Abstract
Reaching a theoretical understanding of “fascism” is a highly complex and extremely difficult problem. Given the political, historical, ideological, and even emotional dimensions of the topic, we risk straying from the realm of serious academic research in using this term, particularly in attempting comparative studies. After the so-called “historians’ debate” (Historikerstreit) in Western Germany during the mid-1980s1 it became a common conclusion to regard this term as inappropriate in dealing with the historical reality of the highly diverse, so-called “fascist” regimes of Germany, Italy, and Japan, during the 1930s and 1940s. The political argument that using the term “fascism” in taking a comparative approach ultimately would open the door for relativization of the horrors, especially those of German National Socialism, had great effect. “To compare” could lead to relativization of the dimensions of guilt. Accordingly, the historians’ debate ended with a clear verdict against all comparative “fascism” studies, a position still held by most German historians. While the term “fascism” might be applied to Italian system under Benito Mussolini, it could not be used to describe any other political framework of the time. Neither the German Nazi system nor, of course, the Japanese emperor system of those dark days, should, or could, be subsumed under this descriptive term.
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Notes
On the Historikerstreit see Rudolf Augstein et al., Historikerstreit (München: Piper, 1995)
English language introductions into this topic are given by Rachel J. Halverson, Historiography and Fiction: Siegfried Lenz and the Historikerstreit, German Life and Civilization, vol. 8 (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1990)
James Knowlton, Forever in the Shadow of Hitler?: Original Documents of the Historikerstreit, the Controversy Concerning the Singularity of the Holocaust (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Books, 1997).
Concerning comparison of the German, Italian, and Japanese systems, especially the question of whether the term “fascism” may be used to describe these three systems, see, e.g., the study by Bernd Martin, “Zur Tauglichkeit eines übergreifenden Faschismus-Begriffes. Ein Vergleich zwischen Japan, Italien und Deutschland,” Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 29 (1981): 48–73. The author declares that only in the field of ideology can and should the three systems be compared.
There are many fine studies concerning “Japanese and German fascism”; e.g., the informative work by Yasushi Yamaguchi, “Faschismus als Herrschaftssystem in Japan und Deutschland. Ein Versuch des Vergleichs,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 27 (1976): 89–99. My use of the term “fascism” is understood as expressing an ideological stratum that centers around the aggressive idea of superiority of a nation in racist terms.
Harry Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity. History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).
For a detailed discussion of the topic see Klaus Antoni, Shintō und die Konzeption des Japanischen Nationalwesens (kokutai). Der religiöse Traditionalismus in Neuzeit und Moderne Japans. Handbuch der Orientalistik, 5:8 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 151–156.
See Nihongi: Suiko 12/4/3 in Nihon koten bungaku taikei, (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1967), 68: 180–186 and Tsunoda Ryusaku et al., eds., Sources of Japanese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 1: 47–51.
On the Mito School see J. Victor Koschmann, The Mito Ideology: Discourse, Reform and Insurrection in Late Tokugawa Japan, 1790–1864 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)
Horst Hammitzsch, Die Mito-Schule und ihre programmatischen Schriften: Bairi Sensei Hiin, Kōdōkanki, Kōdōkangakusoku, Seiki no uta (Tokyo: Mitteilungen der (Deutschen) Gesellschaft für Natur—und Völkerkunde Ostasiens [hereafter cited as MOAG], 31/B 19, 1939)
Klaus Kracht, Das Kōdōkanki-Jutsugi des Fujita Tōko. Ein Beitrag zum politischen Denken der Späten Mito-Schule (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1975).
Quoted from Okada Takehiko, “Practical Learning in the Chu Hsi School: Yamazaki Ansai and Kaibara Ekken,” in Principle and Practicality, Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom, eds. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), p. 248. Also see Antoni, Shintō und die Konzeption des Japanischen Nationalwesens, p. 158, n. 161.
For Inoue Tetsujirō see the detailed study by Johann Nawrocki, Inoue Tetsujirō (1855–1944) und die Ideologie des Götterlandes. Eine vergleichende Studie zur politischen Theologie des modernen Japan, Ostasien–Pazifik, Trierer Studien zu Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, Kultur, vol. 10 (Hamburg: LIT, 1998) and Klaus Antoni, “Inoue Tetsujirō und die Entwicklung der Staatsideologie in der zweiten Hälfte der Meiji-Zeit,” Oriens Extremus, 33 (1999): 99–116.
English translations reflect this problem in the various uses of such equivalents such as “national body” in Robert N. Bellah, Tokugawa Religion: The Cultural Roots of Modern Japan (New York: Free Press, 1957), p. 99
“national polity” in William P. Woodard, “Politics and Japan’s National Polity,” chapter I, “Ise and Yasukuni Jinja,” The Second International Conference for Shintō Studies, Proceedings (Tokyo, 1967), pp. 71–74; and “national entity” in Robert K. Hall, ed., Kokutai no Hongi: Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan, tr. John O. Gauntlett (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949). Japanese works cite descriptive equivalents to clarify this matter such as: kunigara, “national character” in Morohashi Tetsuji, Dai kanwa jiten, 14 vols. (Tokyo: Daishūkan, 1955–1960), No. 4798/372; kokka no taimen, “reputation, honour of the state,” in Nihon kokugo daijiten, ed. Nihon daijiten kankōkai (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1973–1978), 8: 24; and kokujō, “national condition, internal state of a country,” in Daigenkai, ed. Otsuki Fumihiko (Tokyo, 1932), 2: 153.
“Izumo no kuni no miyatsuko no kamuyogoto” (Divine words of congratulation by the sovereign of Izumo) in Engi-shiki 8, Fujiwara Tadahira, ed., Kokushi taikei (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1952–1964), 26: 176. Also, volume 2 of Felicia Bock, Engi-shiki. Procedures of the Engi Era (Tokyo: Monumenta Nipponica Monographs, 1972).
Yamagata Taika (1781–1866) was one of the leading theoreticians of Meiji Restoration and comrade of Yoshida Shōin. See David M. Earl, Emperor and Nation in Japan. Political Thinkers of the Tokugawa-period (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981 reprint), p. 236.
Aizawa Seishisai, Shinron in Mitogaku-zenshū, (Tokyo: Nittō shoin, 1933), 2: 2–325.
Also, Volker Stanzel, Japan—Haupt der Erde. Die “Neuen Erörterungen” des Philosophen und Theoretikers der Politik Seishisai Aizawa aus dem Jahre 1825 (Würzburg: Königshausen u. Neumann, 1982)
Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan. The New Theses of 1825 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986); and Antoni, Shintō und die Konzeption des Japanischen Nationalwesens, pp. 163–166.
Hirata Atsutane, Kodō taii in Shinchū kogaku sōsho, Mozume Takami, ed. (Tokyo: Kobunko Kankokai, 1925), 7: 5.
Text edition: ōkubo Toshiaki et al., Kindaishi shiryō (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1969), p. 425; Murakami Shigeyoshi, Tennō no saishi, Iwanami-shinsho, no. C 165 (Tokyo: Iwanami 1990), p. 154; and Tsunoda et al., Sources of Japanese Tradition, 2: 139.
On moral education see Harold J. Wray, “A Study in Contrasts, Japanese School Textbooks of 1903 and 1941–45,” Monumenta Nipponica, 28 (1973): 69–86
W.M. Fridell, “Government Ethics Textbooks in Late Meiji Japan,” The Journal of Japanese Studies, 29 (1970): 828–833.
See Maruyama Masao, Nihon no shisō (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1971), p. 31.
The ethical education of the military was guided by another edict, Gunjin chokuyu, i.e., “Imperial Rescript to the Military” (often translated as “Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors”) proclaimed on January 4, 1882. A comprehensive discussion on moral education in schools and the military can be found in Tsurumi Kazuko, Social Change and the Individual: Japan Before and After Defeat in World War II (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970).
On the “Minobe case” see Frank O. Miller, Minobe Tatsukichi, Interpreter of Constitutionalism in Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965)
Reinhard Neumann, “Minobe Tatsukichis Einfluß auf die demokratische Bewegung der Taishōzeit, 1912–1926,” Nachrichten der (Deutschen) Gesellschaft fiir Natur—und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, 123 (1978): 11–23; and Antoni, “Kokutai—Das ‘Nationalwesen’ als Japanische Utopie,” pp. 275–277.
In the “Tabletalks” (see Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier. Vollständig überarbeitete und erweiterte Neuausgabe, (Wiesbaden: VMA-Verlag, 1983) Hitler gives expression of his ideas about Japan several times. On one hand his racist arrogance becomes clear (p. 310), yet he talks about the “superior intellect of the Japanese,” too. In his opinion it was the “Japanese philosophy of state” that made the country so successful (p. 404). Hitler’s admiration for Japan is stressed especially by Ernst Nolte in Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche. Action Francaise, Italienischer Faschismus, Nationalsozialismus (München: Piper, 1984), p. 501. Other historians point out his racist and arrogant views of Japan and the Japanese.
For example, Gerhard Krebs, Japans Deutschlandpolitik 1935–1941. Eine Studie zur Vorgeschichte des Pazifischen Krieges 91: (Hamburg: MOAG, 1984), 23
For a general German view of Japan in the 1940s see Eberhard Friese, “Das deutsche Japanbild 1944—Bemerkungen zum Problem der auswärtigen Kulturpolitik während des Nationalsozialismus,” in Deutschland—Japan. Historische Kontakte, ed. J. Kreiner (Bonn: Bouvier, 1984).
Alfred Rosenberg, Das Parteiprogramm. Wesen, Grundsätze und Ziele der NSDAP. Herausgegeben und erläutert von Alfred Rosenberg (München: Eher, 1937 edition), p. 57.
Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts. Eine Wertung der seelisch-geistigen Gestaltenkämpfe unserer Zeit (München, Hoheneichen-Verlag, 1942 edition).
On the relation between National Socialist state and Christian Churches see Klaus Scholder, Die Kirchen und das Dritte Reich, 2 vols. (Frankfurt: Propylaeen, 1977).
Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs, 72 (Summer 1993) and his subsequent book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1966).
Hans Wilhelm Vahlefeld, 100 Millionen Auβ enseiter: Die neue Weltmacht Japan (Düsseldorf, Wien: Econ, 1969).
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Antoni, K. (2004). Karagokoro: Opposing the “Chinese Spirit”: On the Nativistic Roots of Japanese Fascism. In: Reynolds, E.B. (eds) Japan in the Fascist Era. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980410_2
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