Figure 1.--. |
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Hitler appears to have conceived an alliance with the Japanese as a way of dividing the world in what he called Operation Orient. While the Japanese ageeed to the Anti-Comitern Pact (1936) and the Axis (1940). Japan after signing the Axis agreement did not join the war with Britain in Europe. Hitler never suceeded in convincing the Japanese in commiting to his campaign against the Soviet Union, even after he declared war on the United States when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor (1941). Japan did seize the French colony of Indo-China (Vietnam) which brought about American sanctions. Japan had been at war with China since 1937. Japanese planners in 1941 pondered their course of action, especially after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Some expected them to attack north at Soviet Siberia. Had they done so, almost surely the Soviet Union reeling unde German attack, would have been defeated. Instead they attacked south at American Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Influential German geographer Prof. Karl Ernst Nikolas Haushofer was deeply impressed with Japan. He directed the Institute of Geopolitics at the University of Munich. One of his students was Rudolf Heß, who introduced Haushofer to Adolf Hitler. Haushofer's influenced both Heß and Hitler and this influence can be seen in Mein Kampf. He was a strong proponent of militay cooperation with Japan, but argued against invading the Soviet Union and thus lost influence with Hitler.
Race was of course all important to the NAZIs. NAZI prpaganda often referred to in horror Mongoloid Soviet sildiers. Of course the view changed when discussuing the Japananse. A good example of the nonsenceon race was a German scholar that claimed common origins for the Germans and Japanese. A , professor in the department of social anthropology at the University of Jena and was a NAZI racial theorists. He claimed that the Japanese were "Aryans" fully equal to Germanic people. He maintained that the Germanic tribes originated in East Asia. He also contended that the Japanese had the same common roots but that time and environment changed physicalappearance after thr Germanic tribes moved west and the Japanese moved east. [Günther]
The Axis set us technical commissions to implement the Tripartite Pact by creating a forum for strategic planning. In reality they were mostly used for propaganda. No real strategic planning occurred. [Presseisen, p. 321.] The technical commissions had no real influence. The Axis alliance was essentially in the hands of German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and the Japanese Ambassador to Berlin, General Hiroshi Oshima. German military planners in 1941 were fully occupied with the Soviet Union. [Boyd] The dominance of Von Ribentrop and Oshima in reality doomed the Axis as an effective alliance to coordinate strategy. The fact that these two differed on strategy and neither held the confidence of their superiors rendered the Alliance of little value in coordinating strategy. Von Ribentrop did not share Hitler's enthusuam for attacking the Soviet Union. Oshima advocated a joint the attack on the Soviet Union, but his views were rejected by the Imperial Navy and officers of the Imperial Court. [Martin, pp. 243-244.]
Not only was there no joint Axis planning of the war effort. The Axis partners did not even keep each other informed. The NAZIs did not inform the Japanes of their plans to invade the Soviet Union. [Mueller-Hillebrand.28, 277-278.] The Japanese did learn, but only because of Oshima's personal relationship with Hitler. [Boyd] Similarly the Japanese did not inform the NAZIs of the plans for the attack on Pear Harbor. The NAZis learned of the attack through the BBC. [Martin, p. 259.]
Hitler appears to have conceived an alliance with the Japanese as a way of dividing the world in what he called Operation Orient. Prime Minister Ribentrop became a major propnent of Operation Orient, predictable as it was conceived by Hitler. Japan's Ambassador General Oshima Hiroshi was another proponent, he was, however, unable to convince his Government. In fact, one reason the Japanese agreed to join the Axis was that they hoped the NAZIs (at the time allied with the Soiets, would interven to help end Soviet aid to China. [Meskill, p. 8.] As the War on the Eastern Front was the central struggle in World War II, this lack of agreement meant that Operation Orient was largly a figment of Hitler's active imagination. Oshima was posted to Berlin as a military attaché (1934) He developed close relations with NAZI officials, including Von Ribentrop and Hitler. He helped bring about the Anti-Communist Treaty between Germany and Japan (1936). He was appointed Ambassador (1938) and worked to conclude the Axis Alliance (1940). Ierestingly, Oshima was an important source of information for America because his messages to the Hiroshi, "in effect, became one of the greatest assets of
the American government because the traffic to and from the Japanese Foreign Office were read using the American Purple machine. One of the events Oshima reported was the impending NAZI attack on the Soviet Union. [Boyd and McGinnis] Hitler had personally confided his plans for the attack.
While the Japanese ageeed to the Anti-Comitern Pact (1936) and the Axis (1940). Japan after signing the Axis agreement did not join the war with Britain in Europe. Japan did seize the French colony of Indo-China (Vietnam) which brought about American sanctions. Japan had been at war with China since 1937. Japanese planners in 1941 pondered their course of action, especially after Germany invaded the Soviet Union (June 1941). Poweful Japanese forces were in position along the Manchuruan border with the Soviet Union while the High Command debated Japan's next move.
Some expected the Japanese to attack north at Soviet Siberia. Had they done so, almost surely the Soviet Union reeling under German attack, would have been defeated. Instead they attacked south at American Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor on December 7, Hitler never suceeded in convincing the Japanese in commiting to his campaign against the Soviet Union, even after he declared war on the United States when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor (1941). Historians wonder why Hitler declared war on the United States. The Axis Pact did not require him to do so. It may well be that he hoped that this would enduce the Japanese to declare war on the Soviets.
The Allies in an uncharistic instance of unilateral decessions, committed themselves to the unconditional surrender of the Axis countries. The Axis on the other hand had no common war goals. What they did have was meglomaniac territorial aims. Mussolini in a meeting with Hitler managed to inject a comment in a long monologue by Hitler as to how when they were done with the partioning, "nothing would be left but the moon". [Fest, p. 656.] Hitler launched his war of anialation against the Soviet Union. Hitler did not even want to fight the British, conceiving a kind of British Vichy after the fall of France which would allow the British to retain the Empire. It was just this Empire that Japan coveted. The Japanese did not even want to fight the Soviet Union and had not plans to destroy America, They wanted to seize their Asian empire and then set up defenses that would be to costly for America to attack. [Morton, p. 125.]
Immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Ambassador Oshima requested that Germany declare war on the United States. Ribbetrop reminded Hitler that the Axis Pact did not rquire Germany to do so as the United States had not attacked Japan. Even more importantly, the Japanese had rejected repeated German requests to declare war on the Soviet Union. Hitler decided, however, to dclare war. The announcement was made in a special 3:00 am address (December 11). It was timed so that it could be brodcast live at a reasonable hour in Japan. Historians still debate why Hitler took this act. The United States was in fact the only country on whichb Hitler formally declared war. No one knows why as Hitler reached this decession with little or no consultation with his advisers. There were a few advantages. The Kriegsmarine could launch an immediate U-boat offensive along the U.S. coast. The dramatic announcement help to divert the world's attention away from the dereriorating situation in Russia and the failure of his war strategy. It also appealed to his flare for action and the dramatic. It was, however, the last major Axis inititive of the War. [Feis, p. 655.] We suspect that he thought that the Japanese would reciprocate by declaring war on the Soviets, perhaps explaining the 3:00 am timing of his speech. A more calculating leader like Stalin would have demanded the Japanese reciprocate by attacking the Soviets. In the end by declaring war on America and the Soviets 6 months earlier, Hitler had turned a commanding position into a fight for NAZI Germany's survival.
Boyd, Carl. Hitler's Japanese Confidant: General Oshima Hiroshi and MAGIC Intelligence, 1941–1945 (University Press of Kansas, 1993).
Feis, Joachim C. Hitler (Vintage, 1974), 844p.
Günther, Hans Friedrich Karl. Die Nordische Rasse bei den Indogermanen Asiens (1934).
Haushofer, Karl Ernst Nikolas. Dai Nihon/Great Japan (1918)
Haushofer, Karl Ernst Nikolas. GeoPolitik des Paziffischen Ozeans/Geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean) (1925).
McGinnis. Cryptolog.
Martin. Bernd. Japan and Germany in the Modern World (Providence, 1995).
Meskill, Johanna Menzel. Hitler & Japan: The Hollow Alliance (New York, 1966).
Morton, Louis. Morton, The War in the Pacfic-Strategy and Command: The First Two Years (Washington, 1962).
Mueller-Hillebrand, Burkhart. Germany and Its Allies in World War II: A Record of Axis Collaboration Problems, (Frederick, 1980).
Presseisen, Ernst L. Germany and Japan: A Study in Totalitarian Diplomacy 1933-1941 (New York, 1969).
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