Nach Nürnberg und Tokio: "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" in Japan und Westdeutschland 1945 bis 1968 (Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 89)

by Manfred Kittel

In Nürnberg und Tokio standen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg die Hauptrepräsentanten des Nationalsozialismus und des japanischen Ultranationalismus vor Gericht und mussten sich wegen der von beiden Diktaturen verübten Massenverbrechen verantworten. In der Folgezeit tat sich Japan noch schwerer damit als Westdeutschland, seine Vergangenheit zu "bewältigen". Dies lag nicht allein daran, dass die Verbrechen nur teilweise vergleichbar waren und der Tennô in Tokio nicht auf die Anklagebank kam. Vielmehr konnten die Japaner nach dem apokalyptischen Schock der Atombomben auf Hiroshima und Nagasaki einen Opferstatus für sich reklamieren, der die japanischen Verbrechen im Weltkrieg lange Zeit verdeckte, während sich den Deutschen, trotz Bombenkrieg und Vertreibung, eine solche Ausflucht nicht eröffnete. Überdies war die Insel im Fernen Osten als allein auf die USA gestütztes Bollwerk gegen den ostasiatischen Kommunismus erinnerungskulturell einem viel geringeren Außendruck ausgesetzt als die in eine internationale Wirtschafts- und Verteidigungsgemeinschaft eingebundene Bundesrepublik. Manfred Kittel untersucht ferner die Bedeutung der inneren Kräfte - der konservativen Regierung und der linken Opposition, der Medien und der Geschichtswissenschaft - im Umgang mit den Lasten der bei der Ahndung von Kriegs- und Gewaltverbrechen, bei der "Wiedergutmachung" für die Opfer und der Entwicklung der politischen Kultur in einer shintôistisch bzw. protestantisch geprägten Erinnerungslandschaft bis hin zur Studentenbewegung der 1960er Jahre.

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 24, 2004

Reviews

[Marino · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting comparison of Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Japan and Germany. The bulk of the book is about the period between 1945 and 1968, but the author also dedicates a chapter to the decades after that.

He makes various arguments to explain why these countries differ so much with regards to how they have dealt with their recent past. Amongst others: the different roles and attitudes of neighbouring countries and especially the US, the presence of critical returnee refugees and victims of persecution in West-Germany versus the relative lack thereof in Japan, the transformation of German conservatism and the continuities of its Japanese counterpart, the huge cultural impact of the nuclear bomb versus the much smaller impact of the bombings of Germany, the differences in the nature of their respective war crimes (the Holocaust being unique), the death of Hitler versus the survival of the emperor and so on.

Especially interesting is his emphasis on the different macrocultural traditions of Germany and Japan. He argues that protestantism shapes a 'culture of guilt' whilst shinto forms a 'culture of shame'. The consequence of this is that German protestants attempted to confess and then atone for their sins, whilst the Japanese wanted to protect their fallen soldiers from a continued existence (sprititually) in a state of shame. Similarly the Japanese therefore leant towards forgiving former war criminals so long as they expressed some outward regret. Many high ranking imperial politicans and journalists then returned to their posts.

The author problematises this thesis somewhat, for example by admitting that it is a generalisation. On the last pages he however brings up this argument again, essentially as the main factor explaining the differences between West-Germany and Japan. He seemingly exculpates the Japanese for their treatment of history, arguing that we cannot expect them to deal with their history in the same way westerners do. By doing so we would, apparently, be enforcing our standards upon them.

This is not wholly convincing to me because I think that nationalism goes quite a long way in explaining the Japanese attitude towards their history. Their wilfull forgetfulness, lies and actual justification of past crimes are not unique to East Asia. Germany was at the time this book was written (and even now) quite unique in the way it dealt with the violent episodes of its history (compared for example to how other countries treat their colonial past) in spite of the fact that plenty of European countries have protestant cultural foundations. Nationalism is at the core a European ideology which later spread across the world, so I do not see why we should not judge the Japanese by the same standards as we do Europeans.

I am also not familiar enough with the process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung in West-Germany to judge the strength of his argument about the emptiness of the movement of '68. He has a rather submissive attitude towards the contributions of the student movements, arguing that West-Germany had already been dealing with its past sufficiently well beforehand and tarring many of the critics as Marxists. Perhaps he is right, but I should read more about the topic.