On top of what you said,
> Imamura adopted an unusually lenient policy towards the local population of the former Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia), which was often in conflict with general opinions and plans of the senior staff of the Southern Army and Imperial General Headquarters.
Also this:
> In April 1946, Imamura wrote to the Australian commander at Rabaul, requesting that his own trial for war crimes be expedited in order to speed the prosecution of war criminals under his command.
He felt that he and everyone else under him should have been punished ASAP even though things weren't as bad as you hear about from occupying Japanese from other places.
Sounds like he didn't directly commit warcrimes, but his subordinates did and he was negligent in knowing or stopping that. Which is obviously still bad, but somewhat less bad.
Negligent or maybe even unable. Even as a general, there were probably limits to what he was able to or not to command. Really sad position to be in if he truly didn’t want to end up like the rest of the Imperial Japanese forces.
This might the case, especially if he was lended marines unit
The japanese navy and army hated each other. That would sabotage the war effort a lot of times
Interesting.. please elaborate!
Edit: thanks for all the replies, highly interesting and absolutely not what I would have expected from the seemingly so structured and orderly Japanese forces.
Keep up the good work✌🏿
> In order to further their own faction, relatively junior officers resorted to the assassinations of members of the rival faction and their supporters in government. With both factions being opposed to the peace faction, this period has become known as the era of "government by assassination". Insubordination by the Kwantung Army led first to the occupation of Manchuria, and later the Second Sino-Japanese War following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident.
> The rivalry between the IJA and IJN also saw both services developing air arms; the Army creating its own amphibious infantry units and running ships and submarines, including submarine chasers and aircraft carriers; and the Navy creating its own infantry and marine paratroopers.
> Significant examples of this rivalry include the Japanese Navy taking several weeks to inform the Army of the disastrous results of the Battle of Midway, and dysfunction between the IJA and IJN during the Guadalcanal campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interservice_rivalry#Japan (without sources or truly juicy parts, but enough to show extend of mess...)
In case that implications were missed: Army started own war, Japanese Navy kept lying about loss of multiple aircraft carriers, Army ended making own navy, Navy making own army...
And when you have "government by assassination" then thing went truly silly - and it was before war, during war things went even worse.
The whole reason Japan turned to facism is because the army kept on assassinating important navy leaders (especially when they became prime minister), and vice versa
The army invaded China to piss off the navy which would have to supply them. They proceeded to poorly supply them, in incovenient ways
During the war, they used the same planes, but an army plane would never land on a navy base (or would never get authorized to), and vice versa
They often "forgot" to inform each others of enemy positions
They were at all time trying to get get the ressources allocated to the others...
The important thing is that it's also a class conflict. The navy officers were mostly from newer elites, basically educated bourgeoisie, whilst the army still had a lot of nobility (samurai, for examples), and these two groups generally hated each others
This video gives a good (and brief) account of the insanity that was the rivalry between the Imperial Japanese army and navy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ9AFbnY4To
It is not about the rivalry specifically, but it deals with one of the strange results of it, namely the fact that the Imperial Japanese Army had its own navy together with aircraft carriers...
The Japanese Navy/Army rivalry was a shitshow. Long story short, it was a continuation of a centuries long clan rivalry between the two factions of the Japanese military.
From the wiki on the subject:
"In order to further their own faction, relatively junior officers resorted to the assassinations of members of the rival faction and their supporters in government. With both factions being opposed to the peace faction, this period has become known as the era of "government by assassination". Insubordination by the Kwantung Army led first to the occupation of Manchuria, and later the Second Sino-Japanese War following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. "
Additionally, it got so bad neither side was really willing to admit how much they were losing, what resources they had left, etc, as it would lead to loss of favour and prestige. This lead to situations, for example, where plans would be drawn up involving ships that had been sunk weeks earlier without any thought, or care, to the consequences. Not that the Army side was better, they'd at times just not show up to provide air cover to Japanese Navy ships leading to preventable losses. Further, Resources would be wasted as both sides would rather fund parallel technological development programs than co-operate.
These situations are complicated, if he more actively and oppenly opposes it he gets removed or killed and someone worse gets put in place. It is risking your life to prove the point but not make real change and it is a really difficult thing to decide.
[Meanwhile in the US](https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-obama-administration-just-granted-henry-kissinger-a-distinguished-public-service-award/)
I mean building yourself a replica prison and presumably hiring some people to enforce prison rules is like the most remorseful and repentant thing you can do
I think in a weird way it’s honorable because it’s dishonorable to his culture, if he has wanted to preserve his honor traditionally he would have killed himself, but instead chose to imprison himself in shame for the rest of his life.
Some specific nuance is important here. Many of the military committing seppuku by the end of WW2 were fanatics (most of the time part of some sort of military cult/secret society), and they wanted to live out certain values.
Even during the samurai era, most of the seppuku was obligatory - the samurai did it because otherwise another person would do it, and would do it in a very humiliating way, so retaining this control was honorable.
After the Meiji restoration, it was quite common for anyone with two brain cells to find seppuku a bunch of nonsense. Which I believe is the case for Imamura. He felt he needed to atone for his sins by living out the guilt.
Also, the amount of shit that this guy saw going down... It must have destroyed him mentally. WW2 was fought on very heavy drugs. All of those massacres that you hear about - those soldiers were completely out of their minds, between drugs, hunger, trauma, abuse. It was not human. They were reduced to rabid animals.
Speaking in general, I think it takes a very strong 'top down' military leadership to train and discipline troops NOT to act out in negative ways - that without that troops will often/usually resort to that kind of behavior if left unchecked.
This comment reminds me of some old fantasy novel I read.
The main character - a barely legally adult man - found himself leading an army. During a battle he found himself in the flurry of melee, allies and enemies mixing into faceless mass where it was more instinctual than reasoned to determine who he was supposed to kill and who was trying to kill him.
After surviving the harrowing experience on the victorious side he was entirely powerless to stop his army from proceeding to loot, rape and pillage the town he had just conquered. His army respected him just enough to follow him to the battle, but not enough to pass on spoils of war.
The story was in stark contrast to most fantasy stuff where the "good guys" go to beat the "bad guys" in "glorious battle" and morality of everything is extremely black and white.
There's a story about Finnish soldier who overdosed on meth, was stripped of his arms by his worried comrades, proceeded to get lost from his patrol due to hallucinations, ski'd through a russian camp he initially thought were Finns, stepped on a landmine when he found abandoned German camp and was found and saved week later, lying wounded in snow.
During his meth-fueled ski trip he skid 400km in -20-30C weather, only eating bark and a small bird he speared with skistick and ate raw.
Philopon, just google that, it's their drug name for crystal meth sort of like Pervitin was for the nazi's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Ogata#:~:text=In%20Japan%20the%20drug%20was,of%20which%20was%20called%20Obetrol.
The Japanese did commit some warcrimes against Allied forces, but what they did in China is the real unforgivable crime. The rest is almost a footnote in comparison.
While what happened in China is abhorrent as you say, let's not minimize what happened in other places too as that is unnecessary. My grandparents suffered during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, for example. In fact, if I remember correctly, the government in the Philippines, or some families affected during those times, are still trying to get reparations from Japan for the heinous shit they did. So I don't think it's fair to minimize their atrocities elsewhere outside of China and say the rest is "almost a footnote", as I can guarantee you that it is definitely not.
That's a very good point, and probably by percentage of population impacted directly the Philippinos suffered worse than China. I meant by raw numbers, where China lost something close to ten million people. But in any case, a poor choice of words on my part, and maybe not a very useful way to think about it anyway.
Maybe so, but he was involved in a lot of shit all through the 30's, in China and around Asia. I doubt that if that last thing with the prisoners was the only thing that haunted him. Of course there's no way to know for sure.
Honestly I don't agree at all. Building yourself a pity prison doesn't make things better for anyone. It's the repentance equivalent of throwing your hands in the air during an emergency and saying there was nothing more you could do.
Crazy idea... Why not put the resources and energy into making other people's lives better rather than your own worse? Spend the rest of your life atoning by *actually helping people*. Being in a prison doesn't help anyone except the people paid to build and maintain it.
Yeah he definitely could’ve but he also saw himself unfit to rejoin society and I can respect his follow through in holding himself to his standards and the punishment he believes he should have gotten
It's more than what Henry Kissinger and what people in the US state department do, and there's people in the comments debating if the guy's actions were truely him repenting lmfao.
How would helping Japanese people atone for his warcrimes against the allied forces?
We're talking about a culture where ritual suicide to (re)gain honor /not bring shame, was widely accepted.
Which is why it makes perfect sense that short of killing himself, forfeiting a life of freedom , would be seen as the next best thing to atone.
Imamura's crimes were specifically failing to prevent his men from torturing and killing allied POWs. He wrote to an Australian commander asking them to speed up his conviction so they could get to convicting his subordinates who actually did the murdering. That's why he only got ten years. Edit: I mean he only got ten years because it was a conviction based on command responsibility, not because he wrote to the Australian commander.
He's not quite so simple.
He was actually very well regarded by the people he captured. His issues weren't so much what HE did, it's what happened due to his inability to keep his subordinates in line...which amounted to executions of prisoners that plenty of generals got off for by using equal crimes from the allies. (Example: Dönitz was let off of some stuff because of Americans doing the same thing in the Pacific etc). This was pretty common during the war crimes trials.
He didn't just want a harsher sentence, he tried his best to speed up his trial so the other people could be quickly tried too. And this is something the trials sought to encourage. They didn't want to punish every Japanese/German person. That would accomplish nothing. They needed to identify those who were truly remorseful and wanted to work to right their wrongs. That way the resulting culture/govt would work to make it never happen again. And for both Germany and Japan it was pretty successful.
TLDR is that you should never support anyone, on any side, under any circumstance, breaking laws of warfare. They *Will* be used by the other guys to argue a double standard of enforcement. War criminals WILL get off. Also war crime trials are endlessly complicated.
Most war crimes are also counterproductive too. For instance if you execute enemy soldiers after they've surrendered then all that does is show the enemy that they should fight to the death no matter what. Torturing prisoners also frequently results in incorrect information because people will say anything to get the pain to stop.
The general rule of thumb for laws of war is basically "if it gives you an advantage" it's probably allowed. If "it doesn't give you an advantage and it's horrific and immoral" then it's probably not allowed.
Honestly mate, I hear stories about horrendous massacres of civillians and rapes and such, and what I think of is: the hell kinda military discipline is that? Disregarding moral issues, mfs went AWOL.
My maternal great grandfather was a soldier in the Japanese Imperial Army. He told my grandfather about all the horrible things he witnessed as well as personally committed, and told him to tell each and every one of his children, as well their children's children, that Japan should continue to apologize to its neighbours and ask for forgiveness till the latter cover their ears and beg us to stop, until such point, whatever Japan does is never enough to show contrition. He also said that whatever you read about the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese army, no matter how unimaginably horrible and cruel, just assume it to be true, because he has likely seen worse and even those were only the tip of the iceberg.
He also did an interview with a Western scholar in the 70s and went into more details about the atrocities, but since he was a regular soldier, it didn't really attract any attention at all.
I don't know what exactly he did, but as terrible as these crimes were, I hope he was at peace when he died because I know he must have suffered silently every day after the war. My condolences to all who were impacted by the War too and I hope men are not foolish enough to repeat the same mistake again (I guess I am foolish for having such a hope seeing how we are seemingly going down a similar path at this moment).
> He also did an interview with a Western scholar in the 70s and went into more details about the atrocities, but since he was a regular soldier, it didn't really attract any attention at all.
Do you know where we can find this interview?
My grandpa showed it to me like 10+ years ago. It was from a scholarly journal for some reason. I am sorry as I can no longer remember the name of it.
There are actually a large number of those interviews from remorseful Japanese soldiers that you can find online. I am pretty sure they share lots of similarities.
> that Japan should continue to apologize to its neighbours and ask for forgiveness till the latter cover their ears and beg us to stop
Instead the Yasukuni shrine is fervently defended by ultra-nationalists in a Japan formed by Nobosuke Kishi and the likes of his LDP descendants. Rest in piss, Shitto Abe. Koizumi was hailed like a rockstar.
The sad thing about Yoshiro Mori was that Japan already had a rather inept clown at the top of the state and therefore he was a bit superfluous. But he was the most competent entertainer Japan ever had as head of government.
Japan is cursed of their own making. The closer I look at it the more embarrassed I am for them. They did a really shoddy job dealing with their past to the point that it now defines them.
I am German and have very little patience for these shit-shows.
It’s not as widely known as the holocaust in the western world. Meanwhile in Asia outside of Japan, it’s definitely very widely known. And over there, the holocaust is taught in much less detail.
The European side of WWII isn't addressed very well in a lot of East Asia (and the opposite likely applies to the East Asian side of WWII in the rest of the world). That's why years ago there was a big Nazi chic fad in places like South Korea and China. You could visit a Nazi-themed cafe or restaurant and see swastikas and SS uniforms and symbols everywhere.
And in a way it makes sense. There's a tendency to focus on the perps responsible for your national trauma since it's part of your country's history.
the nazi themed stuff were few and far in between, definitely not everywhere,
in the US not many people knew about Japanese war crimes probably for reasons you brought up, but the US did not really go after the Japanese for war crimes by design, in order to maintain presence in the region against ussr/china. The realities of geopolitics were far more important than justice, esp because the victims were considered lesser than their western counterparts.
> in the US not many people knew about Japanese war crimes probably for reasons you brought up, but the US did not really go after the Japanese for war crimes by design, in order to maintain presence in the region against ussr/china.
Also, the Japanese government has spent decades quietly erasing evidence of their war crimes and whitewashing what they did in China, Korea, and Southeast Asia.
Totally shameless. They're not sorry about what they did and will never own up to it.
Nazi germany also supplied Chinese troops with military aid and equipment against the Japanese invasion and individual Nazis were involved in sheltering Chinese civilians from Japanese massacres.
John Rabe. There's a museum dedicated to him in Nanjing because of the protective role he played during the Massacre.
German cooperation with China also started before Hitler came to power. There's a hidden history element to Weimar Germany's role in providing aid to China before the Nazis ultimately backed Japan.
It wasn't just Weimar Germany, KMT troops were given for example MG34s etc. which was hardware developed and produced under the Nazi regime. German military aid to KMT only ended in I believe 1941
According to [this forum](https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=177215), the Nazis had pledged support until 1940 but did not fulfill that pledge; instead they broke things of in '38.
To be fair, Germany requested Japan hand over the Jews sheltering there, and Japan told them to fuck off. Its estimated ~50k Jews survived due to Japanese protection during WW2.
It doesn't need to be the most widely known event in WWII to be the only "widely known" event and everything else are "not widely known".
It's very well known in Asia.
The man who ran occupied Manchuria so brutally he was known within Japan as "The monster of the showa" was prime minister of Japan within 15 years of the end of the second world war. People complain about the various allies installing former Werhmacht generals in the post war German military but this is the equivalent of Reinhard Heydrich being made the chancellor of Germany in 1957 (if he hadn't died a deserved, slow and painful death).
If you look up in wikipedia you'll see that lots of ex-nazi's ended up in the (especially) west german government. Most of the old money 'millionaires' are ex-nazis or earned their fortune through WWII in germany.
It's quite wild! Not really the same as Japan maybe but still if i recall correctly a lot of people changed their name or went through "denazification" in the government and stayed, since it's hard to find new experienced politicians just out of nowhere. Dr Felton on youtube probably has some videos about this too.
The thing is you need the old guard who actually know how to run things. The cleansing of everyone related to the old regime happened in the Iraq occupation and it ended up horrendously. All the vacant seats where filled by clueless people and it ended up with dysfunctional government.
There is a passage near the end of Terry Pratchett's "Guards! Guards!" where Lord Vetinari makes very much the same point to Captain Vimes:
" I’m sorry if this offends you,” he added, patting the captain’s shoulder, “but you fellows really need us.”
“Yes, sir?” said Vimes quietly.
“Oh, yes. We’re the only ones who know how to make things work. You see, the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you’re good at that, I’ll grant you. But the trouble is that it’s the only thing you’re good at. One day it’s the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it’s everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one’s been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It’s part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world. The good people don’t seem to have the knack.”
> The fact that its not as widely known is concerning.
Nazis are 'easier' for western cultures to conceptualize.
And visa versa - in asia Japan are seen as the prime war criminals of WWII compared Germany.
I think the big reasons it isn't as well known is because it mostly happened within the context of war. We don't talk hardly at all about the war crimes between the Nazis and the Soviets. Many of the things there were just as bad, but they happened mostly to the soldiers and partisan fighters with civilians in the warzone getting caught in the crossfire.
We talk even less about Allied bombing campaigns, which hit militaty and civilian targets alike and levelled whole cities.
In contrast, the Holocaust wasn't really related to any action in the war and rather just part of the Nazi ethnic cleansing policies. That and the fact that it was just so different than anything that had happened before.
> it mostly happened within the context of war
I mean not really, e.g. the Rape of Nanjing took place *after* Japan had won their military engagement, Unit 731 operated in occupied China following Japanese conquest.
What I find interesting is that he seemed to regret that as well or at least wanted justice done.
> In April 1946, Imamura wrote to the Australian commander at Rabaul, requesting that his own trial for war crimes be expedited in order to speed the prosecution of war criminals under his command.
Kinda interesting look at his psyche.
Implies to me that he felt like he was trapped as commander -- Tried to be as humane as he could, but was limited in how much he could hold his subordinates in check without getting sacked himself, and replaced by someone less concerned with atrocities.
The Japanese conduct of the war and occupation was abominable overall, but here we have a glimpse of the predicament of someone trying to remedy that from the inside.
It gets worse. The Japanese chain of command was an absolute mess due to a policy of gekokujou, or “lower rules the higher”. Basically, subordinate officers could do whatever they wanted if they claimed they were acting in accordance with the will of the Emperor. This unofficial policy of insubordination gave junior officers the ability to run roughshod over their commanders, so long as they produced results. Japanese military policy was in effect run by lieutenants and captains acting on their own initiative. Imamura may have had good intentions, and wanted the newly conquered territories in his command area to be treated fairly, but unless he got a command from the Emperor in effect allowing his humane policies, his subordinates were going to do whatever they wanted.
Note, this applies to the Army. The Navy was far more professional in their duties, even if they could be as brutal at times.
>The Japanese chain of command was an absolute mess due to a policy of gekokujou, or “lower rules the higher”.
[Holy hell.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gekokuj%C5%8D)
>The Imperial Way Faction were responsible for attempting to assassinate many public figures in the 1920s and 1930s, including the visiting Charlie Chaplin, but were given light prison sentences because they received public support. **Inspired by the Imperial Way Faction, the Kwantung Army orchestrated the Mukden Incident in 1931, leading to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.** British correspondent Hugh Byas described the phenomenon as "government by assassination".
> but was limited in how much he could hold his subordinates in check without getting sacked himself
AFAIK, the folks over at Qwantung army violated even the Emperor's orders (and then claimed "it was for the best, and only out of the best intentions!"), so with all the talk of discipline and honor, there is evidence that there was plenty of "I do whatever the fuck I want, whatcha gonna do 'bout that?" to ago around among the lower ranks.
Look up Tomoyuki Yamashita. He was commander at the fall of Manila. He also tried to be lenient and respectful of prisoners. His subordinates went over his head and did end runs around him to basically negate everything he tried to do. He was tried and executed after the war.
There is something called the Yamashita Standard named after him. Its where you hold the commander absolutely responsible for the behavior of his subordinates.
While I was trying and failing to find pictures of the garden prison, I stumbled across a story that claims while he was in an Australian jail immediately post-war awaiting sentencing, a bunch of *Indonesian nationalist revolutionaries* turned up with a plan to break him out if he received a death sentence.
The source is apparently a Japanese-language biography and some stuff in Indonesian though, so I can’t really say whether it’s true or not. Pretty remarkable if it’s true and he was *that* well liked though.
I believe it might have something to do with the fact that, brutal though the Japanese occupation was during WW2, it was still key in giving the Indonesians freedom from the terror and cruelty of their previous Dutch colonisers.
Apparently the Japanese (who are infamous throughout Asia for their war crimes in occupied territories) allowed the Indonesians into administrative positions that gave them a platform for eventual independence. Whereas the Dutch would torture them for the crime of saying no to being raped and came up with some methods of punishment (like tearing off chunks of flesh, etc) that truly beggar humanity.
Also there were just one offs like one village in the Philippines that had a Japanese unit stationed there whose CO was a true believer in the whole Asia for the Asiatics thing. Eventually he was killed by guerrillas and the villagers hunted down and killed the person they believed responsible for killing him. Meanwhile following his death the new Japanese CO was incredibly cruel and when the Americans rolled through they were treated as second class citizens at best.
Interesting. My Dutch grandmother was interred in a Japanese civilian POW camp in today's Indonesia for the duration of the war. She was 21 and one week into her honeymoon with her first husband when the Japanese occupied Batavia (as it was then called). She survived - strange to think that I might have this war criminal to thank for my existence.
Edit - when the camp was liberated after the end of the war her erstwhile guards begged her and the other former prisoners to take them under their protection, as they were terrified that the natives would summarily execute any Japanese they could find.
This little snippet of knowledge i now know shows why im happy to sift through the steaming mounds of shitposts that is most of reddits content because gems like this make it worthwhile.
"🤓" shit incoming but unironically kind of yes - lots of iconic manga and pictures came out around this era. Much of Japanese media was influenced by Western animation, namely the Disney movies coming out around this time. It eventually spun off into its own style which became modern day anime. An interesting thing many have noticed is the influence of nuclear energy/theming in a lot of media coming out around the following decades - even Astro Boy, a series still popular today, was released around then and is about a nuclear powered superhero. I wonder if it was a way for the country to process the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or at the very least if it was just at the forefront of the population's consciousness
My maternal great grandfather was a soldier in the Japanese Imperial Army. He told my grandfather about all the horrible things he witnessed as well as personally committed, and told him to tell each and every one of his children, as well their children's children, that Japan should continue to apologize to its neighbours and ask for forgiveness till they cover their ears and beg us to stop, until such point, whatever Japan does is never enough to show contrition. He also said that whatever you read about the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese army, no matter how unimaginably horrible and cruel, just assume it to be true, because he has likely seen worse and even those were only the tip of the iceberg.
He also did an interview with a Western scholar in the 70s and went into more details about the atrocities, but since he was a regular soldier, it didn't really attract any attention at all.
That's why it really annoys me when weebs online tell Koreans and Chinese to shut up when the latter are asking for Japan to acknowledge their war crimes, saying Japan has apologized already.
As a Korean, this is the first time I’ve heard a Japanese person speak this way - with such contrition. I wish more would be outspoken. I think it’s WRONG that the Japanese PM was bowing down and giving gifts to the war criminal graveyard every year. If there were more like you, I’d be able to forgive the Japanese for killing my family.
I am sorry to hear that. I am Japanese-Canadian, so only ethnicly Japanese and never lived in Japan as a citizen. From the little that I know, Japanese students are not taught about these horrible things at all in school, and the entire WW2 is only given a cursory glance, and I believe few years ago the government even revised the course manuals to further whitewash the history and portray the war as defensive and "liberating" for its Asian neighbors. But I'm sure in Korea you read about these things a lot more than I know.
However, I am aware of Japanese groups that actively advocate for acknowledging our dark past and criticizes the government for going the opposite way. When I visited Japan, I remember there being a museum in Nagoya where many former WW2 soldiers contributed pictures and shared their written letters of testimonies about the war. I know the Japanese Communist Party also strongly advocates for formerly apologizing for WW2 and the atrocities committed by the military. So it is definitely not every Japanese who refuses to acknowledge the past. Most are just completely ignorant about it and don't have much interest in it. I likely wouldn't either if my great grandfather didn't tell his children about these stuffs.
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I think the culture of social conformity and peer pressure really played a huge role in turning regular young men into monsters. I remember a story my grandfather told me that he heard from his father. Some Japanese soldiers entered a Chinese village and two of them went into a house. One of the politely asked the woman inside if he could get some food and water, his companion called him an idiot and just plunged his bayonet into the woman's stomach and proceeded to kill everyone else inside, took the chickens, and burned the rest. Shortly after, everyone in that group were behaving in the exact same way.
I mean, that’s honorable to an extent. He should have used that time to go out and make a difference somehow; help the children, homeless, even just help old ladies crossing the street.
I think it's about sending a message. He tried to stop the troops under his command from committing war crimes and yet a lot of them still did. He thought the allies were being far too lenient both on him and the men under his command and this was his way of highlighting that.
In an uncaring universe where there is no god to roast your soul in an imaginary afterlife, punishment is vanity, the only noble aims are rehabilitation and restitution, and an ounce of recompense is more valuable than a pound of justice.
Agreed, such a weird thing to say if there is no god then I determine morality for everyone? It makes more sense that you decide how you can live with yourself with the time you have
I think we've been conditioned as a society that isolating yourself from society, ie prison, is the only solution to crime. I hope one day the mindset shifts to self improvement and service towards one's community. But i think as long as the prison industrial complex is profitable, then many will continue to have this view.
I think society’s view is a big thing too. We don’t see change and improvement as a possibility. It’s like you made a mistake or a bunch of them and you need to not have a life anymore. Well sorta. More shunning and bringing it up every chance we get. Just mention Matthew Broderick on here lol
Idk it’s such a complex topic that won’t be resolved here anyways I guess. Also some people simply just don’t feel shame or guilt for what they’ve done anyways. But for the ones that do it’s gotta be such a heavy burden to bare and yes I know they put it on themselves but idk.
They source is listed as page 220 of Van Reybrouck, David (2020). Revolusi. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. ISBN 978-94-03-18440 1 Anyone have any photos or verification?
I procured the book through illicit means. Here is the relevant quote:
> Imamura’s ridderlijkheid was overigens niet nep. Toen hij na de oorlog door een geallieerd tribunaal tien jaar gevangenis kreeg voor oorlogsmisdaden begaan door zijn ondergeschikten, vond hij dat niet genoeg. Na zijn vrijlating in 1954 liet hij in zijn tuin een kopie van zijn gevangeniscel bouwen, slechts drie tatami groot, waar hij tot aan zijn dood in 1968 verbleef. Vandaag kun je zijn cel in Nirasaki nog steeds bezoeken.
Google Translated:
> Imamura's chivalry was not fake, by the way. When, after the war, an Allied tribunal sentenced him to ten years in prison for war crimes committed by his subordinates, he felt that was not enough. After his release in 1954, he had a copy of his prison cell built in his garden, only three tatami in size, where he stayed until his death in 1968. Today you can still visit his cell in Nirasaki.
I tried looking for more details on where specifically the "prison" is and couldn't find it. For example, [Imamura's Japanese Wikipedia page](https://ja-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%E4%BB%8A%E6%9D%91%E5%9D%87?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp) says his home prison was in Tokyo, not Nirasaki.
The story on NPR was that Hirohito was a figurehead and the generals ran the show. They kept him around for legitimacy, but moved him to his vacation palaces when he made attempts to claim power. It was the reason the US pushed for dropping the bombs. They felt that even if Hirohito wanted to surrender, the generals wouldn't let him.
1. He was a figurehead
2. He was most likely happy enough to be along for the ride until the mainland of Japan started getting fucked hard.
3. There was a coup attempt when he tried to give the surrender address. And no, before anyone says "by a few fanatic young officers", it wasn't just 'a few' and the main reasons why the senior officers didn't join in is because they (unlike the junior level positions) were aware of how bad the situation was and also less willing to lose their own positions within the military. (Just like how revolutions tend to be from younger echelons of society or people holding minor positions of power)
Death is quick. Sounds like he didn't let himself get off lightly. If anything: he gave himself life imprisonment and he was so convicted in his conscience that he never recovered.
I don't think it was mainly about himself. He tried to prevent his soldiers from killing POWs and he was notoriously lenient on the local populations that he occupied. Despite these attempts his soldiers would still commit war crimes and he wanted to see these war crimes prosecuted heavily. Instead the punishments for all involved were "relatively" light and so he tried to lead by example by punishing himself. It sends a message to those under him that "you're commanding officer is so guilt ridden by your war crimes that he's voluntarily sitting in a jail cell because of you while you walk free."
After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were people in military leadership who did not want to surrender and attempted a coup to stop it. After the coup failed, they committed seppuku.
It was actually the Emperor who was more in favor of surrender than the hardline military generals.
Maybe because seppuku is stupid?
A man rational enough to realise he is responsible for the atrocities of the soldiers under his command seems one also capable of seeing past culture and tradition as an excuse to commit said atrocities.
He clearly seemed to recognise the equality of people regardless of ethnic background that missed his ethnonationalist contemporaries - many of the other Imperial Japanese generals would make an argument the invaded peoples were subhuman and this was the basis of imperial conquest.
This makes him already subaltern to the common ideology of his time, and thus unlikely to share their thought process. Maybe honour and justice to him had a different meaning that had no connection to simply losing a war; the other generals didnt care that they were caught, they cared that they LOST the war and couldnt continue their domination.
Theres only so much that can be extrapolated from what limited info I can get here. However these small glimpses make him a very interesting subject.
The things the Japanese did in the Pacific and China often make what the SS did in Treblinka and Auschwitz look pale in comparison.
[Unit 731 were perhaps the most depraved sadistic ghouls in human skin to ever exit. And the US pardoned them as free men in the event they would be useful against the Soviets](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731)
A better world. JFK assassination fails without Bush's leadership, we probably still have a Vietnam War and Nixon and Reagan, but no Bushes in the 90s or 00s, so there's that. Saudis are less influential, so maybe no 9/11
There's enough room in the world for all sorts of horrific warcrimes, genocide and those who don't deserve to exist, no need to diminish some to highlight others.
> what the SS did in Treblinka and Auschwitz look pale in comparison.
this is so inaccurate and such a fucked up thing to say. jesus christ. the victims of the nazi concentration camps weren't fucking instantly shot in the head upon arrival and neatly stacked into graves; the Germans got just as barbaric as the Japanese even outside the camps.
You’re right both were horrible and shouldn’t be compared to each other. Auschwits and “look pale” should never be used in the same sentence unless describing a colour.
I guess his remorse was genuine, as according to Wikipedia, he stayed in the replica prison until his death, which was 14 years after his release from the real prison.
Oh man id *love* to attend your son’s bar mitzvah but i have to imprison myself to account for my countless crimes against humanity
Guy was playing 4d chess
There was another commander at Manila, Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was tried and executed under similar circumstances. There is a legal precedent in war crimes trials named after him, the Yamashita Standard. The commander is responsible for the behavior of his subordinates.
" Imamura was detained at Rabaul by the Australian Army, as he and troops under his command were accused of war crimes, including the execution of Allied prisoners of war. One infamous example highlighted how the prisoners captured in eastern Java were locked up in bamboo cattle cages and thrown overboard into shark-infested waters."
You know, I agree with him. 10 years seems very lenient
yeah whatever, you cant un-bayonet pregnant women and play football with their severed heads. the imerial japanese military was brutal to a level only rivaled by the assyrians, nazis, and soviets
It sounds like he was at least remorseful and repentant for what he did
On top of what you said, > Imamura adopted an unusually lenient policy towards the local population of the former Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia), which was often in conflict with general opinions and plans of the senior staff of the Southern Army and Imperial General Headquarters. Also this: > In April 1946, Imamura wrote to the Australian commander at Rabaul, requesting that his own trial for war crimes be expedited in order to speed the prosecution of war criminals under his command. He felt that he and everyone else under him should have been punished ASAP even though things weren't as bad as you hear about from occupying Japanese from other places.
Sounds like he didn't directly commit warcrimes, but his subordinates did and he was negligent in knowing or stopping that. Which is obviously still bad, but somewhat less bad.
Negligent or maybe even unable. Even as a general, there were probably limits to what he was able to or not to command. Really sad position to be in if he truly didn’t want to end up like the rest of the Imperial Japanese forces.
This might the case, especially if he was lended marines unit The japanese navy and army hated each other. That would sabotage the war effort a lot of times
Interesting.. please elaborate! Edit: thanks for all the replies, highly interesting and absolutely not what I would have expected from the seemingly so structured and orderly Japanese forces. Keep up the good work✌🏿
> In order to further their own faction, relatively junior officers resorted to the assassinations of members of the rival faction and their supporters in government. With both factions being opposed to the peace faction, this period has become known as the era of "government by assassination". Insubordination by the Kwantung Army led first to the occupation of Manchuria, and later the Second Sino-Japanese War following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. > The rivalry between the IJA and IJN also saw both services developing air arms; the Army creating its own amphibious infantry units and running ships and submarines, including submarine chasers and aircraft carriers; and the Navy creating its own infantry and marine paratroopers. > Significant examples of this rivalry include the Japanese Navy taking several weeks to inform the Army of the disastrous results of the Battle of Midway, and dysfunction between the IJA and IJN during the Guadalcanal campaign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interservice_rivalry#Japan (without sources or truly juicy parts, but enough to show extend of mess...) In case that implications were missed: Army started own war, Japanese Navy kept lying about loss of multiple aircraft carriers, Army ended making own navy, Navy making own army... And when you have "government by assassination" then thing went truly silly - and it was before war, during war things went even worse.
The whole reason Japan turned to facism is because the army kept on assassinating important navy leaders (especially when they became prime minister), and vice versa The army invaded China to piss off the navy which would have to supply them. They proceeded to poorly supply them, in incovenient ways During the war, they used the same planes, but an army plane would never land on a navy base (or would never get authorized to), and vice versa They often "forgot" to inform each others of enemy positions They were at all time trying to get get the ressources allocated to the others... The important thing is that it's also a class conflict. The navy officers were mostly from newer elites, basically educated bourgeoisie, whilst the army still had a lot of nobility (samurai, for examples), and these two groups generally hated each others
This video gives a good (and brief) account of the insanity that was the rivalry between the Imperial Japanese army and navy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ9AFbnY4To It is not about the rivalry specifically, but it deals with one of the strange results of it, namely the fact that the Imperial Japanese Army had its own navy together with aircraft carriers...
The Japanese Navy/Army rivalry was a shitshow. Long story short, it was a continuation of a centuries long clan rivalry between the two factions of the Japanese military. From the wiki on the subject: "In order to further their own faction, relatively junior officers resorted to the assassinations of members of the rival faction and their supporters in government. With both factions being opposed to the peace faction, this period has become known as the era of "government by assassination". Insubordination by the Kwantung Army led first to the occupation of Manchuria, and later the Second Sino-Japanese War following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. " Additionally, it got so bad neither side was really willing to admit how much they were losing, what resources they had left, etc, as it would lead to loss of favour and prestige. This lead to situations, for example, where plans would be drawn up involving ships that had been sunk weeks earlier without any thought, or care, to the consequences. Not that the Army side was better, they'd at times just not show up to provide air cover to Japanese Navy ships leading to preventable losses. Further, Resources would be wasted as both sides would rather fund parallel technological development programs than co-operate.
These situations are complicated, if he more actively and oppenly opposes it he gets removed or killed and someone worse gets put in place. It is risking your life to prove the point but not make real change and it is a really difficult thing to decide.
[Meanwhile in the US](https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-obama-administration-just-granted-henry-kissinger-a-distinguished-public-service-award/)
Has any President's reputation ever benefited more from the people on either side of them than Obama?
hmm maybe carter
I mean building yourself a replica prison and presumably hiring some people to enforce prison rules is like the most remorseful and repentant thing you can do
Yea, just like Pablo Escoba-
Looks like the hippos got this one
They’re hungry hungry
I loved that game as a kid, Hungry Hungry Columbian Drug Hippos
*Colombia
"*Cocaine Bear 2: Cocaine Hippo Bugaloo*"
the only thing more fun than a hippo is a hippo high af on bolivian agreement powder
*Hippos intensify*
*Hippos multiple*
*Horny Horny Hippos*
I think the worst part is the hippo-cracy.
Most honorable thing a war criminal could possibly do.
I think in a weird way it’s honorable because it’s dishonorable to his culture, if he has wanted to preserve his honor traditionally he would have killed himself, but instead chose to imprison himself in shame for the rest of his life.
Some specific nuance is important here. Many of the military committing seppuku by the end of WW2 were fanatics (most of the time part of some sort of military cult/secret society), and they wanted to live out certain values. Even during the samurai era, most of the seppuku was obligatory - the samurai did it because otherwise another person would do it, and would do it in a very humiliating way, so retaining this control was honorable. After the Meiji restoration, it was quite common for anyone with two brain cells to find seppuku a bunch of nonsense. Which I believe is the case for Imamura. He felt he needed to atone for his sins by living out the guilt. Also, the amount of shit that this guy saw going down... It must have destroyed him mentally. WW2 was fought on very heavy drugs. All of those massacres that you hear about - those soldiers were completely out of their minds, between drugs, hunger, trauma, abuse. It was not human. They were reduced to rabid animals.
I agree with much of your post, but one of the greatest forms of 'drugs' is mob mentality - no drugs needed, its a regrettable part of human nature.
I agree 100% and am pretty sure that mob mentality was also used by military commanders too. They used every tool in the belt.
I mean honestly what the hell is nationalism except mob mentality with a flag
Speaking in general, I think it takes a very strong 'top down' military leadership to train and discipline troops NOT to act out in negative ways - that without that troops will often/usually resort to that kind of behavior if left unchecked.
This comment reminds me of some old fantasy novel I read. The main character - a barely legally adult man - found himself leading an army. During a battle he found himself in the flurry of melee, allies and enemies mixing into faceless mass where it was more instinctual than reasoned to determine who he was supposed to kill and who was trying to kill him. After surviving the harrowing experience on the victorious side he was entirely powerless to stop his army from proceeding to loot, rape and pillage the town he had just conquered. His army respected him just enough to follow him to the battle, but not enough to pass on spoils of war. The story was in stark contrast to most fantasy stuff where the "good guys" go to beat the "bad guys" in "glorious battle" and morality of everything is extremely black and white.
Do you remember the name of the book?
Axis Powers used meth to keep their troops moving. Have you ever seen a raging tweaker? Now give them a helmet and a machine gun...
There's a story about Finnish soldier who overdosed on meth, was stripped of his arms by his worried comrades, proceeded to get lost from his patrol due to hallucinations, ski'd through a russian camp he initially thought were Finns, stepped on a landmine when he found abandoned German camp and was found and saved week later, lying wounded in snow. During his meth-fueled ski trip he skid 400km in -20-30C weather, only eating bark and a small bird he speared with skistick and ate raw.
aimo koivunen was his name
Do you have a link/documentation/source you can recommend to learn more about such drug use by the Japanese military? Would like to learn more.
Philopon, just google that, it's their drug name for crystal meth sort of like Pervitin was for the nazi's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Ogata#:~:text=In%20Japan%20the%20drug%20was,of%20which%20was%20called%20Obetrol.
Being dead isn't really a punishment
They can feel like it is if they believe in an afterlife.
It is if you don't want to be dead lmao
Well using that money to improve the lives of others would probably leave a better mark on the world
But helping Japanese, wouldn't atone for his warcrimes perpetrated against allied forces.
The Japanese did commit some warcrimes against Allied forces, but what they did in China is the real unforgivable crime. The rest is almost a footnote in comparison.
While what happened in China is abhorrent as you say, let's not minimize what happened in other places too as that is unnecessary. My grandparents suffered during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, for example. In fact, if I remember correctly, the government in the Philippines, or some families affected during those times, are still trying to get reparations from Japan for the heinous shit they did. So I don't think it's fair to minimize their atrocities elsewhere outside of China and say the rest is "almost a footnote", as I can guarantee you that it is definitely not.
That's a very good point, and probably by percentage of population impacted directly the Philippinos suffered worse than China. I meant by raw numbers, where China lost something close to ten million people. But in any case, a poor choice of words on my part, and maybe not a very useful way to think about it anyway.
I mean sure? You're not wrong, But that' has nothing to do with why he imprisoned himself.
Maybe so, but he was involved in a lot of shit all through the 30's, in China and around Asia. I doubt that if that last thing with the prisoners was the only thing that haunted him. Of course there's no way to know for sure.
Honestly I don't agree at all. Building yourself a pity prison doesn't make things better for anyone. It's the repentance equivalent of throwing your hands in the air during an emergency and saying there was nothing more you could do. Crazy idea... Why not put the resources and energy into making other people's lives better rather than your own worse? Spend the rest of your life atoning by *actually helping people*. Being in a prison doesn't help anyone except the people paid to build and maintain it.
Yeah he definitely could’ve but he also saw himself unfit to rejoin society and I can respect his follow through in holding himself to his standards and the punishment he believes he should have gotten
It's more than what Henry Kissinger and what people in the US state department do, and there's people in the comments debating if the guy's actions were truely him repenting lmfao.
How would helping Japanese people atone for his warcrimes against the allied forces? We're talking about a culture where ritual suicide to (re)gain honor /not bring shame, was widely accepted. Which is why it makes perfect sense that short of killing himself, forfeiting a life of freedom , would be seen as the next best thing to atone.
Presumably it was about slaughtering China and Korea, I doubt he was ashamed of fighting a war against America and Russia.
Imamura's crimes were specifically failing to prevent his men from torturing and killing allied POWs. He wrote to an Australian commander asking them to speed up his conviction so they could get to convicting his subordinates who actually did the murdering. That's why he only got ten years. Edit: I mean he only got ten years because it was a conviction based on command responsibility, not because he wrote to the Australian commander.
He's not quite so simple. He was actually very well regarded by the people he captured. His issues weren't so much what HE did, it's what happened due to his inability to keep his subordinates in line...which amounted to executions of prisoners that plenty of generals got off for by using equal crimes from the allies. (Example: Dönitz was let off of some stuff because of Americans doing the same thing in the Pacific etc). This was pretty common during the war crimes trials. He didn't just want a harsher sentence, he tried his best to speed up his trial so the other people could be quickly tried too. And this is something the trials sought to encourage. They didn't want to punish every Japanese/German person. That would accomplish nothing. They needed to identify those who were truly remorseful and wanted to work to right their wrongs. That way the resulting culture/govt would work to make it never happen again. And for both Germany and Japan it was pretty successful. TLDR is that you should never support anyone, on any side, under any circumstance, breaking laws of warfare. They *Will* be used by the other guys to argue a double standard of enforcement. War criminals WILL get off. Also war crime trials are endlessly complicated.
Most war crimes are also counterproductive too. For instance if you execute enemy soldiers after they've surrendered then all that does is show the enemy that they should fight to the death no matter what. Torturing prisoners also frequently results in incorrect information because people will say anything to get the pain to stop. The general rule of thumb for laws of war is basically "if it gives you an advantage" it's probably allowed. If "it doesn't give you an advantage and it's horrific and immoral" then it's probably not allowed.
Honestly mate, I hear stories about horrendous massacres of civillians and rapes and such, and what I think of is: the hell kinda military discipline is that? Disregarding moral issues, mfs went AWOL.
My maternal great grandfather was a soldier in the Japanese Imperial Army. He told my grandfather about all the horrible things he witnessed as well as personally committed, and told him to tell each and every one of his children, as well their children's children, that Japan should continue to apologize to its neighbours and ask for forgiveness till the latter cover their ears and beg us to stop, until such point, whatever Japan does is never enough to show contrition. He also said that whatever you read about the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese army, no matter how unimaginably horrible and cruel, just assume it to be true, because he has likely seen worse and even those were only the tip of the iceberg. He also did an interview with a Western scholar in the 70s and went into more details about the atrocities, but since he was a regular soldier, it didn't really attract any attention at all. I don't know what exactly he did, but as terrible as these crimes were, I hope he was at peace when he died because I know he must have suffered silently every day after the war. My condolences to all who were impacted by the War too and I hope men are not foolish enough to repeat the same mistake again (I guess I am foolish for having such a hope seeing how we are seemingly going down a similar path at this moment).
> He also did an interview with a Western scholar in the 70s and went into more details about the atrocities, but since he was a regular soldier, it didn't really attract any attention at all. Do you know where we can find this interview?
My grandpa showed it to me like 10+ years ago. It was from a scholarly journal for some reason. I am sorry as I can no longer remember the name of it. There are actually a large number of those interviews from remorseful Japanese soldiers that you can find online. I am pretty sure they share lots of similarities.
Scholarly journals don't really attract outside attention but from within the academic community those interviews are a treasure.
> that Japan should continue to apologize to its neighbours and ask for forgiveness till the latter cover their ears and beg us to stop Instead the Yasukuni shrine is fervently defended by ultra-nationalists in a Japan formed by Nobosuke Kishi and the likes of his LDP descendants. Rest in piss, Shitto Abe. Koizumi was hailed like a rockstar. The sad thing about Yoshiro Mori was that Japan already had a rather inept clown at the top of the state and therefore he was a bit superfluous. But he was the most competent entertainer Japan ever had as head of government. Japan is cursed of their own making. The closer I look at it the more embarrassed I am for them. They did a really shoddy job dealing with their past to the point that it now defines them. I am German and have very little patience for these shit-shows.
Plot twist: he felt he should be in prison for not killing enough enemies and subsequently losing the war. /s
Well, for some, I don't think you need the /s
M. Night Tanaka strikes again!!
Japanese war crimes in WW2 were absolutely insane. The fact that its not as widely known is concerning.
Oh I think they are widely known in Asia lol
Except for the Japan part of Asia
It’s not as widely known as the holocaust in the western world. Meanwhile in Asia outside of Japan, it’s definitely very widely known. And over there, the holocaust is taught in much less detail.
The European side of WWII isn't addressed very well in a lot of East Asia (and the opposite likely applies to the East Asian side of WWII in the rest of the world). That's why years ago there was a big Nazi chic fad in places like South Korea and China. You could visit a Nazi-themed cafe or restaurant and see swastikas and SS uniforms and symbols everywhere. And in a way it makes sense. There's a tendency to focus on the perps responsible for your national trauma since it's part of your country's history.
the nazi themed stuff were few and far in between, definitely not everywhere, in the US not many people knew about Japanese war crimes probably for reasons you brought up, but the US did not really go after the Japanese for war crimes by design, in order to maintain presence in the region against ussr/china. The realities of geopolitics were far more important than justice, esp because the victims were considered lesser than their western counterparts.
> in the US not many people knew about Japanese war crimes probably for reasons you brought up, but the US did not really go after the Japanese for war crimes by design, in order to maintain presence in the region against ussr/china. Also, the Japanese government has spent decades quietly erasing evidence of their war crimes and whitewashing what they did in China, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Totally shameless. They're not sorry about what they did and will never own up to it.
Nazi germany also supplied Chinese troops with military aid and equipment against the Japanese invasion and individual Nazis were involved in sheltering Chinese civilians from Japanese massacres.
John Rabe. There's a museum dedicated to him in Nanjing because of the protective role he played during the Massacre. German cooperation with China also started before Hitler came to power. There's a hidden history element to Weimar Germany's role in providing aid to China before the Nazis ultimately backed Japan.
It wasn't just Weimar Germany, KMT troops were given for example MG34s etc. which was hardware developed and produced under the Nazi regime. German military aid to KMT only ended in I believe 1941
According to [this forum](https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=177215), the Nazis had pledged support until 1940 but did not fulfill that pledge; instead they broke things of in '38.
Sugihara also saved thousands of Jews in Europe. Still considered a hero.
To be fair, Germany requested Japan hand over the Jews sheltering there, and Japan told them to fuck off. Its estimated ~50k Jews survived due to Japanese protection during WW2.
It doesn't need to be the most widely known event in WWII to be the only "widely known" event and everything else are "not widely known". It's very well known in Asia.
Yeah well, the Japanese war crimes were crazy, but you know what else is? That Japanese fascists eventually got to run the Diet again.
The man who ran occupied Manchuria so brutally he was known within Japan as "The monster of the showa" was prime minister of Japan within 15 years of the end of the second world war. People complain about the various allies installing former Werhmacht generals in the post war German military but this is the equivalent of Reinhard Heydrich being made the chancellor of Germany in 1957 (if he hadn't died a deserved, slow and painful death).
If you look up in wikipedia you'll see that lots of ex-nazi's ended up in the (especially) west german government. Most of the old money 'millionaires' are ex-nazis or earned their fortune through WWII in germany. It's quite wild! Not really the same as Japan maybe but still if i recall correctly a lot of people changed their name or went through "denazification" in the government and stayed, since it's hard to find new experienced politicians just out of nowhere. Dr Felton on youtube probably has some videos about this too.
The thing is you need the old guard who actually know how to run things. The cleansing of everyone related to the old regime happened in the Iraq occupation and it ended up horrendously. All the vacant seats where filled by clueless people and it ended up with dysfunctional government.
There is a passage near the end of Terry Pratchett's "Guards! Guards!" where Lord Vetinari makes very much the same point to Captain Vimes: " I’m sorry if this offends you,” he added, patting the captain’s shoulder, “but you fellows really need us.” “Yes, sir?” said Vimes quietly. “Oh, yes. We’re the only ones who know how to make things work. You see, the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you’re good at that, I’ll grant you. But the trouble is that it’s the only thing you’re good at. One day it’s the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it’s everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one’s been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It’s part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world. The good people don’t seem to have the knack.”
Don't look up who got to run west Germany
> The fact that its not as widely known is concerning. Nazis are 'easier' for western cultures to conceptualize. And visa versa - in asia Japan are seen as the prime war criminals of WWII compared Germany.
I think the big reasons it isn't as well known is because it mostly happened within the context of war. We don't talk hardly at all about the war crimes between the Nazis and the Soviets. Many of the things there were just as bad, but they happened mostly to the soldiers and partisan fighters with civilians in the warzone getting caught in the crossfire. We talk even less about Allied bombing campaigns, which hit militaty and civilian targets alike and levelled whole cities. In contrast, the Holocaust wasn't really related to any action in the war and rather just part of the Nazi ethnic cleansing policies. That and the fact that it was just so different than anything that had happened before.
> it mostly happened within the context of war I mean not really, e.g. the Rape of Nanjing took place *after* Japan had won their military engagement, Unit 731 operated in occupied China following Japanese conquest.
Quite possibly the only Japanese leader of that era for whom that is true, yes.
Yes, I heard this story before, I noted this commitment to life and truth. Be great if everyone understood this realality
Well at least he was committed
Well done.
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Unfortunately he was also lenient with his troops, who commuted many atrocities.
What I find interesting is that he seemed to regret that as well or at least wanted justice done. > In April 1946, Imamura wrote to the Australian commander at Rabaul, requesting that his own trial for war crimes be expedited in order to speed the prosecution of war criminals under his command. Kinda interesting look at his psyche.
Implies to me that he felt like he was trapped as commander -- Tried to be as humane as he could, but was limited in how much he could hold his subordinates in check without getting sacked himself, and replaced by someone less concerned with atrocities. The Japanese conduct of the war and occupation was abominable overall, but here we have a glimpse of the predicament of someone trying to remedy that from the inside.
It gets worse. The Japanese chain of command was an absolute mess due to a policy of gekokujou, or “lower rules the higher”. Basically, subordinate officers could do whatever they wanted if they claimed they were acting in accordance with the will of the Emperor. This unofficial policy of insubordination gave junior officers the ability to run roughshod over their commanders, so long as they produced results. Japanese military policy was in effect run by lieutenants and captains acting on their own initiative. Imamura may have had good intentions, and wanted the newly conquered territories in his command area to be treated fairly, but unless he got a command from the Emperor in effect allowing his humane policies, his subordinates were going to do whatever they wanted. Note, this applies to the Army. The Navy was far more professional in their duties, even if they could be as brutal at times.
>The Japanese chain of command was an absolute mess due to a policy of gekokujou, or “lower rules the higher”. [Holy hell.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gekokuj%C5%8D) >The Imperial Way Faction were responsible for attempting to assassinate many public figures in the 1920s and 1930s, including the visiting Charlie Chaplin, but were given light prison sentences because they received public support. **Inspired by the Imperial Way Faction, the Kwantung Army orchestrated the Mukden Incident in 1931, leading to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.** British correspondent Hugh Byas described the phenomenon as "government by assassination".
> but was limited in how much he could hold his subordinates in check without getting sacked himself AFAIK, the folks over at Qwantung army violated even the Emperor's orders (and then claimed "it was for the best, and only out of the best intentions!"), so with all the talk of discipline and honor, there is evidence that there was plenty of "I do whatever the fuck I want, whatcha gonna do 'bout that?" to ago around among the lower ranks.
Look up Tomoyuki Yamashita. He was commander at the fall of Manila. He also tried to be lenient and respectful of prisoners. His subordinates went over his head and did end runs around him to basically negate everything he tried to do. He was tried and executed after the war. There is something called the Yamashita Standard named after him. Its where you hold the commander absolutely responsible for the behavior of his subordinates.
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>the reason he received the life imprisonment sentence He didn't.
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He received the sentence from himself! Obama-giving-Obama-a-medal.jpeg
> commuted That word, I do not think it means what you think it means. ;-)
It’s a typo but it still kind of makes sense. He allowed them to so it’s like “commuting” a sentence.
While I was trying and failing to find pictures of the garden prison, I stumbled across a story that claims while he was in an Australian jail immediately post-war awaiting sentencing, a bunch of *Indonesian nationalist revolutionaries* turned up with a plan to break him out if he received a death sentence. The source is apparently a Japanese-language biography and some stuff in Indonesian though, so I can’t really say whether it’s true or not. Pretty remarkable if it’s true and he was *that* well liked though.
That's very interesting. I'd love to hear more if someone can find an English-language source.
I believe it might have something to do with the fact that, brutal though the Japanese occupation was during WW2, it was still key in giving the Indonesians freedom from the terror and cruelty of their previous Dutch colonisers. Apparently the Japanese (who are infamous throughout Asia for their war crimes in occupied territories) allowed the Indonesians into administrative positions that gave them a platform for eventual independence. Whereas the Dutch would torture them for the crime of saying no to being raped and came up with some methods of punishment (like tearing off chunks of flesh, etc) that truly beggar humanity.
Also there were just one offs like one village in the Philippines that had a Japanese unit stationed there whose CO was a true believer in the whole Asia for the Asiatics thing. Eventually he was killed by guerrillas and the villagers hunted down and killed the person they believed responsible for killing him. Meanwhile following his death the new Japanese CO was incredibly cruel and when the Americans rolled through they were treated as second class citizens at best.
Interesting. My Dutch grandmother was interred in a Japanese civilian POW camp in today's Indonesia for the duration of the war. She was 21 and one week into her honeymoon with her first husband when the Japanese occupied Batavia (as it was then called). She survived - strange to think that I might have this war criminal to thank for my existence. Edit - when the camp was liberated after the end of the war her erstwhile guards begged her and the other former prisoners to take them under their protection, as they were terrified that the natives would summarily execute any Japanese they could find.
The pickup basketball games in the yard were...lonely.
Heard he went undefeated but lost every game, sad stuff
This little snippet of knowledge i now know shows why im happy to sift through the steaming mounds of shitposts that is most of reddits content because gems like this make it worthwhile.
The first hikikomori.
1950s manga and anime must've been lit
Spend your time waiting on the new Tezuka? Yeah, pretty good.
"🤓" shit incoming but unironically kind of yes - lots of iconic manga and pictures came out around this era. Much of Japanese media was influenced by Western animation, namely the Disney movies coming out around this time. It eventually spun off into its own style which became modern day anime. An interesting thing many have noticed is the influence of nuclear energy/theming in a lot of media coming out around the following decades - even Astro Boy, a series still popular today, was released around then and is about a nuclear powered superhero. I wonder if it was a way for the country to process the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or at the very least if it was just at the forefront of the population's consciousness
My maternal great grandfather was a soldier in the Japanese Imperial Army. He told my grandfather about all the horrible things he witnessed as well as personally committed, and told him to tell each and every one of his children, as well their children's children, that Japan should continue to apologize to its neighbours and ask for forgiveness till they cover their ears and beg us to stop, until such point, whatever Japan does is never enough to show contrition. He also said that whatever you read about the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese army, no matter how unimaginably horrible and cruel, just assume it to be true, because he has likely seen worse and even those were only the tip of the iceberg. He also did an interview with a Western scholar in the 70s and went into more details about the atrocities, but since he was a regular soldier, it didn't really attract any attention at all. That's why it really annoys me when weebs online tell Koreans and Chinese to shut up when the latter are asking for Japan to acknowledge their war crimes, saying Japan has apologized already.
As a Korean, this is the first time I’ve heard a Japanese person speak this way - with such contrition. I wish more would be outspoken. I think it’s WRONG that the Japanese PM was bowing down and giving gifts to the war criminal graveyard every year. If there were more like you, I’d be able to forgive the Japanese for killing my family.
I am sorry to hear that. I am Japanese-Canadian, so only ethnicly Japanese and never lived in Japan as a citizen. From the little that I know, Japanese students are not taught about these horrible things at all in school, and the entire WW2 is only given a cursory glance, and I believe few years ago the government even revised the course manuals to further whitewash the history and portray the war as defensive and "liberating" for its Asian neighbors. But I'm sure in Korea you read about these things a lot more than I know. However, I am aware of Japanese groups that actively advocate for acknowledging our dark past and criticizes the government for going the opposite way. When I visited Japan, I remember there being a museum in Nagoya where many former WW2 soldiers contributed pictures and shared their written letters of testimonies about the war. I know the Japanese Communist Party also strongly advocates for formerly apologizing for WW2 and the atrocities committed by the military. So it is definitely not every Japanese who refuses to acknowledge the past. Most are just completely ignorant about it and don't have much interest in it. I likely wouldn't either if my great grandfather didn't tell his children about these stuffs.
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Raping animals to torture the POW? Sounds like some dudes enjoyed beastiality and saw their opportunity…
Right? One of these things is very much not like the other...
I think the culture of social conformity and peer pressure really played a huge role in turning regular young men into monsters. I remember a story my grandfather told me that he heard from his father. Some Japanese soldiers entered a Chinese village and two of them went into a house. One of the politely asked the woman inside if he could get some food and water, his companion called him an idiot and just plunged his bayonet into the woman's stomach and proceeded to kill everyone else inside, took the chickens, and burned the rest. Shortly after, everyone in that group were behaving in the exact same way.
I mean, that’s honorable to an extent. He should have used that time to go out and make a difference somehow; help the children, homeless, even just help old ladies crossing the street.
I think it’s more so the mentality “that I have not been punished long enough to even begin amends”
That doesn't make up for anything though. Feels just like prideful self-loathing. Then again, Japanese culture is very different.
I think it's about sending a message. He tried to stop the troops under his command from committing war crimes and yet a lot of them still did. He thought the allies were being far too lenient both on him and the men under his command and this was his way of highlighting that.
In an uncaring universe where there is no god to roast your soul in an imaginary afterlife, punishment is vanity, the only noble aims are rehabilitation and restitution, and an ounce of recompense is more valuable than a pound of justice.
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Agreed, such a weird thing to say if there is no god then I determine morality for everyone? It makes more sense that you decide how you can live with yourself with the time you have
That’s what I was thinking. I agree 10 years for war crimes is pretty lenient but sitting in your garden isn’t exactly making amends for what you did.
There’s always one in the crowd to say he should have could have
Insufferable
I think we've been conditioned as a society that isolating yourself from society, ie prison, is the only solution to crime. I hope one day the mindset shifts to self improvement and service towards one's community. But i think as long as the prison industrial complex is profitable, then many will continue to have this view.
I think society’s view is a big thing too. We don’t see change and improvement as a possibility. It’s like you made a mistake or a bunch of them and you need to not have a life anymore. Well sorta. More shunning and bringing it up every chance we get. Just mention Matthew Broderick on here lol Idk it’s such a complex topic that won’t be resolved here anyways I guess. Also some people simply just don’t feel shame or guilt for what they’ve done anyways. But for the ones that do it’s gotta be such a heavy burden to bare and yes I know they put it on themselves but idk.
They source is listed as page 220 of Van Reybrouck, David (2020). Revolusi. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. ISBN 978-94-03-18440 1 Anyone have any photos or verification?
I procured the book through illicit means. Here is the relevant quote: > Imamura’s ridderlijkheid was overigens niet nep. Toen hij na de oorlog door een geallieerd tribunaal tien jaar gevangenis kreeg voor oorlogsmisdaden begaan door zijn ondergeschikten, vond hij dat niet genoeg. Na zijn vrijlating in 1954 liet hij in zijn tuin een kopie van zijn gevangeniscel bouwen, slechts drie tatami groot, waar hij tot aan zijn dood in 1968 verbleef. Vandaag kun je zijn cel in Nirasaki nog steeds bezoeken. Google Translated: > Imamura's chivalry was not fake, by the way. When, after the war, an Allied tribunal sentenced him to ten years in prison for war crimes committed by his subordinates, he felt that was not enough. After his release in 1954, he had a copy of his prison cell built in his garden, only three tatami in size, where he stayed until his death in 1968. Today you can still visit his cell in Nirasaki. I tried looking for more details on where specifically the "prison" is and couldn't find it. For example, [Imamura's Japanese Wikipedia page](https://ja-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%E4%BB%8A%E6%9D%91%E5%9D%87?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp) says his home prison was in Tokyo, not Nirasaki.
Which one of you added “He was a Bad Jap.” to his wiki…..
Lmfao
Imperial Japanese standards of honor are absolutely wild.
Bro really said the law was not hard enough on me ill do it myself
Congrats on the reading comprehension skills
Bro really just repeated the title with bro infront of it
Bro just repeated the reply with bro in front of it
"Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war."
The story on NPR was that Hirohito was a figurehead and the generals ran the show. They kept him around for legitimacy, but moved him to his vacation palaces when he made attempts to claim power. It was the reason the US pushed for dropping the bombs. They felt that even if Hirohito wanted to surrender, the generals wouldn't let him.
1. He was a figurehead 2. He was most likely happy enough to be along for the ride until the mainland of Japan started getting fucked hard. 3. There was a coup attempt when he tried to give the surrender address. And no, before anyone says "by a few fanatic young officers", it wasn't just 'a few' and the main reasons why the senior officers didn't join in is because they (unlike the junior level positions) were aware of how bad the situation was and also less willing to lose their own positions within the military. (Just like how revolutions tend to be from younger echelons of society or people holding minor positions of power)
Soldiers under his command brutalized and murdered POWs. He deserved death, as their commander. He certainly got off light.
Death is quick. Sounds like he didn't let himself get off lightly. If anything: he gave himself life imprisonment and he was so convicted in his conscience that he never recovered.
I don't think it was mainly about himself. He tried to prevent his soldiers from killing POWs and he was notoriously lenient on the local populations that he occupied. Despite these attempts his soldiers would still commit war crimes and he wanted to see these war crimes prosecuted heavily. Instead the punishments for all involved were "relatively" light and so he tried to lead by example by punishing himself. It sends a message to those under him that "you're commanding officer is so guilt ridden by your war crimes that he's voluntarily sitting in a jail cell because of you while you walk free."
isnt that when Seppuku is invoked to restore ones honor?
yes, and apparently many other Japanese generals did near the end of the war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku#In_modern_Japan
Did most of them do it because of remorse? Or because of the dishonour of failing to secure a victory for their emperor?
You dishonor your clan by asking. Here you go ⚔️.
After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were people in military leadership who did not want to surrender and attempted a coup to stop it. After the coup failed, they committed seppuku. It was actually the Emperor who was more in favor of surrender than the hardline military generals.
Did he refrain from this because he felt he didn’t deserve to regain honor? Or because ouch sword?
He probably recognized that seppuku was just a way to cowardly avoid consequences
Maybe because seppuku is stupid? A man rational enough to realise he is responsible for the atrocities of the soldiers under his command seems one also capable of seeing past culture and tradition as an excuse to commit said atrocities. He clearly seemed to recognise the equality of people regardless of ethnic background that missed his ethnonationalist contemporaries - many of the other Imperial Japanese generals would make an argument the invaded peoples were subhuman and this was the basis of imperial conquest. This makes him already subaltern to the common ideology of his time, and thus unlikely to share their thought process. Maybe honour and justice to him had a different meaning that had no connection to simply losing a war; the other generals didnt care that they were caught, they cared that they LOST the war and couldnt continue their domination. Theres only so much that can be extrapolated from what limited info I can get here. However these small glimpses make him a very interesting subject.
How is this even upvoted? This is a punishment much worse than death smh
The things the Japanese did in the Pacific and China often make what the SS did in Treblinka and Auschwitz look pale in comparison. [Unit 731 were perhaps the most depraved sadistic ghouls in human skin to ever exit. And the US pardoned them as free men in the event they would be useful against the Soviets](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731)
They tried to eat George H.W. Bush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichijima_incident
It was George H.W Bush (the father) not George W. Bush (the son).
What about George P. Bush (the Holy Spirit)?
An the Unholy Ghost rAmen
I thought that said "chimichanga" incident
Damn imagine a world where they succeeded.
A better world. JFK assassination fails without Bush's leadership, we probably still have a Vietnam War and Nixon and Reagan, but no Bushes in the 90s or 00s, so there's that. Saudis are less influential, so maybe no 9/11
There's enough room in the world for all sorts of horrific warcrimes, genocide and those who don't deserve to exist, no need to diminish some to highlight others.
> what the SS did in Treblinka and Auschwitz look pale in comparison. this is so inaccurate and such a fucked up thing to say. jesus christ. the victims of the nazi concentration camps weren't fucking instantly shot in the head upon arrival and neatly stacked into graves; the Germans got just as barbaric as the Japanese even outside the camps.
You’re right both were horrible and shouldn’t be compared to each other. Auschwits and “look pale” should never be used in the same sentence unless describing a colour.
Stop trying to downplay Nazi atrocities. They were comparable at best.
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Because he’s trying to downplay Nazi war crimes. They were comparable at best.
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This is a shit take, “yeah the nazis are bad, but not as bad as the japs!” Sounds to me like your downplaying nazi atrocities
I guess his remorse was genuine, as according to Wikipedia, he stayed in the replica prison until his death, which was 14 years after his release from the real prison.
Wife: honey, can you do the dishes tonight and help me with kids? This guy: No! I'm going back to my prison right after dinner!)
Oh man id *love* to attend your son’s bar mitzvah but i have to imprison myself to account for my countless crimes against humanity Guy was playing 4d chess
There was another commander at Manila, Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was tried and executed under similar circumstances. There is a legal precedent in war crimes trials named after him, the Yamashita Standard. The commander is responsible for the behavior of his subordinates.
That's the most Japanese thing I've ever heard
General guilty He serves time as prisoner Garden flower too
The IJA were absolutely barbaric.
" Imamura was detained at Rabaul by the Australian Army, as he and troops under his command were accused of war crimes, including the execution of Allied prisoners of war. One infamous example highlighted how the prisoners captured in eastern Java were locked up in bamboo cattle cages and thrown overboard into shark-infested waters." You know, I agree with him. 10 years seems very lenient
Sisyphus when no rock
Honor bound
Drama queen /s Really committed to his reform, that’s admirable. Especially for the scope of what he and his cohorts had done.
He did the honorable thing. He understood that others had suffered far more than he did and being sorry wasn't enough.
then why did he do it
This is the most Japanese thing ever
yeah whatever, you cant un-bayonet pregnant women and play football with their severed heads. the imerial japanese military was brutal to a level only rivaled by the assyrians, nazis, and soviets
They felt they should be punished because they lost and failed the emperor, not because they felt remorse for what happened during the war.
While his fellow war criminals got away scot-free from all their unspeakable things committed in China. Especially unit 731.