The Axis Alliance and Japanese-American Relations 1941

This is a 1958 book which deals with a very specific topic, the Germany-Italian-Japan agreement during World War II. It also has a section on the Tokyo War Crime trials.

As with other books, I will just point out some highlights.

The book notes here about Japan's movement towards Fascism, and how the various political parties became one single party. This type of thing is important because it helps explain why the Japanese people did not actively protest the war. There was only one political party, no opposition groups allowed.

The War Crime Trials were held in Tokyo from 1946 to 1948. There isn't anywhere near the amount of information on those as there is on the Nuremberg trials, though.

The tribunal judged not just individuals, but Japan as a whole, and they considered Japan to be as much an aggressor as was Germany or Italy. The entire nation is condemned in this way, not just the militarists that held the government.

The tribunal is still talking about the Tripartite agreement, and how Japan planned to invade the areas it ended up invading. It's interesting that the word China is not present in this section, yet Japan had invaded China long before the war became a “World” war.

The Tribunal goes on to say that Japan was planning to attack the Soviet Union at some point. (If Germany had been successful in their attack on Russia, then Japan might have attacked from the east, although the Japanese had their hands full dealing with China. Germany and Japan could have divided the globe pretty much between the two of them, except for the Americas.)

The Tribunal held that the Japanese system of negotiation was really just a ruse for their own nefarious purposes, and that the argument that Japan had to go to war over economic factors is not such a good argument at all. The author of the book often takes to task statements like these from the Tribunal.

An example of a ruling on a specific person.

His sentence.



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