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Death-Defying: Voluntary Death as Honorable Ideal in the German-Japanese Alliance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 June 2022
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In August 1942, an internal Sicherheitsdienst (SD) memorandum raised concerns surrounding the media currently circulating in Germany about its Asian ally: “The previous view, that the German soldier is the best in the world, has become somewhat confused by descriptions of the Japanese swimmers who removed mines laid outside Hong Kong, or of the death-defying Japanese pilots who swooped down upon enemy ships with their bombs. This has resulted in something a bit like an inferiority complex. The Japanese look like a kind of ‘Super-Teuton’ [Germane im Quadrat].” In its anxiety that the German public might be taking the wrong lessons from the incessant drumbeat of positive news coverage around Japan's string of victories in the winter of 1941–1942, this statement speaks to the ambivalent position of the Japanese within Nazi propaganda. On the one hand, these images of Japanese self-sacrificial loyalty to the nation reaffirmed the patterns of behavior and thought commonly valorized in the Nazi regime's captive media. At the same time, the reality that it was the Japanese—and not the Germans themselves—performing these feats of valor raised the comparison that the author found so demoralizing, and potentially even destabilizing. Nevertheless, despite the author's reservations, the conclusion was that this media's benefits outweighed the political risks because of its utility in highlighting the “inner weaknesses of Europe” for those elements of the German public still skeptical of National Socialism. In effect, the memorandum conceded, images of Japanese heroism could be persuasive as propaganda because they revealed the weakness and corruption endemic to Western modernity by contrast, which in turn affirmed the Nazi regime's decision to stake its future on a utopian “counter-modernity” framed around a synthesis of völkisch cultural authenticity and technological modernism.
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References
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25 Nitobe, Bushido, 182–84.
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31 Matthew S. Seligmann, “Germany, the Russo-Japanese War, and the Road to the Great War,” in The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War, ed. Rotem Kowner (New York: Routledge, 2006), 109–23.
32 “Der Zusammenbruch bei Mukden,” Berliner Tageblatt, March 17, 1905.
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34 Shimazu, Japanese Society at War, 104–05.
35 Doris Bargen, Suicidal Honor: General Nogi and the Writings of Mori Ōgai and Natsume Sōseki (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006).
36 “Der Selbstmord des Generals Nogi,” Berliner Tageblatt, September 14, 1912, 3.
37 “Der Tod des Generals Nogi,” Berliner Tageblatt, September 14, 1912, 2.
38 Sarah Panzer, “Der letzte Samurai. General Nogi as Transcultural Hero,” in Helden und Heldenmythen als soziale und kulturelle Konstruktion. Deutschland, Frankreich und Japan, ed. Steffen Höhne, Gerard Siary and Philippe Wellnitz (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2017): 217–27.
39 Karl Haushofer, Dai-Nihon. Betrachtungen über Groß Japans Wehrkraft, Weltstellung und Zukunft (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1913), 47. For more on Haushofer as an intermediary in the interwar German-Japanese relationship, see Christian Spang, Karl Haushofer und Japan (Munich: Iudicium Verlag, 2013).
40 Roland Strunk, “Nogi, der letzte Samurai,” Völkischer Beobachter, no. 48, 1935.
41 George Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
42 Jay W. Baird, To Die for Germany: Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990); Sabine Behrenbeck, Der Kult um die toten Helden. Nationalsozialistische Mythen, Riten und Symbole (Cologne, Germany: SH-Verlag, 1996).
43 Goeschel, Suicide in Nazi Germany, 20–21.
44 The Nazi state's condemnation of suicide thus excluded not just the many Jews who chose to die by suicide rather than suffer the indignity of persecution, but also the individuals targeted by the regime's “euthanasia” program.
45 Hoi-Eun Kim, Doctors of Empire: Medical and Cultural Encounters between Imperial Germany and Meiji Japan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 48–52.
46 Erwin Toku Bälz, “Zur Einführung,” in Über die Todesverachtung der Japaner, ed. Erwin Toku Bälz (Stuttgart: J. Engelhorns Nach., 1936), 7.
47 Erwin Bälz, Über die Todesverachtung der Japaner, 14.
48 Bälz, Über die Todesverachtung der Japaner, 26.
49 Based on the historical Ako Incident (1703), wherein forty-seven former retainers of Lord Asano Naganori—sentenced to seppuku for a violation of imperial protocol—attacked and killed the man they blamed for their former master's death, Chūshingura (or Kanadehon Chūshingura) was adapted first for the puppet theater and later for kabuki. Between 1938 and 1944, there were five different adaptations of Chūshingura staged in Nazi Germany. Detlev Schauwecker, “Japan in German Dramas during 1900–1945” — German Versions of Chushingura in the Nazi Period,” in Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan, vol. XXXI (Tokyo: Toho Gakkai, 1986): 70–78.
50 For more, see Bieber, SS und Samurai; Orbach, “Japan through SS Eyes.”
51 “Über die Todesverachtung der Japaner,” Das Schwarze Korps, January 1, 1942, 5.
52 “Abschied auf ewig … Vom Todesmut der japanischen Soldaten,” SS-Leithefte, 7, no. 9b (1941), 7–9; “Koike und Ito siegten in Berlin—siegen vor Hongkong,” SS-Leithefte, 7, no. 10b (1941), 9–10.
53 One of the more interesting elements of the German-Japanese relationship was the extent that it was shaped by both German and Japanese interlocutors. See: Endo, “Japanisches Soldatentum,” Der SA-Führer 8, no. 10 (1943): 8–14; Kitayama Jun'yu, Der Geist des japanischen Rittertums (Berlin: Limpert, 1943); Kitayama Jun'yu, Heroisches Ethos. Das Heldische in Japan (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1944); Sakuma Shin, Bushido—Soldatengeist von Japan (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1944).
54 John Dower, “Japan's Beautiful Modern War,” in Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World (New York: The New Press, 2012); Barak Kushner, The Thought War: Japanese Imperial Propaganda (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006); Janis Mimura, Planning for Empire: Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011).
55 Rundschreiben an die DJG-Zweigstellen, signed by Trömel, February 24, 1944, Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde [hereafter BArch] R 64IV/180, 91.
56 “Preisausschreiben der Deutsch-Japanischen Gesellschaft,” Völkischer Beobachter, March 16, 1944, 2. Similar notices appeared in several other major German periodicals during April–May 1944, including those meant for active German servicemen, such as Panzerfaust and Wacht im Südosten.
57 BArch R 64IV/44, 191. The high rate of submissions by active members of the German military was seen by the DJG leadership as particularly noteworthy, especially given that these essayists had lacked access to adequate writing and reference materials. Letter from Dirksen to the DJG, June 21, 1944, BArch N 2049/64, 14–15.
58 BArch R 64IV/48, 147.
59 BArch R 64IV/52, 122.
60 BArch R 64IV/46, 229.
61 BArch R 64IV/49, 247.
62 Meldungen aus den SD-Abschnittsbereichen vom 29. Juni 1944; Boberach, Meldungen aus dem Reich 1938–1945, vol. 17, 6657.
63 Helen Roche, “Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta oder nach Stalingrad? Ancient Ideals of Self-Sacrifice and German Military Propaganda,” in Making Sacrifices—Opfer bringen. Visions of Sacrifice in European and American Cultures—Opfervorstellungenn in europäischen und amerikanischen Kulturen, ed. Nicholas Brooks and Gregor Thuswaldner (Vienna: New Academic Press, 2016), 66–86.
64 Joseph Goebbels, “Rede im Berliner Sportpalast—18. Februar 1943—Kundegebung des Gaues Berlin der NSDAP,” in Goebbels Reden, vol. 2: 1939–1945, ed. Helmut Heiber (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1972), 208.
65 Goeschel, Suicide in Nazi Germany, 141–48.
66 “Japanische Bewunderung für die Helden von Stalingrad,” Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung [hereafter DAZ], February 3, 1943, 1.
67 “Japanische Bewunderung für die Helden von Stalingrad.”
68 “Kein Japaner gab sich gefangen,” Völkischer Beobachter, December 23, 1943), 1.
69 Nicknamed the “Marianas Turkey Shoot” by American pilots, this engagement effectively destroyed Japanese carrier-based aviation capabilities. John Kuehn, “The War in the Pacific, 1941–1945,” in The Cambridge History of the Second World War, vol. One: Fighting the War, ed. John Ferris and Evan Mawdsley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 448.
70 For example, the German press reported that on June 19–20 the Americans had lost five aircraft carriers, one battleship, and more than one hundred planes, as compared to reported Japanese losses of one carrier and fifty planes. “Die große Seeschlact bei den Marianen,” DAZ, June 25, 1944, 2; “Die erste amtliche Meldung Tokios zur Seeschlacht von Marianen,” Völkischer Beobachter, June25, 1944), 1; “Weitere japanische Erfolge gegen die USA-Flotte,” DAZ, July 3, 1944, 2.
71 An estimated twenty thousand civilians had lived on Saipan prior to the battle. Eight to ten thousand of them died over the course of the fighting, with approximately four thousand Japanese women and children committing mass suicide to avoid capture by American forces. Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook, ed., Japan at War: An Oral History (New York: The New Press, 1992), 281–92.
72 “Die wichtigste Schlacht des Ostasienkrieges,” DAZ, June 26, 1944, 1.
73 “Der Kampf um Saipan,” DAZ, June 29, 1944, 2; “Schwere Kämpfe auf Saipan,” DAZ, July 4, 1944, 1; “USA-Angriff auf die Iwo-Insel,” DAZ, July 6, 1944, 5; “Weiter heftige Kämpfe auf Saipan,” DAZ, July 10, 1944, 2.
74 Meldungen über die Entwicklung in der öffentlichen Meinungsbildung vom 29. Juni 1944; Boberach, Meldungen aus dem Reich 1938–1945, vol. 17, 6621.
75 “Ende des Heldenkampfes der Japaner auf Saipan,” DAZ, July 20, 1944, 5; “Der letzte Sturm der Besatzung von Saipan,” Völkischer Beobachter, July 20, 1944, 2; “Der letzte Angriffsbefehl von Saipan,” DAZ July 21, 1944, 2.
76 Dower, “Japan's Beautiful Modern War,” 75.
77 Michael Geyer, “‘There is a Land Where Everything Is Pure: Its Name Is Land of Death.’ Some Observations on Catastrophic Nationalism,” in Sacrifice and National Belonging in Twentieth-Century Germany, ed. Greg Eghigian and Matthew Paul Berg (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), 140.
78 Joseph Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels [hereafter TB], vol. 13 (München: K. G. Saur, 1995), 63.
79 Ulrich Saft, Das bittere Ende der Luftwaffe. “Wilde Sau”—Sturmjäger—Rammjäger—Todesflieger—“Bienenstock” (Walsrode: Militärbuchverlag Saft, 1997).
80 Goebbels, TB, vol. 13, 131.
81 The Todesflieger remain an obscure chapter in the history of the Luftwaffe during World War II; the group was briefly disbanded and reassigned in early 1945, due to objections from Hitler. In April pilots from the SO squadron were recalled and sent into action against the Red Army. Their mission was to dive their planes into strategically important bridges on the Oder River in order to delay the Soviet advance into Germany. Thirty-nine pilots died during the April 16–17 mission, the only directed deployment of German “suicide” pilots during World War II. Saft, Das Bittere Ende der Luftwaffe, 124–37.
82 Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
83 For a history of the kamikaze written by military officers involved in the program, see Rikihei Inoguchi and Tadashi Nakajima, The Divine Wind: Japan's Kamikaze Force in World War II (Annapolis: United States Naval Institutes, 1958).
84 “Neuer Großerfolg der Japaner,” Völkischer Beobachter, October 26, 1944, 1; “Abschlußbericht Tokios über die Seeschlachten,” DAZ, October 28, 1944, 1.
85 “Neue japanische Erfolge bei den Philippinen,” Völkischer Beobachter, November 1, 1944, 1.
86 “Neue Erfolge der Kamikaze-Flieger,” Völkischer Beobachter, November 4, 1944, 1.
87 “Japans Todesflieger,” Völkischer Beobachter, November 4, 1944, 1.
88 “Neue japanische Erfolge bei den Philippinen,” Völkischer Beobachter, November 1, 1944, 2; “Luftherrschaft im Philippinen-Gebiet,” DAZ, November 7, 1944, 1“Kamikaze-Flieger und U-Boote versenkten 2 Flugzeuträger,” Völkischer Beobachter, November 7, 1944, 2; “Kamikaze-Flieger versenkten Schlachtschiff und 3 Transporter,” Völkischer Beobachter, November 14, 1944, 3; “Der Befehl an ‘Kamikaze,’” DAZ, November 18, 1944, 1; “Neue Erfolge der japanischer Luftwaffe,” DAZ, November 29, 1944) 2.
89 Goebbels, TB, vol. 14, 293.
90 Goebbels, TB, vol. 14, 376.
91 Goebbels, TB, vol. 14, 382.
92 “Japans Luftwaffe pausenlos am Feind,” Völkischer Beobachter, December 2, 1944, 2; “Stark zum Todesflug,” Völkischer Beobachter, December 3, 1944, 1; “Wieder drei Kriegsschiffe, fünf Transporter,” Völkischer Beobachter, December 8, 1944, 2; “Neue Erfolge der Kamikaze-Flieger,” Völkischer Beobachter, December 9, 1944, 1; “Japans Todesflieger gegen USA.-Geleitzüger,” Völkischer Beobachter, December 14, 1944, 1.
93 “Leyte, ein Schlachtfeld ohne Verwundete,” Völkischer Beobachter, December 3, 1944.
94 “Japans denkende Geschosse,” DAZ, December 15, 1944, 1–2.
95 “Die bisherigen Erfolge der Kamikaze-Flieger,” Völkischer Beobachter, December 26–27, 1944, 1.
96 Robert C. Stern, Fire from the Sky: Surviving the Kamikaze Threat (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010), 339.
97 Goebbels, TB, vol. 15, 456.
98 Goebbels, TB, vol. 15, 466.
99 Frank, Richard B., Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 3–19Google Scholar.
100 Goebbels, TB, vol. 15, 473.
101 Goebbels, TB, vol. 15, 635, 690.
102 “Kamikaze–Geist der Japaner,” DAZ, April 6, 1945, 1.
103 Goeschel, Suicide in Nazi Germany, 152–53.
104 For example, 3,881 people were recorded as having killed themselves in Berlin in April 1945, and another 977 died by suicide in May. Goeschel, Christian, “Suicide at the End of the Third Reich,” Journal of Contemporary History 41, no. 1 (2006): 157–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
105 Goeschel, Suicide in Nazi Germany, 165.
106 Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms, 160.
107 John Dower estimates that the number of Japanese officers who committed suicide during the surrender was comparable to the number of Nazi officers who had killed themselves during the German capitulation. Dower, John, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: Norton, 2000), 33–39Google Scholar.
108 Kushner, The Thought War, 156–83.