8 - Japan in Voluntary Associations

Summary

Chapter 8 analyzes the influence that voluntary associations exercised in maintaining German-Japanese relations. Because the Weimar Republic did not pursue vigorous diplomacy vis-à-vis Japan, German civil society had to manage relations through voluntary associations. In the 1920s and early 1930s, the individuals guiding the groups mostly concerned themselves with cultural and scholarly ties with Japan; the few activists agitating for political convergence operated in the margins. The ascent of Nazism triggered structural and ideological changes in Japanese studies in Germany. On the one hand, the most relentlessly political organization was given unprecedented opportunities to promote Japan and insert itself in Japan-related affairs. On the other, Nazification introduced rank amateurs to its leadership positions, politicized knowledge of Japan, and prioritized dogmatism and party loyalty over truth and pragmatism. Through this duality, voluntary associations illustrate more clearly than other forms of media the possibilities and limits of transnational Nazism’s accommodation of and identification with Japan.