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The Nanking Massacre and Other Japanese Military Atrocities, 1931-1945
INTRODUCTION to UNIT 10
Japanese Denial and International Reaction and Redress
In the previous unit, an examination of the of the Tokyo War Crimes Trials saw many of the perpetrators
escape punishment for the atrocities that they committed because of the ensuing Cold War. Thus a signifi
cant political force in Japan today tries to play the victim as a result of the dropping of the atomic bomb by
the United Sates on August 6, 1945, and again on August 9, 1945. The debate about whether the United Sates
should have dropped the bomb is a moot point. The fact is the Japanese Imperial Army attacked Manchuria
in 1931 and set up a puppet government and biological warfare units in Manchuria in 1932. The unprovoked
attack at Marco Polo Bridge in 1937 by the Japanese Imperial Army resulted in war and other atrocities in the
rest of Asia until the end of World War II.
Unlike Germany, Japan has not accepted responsibility for their actions during WWII. An examination
of Japanese history books would not fi nd a mention of the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial
Army. Germany has faced its complicity in the murders during the Holocaust, and by German federal law,
students must be educated three times on the crimes committed by the Nazis in World War II. This has not
happened in Japan. There has been little if any mention by the present Japanese Government about the following:
The Nanjing Massacre, biological and chemical experimentation and warfare which was perpetrated
on innocent Chinese people and POWs from many different countries, the comfort women used by the
Japanese Imperial Army, and the forced labor of thousands and perhaps millions who worked in horrendous
conditions for as little $.02 a day for long hours without minimal food and medical supplies, as required by
the Geneva Convention. The Japanese Government, under the authority of the Emperor of Japan, prided
itself on being one of the most cultured and civilized societies in the 20 th century. Yet it saw the bastardization
of the Bushido Code before the war and unmentionable and barbaric behavior by its offi cer corps that were
unchecked by the high command.
As of March 2, 2007, the present Japanese Prime Minister has denied the use of coerced “comfort
women,” forced slave labor in or out of Japan, or any of the other atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial
Army. The Prime Minister and his sympathizers have prided themselves on removing these events from
Japanese history books used to educate the next generation of Japanese children. The Germans have taken
the complete opposite approach to their past under Nazi rule, requiring all children in the primary, elementary,
and secondary levels to study these past events.
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