Japanese War Criminals

Japanese War Criminals PDF

Author: Sandra Wilson

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-02-14

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 0231542682

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Beginning in late 1945, the United States, Britain, China, Australia, France, the Netherlands, and later the Philippines, the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China convened national courts to prosecute Japanese military personnel for war crimes. The defendants included ethnic Koreans and Taiwanese who had served with the armed forces as Japanese subjects. In Tokyo, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East tried Japanese leaders. While the fairness of these trials has been a focus for decades, Japanese War Criminals instead argues that the most important issues arose outside the courtroom. What was the legal basis for identifying and detaining subjects, determining who should be prosecuted, collecting evidence, and granting clemency after conviction? The answers to these questions helped set the norms for transitional justice in the postwar era and today contribute to strategies for addressing problematic areas of international law. Examining the complex moral, ethical, legal, and political issues surrounding the Allied prosecution project, from the first investigations during the war to the final release of prisoners in 1958, Japanese War Criminals shows how a simple effort to punish the guilty evolved into a multidimensional struggle that muddied the assignment of criminal responsibility for war crimes. Over time, indignation in Japan over Allied military actions, particularly the deployment of the atomic bombs, eclipsed anger over Japanese atrocities, and, among the Western powers, new Cold War imperatives took hold. This book makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the construction of the postwar international order in Asia and to our comprehension of the difficulties of implementing transitional justice.

Hidden Horrors

Hidden Horrors PDF

Author: Toshiyuki Tanaka

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 9781538102695

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Now in a significant new edition, this landmark book documents little-known wartime Japanese atrocities during World War II, including cannibalism; the slaughter and starvation of prisoners of war; the rape, enforced prostitution, and murder of noncombatants; and biological warfare experiments.

Judgment at Tokyo

Judgment at Tokyo PDF

Author: Timothy P. Maga

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9780813128986

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In the years since the Japanese war crimes trials concluded, the proceedings have been colored by charges of racism, vengeance, and guilt. In this book, Tim Maga contends that in the trials good law was practiced and evil did not go unpunished. The defendants ranged from lowly Japanese Imperial Army privates to former prime ministers. Since they did not represent a government for which genocide was a policy pursuit, their cases were more difficult to prosecute than those of Nazi war criminals. In contrast to Nuremberg, the efforts in Tokyo, Guam, and other locations throughout the Pacific received little attention by the Western press. Once the Cold War began, America needed Pacific allies and the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers throughout the 1930s and early 1940s were rarely mentioned. The trials were described as phony justice and "Japan bashing". Keenan and his compatriots adopted criminal court tactics and established precedents in the conduct of war crimes trials that still stand today. Maga reviews the context for the trials, recounts the proceedings, and concludes that they were, in fact, decent examples of American justice and fair play.

Men to Devils, Devils to Men

Men to Devils, Devils to Men PDF

Author: Barak Kushner

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-01-05

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 0674966988

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The Japanese Army committed numerous atrocities during its pitiless campaigns in China from 1931 to 1945. When the Chinese emerged victorious with the Allies at the end of World War II, many seemed ready to exact retribution for these crimes. Rather than resort to violence, however, they chose to deal with their former enemy through legal and diplomatic means. Focusing on the trials of, and policies toward, Japanese war criminals in the postwar period, Men to Devils, Devils to Men analyzes the complex political maneuvering between China and Japan that shaped East Asian realpolitik during the Cold War. Barak Kushner examines how factions of Nationalists and Communists within China structured the war crimes trials in ways meant to strengthen their competing claims to political rule. On the international stage, both China and Japan propagandized the tribunals, promoting or blocking them for their own advantage. Both nations vied to prove their justness to the world: competing groups in China by emphasizing their magnanimous policy toward the Japanese; Japan by openly cooperating with postwar democratization initiatives. At home, however, Japan allowed the legitimacy of the war crimes trials to be questioned in intense debates that became a formidable force in postwar Japanese politics. In uncovering the different ways the pursuit of justice for Japanese war crimes influenced Sino-Japanese relations in the postwar years, Men to Devils, Devils to Men reveals a Cold War dynamic that still roils East Asian relations today.

Defending the Enemy

Defending the Enemy PDF

Author: Elaine B. Fischel

Publisher: Bascom Hill Publishing Group Limited

Published: 2010-02

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9781935456032

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From 1946-48 Elaine B. Fischel worked in Tokyo alongside the American attorneys assigned to defend the Japanese war criminals held responsible for the torture and deaths of millions of civilians and prisoners of war. She recounts the post-WWII transition in Japan to the country's occupation by their former enemy, and the subsequent surprise on the part of the Japanese citizenry that the U.S. allegiance to democracy meant providing a fair trial even to the men considered the most evil perpetrators of atrocities. In letters to her family at the time, the author as a young woman tries to explain her relationships with the defendants and her own surprise at the growing fondness she felt for many of the "villains" of WWII-particularly prime minister and general Hideki Tojo, known during the war as "Razor." Defending the Enemy is also the story of a young woman who wants to make the most of her time in a country so full of beauty. Fischel interweaves the activities and intrigues of the trial alongside her tales of travel throughout Japan, her social engagements with high-ranking military and civilians, and her unique enduring relationships, such as her friendship with Emperor Hirohito's brother, Prince Takamatsu. In doing so, Fischel illuminates the paradoxes inherent during this period in history. Elaine B. Fischel was born in New York. Her widowed mother moved her girls out of the big city and raised Elaine and her sister in Southern California. In addition to "honors" grades in high school, Elaine's athletic abilities led to a number-one ranking in Junior tennis and, while representing UCLA, she became a National Intercollegiate Tennis Champion. The end of World War II found Elaine working in Tokyo for two-and-a-half years at the trial of the twenty-eight accused Japanese war criminals. General Douglas MacArthur, the leader of the Occupation, recruited American lawyers to defend the fallen leaders to insure that history would say this was a "fair trial." Elaine's assignment to the Defense enabled her to interact with the fallen leaders, who had become "clients," and with military leaders, diplomats, the Japanese royal family, and Japanese citizens from all walks of life. When the trial was over, Fischel returned home and attended the University of Southern California School of Law. She went on to practice law for fifty-seven years. Book jacket.

Hidden Atrocities

Hidden Atrocities PDF

Author: Jeanne Guillemin

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-09-26

Total Pages: 542

ISBN-13: 0231544987

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In the aftermath of World War II, the Allied intent to bring Axis crimes to light led to both the Nuremberg trials and their counterpart in Tokyo, the International Military Tribunal of the Far East. Yet the Tokyo Trial failed to prosecute imperial Japanese leaders for the worst of war crimes: inhumane medical experimentation, including vivisection and open-air pathogen and chemical tests, which rivaled Nazi atrocities, as well as mass attacks using plague, anthrax, and cholera that killed thousands of Chinese civilians. In Hidden Atrocities, Jeanne Guillemin goes behind the scenes at the trial to reveal the American obstruction that denied justice to Japan’s victims. Responsibility for Japan’s secret germ-warfare program, organized as Unit 731 in Harbin, China, extended to top government leaders and many respected scientists, all of whom escaped indictment. Instead, motivated by early Cold War tensions, U.S. military intelligence in Tokyo insinuated itself into the Tokyo Trial by blocking prosecution access to key witnesses and then classifying incriminating documents. Washington decision makers, supported by the American occupation leader, General Douglas MacArthur, sought to acquire Japan’s biological-warfare expertise to gain an advantage over the Soviet Union, suspected of developing both biological and nuclear weapons. Ultimately, U.S. national-security goals left the victims of Unit 731 without vindication. Decades later, evidence of the Unit 731 atrocities still troubles relations between China and Japan. Guillemin’s vivid account of the cover-up at the Tokyo Trial shows how without guarantees of transparency, power politics can jeopardize international justice, with persistent consequences.

Japanese War Crimes

Japanese War Crimes PDF

Author: Peter Li

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-12

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 1351511084

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The question of national responsibility for crimes against humanity became an urgent topic due to the charge of ethnic cleansing against the previous Yugoslav government. But that was not the first such urging of legal and moral responsibility for war crimes. While the Nazi German regime has been prototypical, the actions of the Japanese military regime have been receiving increasing prominence and attention. Indeed, Peter Li's volume examines the phenomenon of denial as well as the deeds of destruction. Certainly one of the most troublesome unresolved problems facing many Asian and Western countries after the Asia Pacific war (1931u1945) is the question of the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army throughout Asia and the Japanese government's repeated attempts to whitewash their wartime responsibilities. The psychological and physical wounds suffered by victims, their families, and relations remain unhealed after more than half a century, and the issue is now pressing. This collection undertakes the critical task of addressing some of the multifaceted and complex issues of Japanese war crimes and redress. This collection is divided into five themes. In "It's Never Too Late to Seek Justice," the issues of reconciliation, accountability, and Emperor Hirohito's responsibility for war crimes are explored. "The American POW Experience Remembered" includes a moving account of the Bataan Death March by an American ex-soldier. "Psychological Responses" discusses the socio-psychological affects of the Nanjing Massacre and Japanese vivisection on Chinese subjects. The way in which Japanese war atrocities have been dealt with in the theater and cinema is the focus of "Artistic Responses." And central to "History Must not Forget" are the questions of memory, trauma, biological warfare, and redress. Included in this volume are samples of the many presentations given at the International Citizens' Forum on War Crimes and Redress held in Tokyo in Decem

Researching Japanese War Crimes Records: Introductory Essays

Researching Japanese War Crimes Records: Introductory Essays PDF

Author:

Publisher: Jeffrey Frank Jones

Published:

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13:

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Japanese war crimes committed in Asia and the Pacific between 1931 and 1945 concerned few Americans in the decades following World War II. Japan’s crimes against Asian peoples had never been a major issue in the postwar United States, and—with the notable exceptions of former U.S. prisoners of war held by the Japanese—even remembrance of Japanese wartime atrocities against Americans dimmed as years passed. American attitudes about Japanese war crimes changed markedly following the 1997 publication of Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking.2 Chang’s moving testament to the Chinese victims of the sack of Nanjing in 1937 graphically detailed the horror and scope of the crime and indicted the Japanese government and people for their collective amnesia about the wartime army’s atrocious conduct. The bestselling book spurred a tremendous amount of renewed interest in Japanese wartime conduct in China, Korea, the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. The Rape of Nanking raised many issues that demanded further explanation. Why were the Japanese not punished as severely as the Nazis for their crimes? Did the United States suppress evidence of the criminal responsibility of activity by the emperor to ensure a smoothly running occupation of Japan? Did the U.S. government protect Japanese medical officers in exchange for data on human experimentation? Chang also charged the U.S. government with “inexplicably and irresponsibly” returning confiscated wartime records to Japan before microfilming them, making it impossible to determine the extent of Japan’s guilt.3 Others were convinced that the U.S. government retained highly classified documents that would prove Japanese guilt beyond doubt and implicate the highest levels of Japanese government and society in the crimes. These issues led concerned parties to investigate Japanese wartime records among the holdings at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, Maryland, and at other U.S. government agencies. Thorough documentation of Japanese war crimes and criminal activities among these holdings seemed unavailable, leading to speculation of an official cover-up. Suspicions that the U.S. government was deliberately concealing dark secrets were fueled when, instead of finding the records they sought, researchers encountered a card stating the records had been “withdrawn for security reasons,” as well as when they received a notice that requested information could not be located.

The Knights of Bushido

The Knights of Bushido PDF

Author: Edward Frederick Langley Russell

Publisher: Skyhorse

Published: 2008-08-17

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1628730668

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The war crimes trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo meted out the Allies’ official justice; Lord Russell of Liverpool’s sensational bestselling books on Germany’s and Japan’s war crimes decided the public’s opinion. The Knights of Bushido, Russell’s account of Japanese brutality in the Pacific in World War II, carefully compiles evidence given at the trials themselves. Russell describes how the noble founding principles of the Empire of Japan were perverted by the military into a systematic campaign of torture, murder, starvation, rape, and destruction. Notorious incidents like the Nanking Massacre and the Bataan Death March emerge as merely part of a pattern. With a new introduction for this edition, The Knights of Bushido details the horrors perpetrated by a military caught up in an ideological fervor. Often expecting death, the Japanese flouted the Geneva Convention (which they refused to ratify). They murdered aircrews, bayoneted prisoners, carried out arbitrary decapitations, and practiced medical vivisection. Undoubtedly formidable soldiers, the Japanese were terrible conquerors. Their conduct in the Pacific is a harrowing example of the doctrine of mutual destruction carried to the extreme, and begs the question of what is acceptable—and unacceptable—in total war. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.