Why Did Japan Join the Nazis? (Given, You Know, the Nazis Explicitly Hated Non-Aryans)

the last seats weren't exactly shy about the fact that they didn't really care for individuals of a race other than the one they idealized further the Japanese seemingly had no problem with people's like the Jews even going so far as in World War II taking in Jewish refugees from German occupied lands further unlike Germany's European allies during World War II when the Nazis attempted to pressure Japan to join in on their anti-jewish activities the Japanese government not only didn't listen but even had official policy in place explicitly prohibiting expelling any Jew from Japan or territories they occupied a policy they maintained throughout the war even as Jews who escaped from occupied regions continue to flood into Japanese territories Japanese Diplomat yasuke matsoka summed up I am the man responsible for the alliance with Hitler but nowhere have I promised that we would carry out his anti-semitic policies in Japan this is not simply my personal opinion it is the opinion of Japan and I have no compunction about announcing it to the world given all this it seemed rather odd that Japan Nazi Germany should sign a series of agreements with one another eliminating in the famous tripartite packed in 1940 which ultimately Allied most famously Nazi Germany Italy and Japan but also eventually the likes of other countries such as Hungary Romania Bulgaria Croatia and for two whole days Yugoslavia all into the so-called Coalition of Axis Powers more on the interesting reason Yugoslavia is joining only lasted two days in the bonus facts later on in today's video so why did Japan join up with the Nazis and for that matter why did the Nazis want to join Japan not only so far away from their own country but also populated by non-aryans who not only couldn't have cared less about Nazi ideology but actually pretty fundamentally disagreed with it now before we get into any of that as a point of clarification despite popular perception it's a major stretch to say that Japan and Germany were actually allies in anything but the most surface level sense in fact outside of Hitler's eventual declaration of war against the United States shortly after Japan attacked the U.S the two sides didn't really do much of anything of any use to support the other Japan even refused to offer so much as economic concessions to Germany until 1943 with initial rejection stemming from the fact that Japan felt it would hurt their negotiations with the US in the early part of the war if they supported Germany in this way this was more or less par for the course with the so-called alliance between the two Nations which really wasn't much of an alliance at all or at least not anywhere close to the extent of the Allies who true to their name on the whole actively coordinated their War efforts against their shared enemies in contrast Germany and Japan particularly more or less bought two separate Wars and even in times when they would have been well served to try and work together as you'll soon see they ended up not only not but not even bothering to inform one another of their plans which could drastically affect the other that out of the way let's dive into the particulars of how and why these two Nations chose to at least on the surface join together and how this ultimately ensured both of their defeats during World War II to begin with official German and Japanese relations were first established all the way back in 1861 before the German Empire technically existed thanks to the prussians who helped form the German Empire about a decade later the prussians and the subsequent German Empire among other Western influences played a critical role in the extremely rapid modernization of Japan after the Meiji Restoration in 1868. in fact pertinent the topic at hand one of Germany's greatest contributions to Japan was helping them modernize their military with one of the German Empire Representatives Prussian General Jakob merkel's efforts from 1885 to 1888 even so appreciated at the army war College in Japan that they made a bronze statue of him not only that but his doctrines adopted by General nogi marasuki accredited with helping Japan win the first sino-japanese war by World War One however owing to Japan not exactly liking how various Western countries including Germany were encroaching on Asian interests the two countries became explicit enemies which Japan declaring war on Germany in 1914 things got even more spicy directly after the war when many of Germany's former Asian possessions were granted to Japan by the mid-1920s the two nation's relationship started to improve however and perhaps most critically for various reasons about 80 of Japanese students studying abroad many of whom were children of Japanese Elite chose German University to study at also of note on this many of the later key leaders of the movement to try and unite Asia under Japanese rules studied in Germany relations were further improved with the signing of the anti-common term pact in 1936 which was a pact between the two Nations and later Italy Spain and Hungary to at least publicly even if nothing much came of it counter the threat of the Soviet Union and communism posed to the respective Nations it was at this point that things began heating up thanks to the combination of the Soviet Union threat and the shared goals for expansion the respective Nations held which very effectively alienated them from many of the other nations of the world and helped align their interests in their respective Nations notice Italy's plans on similar aggressive expansion at the time also alienated many nations of the world against them such as in 1936 after Italy invaded Ethiopia resulting in the United Nations imposing sanctions on them in all helping to drive themselves Germany and Japan together despite not really having common goals exactly as American ambassador to Japan Joseph C grew stated in 1937 if the present triangular combination is analyzed it becomes immediately apparent that not only is the group not merely anti-communist but that its policies and practices equally run counted to those of the so-called Democratic Powers thus it can be seen that the question resolves itself into the simple fact that it is a combination of those states which are bent upon upsetting the status quo as opposed to those states which wish to preserve the status quo or more simply of the Have Nots against the Haves and that anti-communism is merely the banner under which the have-nots are rallying as for this desire for expansion as stated there at the time much like the relatively young German Empire Japan was interested in moving away from the so-called have-not Nation status to the have status during the age of Discovery many nations like Britain and France have taken advantage and expanded their Empires around the globe something both Japan and Germany had missed out on Japan because of its isolationism and the German Empire because it didn't exist until 1871 and its first bout of expansion after not just ended with World War one but with much of their advancements on this front being taken away in the aftermath on the Japanese side given the rapid industrialization of Japan in the preceding Century Japan found itself in a situation of being a heavily industrialized nation that also had very little in the way of many of the resources needed to supply the industrialization engine thus they had to rely on other nations to get them for example leading up to World War II approximately 80 percent of Japan's all supplies came from the United States another 14 from other nations allowing the U.S to exert significant influence over Japan if it's so wanted at any time matters weren't exactly greatly improved when looking at things like access to Coal rubber iron and other such staple resources thus the Japanese were interested in copying the British French Us and other such nations in expanding their influence beyond their borders they further felt that the western expansion into various Asian Nations was something of an affront that they cannot allow to stand putting two and two together Japanese leaders felt an expansion would allow the Japanese empire to become more self-sufficient and in the process remove Western influence from Asian Nations installing their own Nation as the head here that this was not in many ways that different from Germany's own stated goal seeking to expand their borders owing to the supposed living space problem with Hitler stating we are overpopulated and cannot feed ourselves from our own resources previous efforts on the German front of expansion before World War one had seen Japan and Germany somewhat at odds both wanting to expand into the same areas in East Asia this time however Germany wanted Europe and was happy to leave Asia to the Japanese on top of all of this as previously alluded to both Nations had a vested interest in ceasing the spread of Communism with the Soviet Union so relatively close and bordering Nations Germany and Japan would both like to add to their future Empires on that note if it were not for that anti-soviet stance so staunchly held by the Germans and their long-term plans to attack the Soviets World War II and the subsequent Cold War may have gone extremely differently you see a little talked about thing today is that the original tripartite pact came close to being a quad part-time pact on this one shortly before the tripartite pack was signed by Japan Germany and Italy a fourth major power expressed their desire to join the fun even making very favorable concession to Germany as well as rather sizable economic offerings in perhaps one of the biggest blunders of the war Germany didn't even bother to reply to the Soviet proposal to join as Germany had already planned to invade despite about a year before Germany signing the molotov ribbon drop packed with the Soviet this pact in a nutshell was the two Nations agreeing not to attack one another or Aid an enemy of the other as well as in secret defining various borders for the two nations in regions in between should either side you know just so happen to totally by coincidence God war in the area at some point maybe had the Soviets been accepted into the tripartite pact it would have not only allowed Germany to focus their full might against the British with their backs covered but also given Germany better access to supplies from the Soviets and connecting over to their Ally in Japan on this one perhaps allowing the Axis powers to eventually truly work together in the way the Allies did instead of just being an alliance mostly on paper when it came to the Japanese and Germans in any event even though many of the German Empire and Japan's overarching goals for their Nations aligned and their immediate plans didn't conflict with each other in any way this still doesn't say why they actually at least on paper decided to publicly join forces after all as just alluded to given the vast distance separating them there was little hope that the two sides would benefit directly in the form of joining forces or even resources and that is again not to mention the whole fact that the Nazis weren't shy about noting any other race outside of Aryan it was inferior in their view as to their latter points in true Nazi fashion when reality conflicted with their stated ideologies and beliefs they simply came up with their own version of reality to accommodate from SS head Heinrich Himmler not himself meeting his own racial background requirements for all SS members not named Heinrich Himmler not just talking up the non-aryan Japanese but explicitly declaring them honorary Aryans and expression that more or less meant that even though you aren't Aryan will still consider and treat you as such Hitler would even go so far as to publicly State admiration for the Chinese and the Japanese is noting pride in one's own race and that does not imply contempt for other races is also a normal and healthy sentiment I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves they belong to ancient civilizations and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own they have the right to be proud of their past just as we have the right to be proud of the civilization to which we belong indeed I believe the more steadfast the Chinese and the Japanese remain in their pride of race the easier I shall find it to get on with them that said it would also state if we were to divide mankind into three groups the founders of culture the bearers of culture the Destroyers of culture only the Aryan could be considered as the representative of the first group from him originate the foundations and walls of all human creation and only the outward form and color are determined by the changing traits of character of the various peoples in a few decades for example the entire east of Asia will possess a culture whose ultimate foundation will be Hellenic spirit and Germanic technology just as much as in Europe only the outward form and art at least will bear the features of Asiatic character if beginning today all further Aryan influence on Japan should stop assuming that Europe and America should perish Japan's present rise in science and technology might continue for a short time but even in a few years the well would dry up the Japanese special character would gain but the present culture would freeze and sink back into the Slumber from which it was awakened seven decades ago by the wave of Aryan culture so this was Hitler's mental gymnastics for being able to Buddy up with the Japanese while supposedly still keeping to Nazi ideology so what about from the Japanese perspective in the general case as noted by Carnegie mellon's Ricky law author of transnational Nazism ideology and culture in German Japanese relations 1919-1936 quote I found that even before the government of Japan and Germany founded an alliance in 1936 intellectuals and commentators were publishing material that put the other country in a positive light Japanese intellectuals proactively reshaped Germany's ideals for Japanese consumption of Hitler and Nazism keeping what they liked and removing what they didn't like on that note even though the Nazi Holocaust was well known and well reported throughout most regions of the world during World War II as we previously covered Japan was an exception specifically suppressing any talk of German atrocities on this front on their end Germany did the same for Japan suppressing any news of the so-called Asian Holocaust that saw Japan Massacre somewhere between 3 to 13 million people and the process was supposedly liberating Asian Nations they also during this time conducted a truly horrific human experimentation on the peoples they conquered and basically committed atrocities very similar in a lot of ways the more well-known Holocaust on the German side for example at the Nazi party member John hiring harab who found himself stationed in Nanjing in China in 1937 when the Japanese conquered it now on this little story I think we can all agree that when the Nazi comes across looking like the good guy the other side should maybe pause and ask themselves Hans a Visa bad guys in this one the Nazi Rob is credited with almost single handedly saving the lives of tens of thousands of Chinese civilians thanks to his tireless effort during the Nanjing Massacre which saw the Japanese forces Slaughter between 50 000 to 300 000 Chinese civilians and are wanting access to 250 000 or so more that are absor to it were protected from all of the raping and murdering going back to the story at hand at how both sides were happy to cover up each other's atrocities with the public a Rob returned to Germany after the massacre with documentation of the mass murder rate beatings Etc including photographs and film footage he then began lecturing about all of this publicly as well as attempting to get Hitler to pressure Japan to stop such appalling acts in China as you might expect this all not only fell on deaf ears but saurabh promptly arrested by the Gestapo the company Siemens AG managed to step in and secure his release but he was forbidden from speaking of this again we will have more on the fascinating and rather tragic gel John Robb in an upcoming video on our sister Channel highlight history so check that out but to sum up here in essence both sides just reshaped the discourse about one another to fit their needs and make the other side and the brass between the two Nations seemed little inclined to be bothered that each side had some pretty fundamentally differing ideological views all that background out of the way this brings us back to why the Japanese and German Empires would want to sign the tripartite pact while nothing is black and white and there are numerous things that went into it including as noted the threat the Soviets still held for both Nations plans despite other pacts leading up to the tripartype acts and what neutralizing that threat in short the United States had become a major problem Germany and Japan were both looking for a way to keep the us out of their respective conflicts as much as possible and wanted this pact to attempt to encourage this of this note The tripartite Pact was specifically worded to say that the signing nations would not be required to come to the others Aid unless they were attacked by some nation that the respective Nations weren't currently already at war with in other words while not explicitly named it's pretty clear this pact was directed squarely at the United States in a thinly bailed attempt to keep them from joining any of the war efforts on the other side at the time Germany was a stalemate with Britain and planning to invade the Soviets despite their little truce and didn't want the U.S entering The Fray on the side of Britain to tip the balance as for Japan it was already dealing with the US whose people maybe had no interest in entering a war but whose president very much didn't want to and wasn't shy about speaking out against Japan's rather brutal expansion into China and the insane atrocities they committed doing this on top of this for the Germans Japanese expansion into certain regions of Asia would also help tie down British forces and resources there further once Japan was successful this would potentially open up supplies from those regions to Germany from their Japanese Ally likewise from the Japanese side with Germany doing its thing over in Europe Britain would be too occupied to do much about their actions against British territories in the region thus in essence this pact was a warning to the U.S to stay out of their respective conflicts and otherwise an opportunistic joining rather than one in which the two sides intended to support one another more directly from a military or resources standpoint that said Japan and Germany did have some token exchanges and little attempts to work together such Germany sending Japan one of its Subs to take a look at and attempt to benefit from the design of unfortunately for Japan they found it too complicated to replicate at the time so little benefit came from this many other similar exchanges of technology and limited resources also occurred but in all of these cases the effect was almost entirely useless for the other side on top of this neither side really trusted the other very much which perhaps shouldn't be a surprise given the last pact they signed against communism toward Germany without bothering to inform their Ally the Japanese signed the molotov ribbon draw pact with the Soviets ultimately Japan had their own trick to play on the Germans negotiating the Soviet Japanese neutrality pact in April of 1941 agreeing not to attack the Soviets only to see the Japanese once again blindsided by their Ally when Germany went the other way and decided to attack the Soviets two months later in June of 1941 showing how little interest the two Nations had of actually working together after Germany attacked the Soviets they began continually hinting that Germany would greatly appreciate it if Japan wouldn't mind being a good Ally and switching efforts and attacking the Soviets as well for example Hitler stated Japanese Ambassador Hiroshi Ashima in 1941 it would of course be up to Japan to act as it saw fit but Japan's cooperation in the fight against the Soviet Union would be welcomed if the Japanese Advanced the South should run into difficulty because of supply and Equipment unfortunately for the Germans when Japan had previously attempted to expand into the Soviet Union and protected States they were pretty brutally beaten back in a series of border conflicts most devastatingly at the Battle of Carlton Gaul in 1939. this cooled Japan's interest in any further expansion in that region thus in the end Japan made it very clear they would not go to war with the Soviet Union unless Germany had more or less already won the war against them that said Stalin wasn't banking on this continuing and thus had to divide his forces to protect against Japan just in case however things took a drastic change in September of 1941 when Soviet spy Richard Sorge fronting as a German journalist working for German ambassador to tohyo Eugene Ott sent a message that Japan absolutely would not attack the USSR unless first attacked allowing a couple of dozen and Soviet divisions in Siberia to be redistributed to the German side of the conflict and turning the tide off that war there unfortunately for sorg however within a month of sending this message he was unmasked and eventually executed so that was the complete lack of coordination or even really communicating plans at all when it came to the Soviets on the other end of things with the U.S Japan did at least inform the Germans of their plan to go to war with the United States though only giving them a heads up mere days before the attacks and not giving any specifics whatsoever on how or when they do this on this note you might now be wondering what on Earth the Japanese were thinking trying to bring a nation into a war the Japanese military brass knew well they had zero chance of winning a protracted conflict against and could further completely shift the balance of the war for their European allies and just for reference here for what it's worth the gross domestic product of the United States was 17 higher than all axis Nations combined when the US entered the war on top of that neither Germany nor Japan had any hope of actually attacking the US Mainland directly in any meaningful way further as alluded to at the time there was extremely strong support in the United States for isolationism following World War one which resulted in the passing of various Neutrality Acts in the 1930s to help keep the us out of any foreign conflicts these were initially only slightly undone in 1939 with the passing of certain acts like the one allowing the U.S to supply arms to Britain and France so long as they paid for them and also came and picked them up in their own ships and then following this up in 1940 with trading 50 U.S destroyers to the British in exchange for various land rights and British held regions which technically violated the Neutrality Act but Roosevelt Got Away With It Anyway Then followed that up with the module 1941 Lend Lease Act which allowed the us to give supplies and equipment to Allied Nations for free in total about 50.1 billion dollars that's about 700 billion dollars worth today however despite all of this U.S citizens on the whole along with many within the government still had little interest in involving itself in the conflict with the axis even in these ways let alone more directly by sending their sons to go and fight thus both Japan Germany's decision-making Paradigm seem extremely questionable here and indeed ultimately their choices were catastrophic for their respective Wars by deliberately waking the sleeping giant so why did Japan attack the United States in short the United States forced them to you see once the Japanese efforts were mostly rebuffed on the Northern expansion front by the Soviets this left Southern expansion something they ultimately had to do because of the United States actions leading up to Pearl Harbor going back a bit the Japanese aggression into the likes of China and French indo-china and the atrocities the Japanese committed in those regions had seen the U.S despite supposedly not wanting to be involved in foreign matters nonetheless spear had a series of progressively more harsh embargoes on Japan ultimately cutting Japan off from needed supplies of oil iron rubber Steel Etc for reference here at the time as mentioned before 94 of Japan's oil supplies were imported and 80 of that coming from the United States after the Embargo it was noted by officials within the Imperial Japanese Navy that at that point they had perhaps as little as six months of campaigning before their ships would be dead in the water from lack of needed fuel thus at that point forcing Japan to concede to whatever demands the U.S wanted to place on them to lift the Embargo they thus had three choices first negotiate a treaty with the U.S to get them to lift the Embargo second try again against the Soviets to capture those regions to get the resources they needed and in this one support their Ally in Germany or third attack South but into certain regions that were more or less protected by the US and thus in their view would likely see the U.S declare war on them as a result as for option number one of negotiating a treaty with the U.S to resolve this they actually tried exceptionally hard at this leading all the way up to Mere hours before attacking Pearl Harbor however no such deal could be reached that said they did get pretty far along here with Japan noting that they would agree to withdraw from French Indochina and not attack any regions of Southeast Asia so long as all Aid to China was lifted from Britain the US and the Netherlands and sanctions against Japan were likewise lifted in essence Japan was willing to give up most of their expansion plants and territories but wanted to keep what they had captured of China and make war efforts a little easier for themselves the US however rejected this proposal requiring all Japan had offered plus also that Japan would withdraw from China and sign non-aggression pacts with the various specific States essentially the U.S stating Retreat back into your own country and Abandon All plans of a true Japanese empire in self-sufficiency as well as abandoned plans to liberate Asia from Western influence like ourselves in doing so this would also once again make Japan subservient to the U.S and other nations because of the needed Industrial Supplies from them that Japan had no other access to as you can imagine given the US wasn't really conceding anything this was a non-starter for Japanese leaders something that it seems is exactly what the U.S officials were hoping for to provoke Japan into conflict and thus hopefully allow the US to enter the war against Japan's supposed Ally Germany as for option two of attacking North against the Soviets again this was deemed too risky given they had no real way to counter the Soviet tanks and as mentioned had been defeated so resoundingly there on this front in their previous attempt this left option number three before their oil and other supplies ran out expand South into the Dutch East Indies British Malaya the Philippines and elsewhere to acquire the resources they needed while also accomplishing the goal of beginning to establish the Japanese empire and liberating these regions from Western influence the problem here again was that to do so they were convinced would cause the U.S to declare war on them with Japan than in a rather precarious position of not yet being fortified in the regions they were planning on taking right when the US's Pacific Fleet would presumably quickly attack or at least they assumed they would as you might expect given wide support for isolationism at the time in the United States historians debate whether the U.S actually would have or not had Japan just gone ahead and done it without attacking the us directly on all of this President Roosevelt explicitly stated that the U.S would not have except he also believed that over the course of their activities in the region the Japanese would make a mistake that he could leverage to drag the U.S into war with Japan and then Germany as noted by Pacific Fleet Admiral James o Richardson when he asked Roosevelt if the U.S would be going to war with Japan he States Roosevelt responded if the Japanese attacked Thailand or the crop Peninsula or the Dutch East Indies we would not enter the war that if they even attacked the Philippines no to the Philippines at the time were an American protectorate he doubted whether we would enter the war but that the Japanese could not always avoid making mistakes and that as the war continued and that area of operations expanded sooner or later they would make a mistake and would enter the war thus if true had the Japanese just went ahead and pushed South without directly involving the U.S this is yet another point in World War II much like when the Germans didn't let the Soviets join The tripartite Pact where things may have gone extremely differently both in the war in Europe and the Pacific had one decision been different but Riley or wrongly the Japanese were convinced the U.S would declare war on them the second they attacked the Philippines and other nations in the region something they had to do before they ran out of oil and other supplies because of U.S embargoes against Japan so what to do about it especially when they knew they couldn't win a war against the United States how about seeing the Pacific Fleet in a surprise attack thus temporarily crippling the US's ability to retaliate while Japan simultaneously performed their own little Blitzkrieg taking over every nation they needed for the supplies and self-sufficiency they wanted which is exactly what they did for example attacking the Philippines the next day after Pearl Harbor they then would dig themselves in such they would require a massive effort by the United States and get them out something they knew the U.S could do but Japanese leaders felt that the us would have no interest in such an effort given their General aversion to conflict so far away at that point now from a much stronger negotiating position and dealing with a nation that wouldn't really want to continue the war that Japanese could simply negotiate a truce with the United States that favored Japanese interests it's uh foolproof obviously all of this ended up being a huge miscalculation on the Japanese military brass's part on the reaction of Americans to the attack this all wasn't helped by Roosevelt's speech about it playing up supposed to lie to coordinated efforts between Germany and Japan further bolstering sentiment for the United States to enter the war against Germany in support of the British Empire Roosevelt stated the course that Japan has followed for the past 10 years in Asia has paralleled the course of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and in Africa today it has become far more than a parallel it is an actual collaboration so well calculated that all the continents of the world and all the oceans are now considered by the axis strategists as one gigantic Battlefield in these past few years and most violently in the past three days we have learned a terrible lesson it is Our obligation to our dead it is our sacred obligation to their children and to our children though we must never forget what we have learned and what we have all learned is this there is no such thing as security for Any Nation or any individual in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism we are now in the midst of a war not for Conquest not for vengeance but for a world in which this nation and all that this nation represents be safe for our children we expect to eliminate the danger from Japan but it would serve us ill if we accomplished that and found that the rest of the world was dominated by Hitler and Mussolini speaking of Hitler he went ahead and did Roosevelt a massive favor by almost immediately after Japan attacked also declaring war on the United States in support of his Japanese allies not just assuring that AOS would go to war with Germany but also increasing public perception that the attack had somehow been coordinated and that the two nations were allies in more than just name the second massive blunder in a week by the Axis powers as historian Max Hastings notes four days after Pearl Harbor Hitler made the Folly of the strike comprehensive by declaring war on the United States relieving Roosevelt from a serious uncertainty about whether Congress would agree to fight Germany as for the German side of things let's just say that all this perhaps showed why plans to assassinate Hitler at one point were canceled because it was such an incompetent General that the war was sure to end with Allied Victory if he was left in charge for his Japanese General tomayuki Yama [ __ ] had stated of Hitler he may be a great orator on a platform but standing behind his desk listening he seems much more like a clerk on this note Hitler's reaction to the surprise news of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was apparently we can't lose the war at all we now have an ally which has never been conquered in 3 000 years he also stated the Japanese strategy of a surprise attack you gave them the right declaration of war this method is the only proper one Japan pursued it formally and it corresponds with his own system that is to negotiate as long as possible but if one sees that the other is interested only in putting one off in shaming and humiliating one and is not willing to come to an agreement then a one should strike as hard as possible and not waste time declaring war and a very slight defense of Hitler's decision here to declare war on the U.S instead of just waiting it out and seeing what happened he had technically verbally promised Japan he would before the attack it should be noted here that leading up to the attack Japan had spearheaded an amendment to The tripartite Pact wherein if any Nation should not just be a hacked by but attacked the United States the other nations would be obligated also to go to war with the U.S however this amen was not able to be completed before the attack on Pearl Harbor also no worthy here it would seem that there were efforts in the amending of the PAC to oblige Japan to go to war with the USSR but this was resoundingly rejected by Japan with one communique from Japan to Berlin in December of 1941 stating in case Germany demands that we participate in the war against the Soviet Union we will respond that we do not intend to join the war for the time being if this should lead to a situation whereby Germany will delay her entry into the war against the United States it cannot be helped yet Hitler did it anyway so why what was Hitler's more detailed reasoning for being excited Japan had brought arguably the most dangerous country not already in the war into the conflict to begin with Nazi politician Joseph Goebbels a wrote of Hitler's thoughts at the time we are now to a certain extent protected on our flanks the United States will probably no longer make aircraft weapons and transport available to England so carelessly as it can be assumed that they will need these for their own war against Japan to be fair this may have been what actually happened had you know Hitler not declared war on the United States in his speech announcing this historically catastrophic decision on December 11 1941 he also doubled down on antagonizing his new enemy taking pot shots at the U.S and President Roosevelt stating I will pass over the insulting attacks made by this so-called president against me that he calls me a gangster is uninteresting after all this expression was not coined in Europe but in America no doubt because such gangsters are lacking here national socialism came to power in Germany in the same year as Roosevelt was elected president while an unprecedented Revival of economic life culture and art took place in Germany under National Socialist leadership President Roosevelt did not succeed and bring about even the slightest Improvement in his own country a threatening political opposition was gathering over the head of this man he guessed that the only salvation for him lay in diverting public attention from home to foreign policy he was strengthened in this by the Jews around him the full diabolical meanness of jury rallied around this man and he stretched out his hands thus began the increasing efforts of the American president to create conflicts for years this man harbored one desire that a conflict should break out somewhere in the world the fact that the Japanese government which has been negotiating for years with this man has at last become tired of being mocked by him in such an unworthy way fills us all the German people and I think all other decent people in the world with deep satisfaction it was also noted that Hitler was happy that he could now actually have his U-Boat openly attack U.S Shipping Lines that were supporting the Allies at the time and he assumed that with the conflict in the Pacific the U.S would have their hands full with much of their Navy there further making such supply lines on the European front vulnerable while there were certainly prose from the German front there were also a massive amount of very obvious cons that he didn't seem to factor in at all such as the subsequent influx of U.S troops it soon have to meet on the battlefield on this one he appears to have simply been delusional noting U.S soldiers were unlikely to fight nearly to the level of Germans owing to being comprised of a mongrelloid mix of races not only this he felt that it would take several years for the U.S to adequately ramp up their armaments once they were directed at Germany instead of Japan at which point the war in Europe will be over what he apparently was unaware of was that sometime Roosevelt and Co had already long been preparing for war on the Armament side and on top of that in large part thanks to Hitler declaring war on the U.S it would not be Japan the U.S would be too bothered about with Roosevelt devoting a whopping 90 percent of U.S forces to supporting their British Ally directly in Europe with Japan something of an afterthought at first despite it having been Japan who'd attacked the United States on top of this despite Japanese assertions the contrary Hitler apparently was also under the impression that if Germany declared war on the U.S and sported Japan in this way Japan would change its mind at age Germany against the Soviet something that not only didn't happen but also Japan didn't even bother interfering with U.S or supplies being funneled through the port of Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan in support of Soviet ethics against Germany something that rather pissed Hitler off as you might expect given Japan was right there and in a great position to cut off this vital supply line we should also note of the supposed allies in Japan and Germany at this point of the war that both sides were exaggerating or outright lying to one another about their respective statuses in their two Wars with Hitler exclaiming in March of 1943 they lie right to your face and in the end all their depictions are calculated on something which turns out to be a deceit afterwards of course the Germans weren't any better and at the time of Japan's attack on the US they seemed to have generally been under the impression based on German communique that Germany was very close to wrapping the war in Europe and the conflict with the Soviets going back to Japan and their own plunger and all of this perhaps not adequately understanding American culture and the classic modern day colors don't run America [ __ ] yeah tied attitudes as noted while they had hoped the attack at Pearl Harbor would drive U.S citizens to even more advocate for isolating withdrawing from these conflicts so far away in reality their attack had more or less completely gotten rid of the American apathy toward the wars happening in the world at the time undoing the isolationism that the U.S had embraced post-world War one on top of this because of the attack which was perceived publicly as unprovoked even though the reality was Roosevelt and Co had been doing everything in their power to provoke Japan the US populace now had zero interest in negotiating a treaty with Japan the American people wanted those deaths and the supposed unprovoked attack Avenged and weren't going to stop until Japan was crushed not all the Japanese military leaders have been so deluded however for example martial Admiral asuroko Yamamoto in charge of the entire combined Japanese fleet was not shy about his opposition to the original signing of the tripartite pact because of it not so subtly being directed at the United States he stated that this on August 14 1948 to fight the United States as like fighting the whole world but it has been decided so I will fight the best I can doubtless I shall die on board negato meanwhile Tokyo will be burnt To The Ground Three Times Kono and others will be Torn to Pieces by the revengeful people he would also state after the fact unlike the pre-tripartite days great determination is required to make certain that we avoid the danger of going to war he further stated seemingly understanding his potential enemy in a way other leaders in Japan did not [ __ ] hostilities once breakout between Japan and the United States would not be enough that we take Guam in the Philippines or even Hawaii in San Francisco to make Victory certain we would have to March into Washington and dictate the terms of Peace in the White House I wonder if our politicians who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American War have confidence as to the final outcome and prepared to make the necessary sacrifices but unfortunately for him he wasn't listened to and was even in charge of the attack on Pearl Harbor that would bring about the result that he feared and and if you're wondering here he was not killed aboard his Flagship as predicted but rather when the U.S intercepted an encrypted transmission outlining yamamoto's plans to tour around the South Pacific inspecting his forces and they were thus able to shoot down his plane perhaps not too bad a death for a man who stated to die for the emperor nation is the highest hope of military man after a brave hard fight the blossoms are scattered on the fighting field one man's life or death is a matter of no importance all that matters is the Empire as computer says they may crush Cinnabar yet they do not take away its color one may burn a fragrant herb yet it will not destroy the scent they may destroy my body but they will not take away my will in the end thanks to Pearl Harbor a drawn-out war with the U.S something the Japanese military brass had known they'd lose quite handily if it happened is exactly what happened and while nobody in Japan could have anticipated the end result of Nagasaki and Hiroshima the overall outcome was inevitable from the start given the U.S interest in a treaty making the move even more mind-boggling as Japanese commanders had noted of the attack on Pearl Harbor in the first place it would only be a mild delaying measure and given the shallow Waters they knew well it was likely that the ship sunk there would be relatively quickly repaired and put back into service which is exactly what happened with six of the eight ships that found themselves on the bottom of the sea after the attack being repaired in short not a great plan though at least was more defensible given the known information at the time and the needs of Japan than say Hitler's decision to bring the United States into the war on the European side but in the end going back to Japan and Germany's supposed Alliance and why they both entered into it while they did technically have an alliance on paper it was exceptionally loose and in practice they were two Nations fighting two separate Wars at the same time both Nations however were intent on attempting to mimic the Imperial expansion of certain Western Nations to become one of the have Nations instead of have-nots most importantly allowing their Nations to have direct access to resources they otherwise depended on other nations for and for a little while at least the appearance of an alliance between them for various reasons benefited both so they publicly Allied even if they never actually did much to support one another in any practical way nor otherwise ideologically aligned much with again the Japanese very explicitly choosing to deny requests from their German allies to join in the Holocaust of course as mentioned the Japanese committed their own series of atrocities during the war in the so-called Asian Holocaust which is rarely discussed today despite three to Thirty million people being massacred in other regions Japan was in their view liberating but that's a story for another day bonus fact if you're wondering why only two days for Yugoslavia to have joined in The tripartite Pact it's insanely complicated but in an overly simplified nutshell the government at the time was in a rather tricky situation with no real ability to fend off the Germans and the British very explicitly offering no help but funnily enough the British more or less demanded that the country code to war with Germany anyway after a whole lot of negotiating the Yugoslavian leaders felt the Germans were offering the better deal as they were really asking for anything other than Yugoslavia to publicly join up but otherwise not requiring any military aid from Yugoslavia but even accepting yugoslavia's terms to not allow any military transport or presence of Axis powers in the country unfortunately for the leaders of the country while this all may have made sense for a practical standpoint to preserve the country's sovereignty and more or less keep them out of the war from an ideological standpoint the people were rather upset with the decision and so revolted with the British doing their best to encourage all of this and almost immediately with the help of the British the people overthrew their governments with such slogans as better the grave than a slave better or War Than The Pact funnily enough almost immediately after this and the new government's rejection of the treaty Hitler decided to grant the demands of that chance within a week going to war with the country and within three weeks conquering it putting many in the grave and making the brothers slaves anyway for a massively more detailed explanation of all of this why not check out the excellent video by Lindy beige Yugoslavia in World War II A Tale of resistance collaboration and betrayal it's excellent and thanks for watching

Channel: Today I Found Out

Views: 1,606,680

Keywords: today i found out, tifovidz12, tifo, awesome, facts, didn't know, nazi plans, japan germany ww2, alternate history, hitler plans, nazis, hitler, nazism

Id: ZEIIeBgYrLU

Length: 40min 37sec (2437 seconds)

Published: Sun May 07 2023