The engines of militarism and ultranationalism drove World War II to the depths of darkness in human history. The wars in Europe and Asia shared aspects of ultranationalism and yet were dissimilar in how these nations arrived at World War II and how they reacted afterwards. There is no question as to whether ultranationalist motives and racial myths insinuated human rights violations. However, war guilt remains a controversial and unsettled issue today. While ideas of glorification, racial superiority, and genocide were implemented collectively by Germany and Japan, victimization distinguishes these nations as Germany suffers admittance and guilt even as Japan diffuses and claims exaggeration in retrospect to war guilt due to harm inflicted.
…show more content…
I discern the years building up to the war and armament demonstrate revolution versus gradual glorification from imperialism. The Weimar republic was tossed out of power without a backward glance as the National Socialist Party revolutionized Germany in just a few meteoric years with Hitler at its head. The dictatorship withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933, with rearmament beginning in 1934, and began its Anschluss of former German and Austrian-Hungarian territories (Lecture 13, October 29) producing a spectacular rise in Hitler’s popularity. Rearmament and dismantling the Treaty of Versailles carried Germany out of economic depression. Germany under the Nazi party reinstated its former power as neighbouring countries cringed in fear and appeasement of Hitler’s Germany. Distress gave rise to extremism and ultranationalism in Germany. The spur of events in Germany differs greatly from Japan’s gradual transition from the Meiji era to the Taisho era. In Japan, there was no spark that empowered the nation to greatness. The Meiji era (1868-1912) …show more content…
By placing blame of the country’s misfortunes on ‘subhumans such as Jews, gays, slavs, and romas…’ (Lecture 18, November 19), Nazi Germany was able sabotage these minorities as scapegoats. The Aryan was the greatest breed of humanity and all other human beings were therefore racially inferior. The ‘Jewish problem’, Lebensraum, and Anschluss therefore became essential in the unity of the Aryan race. In having a common domestic enemy, Germany united in the name of racial purity to cleanse itself of the inferior races infecting Aryan society. The extremism of Japanese superiority (while not to be nullified) differed in its purpose to that of the audacity of Aryanism, which ultimately lead to systematic genocide in the crusade for racial purity.
The immorality by both sides of the war was appalling. Both Japan and Germany performed acts of genocide. Nazi Germany’s rationale for the Holocaust was racial purity and elimination of the Jewish ‘enemy’. The justification hailed in the Nazi press for Kristallnacht on November 10, 1938 was, “A spontaneous wave of righteous indignation throughout Germany, as the result of the cowardly Jewish murder of Third Secretary von Rath in the Germany embassy at Paris.” (Kinney, p.
I discern the years building up to the war and armament demonstrate revolution versus gradual glorification from imperialism. The Weimar republic was tossed out of power without a backward glance as the National Socialist Party revolutionized Germany in just a few meteoric years with Hitler at its head. The dictatorship withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933, with rearmament beginning in 1934, and began its Anschluss of former German and Austrian-Hungarian territories (Lecture 13, October 29) producing a spectacular rise in Hitler’s popularity. Rearmament and dismantling the Treaty of Versailles carried Germany out of economic depression. Germany under the Nazi party reinstated its former power as neighbouring countries cringed in fear and appeasement of Hitler’s Germany. Distress gave rise to extremism and ultranationalism in Germany. The spur of events in Germany differs greatly from Japan’s gradual transition from the Meiji era to the Taisho era. In Japan, there was no spark that empowered the nation to greatness. The Meiji era (1868-1912) …show more content…
By placing blame of the country’s misfortunes on ‘subhumans such as Jews, gays, slavs, and romas…’ (Lecture 18, November 19), Nazi Germany was able sabotage these minorities as scapegoats. The Aryan was the greatest breed of humanity and all other human beings were therefore racially inferior. The ‘Jewish problem’, Lebensraum, and Anschluss therefore became essential in the unity of the Aryan race. In having a common domestic enemy, Germany united in the name of racial purity to cleanse itself of the inferior races infecting Aryan society. The extremism of Japanese superiority (while not to be nullified) differed in its purpose to that of the audacity of Aryanism, which ultimately lead to systematic genocide in the crusade for racial purity.
The immorality by both sides of the war was appalling. Both Japan and Germany performed acts of genocide. Nazi Germany’s rationale for the Holocaust was racial purity and elimination of the Jewish ‘enemy’. The justification hailed in the Nazi press for Kristallnacht on November 10, 1938 was, “A spontaneous wave of righteous indignation throughout Germany, as the result of the cowardly Jewish murder of Third Secretary von Rath in the Germany embassy at Paris.” (Kinney, p.