Japanese war crimes were not fully punished

[David Thompson]

Let's get back on topic, please. It doesn't help to note that someone else has wandered off the topic, and then try to take the discussion further off-topic with questions unrelated to the subject at issue.

At this point, we haven't even established the initial premise of the thread.

[Kim Sung]

What has this to do with the question of whether Japanese war crimes were fully punished?

With 'punishment', what I mean is not only legal punishment but also political punishment. In my previous post I pointed out different political and historical backgrounds on which German and Japanese war criminals were treated differently.

Could the Asian sense of shame have any bearing the refusal of some Japanese to confront their past as it is difficult for many Koreans to acknowledge the willing collaboration of many Koreans with their Japanese colonial masters?

Why do you come out with off-topic issues again and again? You'll be surprised to know how former Korean collaborators with Japan are now harshly criticized in Korea. You seem to have no information about that.

[Penn44]

With 'punishment', what I mean is not only legal punishment but also political punishment. In my previous post I pointed out different political and historical backgrounds on which German and Japanese war criminals were treated differently.

"political punishment"? Explain what you mean.

Could the Asian sense of shame have any bearing the refusal of some Japanese to confront their past as it is difficult for many Koreans to acknowledge the willing collaboration of many Koreans with their Japanese colonial masters?

Why do you come out with off-topic issues again and again? You'll be surprised to know how former Korean collaborators with Japan are now harshly criticized in Korea. You seem to have no information about that.

Why did I bring it up? Because you brought up the [off topic] subject of why the Japanese would not admit to war crimes? I offered an alternative explanation to the inaccurate one that you did.

Penn44

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[Penn44]

At this point, we haven't even established the initial premise of the thread.

The reason they haven't established it is because the initial premise is weak. Some people evidently believe having a political agenda establishes their premise.

Penn44

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[Kim Sung]

The reason they haven't established it is because the initial premise is weak. Some people evidently believe having a political agenda establishes their premise.

Arbitray interpretation.

[Penn44]

Our readers come to the forum to get verifiable information on historical topics. You're not providing any. As for Hitler, there's no shortage of both eyewitnesses and documents for his criminal policies. If you have the same sort of evidence against the Japanese Emperor, step right up and provide it. If you don't, step right down.

I am eager to hear what our forum members have to add which matches the moderator's criteria. These unsourced opinions are getting old.

Penn44

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[Kim Sung]

Why did I bring it up? Because you brought up the [off topic] subject of why the Japanese would not admit to war crimes? I offered an alternative explanation to the inaccurate one that you did.

Japanese reluctance to admit war crimes is the result of the allies' lenient treatment toward Japanese war crimes and its politico-economic system as Hayashi Hiroshi, Utsumi Aiko and Tanabe Hisao insist. Michael Mills also suggested a valid point related to this topic. I don't think it is totally inappropriate to discuss the cause and effect relationship of an issue.

[Penn44]

Why did I bring it up? Because you brought up the [off topic] subject of why the Japanese would not admit to war crimes? I offered an alternative explanation to the inaccurate one that you did.

Japanese reluctance to admit war crimes is the result of the allies' lenient treatment toward Japanese war crimes and its politico-economic system as Hayashi Hiroshi, Utsumi Aiko and Tanabe Hisao insist. Michael Mills also suggested a valid point related to this topic. I don't think it is totally inappropriate to discuss the cause and effect relationship of an issue.

You have an anti-Japanese mindset, and the arguments that favor your position may appear as reasonable you, but not to others who do not have an hatred of the Japanese.

The suggestion you offer that the Germans admitted their war crimes because they Allies destroyed the Nazi government is untrue. Several historians contend that the German ruling elites were by and large untouched by denazification, war crimes trials, or changes in the postwar structure of the German government. The historian Jeffrey Herf claims that the majority of Germans continued to deny significant aspects of German war crimes into the 1960s until more and more Germans too young to have involvement in the age cohorts who participicated in the war went to the universities. This new group of Germans who questioned their parents' denials of German wrongdoing a generation conflict as it was due to some structural change in the German government or the continuance of elites.

Herf also contends that the end of the Cold War was another impetuous to the German questioning of wartime events.

When questions are put to you you should answer them. You do a disservice to your cause when you fail to answer them.

Penn44

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[Peter H]

SCAPIN 550,"Removal and Exclusion of Undesirable Personnel from Public Office" purged 210,000 Japanese from the public service in 1946-1948.

http://www.ndl.go.jp/modern/e/img_t/M00 ... 001tx.html


More here:
http://www.jpri.org/publications/occasi ... /op29.html


The fate of Prince Nashimoto Morimasa:

http://www.nancho.net/nancho/ghqemps6.html

This former chief war lord of the Imperial Family of Japan now lives with his wife in a two-room shack on the site of his former Tokyo mansion, bereft of his imperial dignity, his title, his prosperity, his mansion, his priesthood, his religion of Shinto, his field marshals baton, and his long winter underwear.

[Kim Sung]

The suggestion you offer that the Germans admitted their war crimes because they Allies destroyed the Nazi government is untrue. Several historians contend that the German ruling elites were by and large untouched by denazification, war crimes trials, or changes in the postwar structure of the German government. The historian Jeffrey Herf claims that the majority of Germans continued to deny significant aspects of German war crimes into the 1960s until more and more Germans too young to have involvement in the age cohorts who participicated in the war went to the universities. This new group of Germans who questioned their parents' denials of German wrongdoing a generation conflict as it was due to some structural change in the German government or the continuance of elites.

Herf also contends that the end of the Cold War was another impetuous to the German questioning of wartime events.

That's just one of the many views. It is true that the denazification policy was not a complete success. Admitting one's wrongdoing is difficult for anybody even though other people forces him to admit it. The allies constructed precise steps that were going to systematically clean up Germany and rid them of the Nazis, but could not rid the country completely of Nazism in practice.

However, we have to note that the allies didn't attempt to enforce such a massive policy toward Japan, as Michael Mills wrote in his post. Although it was imperfect, if the allies hadn't enforced the denazification policy, today's Germany would not be that different from today's Japan in their mindset toward their past wrongdoings. And in today's Germany there is no organizational movement to beautify or rationalize German war crimes. And it is very difficult to find any German politician or historian who denies or downsizes German war crimes. It is also very difficult to find any German publications in which the Holocaust or other German war crimes are denied or downsized. In Japan, on the other hand, you can easily find Japanese politicians, political groups or publications that deny or downsize Japanese war crimes blatantly.

An example of the allies' massive efforts to eliminate Nazi legacies in Germany

In German history, censorship unfortunately has been more of a rule than an exception. It was introduced by the Catholic Church in the form of the Inquisition. However, it was left to the well-known Austrian statesman Metternich to perfect the system of suppressing freedom of speech by means of a comprehensive spy and surveillance apparatus. Neither the German Empire nor the Weimar Republic were particularly soft in their dealings with unwelcome literature,[1] but the worst reputation was doubtless acquired by the Third Reich, which managed, within the twelve years of its existence, to black-list some 10,000 books. While these books were not burned, they did disappear from the shelves of bookstores, to be banished to library archives.[2]

But what is not nearly as well known is the fact that it was the Allied 'liberators' of Germany who staged the greatest campaign of book destruction that mankind had ever seen. Among the victims of Allied displeasure were 34,645 titles as well as, comprehensively, all school textbooks published between 1933 and 1945; not only were these no longer permitted to be printed and sold after the war - they also had to vanish from the archives of many libraries.[3] In the years from 1946 to 1952, the Soviet Occupation Power published four such lists ("Liste der auszusondernden Literatur", or list of proscribed literature) of titles earmarked for destruction. In accordance with the instructions in the censors' introduction to the second and third volumes, the first three of these lists also went into force in the western Occupation Zones.

An example of the German government's 'overzealous' efforts to admit German war crimes

The autumn 1994 revision of § 130 StGB (the so-called Lex Deckert) decreed, among other things, that it is a criminal offense

"publicly or in an assembly, and in a manner likely to lead to a breach of the peace, [to] endorse, deny or trivialize any act committed under National Socialist rule [which was] of the type specified in § 220a Section 1 [i.e., genocide, A.M...]"

However, the revised § 130 StGB includes regulations which even go considerably further. It criminalizes not only dissident views of certain aspects of National Socialist persecution of minorities, but in a sense anything and everything which could be considered incitement to hatred against population subgroups of potentially any definition. In this regard the foremost German criminal law commentary observes that this amendment means that practically any kind of criticism of population subgroups - however they are defined - can become a criminal offense, since the legal right that is supposed to be protected (the anti-discrimination rule) is rendered too general and vague in this Section.

Furthermore, it also permits precautionary censorship, as it were, by providing for the confiscation of publications or other data carriers which are allegedly intended for distribution. The judiciary holds that the intent to distribute prohibited publications exists if a person has in his or her possession, more than one single copy of a data carrier.

That this new German law is difficult to reconcile with international human rights standards is a fact openly acknowledged by Germany's leading politicians, but it is excused by virtue of the country's particular history.

http://www.vho.org/censor/D.html#GB

This overzealous, revised German criminal law doesn't allow even a sober discussion about some controversial points of the Holocaust.

When questions are put to you you should answer them. You do a disservice to your cause when you fail to answer them.

As long as you maintain your confrontational approach in a rude manner, I'd like to minimize my communication with you.

[Penn44]

Although it was imperfect, if the allies hadn't enforced the denazification policy, today's Germany would not be that different from today's Japan in their mindset toward their past wrongdoings.

By and large, denazification was a failure. I cannot think of a historian who considers it a success.

And in today's Germany there is no organizational movement to beautify or rationalize German war crimes.

HIAG, "soldiers like any other."

And it is very difficult to find any German politician or historian who denies or downsizes German war crimes.

There are several German academics who have downsized or relativized the Holocaust, e.g., Ernst Nolte and several other conservative German historians of the Historikerstreit. A number of German politicians have sought recognition of the Wehrmacht on a co-equal basis as the Allied armies, e.g., Helmut Kohl and the Bitburg affair. This equates to minimization of the Wehrmacht's participation in Nazi war crimes in Eastern European and the Balkans.

It is also very difficult to find any German publications in which the Holocaust or other German war crimes are denied or downsized.

Numerous German publications have downsized German war crimes.

Penn44

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[Penn44]

An example of the German government's 'overzealous' efforts to admit German war crimes

The autumn 1994 revision of § 130 StGB (the so-called Lex Deckert) decreed, among other things, that it is a criminal offense "publicly or in an assembly, and in a manner likely to lead to a breach of the peace, [to] endorse, deny or trivialize any act committed under National Socialist rule [which was] of the type specified in § 220a Section 1 [i.e., genocide, A.M...]"

This is NOT an admission of German war crimes.

However, the revised § 130 StGB includes regulations which even go considerably further. It criminalizes not only dissident views of certain aspects of National Socialist persecution of minorities, but in a sense anything and everything which could be considered incitement to hatred against population subgroups of potentially any definition. In this regard the foremost German criminal law commentary observes that this amendment means that practically any kind of criticism of population subgroups - however they are defined - can become a criminal offense, since the legal right that is supposed to be protected (the anti-discrimination rule) is rendered too general and vague in this Section.[11]

This has nothing to do with war crimes.

That this new German law is difficult to reconcile with international human rights standards is a fact openly acknowledged by Germany's leading politicians, but it is excused by virtue of the country's particular history.

Actions by the German government against extreme individuals who deny the Holocaust does not rule out expression of other forms of denial or revisionism in other aspects of German war crimes.

When questions are put to you you should answer them. You do a disservice to your cause when you fail to answer them.

As long as you maintain your confrontational approach in a rude manner, I'd like to minimize my communication with you.

I simply take your failure to respond as what it probably is - an admission that you don't have an adequate answer, and you won't admit it.

Penn44

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[Kim Sung]

By and large, denazification was a failure. I cannot think of a historian who considers it a success.

Denazification was not a failure. Without denazification and its achievements, today's German-Israeli relationship could not be good.

HIAG, "soldiers like any other."

It was disbanded in 1992. Its main aim was to provide assistance to veterans and rehabilitation of legal rights of former SS members, not to deny or minimize their war crimes.

There are several German academics who have downsized or relativized the Holocaust, e.g., Ernst Nolte and several other conservative German historians of the Historikerstreit. A number of German politicians have sought recognition of the Wehrmacht on a co-equal basis as the Allied armies, e.g., Helmut Kohl and the Bitburg affair. This equates to minimization of the Wehrmacht's participation in Nazi war crimes in Eastern European and the Balkans.

Just several academics for a country with the population of more than 80 million people? Innumerable Japanese right-wing historians and academics have denied or downsized Japanese war crimes.

Numerous German publications have downsized German war crimes.

The number of such publications in Japan overwhelms those of Germany.

[Penn44]

Numerous German publications have downsized German war crimes.

The number of such publications in Japan overwhelms those of Germany.

How about this - Japan's war crimes, as bad as they may be, are not compariable to Nazi war crimes which were infinitely worse. For example, Japan did not engage in a Holocaust type event, nor a T4 event, etc.

All in all, Japan engaged in a barbaric style of warfare common to the East Asia.

Penn44

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[Kim Sung]

This is NOT an admission of German war crimes.

The premise of such a revision is the admission of German war crimes. If they didn't admit German war crimes, why did they revise the criminal law in such a strict way?

This has nothing to do with war crimes.

Another Nonsense.

Actions by the German government against extreme individuals who deny the Holocaust does not rule out expression of other forms of denial or revisionism in other aspects of German war crimes.

If the German government prohibits all forms of denial or revisionism in other aspects of German war crimes, it would be an authoritarian state. And, more importantly, it is technically impossible.

I simply take your failure to respond as what it probably is - an admission that you don't have an adequate answer, and you won't admit it.

I'd like to make the same comment to you. "You don't have an adequate logic, and you won't admit it."