CW: fairly frank discussions of violence, including sexual violence, in some of the worst publicized atrocities with human victims in modern human history. Pretty dark stuff in general.
tl;dr: Imperial Japan did worse things than Nazis. There was probably greater scale of harm, more unambiguous and greater cruelty, and more commonplace breaking of near-universal human taboos.
I think the Imperial Japanese Army is noticeably worse during World War II than the Nazis. Obviously words like “noticeably worse” and “bad” and “crimes against humanity” are to some extent judgment calls, but my guess is that to most neutral observers looking at the evidence afresh, the difference isn’t particularly close.
probably greater scale
of civilian casualties: It is difficult to get accurate estimates of the number of civilian casualties from Imperial Japan, but my best guess is that the total numbers are higher (Both are likely in the tens of millions)
of Prisoners of War (POWs): Germany’s mistreatment of Soviet Union POWs is called “one of the greatest crimes in military history” and arguably Nazi Germany’s second biggest crime. The numbers involved were that Germany captured 6 million Soviet POWs, and 3 million died, for a fatality rate of 50%. In contrast, of all Chinese POWs taken by Japan, 56 survived to the end.
Japan’s attempted coverups of warcrimes often involved attempted total eradication of victims. We see this in both POWs and in Unit 731 (their biological experimental unit, which we will explore later).
more unambiguous and greater cruelty
It’s instructive to compare Nazi Germany human experiments against Japanese human experiments at unit 731 (warning:body horror). Both were extremely bad in absolute terms. However, without getting into the details of the specific experiments, I don’t think anybody could plausibly argue that the Nazis were more cruel in their human experiments, or incurred more suffering. The widespread casualness and lack of any traces of empathy also seemed higher in Imperial Japan:
“Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. There is such a thing as professional curiosity: ‘What would happen if we did such and such?’ What medical purpose was served by performing and studying beheadings? None at all. That was just playing around. Professional people, too, like to play.”
When (Japanese) Unit 731 officials were infected, they immediately went on the experimental chopping block as well (without anesthesia).
more commonplace breaking of near-universal human taboos
I could think of several key taboos that were broken by Imperial Japan but not the Nazis. I can’t think of any in reverse.
Taboo against biological warfare:
To a first approximation, Nazi Germany did not actually do biological warfare outside of small-scale experiments. In contrast, Imperial Japan was very willing to do biological warfare “in the field” on civilians, and estimates of civilian deaths from Japan-introduced plague are upwards of 200,000.
Taboo against mass institutionalized rape and sexual slavery.
While I’m sure rape happened and was commonplace in German-occupied territories, it was not, to my knowledge condoned and institutionalized widely. While there are euphemisms applied like “forced prostitution” and “comfort women”, the reality was that 50,000 − 200,000 women (many of them minors) were regularly raped under the direct instruction of the Imperial Japanese gov’t.
Taboo against cannibalism outside of extreme exigencies.
“Nazi cannibals” is the material of B-movies and videogames, ie approximately zero basis in history. In contrast, Japanese cannibalism undoubtedly happened and was likely commonplace.
We have documented oral testimony from Indian POWs, Australian POWs, American soldiers, and Japanese soldiers themselves.
My rationalist-y friends sometimes ask why the taboo against cannibalism is particularly important.
I’m not sure why, but I think part of the answer is “dehumanization.”
I bring this topic up mostly as a source of morbid curiosity. I haven’t spent that much time looking into war crimes, and haven’t dived into the primary literature, so happy to be corrected on various fronts.
Huh, I didn’t expect something this compelling after I voted disagree on that comment of your from a while ago.
I do think I probably still overall disagree because the holocaust so uniquely attacked what struck me as one of the most important gears in humanity’s engine of progress, which was the jewish community in Europe, and the (almost complete) loss of that seems to me like it has left deeper scars than anything the Japanese did (though man, you sure have made a case that the Japanese WW2 was really quite terrifying).
Don’t really know much about the history here, but I wonder if you could argue that the Japanese caused the CCP to win the Chinese civil war. If so, that might be comparably bad in terms of lasting repercussions.
CW: fairly frank discussions of violence, including sexual violence, in some of the worst publicized atrocities with human victims in modern human history. Pretty dark stuff in general.
tl;dr: Imperial Japan did worse things than Nazis. There was probably greater scale of harm, more unambiguous and greater cruelty, and more commonplace breaking of near-universal human taboos.
I think the Imperial Japanese Army is noticeably worse during World War II than the Nazis. Obviously words like “noticeably worse” and “bad” and “crimes against humanity” are to some extent judgment calls, but my guess is that to most neutral observers looking at the evidence afresh, the difference isn’t particularly close.
probably greater scale
of civilian casualties: It is difficult to get accurate estimates of the number of civilian casualties from Imperial Japan, but my best guess is that the total numbers are higher (Both are likely in the tens of millions)
of Prisoners of War (POWs): Germany’s mistreatment of Soviet Union POWs is called “one of the greatest crimes in military history” and arguably Nazi Germany’s second biggest crime. The numbers involved were that Germany captured 6 million Soviet POWs, and 3 million died, for a fatality rate of 50%. In contrast, of all Chinese POWs taken by Japan, 56 survived to the end.
Japan’s attempted coverups of warcrimes often involved attempted total eradication of victims. We see this in both POWs and in Unit 731 (their biological experimental unit, which we will explore later).
more unambiguous and greater cruelty
It’s instructive to compare Nazi Germany human experiments against Japanese human experiments at unit 731 (warning:body horror). Both were extremely bad in absolute terms. However, without getting into the details of the specific experiments, I don’t think anybody could plausibly argue that the Nazis were more cruel in their human experiments, or incurred more suffering. The widespread casualness and lack of any traces of empathy also seemed higher in Imperial Japan:
“Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. There is such a thing as professional curiosity: ‘What would happen if we did such and such?’ What medical purpose was served by performing and studying beheadings? None at all. That was just playing around. Professional people, too, like to play.”
When (Japanese) Unit 731 officials were infected, they immediately went on the experimental chopping block as well (without anesthesia).
more commonplace breaking of near-universal human taboos
I could think of several key taboos that were broken by Imperial Japan but not the Nazis. I can’t think of any in reverse.
Taboo against biological warfare:
To a first approximation, Nazi Germany did not actually do biological warfare outside of small-scale experiments. In contrast, Imperial Japan was very willing to do biological warfare “in the field” on civilians, and estimates of civilian deaths from Japan-introduced plague are upwards of 200,000.
Taboo against mass institutionalized rape and sexual slavery.
While I’m sure rape happened and was commonplace in German-occupied territories, it was not, to my knowledge condoned and institutionalized widely. While there are euphemisms applied like “forced prostitution” and “comfort women”, the reality was that 50,000 − 200,000 women (many of them minors) were regularly raped under the direct instruction of the Imperial Japanese gov’t.
Taboo against cannibalism outside of extreme exigencies.
“Nazi cannibals” is the material of B-movies and videogames, ie approximately zero basis in history. In contrast, Japanese cannibalism undoubtedly happened and was likely commonplace.
We have documented oral testimony from Indian POWs, Australian POWs, American soldiers, and Japanese soldiers themselves.
My rationalist-y friends sometimes ask why the taboo against cannibalism is particularly important.
I’m not sure why, but I think part of the answer is “dehumanization.”
I bring this topic up mostly as a source of morbid curiosity. I haven’t spent that much time looking into war crimes, and haven’t dived into the primary literature, so happy to be corrected on various fronts.
Huh, I didn’t expect something this compelling after I voted disagree on that comment of your from a while ago.
I do think I probably still overall disagree because the holocaust so uniquely attacked what struck me as one of the most important gears in humanity’s engine of progress, which was the jewish community in Europe, and the (almost complete) loss of that seems to me like it has left deeper scars than anything the Japanese did (though man, you sure have made a case that the Japanese WW2 was really quite terrifying).
Don’t really know much about the history here, but I wonder if you could argue that the Japanese caused the CCP to win the Chinese civil war. If so, that might be comparably bad in terms of lasting repercussions.
👀