’ area bombing compare to the genocide performed by Germany. Similarly, these countries will be judged on the whether these different acts were premeditated versus in response to another act, as well as the proportionality to which these acts were carried out. This measurement of evil places each party on an overall scale, which depicts the total guilt that each country or countries deserve. WWII exemplifies that while war is an unavoidable aspect of human nature, there is no such thing as a just war. Similarly, while there is a definite hierarchy of morality between the different actors of WWII, each of the countries at play are immoral in their intent and execution of the attacks on opposing countries.

In America, the Japanese were treated as, “aliens of enemy nationality.” This was partly because of their attack on Pearl Harbor. In Germany, the Jews were treated as, “inferior creatures.” This was due to the dictatorship and racism of Adolf Hitler. Both in America and Germany, these two groups were sent to concentration camps and isolated from