Japan Or Germany

First study of the fascinating parallelism that characterizes developments in Japan and Germany by one of Germany's leading Japan specialists. With the founding of their respective national states, the Meiji Empire in 1869 and the German Reich in 1871, Japan and Germany entered world politics. Since then both countries have developed in strikingly similar ways, and it is not surprising that these two became close allies during the Second World War, although in the end this proved a "fatal attraction."

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Ethnology / Cultural Anthropology, grade: 88%, Venice International University, 26 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Japan and Germany, two of the most powerful nations in the world, are strongly connected, but still the people in these countries know very few about each other. In this work the reader should get an overview about both countries so that somebody who doesn't hava a good knowledge gets an impression of these countries. In interviews people from both countries were asked what they think about each other, what prejudices they have, how they see the relationship between their countries and which experiences they have made in their own countries. For sure, this can not be seen represantative for all inhabitants, but it gives an impression of the thoughts of younger people in a world, which becomes closer and closer and in which no country can stand isolated. A generalization e.g. "The Germans, or the Japanese do..." isn't adequate, because the scientists cannot say that a whole country behaves equally. Because of the process of globalization it is essential for politicians and managers who work in Japan and reversly to know about the customs in the host country. That is the point, where the work of a modern cultural anthropologist is useful and needed. Imagine a business man from Germany to be in Japan and not knowing why the Japanese bow to greet. Maybe he thinks, the Japanese wants to attack him by running into his stomach? It is difficult to write about a country you have never been to, so the sources are based on the interviewed people, facts written in books and another useful medium is the internet. In order to compare the two countries it is indispensable that the reader knows some facts about the countries. So, in the first part of this paper the aim is to inform the reader about the geographical situation, the political system and the religion in the two countries. The

First study of the fascinating parallelism that characterizes developments in Japan and Germany by one of Germany's leading Japan specialists. With the founding of their respective national states, the Meiji Empire in 1869 and the German Reich in 1871, Japan and Germany entered world politics. Since then both countries have developed in strikingly similar ways, and it is not surprising that these two became close allies during the Second World War, although in the end this proved a "fatal attraction."

In this now classic book, internationally famed journalist Ian Buruma examines how Germany and Japan have attempted to come to terms with their conduct during World War II—a war that they aggressively began and humiliatingly lost, and in the course of which they committed monstrous war crimes. As he travels through both countries, to Berlin and Tokyo, Hiroshima and Auschwitz, he encounters people who are remarkably honest in confronting the past and others who astonish by their evasions of responsibility, some who wish to forget the past and others who wish to use it as a warning against the resurgence of militarism. Buruma explores these contrasting responses to the war and the two countries’ very different ways of memorializing its atrocities, as well as the ways in which political movements, government policies, literature, and art have been shaped by its shadow. Today, seventy years after the end of the war, he finds that while the Germans have for the most part coped with the darkest period of their history, the Japanese remain haunted by historical controversies that should have been resolved long ago. Sensitive yet unsparing, complex and unsettling, this is a profound study of how people face up to or deny terrible legacies of guilt and shame.

Showcasing moments of convergence between the German and Japanese cultures towards common points of interest over the last one hundred fifty years, the chapters in this book cover such topics as culture, diplomacy, geography, history, law, literature, philosophy, politics, and sports. From the creation of two similar modern nation-states, to the aggressive struggle for national supremacy and subsequent total defeat in 1945, the necessity of coping with their earlier militarism and parallel economic miracles in the postwar era, Germans and Japanese look back on a remarkably similar past.

Alliances between sovereign states are among the least stable political associations. Despite professions of fidelity and common purpose, most are effective for only short periods, and only as long as it suits their interests. The German-Japanese alliance of World War II was not so much a marriage of convenience as a long and uneasy engagement. It was maintained because breaking the engagement would have reduced the prestige of each nation-state.Germany and Japan each found the existence and policies of the other convenient. From 1933-1945, both powers challenged the international order; other than this, nothing else united Germany and Japan. Even while they shared some of the same opponents, German and Japanese antagonism toward the Allies involved different objects of contention and questions of timing. Consequently, coordination of German and Japanese policies did not follow.Johanna Menzel Meskill argues that the German-Japanese alliance failed, not only because each power failed separately to attain its goals, but because as allies the powers failed to take advantage of their association. The failure resulted to a large extent from the discordance between their political goals and the means necessary to attain them. This work in diplomatic history is a careful analysis of presuming identities in a world of diplomatic differences.In a new introduction to the book, Thomas Nowotny looks back on the alliance from a historical perspective. He concludes that both parties overestimated the potency and effectiveness of their military power. Like many before and some after, they more generally subscribed to the offensive use of military power and effectiveness that the history of the twentieth centery has proven unwarranted.

Focusing on the post war reconstruction of the education systems in Japan and Germany under U.S. military occupation after World War II, this book offers a comparative historical investigation of education reform policies in these two war ravaged and ideologically compromised countries. While in Japan large-scale reforms were undertaken swiftly after the end of the war, the U.S. zone in Germany maintained most of the traditional aspects of the German education system. Why did Japan so readily accept ideas and values developed in the allied countries while Germany resisted? Masako Shibata explores this question, arguing that the role of the university and the pattern of elite formation, which can be traced back to the period of the formation of Meiji Japan and the Kaiserreich, created the conditions for differing reactions from educational leaders in each country; this had a decisive impact on the proposed reforms. By examining these reactions through a sociological, cultural, and historical frame, an explanation emerges. Japan and Germany under the U.S. Occupation will prove to be a valuable resource both to scholars of history and education reform.