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The Berlin–Tokyo Axis and Japanese Military Initiative

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Carl Boyd
Carl Boyd
Affiliation:
Old Dominion University
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Extract

The initial alignment, by means of the Anti-Comintern Pact, of the Japanese government with the Third Reich in 1936 was made possible by the extraordinary activities of Ōshima Hiroshi, then military attaché to Berlin. Colonel Ōshima, whose diplomatic role far transcended his early rank and authority, moved from the rank of Colonel and position of attaché in 1934 to Lieutenant General and Ambassador by 1938. Ōshima, both daring and enterprising, had the full support of his military superiors and certain pro-Axis Japanese; thus his role in Germany proved crucial to the making of major changes in Japanese foreign policy. He both represented and expressed military and totalitarian tendencies in the Japanese army, government, and society, helping those tendencies to reach dominance in Japan by 1940.

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Articles
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , April 1981 , pp. 311 - 338
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

The author wishes to thank the School of Arts and Letters, Old Dominion University, for a grant supporting research on this article, a revision of my paper presented in Chicago at the Inter-University Seminar National Biennial Conference, October 20–22, 1977. For valuable criticisms of that IUS paper I am indebted to Stanley L. Falk, now Deputy Chief Historian for Southeast Asia, Center of Military History, Washington, D.C. Parts of this article appear in somewhat different form in my work The Extraordinary Envoy: General Hiroshi Ōshima and Diplomacy in the Third Reich, 1934–1939 (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1980). In accordance with Japanese usage, Japanese names are given in this article with the surname first, and a macron is used over a long vowel in all Japanese words except well-known place names, e.g., Tokyo. In quoted passages and source citations the practice of the publisher is followed.

1 Office of Naval Intelligence File, Naval Attaché Reports, 1886–1939, No. 7010, R-1-a; No. 6452, P-10–1; No. 6452-Q, P-10–1; No. 6452-R, P-10–1; and No. 13147-A, U-1-b, National Archives, Washington, D.C., Record Group 38. Hereafter these naval records in the National Archives are cited as ONI Reports, 1886–1939, NA, followed by the record group (RG) number.

2 Ōshima Hiroshi to author, 11 July 1969 and International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Exhibit 121 (Ōshima military record) (hereafter cited as IMTFE). Ōshima was graduated with distinction from these three military institutions in 1902, 1905, and 1915. His dates of rank were as follows: second lieutenant (June 1906), first lieutenant (June 1909), captain (May 1916), major (January 1922), lieutenant colonel (August 1926), colonel (August 1930), major general (March 1935), and lieutenant general (March 1938). Ōshima's rate of promotion to colonel was slightly better than the average rate of his contemporaries and graduation from the Army War College (Rikugun daigakkō) practically assured him of an eventual general officer grade. See Heigo [Military terms and the organization of the imperial Japanese army] (n. p. [U.S. Army?]), n.d. (1942?]), pp. 186, 190, 194–7.

3 Hayashi, Saburō and Coox, Alvin D., Kōgun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War (Quantico, Va.: Marine Corps Association, 1959), pp. 220–41.Google Scholar Japanese army officers who were lieutenant colonels, colonels, or junior major generals were eligible because of seniority for head attaché duty in major nations in the 1930s. Professor Coox has compiled biographical data concerning 91 officers mentioned in Kōgun, of whom 54 were approximately of Ōshima's grade in March 1934. All of the latter number had graduated from the Military Academy, almost all had graduated from the Army War College, and 41 had military experience in Europe before 1934. At least 20 of those with European experience in this random and incomplete sampling had served specifically in Germany.

4 In 1896 the elder Ōshima attended the coronation of Czar Nicholas II as an aide to then General Count Yamagata Aritomo, the father of the modern Japanese Army. Earlier in the decade Ōshima and Kan'in had studied at the Ecole de Guerre (Ōshima also studied in Germany) and during the Boer War they toured Europe, dining with Queen Victoria, with whom Ōshima conversed in German and Kan'in in French. Kan'in, granduncle to then Crown Prince Hirohito, accompanied the heir apparent to Europe in 1921; the elder Oshima was a member of the Imperial Diet in the 1930s and of the Privy Council throughout the Second World War. After Kan'in resigned as Chief of the Army General Staff in 1940, he remained close to the throne and personally carried the Emperor's surrender order to several army and navy units in 1945.

5 See Vagts, Alfred, The Military Attaché (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), particularly ch. 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 IMTFE, Exhibit 3508 (Ōshima affidavit).

7 Captain Rowan, Hugh W., assistant military attaché, American Embassy, Berlin, to Military Intelligence Division, Office of Chief of Staff, War Department, 17 May 1934, ONI Reports, 1886–1939, No. 13147.A, U-1-b, NA, RG 38.Google Scholar

8 Ibid. Rowan was convinced that ‘the Japanese Military Attaché is being given access to important technical information in possession of the German army’ (Ibid.). The growing technical and economic needs of Hitler's armed forces soon rendered the small armaments office obsolete. Not long after Rowan's report was filed, Colonel, later General, Georg Thomas headed a new office for Wehrwirtschaft- und Waffenwesen. Through an elaborate military economic staff system he would become largely responsible for organizing Germany's peacetime economy toward the requirements of war. In addition to considerable naval and air strength, by May 1939 land forces of the Third Reich ‘had been increased from seven to fifty-one divisions, compared with an expansion from forty-three to fifty divisions in the period from 1898 to 1914’. Bullock, Alan, Hitler, A Study in Tyranny, rev. edn (New York: Har er and Row, Harper Torchbooks, 1964), p. 511. See alsoGoogle ScholarRosinski, Herbert, The German Army (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), pp. 228–9, andGoogle ScholarThomas, Georg, Geschichte der deutschen Wehr- und Rüstungswirtschafi (1918–1943/45) (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1966), particularly pp. 2–3, 51–68.Google Scholar

9 IMTFE, Proceedings, pp. 28, 839–40 (Hashimoto) and pp. 33, 884–94 (Matsui). Japanese military attachés in the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, Poland, Austria, Italy, and Turkey attended the Berlin conference. It included some figures important in the events leading to the Second World War. For example, Lieutenant Colonel Hashimoto Kingorō, military attaché in Turkey, was sentenced to life imprisonment at the postwar Tokyo trial for his part in the 1937 ‘rape of Nanking,’ sinking of the U.S.S. Panay, and shelling of H.M.S. Ladybird. Matsui, Hashimoto's commander-in-chief in China, was sentenced to death. A Japanese scholar has recently written that while Ōshima was military attaché in Vienna (February 1923–November 1934) he ‘worked primarily on Russian espionage activities’. Miyake, Masaki, Nichi–Doku–I sangoku dōmei no kenkyū [A study on the tripartite alliance Berlin–Rome–Tokyo] (Tokyo: Nansō-sha, 1975), p. 43.Google Scholar I have not read this elsewhere and Professor Miyake offers no documentation for the specific point; nor is Ōshima's military record of any help. Ōshima had served in Siberia from August 1918 to February 1919 and it is probable that he had considerable experience with Soviet intelligence matters. See Voigt, Walter, ‘Begegnung mit Hauptmann Oshima in Sibirien 1918,’ Das Deutsche Rote Kreuz, 7 (02 1943): 32–3.Google Scholar

10 It was believed in the Japanese Army General Staff that German military intelligence on the Soviet Union was excellent at the time of Ōshima's appointment. Therefore, it was not unusual that a General Staff intelligence officer, Colonel Iinuma Minoru, should privately request (irai) the new military attaché to explore the possibility of working with the Germans in Soviet intelligence matters. The request was made informally, almost by way of a suggestion, before Ōshima left Tokyo in 1934, but the point was not included in his official orders. Ōshima individually took the initiative. See my article entitled ‘The Role of Hiroshi Ōshima in the Preparation of the Anti-Comintern Pact,’ Journal of Asian History, 11, 1 (1977): 49–71.Google ScholarCf.Tokushirō, Ōhata, ‘The Anti-Comintern Pact, 1935–1939,’ trans. Baerwald, Hans H., in Deterrent Diplomacy:Japan, Germany, and the USSR, 1935–1940, ed. Morley, James William (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 23–4.Google Scholar

11 IMTFE, Exhibits 3508 (Ōshima affidavit), 3496 (Kawabe Torashirō affidavit, military attaché in Berlin, October 1938–February 1940), 3493 (Kasahara Yukio affidavit, assistant military attaché in Berlin, January–November 1938), 488 (Ōshima interrogation), and Proceedings, pp. 6,026–28 (memorandum of a conversation between Ōshima Hiroshi and Himmler, Heinrich, 31 January 1939);Google ScholarAbshagen, Karl Heinz, Canaris: Patriot und Weltbürger (Stuttgart: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1950), p. 113;Google ScholarKeitel, Wilhelm, Generalfeldmarschall Keitel: Verbrecher oder Offizier? ed. Görlitz, Walter (Göttingen: Musterschmidt-Verlag, 1961), p. 99; Ōshima to author, 21 November 1966, Ōshima interviewed by John Toland, Chigasaki, 24 March 1971; andGoogle ScholarDocuments on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, 13 vols, ser. D, 1937–1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1961), 1: Doc. Nos 603, 628 (hereafter cited as GD).Google Scholar

12 IMTFE, Exhibit 3508 (Ōshima affidavit).

13 Ibid.

14 Ōshima to author, 7 May 1971 and Ōshima interviewed by John Toland, Chigasaki, 17 January 1967. I am indebted to Mr Toland for a copy of this interview and the one cited in note 11 above. Hack had close connections in Japanese military and business circles. He often lived in Japan in the 1920s when he was also an adviser to the South Manchurian Railway Company. For a brief account of Hack's ceremonial role as a representative of the German–Japanese Society during the Berlin visit of Vice Admiral Matsushita Hajime and officers of his training ship squadron, see J[ ohn] C[ampbell] White, chargé d'affaires ad interim, American Embassy, Berlin, to secretary of state, 15 May 1934, ONI Reports, 1886–1939, No. 11623, U-1-b, NA, RG 38.

15 For a more detailed discussion of the origins of the 1936 German–Japanese Agreement against the Communist International, see my previously cited article on ‘The Role of Hiroshi Ōshima in the Preparation of the Anti-Comintern Pact.’ Ōshima was the prime instigator of the Anti-Comintern Pact. Professor Baerwald in his introduction to the Ōhata essay cited in note 10 above endorses my conclusions: ‘One point emerges with crystal clarity …:it was Ōshima who was the prime instigator of the Anti-Comintern Pact. On this issue all previous commentaries concerning the origins of the pact … have now been superseded’ (p. 4). The valuable translation of the Ōhata essay was published on 29 December 1976, regrettably too late to be cited in my article above, though I made extensive use of the original 1963 Japanese edition.

16 Ōshima to author, 21 November 1966. Ōshima stated that their first meeting was ‘at a luncheon held in March or April 1935.’ See also Miyake, Nichi–Doku–I, p. 44; cf.Ōhata, , ‘The Anti-Comintern Pact,’ p. 24. Ōshima and Ribbentrop met much earlier in 1935 than stated in most scholarly works dealing with the subject. This point is confirmed in the diary of Bella Fromm, a diplomatic columnist for the Ullstein papers, for on 6 1935 she recorded that ‘it seems that Rib[bentrop] and the new Japanese Military Attaché, Ōshima, are pretty thick these days. Something's brewing…some poison cup is being prepared’Google Scholar (Bella, Fromm. Blood and Banquets: A Berlin Social Diary [New York: Harper, 1942], p. 193). The recently discovered Hack Papers have been used byGoogle ScholarMartin, Bernd, ‘Die deutsch–japanischen Bezierhungen während des Dritten Reiches’ in Hitler, Deutschland und die Mächte: Materialien zur Assenpolitik des Dritten Reiches, ed. Funke, Manfred, (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1977), pp. 454–70. They reveal only that Ōshima and Hack discussed German–Japanese collaboration on 17 September 1935 and that by October 4th Ōshima had prepared a draft treaty for Ribbentrop. Martin suggests, however, that presumably the initial Ōshima–Ribbentrop meeting was some time earlier (pp. 460–1).Google Scholar

17 International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, 42 vols (Nuremberg: Secretariat of the Tribunal, 1947–1949), 10:240.Google Scholar

18 Ōshima to author, 7 May 1971. See also Ōhata, ‘The Anti-Comintern Pact,’ p. 24 and IMTFE, Proceedings, pp. 34–77 (Ōshima).

19 ‘Interrogation of Wakamatsu, Tadakazu [Tadaichi], Lt. General,’ IPS 453, 9–10. May 1946, National Archives, Washington, D.C., Record Group 331. Presumably it was at this first meeting that Hitler initially told Ōshima that it was ‘Germany's intention to split up the Soviet Union into several small states.’ Ōshima reminded Hitler of this ‘fall of 1935’ private statement during their September 1944 conversation about Japan's proposal for a German–Russian peace. See ‘Magic’ Diplomatic Summary, SRS, 1420, 9 September 1944, National Archives, Washington, D.C., Record Group 457. On the other hand, there is evidence that on 22 July 1936 Hitler declared to Ōshima that Russia had to be split up into its ‘original historical sections’. Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf, Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik, 1933–1938 (Frankfurt am Main: Alfred Metzner Verlag 1968), pp. 426, 819. In any event, it is reasonable to assume that Ōshima was never reluctant to discuss political matters with Hitler and that his ‘no-aid’ proposal was military only in a very narrow sense.Google Scholar

20 IMTFE, Exhibit 3492 (Wakamatsu affidavit). See also Ōhata, ‘The Anti-Comintern’, p. 25.

21 ‘Interrogation of Wakamatsu,’ IPS 453, 9–10 May 1946, RG 331. See also IMTFE, Exhibit 3492 (Wakamatsu affidavit).

22 Ōhata, ‘The Anti-Comintern Pact,’ p. 29. See also Iklé, Frank William, German–Japanese Relations, 1936–1940 (New York: Bookman Associates, 1956), p. 30.Google Scholar The ambassador, Viscount Mushakōji, was on leave to Japan from July 1935 until he returned to Berlin on 30 April 1936. The absence of the ambassador had no appreciable effect on Ōshima's political negotiations with the Germans. One can safely assume that Ōshima would not have consulted the ambassador just as he did not, in fact, consult Counselor Inoue Kōjirō, chargé d'affaires ad interim. See IMTFE, Proceedings, pp. 35, 408–9 (Yamaji Akira, a junior secretary in the second section of the Foreign Ministry's European–Asiatic Bureau, April 1934–September 1936); p. 35, 643 (Tōgō Shigenori, Director of the Foreign Ministry's European–Asiatic Bureau, March 1933–October 1937); and Presseisen, Ernst L., Germany and Japan: A Study in Totalitarian Diplomacy, 1933–1941 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1958), p. 85. (The European–American Bureau was renamed the European–Asiatic Bureau in 1934 when a separate American Bureau was created in the Japanese Foreign Ministry.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Shigemitsu, Mamoru, Japan and Her Destiny: My Struggle for Peace, ed. Piggott, F. S. G., trans. White, Oswald (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1958), p. 124.Google Scholar

24 For the best account of Raumer's work on the proposal and the meeting in Villa Wahnfried, see Sommer, Theo, Deutschland und Japan zwischen den Mächten, 1935–1940 (Tübinger: J. C. B. Mohr, 1962), pp. 26–42.Google Scholar See also Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik, pp. 425–6, and Weinberg, Gerhard L., The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Diplomatic Revolution in Europe, 1933–36 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 342–6.Google Scholar

25 GD, ser. C, 1933–1937 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1957–), 5:Doc. No. 509.

26 Article I of the Secret Additional Agreement to the Agreement against the Communist International: ‘Should one of the High Contracting States become the object of an unprovoked attack or threat by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the other High Contracting State obligates itself to take no measures which would tend to ease the situation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ (GD, D, 1: Doc. No. 463, note 2a).

27 Cited by Byas, Hugh, New York Timescorrespondent in Tokyo,New York Times, 26 1936 11, p. 26.Google Scholar

28 ‘Orthodox Japanese administrative theory places great emphasis on the ringisei, a system whereby reports and proposals are expected to be initiated at the bottom of a bureaucratic pyramid and then to be pumped upward through the chain of command until, when they reach the top, they represent the consensus of the institution which the seniors can do little to influence and are expected to represent’. Morley, James William, introduction to Hosoya Chihiro, ‘The Tripartite Pact, 1939–1940,’ trans. James William Morley, in Deterrent Diplomacy, p. 184.Google Scholar

29 Shigemitsu, Japan and Her Destiny, p. 124.

30 Ōhata, ‘The Anti-Comintern Pact,’ pp. 39–46.

31 The Italians did not participate in the Secret Additional Agreement to the Agreement against the Communist International, nor were they invited. Indeed, the Italian government was not officially informed of the secret supplementary agreement. See Weinberg, Gerhard L., ‘Die geheimen Abkommen zum Antikominternpakt,’ Viertel-jahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 2, 2 (April 1954): 196, andGoogle Scholar Miyake, Nichi–Doku–I, p. 116. Japanese Foreign Minister Arita Hachirō said at a Privy Council meeting in early 1939 that he understood ‘that Italy did not join the secret pact [annexed to the Agreement against the Communist International] because she did not know of its existence’ (IMTFE, Exhibit 491 [minutes of the Privy Council meeting, 22 February 1939]).

32 A new periodical was sponsored by the tripartite powers. In the first issue of Berlin–Rom–Tokio (often written in German, Italian, and Japanese) a tract-like item described the mission of the new nations and emphasized their common purpose and harmonious relations. The piece concluded with a map of Eurasia on which superimposed lines connected the countries involved in the following series of agreements: 1. Conclusion of the German–Japanese Anti-Comintern Agreement: 25 November 1936 2. Italy's accession to the German–Japanese Anti-Comintern Agreement: 6 November 1937 3. Conclusion of the Japanese–Hungarian Cultural Agreement: 15 November 1938 4. Conclusion of the German–Italian Cultural Agreement: 23 November 1938 5. Conclusion of the German–Japanese Cultural Agreement: 25 November 1938 6. Conclusion of the German–Spanish Cultural Agreement: 24 January 1939 7. Joining of Manchukuo in the Anti-Comintern Agreement: 24 February 1939 8. Joining of Hungary in the Anti-Comintern Agreement: 24 February 1939 9. Conclusion of the Italian–Japanese Cultural Agreement: 23 March 1939 10. Joining of Spain in the Anti-Comintern Agreement: 27 March 1939 See ‘Die Sendung der jungen Völker/La missione dei popoli giovani,’ Berlin–Rom–Tokio, 1, 1 (15 05 1939): 11.Google Scholar

33 Auriti to Ciano, 21 January 1938, as cited in Toscano, Mario, The Origins of the Pact of Steel, 2nd edn rev. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), p. 7.Google Scholar See also Miyake, Nichi–Doku–I, pp. 143–8.

34 Ōhata, ‘The Anti-Comintern Pact,’ p. 50.

35 IMTFE, Exhibit 3614 (Narita affidavit).

36 Ibid., Exhibits 3619 (Shudō affidavit), 3620 (Sakaya affidavit) and 3618 (Kasahara affidavit). Major General Kasahara was dispatched to Germany in January 1938 as an officer attached to the Army General Staff. He seems to have had no specific mission at the time, although technically he was one of the assistant military attachés at the embassy. He stayed in Berlin to study the German language and the political situation before his possible appointment as military attaché.

37 Ibid., Exhibit 3619 (Shudō affidavit).

38 Ibid., Proceedings, p. 35,656 (Tōgō).

39 Ibid., Exhibit 3618 (Kasahara affidavit of 23 October 1947).

40 Ibid., Exhibit 3508 (Ōshima affidavit). See also Ibid., 3493 (Kasahara affidavit of 20 September 1947). The five most important members of the government made up the Five Ministers’ Conference: Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and War, Navy, and Finance Ministers.

41 Ibid., Exhibit 3614-A Narita to Tōgō, 6 December 1938); see also Proceedings, pp. 35, 391–92, 35, 401–2 (Narita). Ōshima confirmed his use of Ribberntrop's private airplane in a letter to the author on 7 May 1971.

42 von Weizsäcker, Ernst, Memoirs of Ernst von Weizsäcker, trans. Andrews, John (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1951), p. 201.Google Scholar

43 IMTFE, Exhibit 3508 (Ōshima affidavit). Ōshima's postwar affirmation does not reveal the exact date of the army's September telegram sounding him out about the ambassadorship in Berlin. However, at the end of August, Councilor Usami Uzuhiko recalled later, Tōgō was told by the Foreign Ministry that ‘arrangements should be made for official negotiations through diplomatic channels … the army was notifying Military Attaché Oshima to that effect’ (Ibid., Proceedings, p. 33,754). We know (Exhibit 3646 [Tōgō affidavit]) that Tōgō was appointed Ambassador to the Soviet Union on October 15th and (Exhibit 3523 [Ugaki to Konoye, 16 September 1938]) that the Foreign Minister asked the Prime Minister ‘to obtain the Emperor's approval’ for the appointment of Ōshima ‘to the post of Japanese Ambassador to Germany,’ a matter ‘already arranged with Your Excellency informally’ before September 16th. Thus, it is likely that the army compelled Foreign Minister Ugaki to agree to Ōshima's appointment to ambassador in Berlin before Ugaki's successor, Foreign Minister Arita, asked Tōgō to agree to reassignment to Moscow. A good account of Ugaki's diplomacy and his resignation at the end of September is in Lu, David J., From the Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor: Japan's Entry into World War II (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1961), pp. 36–40.Google Scholar Still very good is Maki's, John M. older work, Japanese Militarism: Its Cause and Cure (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), pp. 219–20. See ‘Magic,’ SRS 1622, 30 March 1945, RG 457 for indications of the reemergence of Ugaki, known as a political moderate, in the affairs of state. War Minister Itagaki broached the matter of Ōshima's appointment to Ugaki as early as July.Google Scholar See The Saionji-Harada Memoirs, 1931–1940: Complete Translation into English (Washington, D.C.: University Publications of America, 1978), pp. 2,154, 2,205, and 2,213, covering diary entries from late June to 7 August 1938. There is also the suggestion, though only by inference, that in mid-July Ōshima believed he was going to be named Ambassador to Germany, for he ‘dispatched Major-General Kasahara Yukio to Japan with the German plan, on the assumption that Kasahara would be made the new military attaché in Germany’ (Ōhata, ‘The Anti-Comintern Pact,’ p. 51).Google Scholar

44 Ōhata, ‘The Anti-Comintern Pact,’ p. 70.

45 IMTFE, Exhibit 3620 (Sakaya affidavit).

46 Ibid., Exhibit 3646 (Tōgō affidavit). Emphasis added.

47 Ibid., Exhibits 3523 (Foreign Minister Ugaki to Prime Minister Konoye, 16 September 1938), 3523-A (Prime Minister Konoye to Foreign Minister Ugaki, 22 September 1938), 3523-B (Foreign Minister Konoye to War Minister Itagaki, 6 October 1938), and 3523-C (War Minister Itagaki to Foreign Minister Konoye, 7 October 1938). These letters concern the proceedings of the Emperor's appointment of Ōshima as ambassador. In early October Prince Konoye held the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister portfolios concurrently. On October 15th Tōgō was officially appointed ambassador to Moscow where he arrived on the 29th.

48 Ōshima to author, 21 November 1966.

49 New York Times, 22 November 1938, p. 6.

50 Ōshima tells this story in Bungei Shunjū (April 1940). ‘Katte kabuto no o wo shimeyo’ [After winning, keep the string tight on your helmet] (Library of Congress, Reel WT [War Trials] 21, International Military Tribunal, Doc. No. 756). See Ehmann, P., Die Sprichwörter und bildlichen Ausdrücke der japanischen Sprache, 2nd edn (Tokyo: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Natur-und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, 1927), p. 133, where the Japanese proverb is rendered in German: ‘Nach dem Siege (muss man) das Helmband fester binden.’Google Scholar

51 It may have been that the Germans felt compelled to emphasize the anti-Western part of the proposed tripartite military pact because Italy's principal aspirations were to be realized at French and British expense. See Toscano, The Origins of the Pact of Steel, p. 63.

52 Ōhata, ‘The Anti-Comintern Pact,’ p. 86. This memorandum of 28 March 1939 applied also to Shiratori Toshio, career diplomat and ardent spokesman for the renovationists in the Foreign Ministry, who was appointed Ambassador to Italy in September 1938. Working closely with his colleague in Berlin, Shiratori's behavior in negotiations with the Italians was extremely pro-Axis and arbitrary.

53 The Japanese political scientist, Masao Maruyama, examined Ōshima's argument at the IMTFE. In response to a question concerning his support of the Tripartite Pact of 1940, Ōshima said: ‘I myself, of course, supported it because it had already been decided as a national policy and was also supported by the Japanese people at large’ (IMTFE, Proceedings, p. 34, 174). Professor Maruyama notes that ‘here is a man who, having contributed to the formulation of a certain plan, uses the new environment and the new state of public opinion brought about by the realization of that plan as a basis for defending his actions’. Maruyama, Masao, Thought and Behavior in Modern Japanese Politics, ed. Morris, Ivan, (expanded edn, London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 104.Google ScholarThe chapter in which this citation appears, ‘Thought and Behaviour Patterns of Japan's Wartime Leaders,’ translated by Morris, Ivan, appears also as a two-part article in Orient/West, 7, 3 (05 1962): 33–45, and 7, 7 (07 1962): 37–53.Google Scholar

54 Ōhata, ‘The Anti-Comintern Pact,’ pp. 90–3, Miyake, Nichi–Doku–I, pp. 180–5, and Saionji-Harada Memoirs, pp. 2,467, 2,475, 2,486–90, and 2,494–97. The best and most detailed account in English of the Emperor's efforts to use his prerogative in diplomacy in the spring of 1939 is Sheldon, Charles D., ‘Japanese Aggression and the Emperor, 1931–1941, from Contemporary Diaries,’ Modern Asian Studies, 10, 1 (1976), especially pp. 14–16. The author observes incisively (p. 15n) that Ōshima ‘and Shiratori functioned less as ambassadors than as traditional go-betweens, by neglecting their roles as communicators between governments and reformulating the positions taken on both sides to make them more acceptable to the other side. In this way, neither government really knew the real position of the other until confronted with proposals which were not of their own making.’ Professor Hosoya calls Ōshima's pattern of diplomatic behavior ‘military diplomacy.’ ‘In “military diplomacy” goals are absolute while means are flexible. A “military diplomat” is like a military leader who must often make arbitrary decisions on the battlefield and carry them out resolutely in order to win. If victorious, his behavior is justified even though he may have ignored instructions from above’.CrossRefGoogle ScholarChihiro, Hosoya, ‘The Role of Japan' Foreign Ministry and Its Embassy in Washington, 1940–1941,’ in Pearl Harbor as History: Japanese-American Relations, 1931–1941, ed. Borg, Dorothy and Okamoto, Shumpei with the assistance of Finlayson, Dale K. A. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), p. 157.Google Scholar

55 GD, D, 6: Doc. No. 426. For a through analysis of the Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, see ‘Birth of the Bilateral Alliance’ and ‘The Pact of Steel’ in Toscano, The Origins of the Pact of Steel, pp. 307–402.

56 Ciano, Galeazzo, The Ciano Diaries, 1939–1943, ed. Gibson, Hugh (New York: Doubleday, 1946), p. 135.Google Scholar

57 See Lu, From the Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor, pp. 54–8, for an insightful discussion of the German–Soviet rapprochement.

58 Article II of the Secret Additional Agreement to the Agreement against the Communist International: ‘For the duration of the present Agreement [five years], the High Contracting States will conclude no political treaties with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics contrary to the spirit of this Agreement without mutual consent’ (GD, D, 1: Doc. No. 463, note 2a).

59 Times (London), 22 09 1939, p. 7.Google Scholar

60 Berlin–Rom–Tokio 1, 7 (15 November 1939): 10, and the Times (London), 26 10 1939, p. 7. Ōshima was given many gifts by his National Socialist friends before leaving Germany. It is not clear from whom among the high-ranking Third Reich officials he received a picture of a swastika, but the following dedication appeared on the frame: ‘To my friend Ambassador Hiroshi Oshima in grateful memory of the years of untiring devotion to the creation of German–Japanese friendship’ (‘Ott, Eugen: Analysis of Documentary Evidence,’ IPS 324, Doc. No. 4045, 25 June 1946, National Archives, Washington, D.C., Record Group 331).Google Scholar

61 New York Times, 10 November 1939, p. 8 and Ibid., 13 December 1939, p. 1.

62 ‘Interrogation of Ott, Eugen,’ IPS 324, 5 March 1947, RG 331.

63 Miyake, Nichi–Doku–I, p. 238.

64 ‘Botschaft des Führers an die japanische Nation,’ Berlin–Rom–Tokio 2, 12 (15 12 1940): 14.Google Scholar

65 See Lu, From the Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor, pp. 106 –19, for a thoughtful account of the negotiations leading to the 1940 Tripartite Pact. See also Haruki, Takeshi, ‘The Tripartite Pact and Soviet Russia: An Attempt at a Quadripartite Pact,’ in Hogaku ronbun shu [A collection of law treatises] (Tokyo: Aoyama Gakuin University, 1964), pp. 1–27.Google Scholar

66 ‘Interrogation of Ott, Eugen,’ IPS 324, 5 March 1947, RG 331.

67 Morley, introduction to Hosoya, ‘The Tripartie Pact,’ in Deterrent Diplomacy, p. 185. In the Tripartite Pact concluded over a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor the Japanese navy and certain anti-Axis allies insisted, contrary to the text of the published treaty, that Japan reserve its independence to decide war. This was accomplished in the secret protocol, a series of letters exchanged in Tokyo between Foreign Minister Matsuoka and German Ambassador Ott, the latter who signed without the authorization or knowledge of the German government. See Morley's explanations and his discussion (pp. 181–90) of Hosoya's seminal essay (pp. 191–257). See also Meskill, Johanna Menzel, Hitler and Japan: The Hollow Alliance (New York: Atherton Press, 1966), esp. pp. 12–25.Google Scholar

68 The text of the Tripartite Pact, in English in the original, is in GD, D, 11: Doc. No. 118.

69 IMTFE, Exhibit 560 (Ott to Ribbentrop, 13 December 1940).

70 See, for instance, ‘Botschafter Oshima an “Berlin–Rom–Tokio”/Un messaggio dell'ambasciatore Oshima,’ Berlin–Rom–Tokio, 3, 2 (15 02 1941): 11–12; ‘Botschafter Oshima beim Führer/L'ambasciatore Oshima ricevuto dal Führer,’Google ScholarIbid., 3, 3 (15 March 1941): 13; and ‘Botschafter Oshimas Ankunft in Berlin,’ Ostasiatische Rundschau, 22, 2 (02 1941): 43–4.Google Scholar

71 Ōshima surrendered to United States armed forces in May 1945. Later that year he was returned to Tokyo to stand trial before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. His indictment included several counts, but he was found guilty only on Count I, over-all conspiracy. Sentenced in November 1948 to life imprisonment, Ōshima was released from Sugamo Prison on parole in December 1955 and granted clemency in April 1958. Ōshima Hiroshi died at his home in Chigasaki, Japan on 6 June 1975. He was 89 years old.