This volume approaches the history of Japanese-German relations from a business history perspective. Starting with an overview of Japanese-German relations which focuses on the environment, strategies and forms of inter-firm relations, Akira Kudo then uses case studies to provide a broader picture, before finally considering strategy, organisational strategy and technology and management transfer in the light of problems identified earlier.
Often forgotten among the many aspects of World War II is the alliance between Germany and Japan. Because of the vast geographical separation between these two Axis nations, and because of some of very real philosophical and operational differences, the alliance was fraught with difficulty. But in the vast middle-ground of the Indian Ocean, these "reluctant allies" did come together to conduct naval operations that might well have had disastrous consequences for the Allies but for the intervention of fate and the inevitable friction of war. Captain Krug served in U-boats in that theater and in the Far East and, with the assistance of scholars of both nations, he has produced a very readable and meticulously researched account of German and Japanese naval interaction. Besides thoroughly covering--for the first time--this neglected topic, the authors provide valuable insight into the faulty mechanism of an alliance between totalitarian powers, characterized by suspicion and a reluctance to freely share information and assets. They also bring to light the difficulties--and ultimate consequences--of dealing with the megalomania and criminal intellect of Adolf Hitler, which resulted in war-crime trials for some of the participants. Proving that not every aspect of the world's greatest war has been covered, this book is a valuable contribution to the ever-expanding lore of the war and will be required reading for those with an interest in naval operations, global strategy, and international diplomacy during the period.
Mutual Perceptions and Images in Japanese-German Relations, 1860–2010 examines the mutual images formed between Japan and Germany from the mid-nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, and the influence of these images on the development of bilateral relations. Unlike earlier research on Japanese-German relations, which focused on the similarity of these countries’ historical trajectories, this publication presents a more nuanced picture. It relativizes perceptions of a special “spiritual relationship” between Japan and Germany as well as their commonalities of “national character” through an exploration of previously untapped historical visual and textual sources. With essays by sixteen leading scholars in the field, this collection is an invaluable contribution to the historiography of modern Japan and Germany, and to the field of international relations. Contributors are: Hans-Joachim Bieber, Fukuoka Mariko, Hakoishi Hiroshi, Iwasa Takurō, Katō Yōko, Kawakita Atsuko, Gerhard Krebs, Kudō Akira, Heinrich Menkhaus, Danny Orbach, Peter Pantzer, Sven Saaler, Satō Takumi, Volker Stanzel, Suzuki Naoko, Tajima Nobuo, Tano Daisuke, and Rolf-Harald Wippich.
Now available in English, this three-volume work focusing on the wide-ranging political, military, economic, technological and social interconnections and interconnectedness between the two ‘new powers’in the first half of the twentieth century was originally published by University of Tokyo Press in 2006 and marks an important milestone in collaboration at the highest level on this subject matter between German and Japanese scholars.
This important new study focusing on the ultranationalist regimes in Germany and Japan during the 1930s and 1940s examines in biographical format the roles played by individuals significantly involved in the drive for global hegemony. Employing a considerable range of new source materials and eyewitness testimony on the German side, it highlights the roles of the Nazi Party ‘enforcer’ and Gestapo representative in East Asia, Josef Albert Meisinger, and of the officer commanding German naval forces in the Pacific region, Admiral Paul Werner Wenneker, agent Richard Sorge as whose relations with the Japanese Navy in the 1930s were observed and recalled by Engineer-Commander George C. Ross, the UK assistant naval attaché in Japan. The reactions of the German aero-engineer, Willi Foerster, a client of the Soviet radio operator, Max Clausen, to both Meisinger and Wenneker in the 1940s are also documented. On the Japanese side, new evidence is employed which examines the influence of the right-wing business and political figure, Sasagawa Ryôichi, on domestic events during the era of ‘Tennô-fascism’ and its aftermath. Similarly, an analysis of the role of the head of wartime Japanese military intelligence in eastern Europe, General Onodera Makoto, based in Stockholm, indicates the extent of opposition within the Japanese army to factional groups wedded to Nazi ideology and strategy and the ongoing support in Japan for anti-Soviet and anti-communist policies in the post-war era.
Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States has baffled generations of historians. In this revisionist new history of those fateful months, Klaus H. Schmider seeks to uncover the chain of events which would incite the German leader to declare war on the United States in December 1941. He provides new insights not just on the problems afflicting German strategy, foreign policy and war production but, crucially, how they were perceived at the time at the top levels of the Third Reich. Schmider sees the declaration of war on the United States not as an admission of defeat or a gesture of solidarity with Japan, but as an opportunistic gamble by the German leader. This move may have appeared an excellent bet at the time, but would ultimately doom the Third Reich.
Japan was a party to the Axis Alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. However, it ignored repeated German demands to harm the 40,000 Jews who found themselves under Japanese occupation during World War Two. This book attempts to answer why they behaved in a relatively humane fashion towards the Jews.