Was Imperial Japan worse than Nazi Germany?
Was Imperial Japan worse than Nazi Germany?
In my subjective opinion Japan was more cruel than Nazi Germany, however, I am going to exclaim one thing; My intent is not to compare human suffering between the nations (though I do do that a bit) my main point is to shed light upon Japanese war crimes. Both countries did vile things. After clearing that out of the way, why is Japan worse than Germany?
I am not going to talk about numbers; which country killed more. That’s not my point. Japan was more cruel because of how and why they did their brutalities.
#1 Germany was selective about their brutality whilst Japanese were not.
This is probably one of the biggest reasons why the Japanese were worse. The Germans murdered only selective groups of people. These included: Jews, Soviets, Gypsies and disabled people and most peoples in Eastern Europe. Though I am not certain if Germans sent Black POW’s or black people in general to the Death Camps, I do know that the SS committed massacres on some surrendering American Black Soldiers at the end points of the War.
However, the Germans almost completely limited their war crimes only to the Eastern Front. Any front where they faced the western Allies they didn’t commit nearly as many war crimes.
The Japanese were not selective. They didn’t care if you were Chinese, White, Korean, Indonesian, Indian or Thai. The Japanese killed anyone. The Japanese committed large scale massacres in China, they tortured POWs and they killed babies for sport.
They beheaded many POW’s. And why? Well the Japanese were way more indoctrinated than the Germans. The Japanese held Samurai beliefs as well as the Emperor Cult and the idea that they were a divine race. The Samurai beliefs (often inaccurately just called Bushido) stated that surrendering is the most disgraceful act of a warrior.
Thus, when the Japanese executed POW’s, they didn’t necessarily think of killing them for fun, but sometimes in a twisted mindset, they thought of honoring the POW’s by killing them and releasing them from dishonor. But this is just speculation, but they did behead many POWs and civlians.
The Japanese military had many rape houses, where they hosted many captured white women including daughters of young ages, and repeatedly raped them, They also also raped many Chinese and Korean women. The Japanese POW camps were horrid. Maybe even concentration camp levels of horrid. The German POW camps were not nearly as bad as the Japanese camps.
The Japanese also held their death marches and actively starved prisoners to death, because they didn’t want to give away food intended for the guards.
One way to also represent how the Japanese thought about surrendering is the following. Saburo Sakai was one of the greatest air aces of Japan. I respect him and I think he was a cool dude. I’ve read his biography and as far as he is concerned he didn’t commit any war crimes.
However, his book is all about the no-surrender mentality. He relates how the Japanese pilots refused to wear parachutes. They were given the option of using parachutes, but the pilots refused. Mainly because wearing the harness was uncomfortable, but also because they didn’t want to be shamed by becoming a POW. Saburo Sakai, a Japanese soldier I respect and consider a reasonable man (besides the fact that he denies the Rape of Nanking) Wrote that the Japanese did not appreciate surrendering.
#2 The Germans had SS the Japanese just had the Entire Army
When we think of German War criminals, we think of the SS and the Waffen SS. Yes, the Wehrmacht assisted the SS and also independently committed war crimes on the Eastern Front. But the SS and the Waffe SS committed them on a whole other level and Committed far more atrocities than Did the Wehrmacht The Wehrmacht (and the Waffen SS to some extent) were more lenient toward the Allied powers.
The Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine didn’t commit many war crimes. They did sink civilian vessels and bomb cities though, but than so did all of the combatants (including the U.S. fire bombings of Dresden and Hamburg and of Japanese cities and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
The Japanese didn’t have a unit comparable to the SS besides Unit 731. Other than that the role of the systematic murder unit like the Einsatzgruppen would go to the Japanese Army as a whole. They were the SS, they young men drafted to fight for his country and family. With the Japanese soldiers, the young men serving the Emperor were the ones committing these crimes.
One way to compare is that you can find some pictures of German soldiers being nice to occupied civilians, handing out chocolate or tobacco. Even pictures with soldiers in SS uniforms conversing or aiding civilians. Now these pictures don’t redeem the Germans not at all, but at least you can find these sort of pictures.
German medic aiding a civilian
This is an interesting one. An SS soldier handing out water to a Soviet POW
I could find more, but I don’t want this answer to be loaded with photographs.
I couldn’t find a single picture like this from the Japanese perspective. Alright. This picture point might not be the strongest point, because the German photos could be propaganda, but I still liked to put it there for show.
#4 Cannibalism
The Japanese troops actually practiced cannibalism, but not on a large scale. The Allies bombed and destroyed Japanese supply lines and thus made the food situation really bad in Japanese POW camps. This is a good strategic decision for the allies, to starve the enemy, but at the same time they work as a catalyst for the troubles of the Allied POW’s. The Japanese guards, short on food, began to select a prisoner a day and eat him. This didn’t happen on most prison camps, but it did happen.
#5 Korean and Formosans
Koreans and Formosans were subjects of the Empire of Japan by 1937, before the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Koreans and Formosans were considered to be inferior to the Japanese, which obviously upset them. However, there were Koreans and Formosans enlisted in the Japanese army anyway. The Koreans and Formosans were drafted into forced labor to build military installations for the Japanese. The Koreans and Formosans were also placed to command some prison camps. This was bad new for the Allies in those prison camps. Why? The Koreans and Formosans were even more cruel guards than the Japanese.
The Japanese were cruel, because they disrespected surrendering. The Koreans and Formosans were cruel, because they burned their unrest from the Japanese treatment upon the POW’s. And they often beat the Allied POW’s. When Hong Sa-ik (ethnic Korean) became the commander of all POW camps in the Philippines, the POW’s treatment worsened. Hong Sa-ik later became the highest ranking Korean to be tried of War crimes and his family harassed in Korea.
#6 Killing Competition in Nanjing
I think the Head Taking competition is quite known. Maybe? Well anyway, two Japanese officers held a head taking competition where the one that kills and captures more Chinese heads wins. And no this is not BS. There was a article of this in the Japanese news papers.
You can see the score on the right.
Toshiaki Mukai: 106 kills, Tsuyoshi Noda: 105 kills. Well damn apparently Mukai won by just 1 kill. That was probably what Noda was thinking about. Like it was a normal football game. They shouted to the Chinese soldiers to “Come here” and then they’d just cut them down. So they didn’t even grant the Chinese a chance to fight back.
Obviously they were tried of War crimes. What was their defense? “We didn’t kill 100 people, it was more like 80 people”.
EDIT: Alright time for this again. I am not trying to shift the spotlight from German war crimes to the Japanese ones. I am instead lighting a new spotlight upon the Japanese war crimes on the side of the Germans.
The Japanese have gotten away with their evil past. That is one thing that is a fact. People always are saddened about the atomic bombings of Japan, but if you study Japanese war crimes you might begin to think the atomic bombings were justified, though in restrospect they weren’t any bigger than the fire bombings that went before them.. The Japanese war crimes deniers seem similar to the Lost Cause myth which are two things that interest me very much.
The reason why the Japanese war crime deniers are not similar to Holocaust deniers is because the Holocaust is taught at school and we are all informed of the horrible things that happened there. It is different with the Japanese causes, because they are largely ignored. The Japanese war crimes are omitted from most many history books, because of the instant alliance with US and Japan after WW2. US didn’t want its people to find out the Japanese deeds and condemn the new alliance between the nations. This is the same way with the Lost Cause, a fake thing taught to many people for decades leaves people to be skeptical of actual historical facts.
If its not obvious, I am not excusing Germany, Nor Am I trying to make the Wehrmacht look innocent. I mention how the Wehrmacht did assist and conduct massacres, just nowhere near on the scales of the SS or the Japanese Army.
EDIT #2: I hope everyone realizes that the Japanese are nowadays obviously not evil. I love Japan, in fact I am a Japanophile, if something I have bias towards Japan. I got interested in history because of Japanese Warships in WW2 (its complicated). But the fact that Japan has not acknowledged their past the same way the Germany has, is a shame.
EDIT #3 the Finale: Once again I ended up editing my answer dozen times like last time. Now, I originally had the idea of reading every single comment and answering all criticism, I had this idea on my first “greatly viewed” article as well. But one thing I have to realize is that there are just a lot of comments and I bet they are not going to stop coming in.
I am going to try to read as many as I can and take in the criticism and obviously I am going to fix my answer if need be. But yea, a lot of comments and who knows when the last comment will be posted.
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