13-12-2009, 03:21 PM
[quote=Helen Reyes]
[QUOTE]IV. THE JAPANESE AND THE JEWISH PROBLEM
The Birth of Japanese anti-Semitism
The Japanese attitude toward Jews was a peculiar mix of admiration for supposed Jewish financial as well as political power, and a fear of "Jewish world conspiracy". The people who, in the 1930s, concerned themselves with the "Jewish problem" were, almost without exception, driven by virulent anti-semitist convictions toward actions that, at the time, invoked accusations of philo-Semitism.
The foundations for the image of Jews as enormously powerful financiers were laid just before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in 1894, when the French banker Albert Kahn helped Japan float a loan to finance the war. Although this did not go unnoticed, and Kahn was hosted by Emperor Meiji and Okuma Shigenobu when he visited Japan in 1909, Kahn's fame was soon to be overshadowed by the actions of the New York banker Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb, and Company. 107 In April 1904, Takahashi Koreikiyo, then vice-governor of the Bank of Japan, and later to become Finance Minister and Prime Minister, was in London in order to try and raise loans to finance the war with Russia, which had started 2 months earlier. He was having great difficulties doing so, because Japan, at that time, was not doing well and it was looked upon as a risky investment. Schiff, however, declared that he was willing to help Japan, motivated by his resentment over the treatment of the Jews by the Russian government, and that he would convince others to do likewise. Schiff helped raise two hundred million dollars, and was later the first non-Japanese to be awarded the 'Order of the Rising Sun'. Schiff's actions were considered as having been crucial to Japan's victory over Russia, and his actions were widely known. 108
Schiff's name was mentioned again at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, as being one of the financiers behind it. During World War I Japan's relations with czarist Russia had improved, and at the time of the Revolution Japan sided with the White Russian counter-revolutionaries. In White Russian propaganda, the Bolshevik movement was depicted as a Jewish conspiracy, a case seemingly corroborated by the well-known Jewishness of people like Trotsky, and Schiff's name was mentioned as one of the powerful Jews that financed the overthrow of the Czar. This notion found a fertile breeding ground in Japan, all the more so because it fit in perfectly with the already existing image of Jews in general, and Schiff in particular. 109
Bolshevism was seen as a great danger in Japan, and in 1918 Japan, at the repeated request of France and the U.S., decided to intervene in the Russian civil war on the White Russians' side. 110 The commander of the anti-communist forces in Siberia was Admiral Alexander Kolchak, notorious for his assaults on Jewish communities. Extreme anti-Semitism existed amongst the White Russian troops, who saw communism as synonymous with Jewishness.
An important part in the White Russian anti-Semitic propaganda was played by a document called "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a forgery that claimed to reveal a Jewish scheme to take over the world. Originally invented to serve the French Right in implicating Alfred Dreyfuss, it had become immensely popular, in an updated 1905 version by Sergei Nilus, amongst the White Russian troops that fouhgt in Siberia, and in the following years it would come to serve as the Bible of anti-Semitism. 111 The "Protocols" did not fail to make an impression on the Japanese military men that made their acquaintance with it.
Four Japanese military men who were participants in the Siberian expedition and whose names were to resurface time after time during the 1920s and '30s in connection with Jewish affairs were: General Shioden Nobutaka, General Higuchi Kiichiro, Captain Inuzaka Koreshige and Colonel Yasue Norihiro. They were all stationed in Siberia as Russian-language experts, and in the years to come they would use this expertise to translate and disseminate anti-Semitca amongst the Japanese.
The first pamphlet in Japanese that quoted from the "Protocols" appeared in Vladivostok, in 1919, and really marked the beginning of anti-Semitism in Japan. 112
The Japanese Handling of the "Jewish Problem"
During the 1920s the Japanese military men that had acquainted themselves with the "Jewish problem" during the Siberian expeditions, further busied themselves with this theme. Being pioneers in this field, they were almost automatically called upon as "Jew-experts" when brushes with Judaism occurred. In the 1920s Japan, having been one of the Four Great Powers to allocate the mandate over Palestine to Britain in 1920, developed some interest in Jewish Settlement Policies in Palestine. Out of rivalry with the Foreign Ministry the Army, in 1926, sent Yasue Norihiro to the scene. He was the Army's expert on Jewish Affairs mainly on the strength of his Siberian experiences and a translation he had made of the "Protocols" in 1924. One of the remarks he made in his report, upon returning, was that "no one so much as whispered a hint about the international conspiracy". 113
After the Japanese seizure of Manchuria, Jewry became somewhat less of an abstraction for the Japanese, as there were now Jewish communities within the Japanese sphere of influence. The number of Jews that had to be dealt with increased again after the Japanese conquest of North China. Also, Hitler's assertion in "Mein Kampf" that there existed a Jewish conspiracy against Japan made an impression on some Japanese, and several "research institutes" on the "Jewish Problem" sprang up. The largest and most influential of these was the International Political and Economical Affairs Study Group which was founded by the Foreign Ministry in 1936, and was headed by Shioden Nobutaka. This "Study Group" published an annual publication called "Research on International Secret Power" 114, to which also the other veterans of the Siberian expedition, Inuzaka Koreshige and Yasue Norihiro, contributed. 115 By that time, Inuzaka and Yasue had become full-fledged experts on the "Jewish Problem", each with a number of publications on his record.
Yasue had published a book simply called "The Jews" in 1934, in which he stated that the League of Nations was under control of the Jews. 116 Believing himself unshakeably in Jewish world power, he deemed it wiser to adopt the pen-name of "Hokoshi", under which name he published works like "The Revelation of a Revolutionary Movement" and "Jewish Control of the World", in which he portrayed once more the Bolshevik Revolution as part of a Jewish plot, and in which he stated that the Jews' influence in France, Great Britain and the U.S. surpassed that of the native people of those countries. 117
Inuzaka had made a translation of the inevitable "Protocols", adding to it some thoughts of his own, explaining how the Jews ahd cunningly been 'masterminding international intrigue'. 118 Furthermore, he delivered lectures and wrote articles on the subject, all under the name of Utsunomiya Kiyo.
Yasue and Inuzaka were convinced of the existence of a Jewish conspiracy, but the lessont hey drew from it differed from their anti-Semitic counterparts in other countries: Instead of destroying this "conspiracy", they wanted to benefit from it.
the premise of the train of thought of men like Inuzaka and Yasue being that there was such a thing as a Jewish conspiracy, the question was how to manipulate this financially and politically powerful entity in a way beneficial to Japan. There was much to be gained.
First of all, a vast capital would be needed to develop Manchuria.
The development of Manchuria had been a recurring theme in a certain section of the military, often identified as the Kodo-ha 119, or Manchurian Faction. In the early 1930s two staff officers of the Kwantung Army, Colonels Ishiwara and Itagaki, together with a businessman called Ayukawa Gisuke, came up with a plan in which the development of Manchuria played a key-role. In the wake of this plan, a request was made to the Japanese government as early as 1934, to permit 50,000 Germans to settle in Manchuria. 120 The supporters of this plan later constituted what, to some, came to be known as the Manchurian Faction. 121
Secondly, Japan was still, to a large degree, dependent on Great Britain and the U.S., who, of late, and especially after the conclusion of the Anti-Comintern Pact, had not been favorably inclined towards Japan's policies. Securing the goodwill of the Jews, now, could change all this.
One of the steps to be taken was to treat the Jews that were under Japanese jurisdiction well, and making sure that it was being noticed by the rest of the world.
Recommendations to this effect were made throughout the 1930s by the military authorites in Manchuria. 122
On December 6th, 1938, this resulted in the formulation of the following policies by the secret "Five Ministers Conference" 123:
"Our diplomatic ties with Germany and Italy require that we avoid embracing the Jewish people, in light of their rejection by our allies. But we should not reject them as they do because of our declared policy of racial equality, and their rejection would therefore be contrary to our spirit. This is particularly true in light of our need for foreign capital and our desire not to alienate America."
The following provisions were made:
"1. At present we will not reject the Jews presently living in Japan, Manchuria and China and we will treat them equally with other foreigners.
2. Jews to enter Japan, etc. in the future will be treated under the same entry as other foreigners.
3. We will not extend a special invitation to Jews to come to our territories, but capitalists and engineers will be mentioned". 124
These policies were never made public, and the only official public statement referring to the existence of such policies was made by Foreign Minister Arita in the Upper House of the Diet on February 27th 1939. 125
It was the "Siberian-veterans" General Higuchi Kiichiro, the chief of the Kwantung Army Special Branch, and Colonel Yasue Norihiro, as Chief of the Dairen Military Mission, who were responsible for the implementation of these policies in Manchuria. 126 Higuchi and Yasue created and sponsored the Far Eastern Jewish Council, with Yasue as its liaison officer, and also sponsored the Far Eastern Jewish Conference that was held in Harbin in 1937, '38 and '39, in order to attract Jewish capital and know-how to Manchuria. The President of the Far Eastern Jewish Council, Dr. Kaufman, was invited to Tokyo, where he met with Home Minister Kido Koichi and Finance Minister Ikeda, who promised a favorable treatment for the Jews. 127
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for posting this Helen, it's fascinating material.
On the Bircher front, it is a fact that the man (an American named Bob Curtis) who was hired by Ferdinand Marcos to modify the metallurgical fingerprint of all the gold he was recovering (for laundering purposes) from those numerous stashes made there by the Japanese Golden Lilly plunder teams during the war was initially funded in his efforts by the John Birch Society. I mention this only to demonstrate the depth of the continuing connections (as I certainly don't want to divert this thread from its central thrust).
Thanks again.
[QUOTE]IV. THE JAPANESE AND THE JEWISH PROBLEM
The Birth of Japanese anti-Semitism
The Japanese attitude toward Jews was a peculiar mix of admiration for supposed Jewish financial as well as political power, and a fear of "Jewish world conspiracy". The people who, in the 1930s, concerned themselves with the "Jewish problem" were, almost without exception, driven by virulent anti-semitist convictions toward actions that, at the time, invoked accusations of philo-Semitism.
The foundations for the image of Jews as enormously powerful financiers were laid just before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in 1894, when the French banker Albert Kahn helped Japan float a loan to finance the war. Although this did not go unnoticed, and Kahn was hosted by Emperor Meiji and Okuma Shigenobu when he visited Japan in 1909, Kahn's fame was soon to be overshadowed by the actions of the New York banker Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb, and Company. 107 In April 1904, Takahashi Koreikiyo, then vice-governor of the Bank of Japan, and later to become Finance Minister and Prime Minister, was in London in order to try and raise loans to finance the war with Russia, which had started 2 months earlier. He was having great difficulties doing so, because Japan, at that time, was not doing well and it was looked upon as a risky investment. Schiff, however, declared that he was willing to help Japan, motivated by his resentment over the treatment of the Jews by the Russian government, and that he would convince others to do likewise. Schiff helped raise two hundred million dollars, and was later the first non-Japanese to be awarded the 'Order of the Rising Sun'. Schiff's actions were considered as having been crucial to Japan's victory over Russia, and his actions were widely known. 108
Schiff's name was mentioned again at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, as being one of the financiers behind it. During World War I Japan's relations with czarist Russia had improved, and at the time of the Revolution Japan sided with the White Russian counter-revolutionaries. In White Russian propaganda, the Bolshevik movement was depicted as a Jewish conspiracy, a case seemingly corroborated by the well-known Jewishness of people like Trotsky, and Schiff's name was mentioned as one of the powerful Jews that financed the overthrow of the Czar. This notion found a fertile breeding ground in Japan, all the more so because it fit in perfectly with the already existing image of Jews in general, and Schiff in particular. 109
Bolshevism was seen as a great danger in Japan, and in 1918 Japan, at the repeated request of France and the U.S., decided to intervene in the Russian civil war on the White Russians' side. 110 The commander of the anti-communist forces in Siberia was Admiral Alexander Kolchak, notorious for his assaults on Jewish communities. Extreme anti-Semitism existed amongst the White Russian troops, who saw communism as synonymous with Jewishness.
An important part in the White Russian anti-Semitic propaganda was played by a document called "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a forgery that claimed to reveal a Jewish scheme to take over the world. Originally invented to serve the French Right in implicating Alfred Dreyfuss, it had become immensely popular, in an updated 1905 version by Sergei Nilus, amongst the White Russian troops that fouhgt in Siberia, and in the following years it would come to serve as the Bible of anti-Semitism. 111 The "Protocols" did not fail to make an impression on the Japanese military men that made their acquaintance with it.
Four Japanese military men who were participants in the Siberian expedition and whose names were to resurface time after time during the 1920s and '30s in connection with Jewish affairs were: General Shioden Nobutaka, General Higuchi Kiichiro, Captain Inuzaka Koreshige and Colonel Yasue Norihiro. They were all stationed in Siberia as Russian-language experts, and in the years to come they would use this expertise to translate and disseminate anti-Semitca amongst the Japanese.
The first pamphlet in Japanese that quoted from the "Protocols" appeared in Vladivostok, in 1919, and really marked the beginning of anti-Semitism in Japan. 112
The Japanese Handling of the "Jewish Problem"
During the 1920s the Japanese military men that had acquainted themselves with the "Jewish problem" during the Siberian expeditions, further busied themselves with this theme. Being pioneers in this field, they were almost automatically called upon as "Jew-experts" when brushes with Judaism occurred. In the 1920s Japan, having been one of the Four Great Powers to allocate the mandate over Palestine to Britain in 1920, developed some interest in Jewish Settlement Policies in Palestine. Out of rivalry with the Foreign Ministry the Army, in 1926, sent Yasue Norihiro to the scene. He was the Army's expert on Jewish Affairs mainly on the strength of his Siberian experiences and a translation he had made of the "Protocols" in 1924. One of the remarks he made in his report, upon returning, was that "no one so much as whispered a hint about the international conspiracy". 113
After the Japanese seizure of Manchuria, Jewry became somewhat less of an abstraction for the Japanese, as there were now Jewish communities within the Japanese sphere of influence. The number of Jews that had to be dealt with increased again after the Japanese conquest of North China. Also, Hitler's assertion in "Mein Kampf" that there existed a Jewish conspiracy against Japan made an impression on some Japanese, and several "research institutes" on the "Jewish Problem" sprang up. The largest and most influential of these was the International Political and Economical Affairs Study Group which was founded by the Foreign Ministry in 1936, and was headed by Shioden Nobutaka. This "Study Group" published an annual publication called "Research on International Secret Power" 114, to which also the other veterans of the Siberian expedition, Inuzaka Koreshige and Yasue Norihiro, contributed. 115 By that time, Inuzaka and Yasue had become full-fledged experts on the "Jewish Problem", each with a number of publications on his record.
Yasue had published a book simply called "The Jews" in 1934, in which he stated that the League of Nations was under control of the Jews. 116 Believing himself unshakeably in Jewish world power, he deemed it wiser to adopt the pen-name of "Hokoshi", under which name he published works like "The Revelation of a Revolutionary Movement" and "Jewish Control of the World", in which he portrayed once more the Bolshevik Revolution as part of a Jewish plot, and in which he stated that the Jews' influence in France, Great Britain and the U.S. surpassed that of the native people of those countries. 117
Inuzaka had made a translation of the inevitable "Protocols", adding to it some thoughts of his own, explaining how the Jews ahd cunningly been 'masterminding international intrigue'. 118 Furthermore, he delivered lectures and wrote articles on the subject, all under the name of Utsunomiya Kiyo.
Yasue and Inuzaka were convinced of the existence of a Jewish conspiracy, but the lessont hey drew from it differed from their anti-Semitic counterparts in other countries: Instead of destroying this "conspiracy", they wanted to benefit from it.
the premise of the train of thought of men like Inuzaka and Yasue being that there was such a thing as a Jewish conspiracy, the question was how to manipulate this financially and politically powerful entity in a way beneficial to Japan. There was much to be gained.
First of all, a vast capital would be needed to develop Manchuria.
The development of Manchuria had been a recurring theme in a certain section of the military, often identified as the Kodo-ha 119, or Manchurian Faction. In the early 1930s two staff officers of the Kwantung Army, Colonels Ishiwara and Itagaki, together with a businessman called Ayukawa Gisuke, came up with a plan in which the development of Manchuria played a key-role. In the wake of this plan, a request was made to the Japanese government as early as 1934, to permit 50,000 Germans to settle in Manchuria. 120 The supporters of this plan later constituted what, to some, came to be known as the Manchurian Faction. 121
Secondly, Japan was still, to a large degree, dependent on Great Britain and the U.S., who, of late, and especially after the conclusion of the Anti-Comintern Pact, had not been favorably inclined towards Japan's policies. Securing the goodwill of the Jews, now, could change all this.
One of the steps to be taken was to treat the Jews that were under Japanese jurisdiction well, and making sure that it was being noticed by the rest of the world.
Recommendations to this effect were made throughout the 1930s by the military authorites in Manchuria. 122
On December 6th, 1938, this resulted in the formulation of the following policies by the secret "Five Ministers Conference" 123:
"Our diplomatic ties with Germany and Italy require that we avoid embracing the Jewish people, in light of their rejection by our allies. But we should not reject them as they do because of our declared policy of racial equality, and their rejection would therefore be contrary to our spirit. This is particularly true in light of our need for foreign capital and our desire not to alienate America."
The following provisions were made:
"1. At present we will not reject the Jews presently living in Japan, Manchuria and China and we will treat them equally with other foreigners.
2. Jews to enter Japan, etc. in the future will be treated under the same entry as other foreigners.
3. We will not extend a special invitation to Jews to come to our territories, but capitalists and engineers will be mentioned". 124
These policies were never made public, and the only official public statement referring to the existence of such policies was made by Foreign Minister Arita in the Upper House of the Diet on February 27th 1939. 125
It was the "Siberian-veterans" General Higuchi Kiichiro, the chief of the Kwantung Army Special Branch, and Colonel Yasue Norihiro, as Chief of the Dairen Military Mission, who were responsible for the implementation of these policies in Manchuria. 126 Higuchi and Yasue created and sponsored the Far Eastern Jewish Council, with Yasue as its liaison officer, and also sponsored the Far Eastern Jewish Conference that was held in Harbin in 1937, '38 and '39, in order to attract Jewish capital and know-how to Manchuria. The President of the Far Eastern Jewish Council, Dr. Kaufman, was invited to Tokyo, where he met with Home Minister Kido Koichi and Finance Minister Ikeda, who promised a favorable treatment for the Jews. 127
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for posting this Helen, it's fascinating material.
On the Bircher front, it is a fact that the man (an American named Bob Curtis) who was hired by Ferdinand Marcos to modify the metallurgical fingerprint of all the gold he was recovering (for laundering purposes) from those numerous stashes made there by the Japanese Golden Lilly plunder teams during the war was initially funded in his efforts by the John Birch Society. I mention this only to demonstrate the depth of the continuing connections (as I certainly don't want to divert this thread from its central thrust).
Thanks again.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14