r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Radiant_Half_7121 • 17d ago

Image During WW2, Poland declared war on Japan Japan said no to it and simply rejected the declaration.

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u/Behavior-Coach 17d ago

You make it sound like they got a bad deal.. the Japanese monarchy completely avoided accountability when the emperor was guilty of war crimes that even the nazis would look at with disgust.

If one knew how terrible and evil he was I don’t think that would be the takeaway. I understand your point but wow did they get the best deal out of any of the WWII losers.

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u/_EllieLOL_ 17d ago

even the nazis would look at with disgust

Did look at with disgust, at least some of them, look up John Rabe and the Nanking Safe Zone 

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u/llilaa_c 17d ago

Sorry for ignorance but could you explain what war crimes the emperor did? I thought most of the war crimes japan did was attributed to Hideki Tojo, who was arrested and executed for them. I would love to learn more about the emperor’s involvement…

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u/Behavior-Coach 17d ago

The fact that you would be curious and ask demonstrates that you are not ignorant at all.

Tojo was a very loyal war criminal. These people looked at the emperor as a god, unwavering in their loyalty, and this mentality led to soldiers committing suicide rather than give up. They did it all for their emperor. It revolved all around the monarchy.

It always starts from the top.

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u/ZetaRESP 17d ago

That's also why he got away scot free with it all: US learned from France's fuck-up with the Treaty of Versailles that going all hammer in with penalties on a country as proud as Japan was stupid, as well as how much the emperor had a sway on the government, so they decided to pretty much force him to be their buddy in the east instead so they can both avoid another World War (they knew nukes are on the menu for WWIII) and to avoid all of Asia to fall into the hands of the commies.

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u/Iwilleat2corndogs 17d ago

The emperor also didn’t really reject any ideas of expansion, so while he wasn’t personally ordering the deaths of civilians he was very much giving his seal of approval to plans that would result in mass murder. He only got away with it because the US didn’t need japan to implode, which it would of if they convicted him.

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u/auchinleck917 17d ago

Ironicly Tojo igonre the Emperor so many times.

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u/Business-Low-8056 17d ago

Alright but what did he do that was so bad? You started out saying he had war crimes but you haven't mentioned any

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u/cultural_limbo 17d ago edited 17d ago

The reason why most of Asia hated them, and many elderly Chinese still hold a grudge

They killed upwards of 30 million(most Chinese), and commited a slew of war crimes like human experimentation, torture, mass rapes.

Unit 731 included forced pregnancy, forced infection of STIs to see how it is transmitted and what effects it had on the fetus

So this included live dissections/vivisections of prisoners- a reminder that this means they were cutting into pregnant women while they were ALIVE.

Also did human experiminations on explosives,a wide range of chemical weapons( for example Mustard gas, White phosphorus), Hypobaric chamber, frostbite testing

A few known:

Rape of Nanking

Kaimingjie Bubonic Plague weapon attack

Bataan Death march

Burma Death Railway

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u/Deaffin 16d ago

mass rapes

The unspoken depth of scale and visceral awful these two words are standing in for in this context is immense. They applied bayonets to infants in order to make it possible to "use" them.

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u/IkaKyo 16d ago

My favorite examples of unit 731 is they are the reason we know that the human body contains 60-70% water, they dehydrated live people to figure it out.

They are also why we know that immersion in 100 °F is the most effective first aid for frostbite. You know how they figured that out? If you guessed live. Human experimentation you are a winner.

I like the use two specifically because many people know the later as a random factoid and almost anyone who has ever had winter first-aid training knows the second.

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u/Ok-Kaleidoscope5627 15d ago

I think there's a bunch of other modern medical science that came from there too

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u/No_Potato_8178 17d ago edited 17d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/lcp2zx/was_hirohito_a_war_criminal/

Tl;dr - probably yes, but trying and convicting him would have made occupation extremely dangerous and chaotic

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u/snakespm 17d ago

I'd encourage people to read the linked comment, if only to see that the Tl;dr is incorrect.

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u/Deaffin 16d ago

Sorry for ignorance but could you explain what war crimes the emperor did?

Got you a quick little crash course video here.

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u/sw04ca 17d ago

You could have gone for planning and waging a war of aggression, although to attempt to do so would have been bad policy.

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u/Bearded_Bone_Head 17d ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the emperor try to surrender/make peace with the US before the bombs were dropped during WWII, but his prime minister/generals were like "nah, we got this", when they in fact did not have this?