Introduction 3 had not been punished—­instead, they continued to live life uncontested by criminal investigations in postwar Japan.21 Even three postwar prime ministers, Hatoyama Ichirō (1883–1959), Ikeda Hayato (1899–1965), and Kishi Nobusuke (1896–1987), ­were guilty of war crimes, and a Class A war criminal who had been convicted during the ­trials in Tokyo, Shigemitsu Mamoru (1887–1957), regained his position of foreign minister in 1954. The fact that ­these criminals, as well as Emperor Hirohito (1901–1989), ­were treated so favorably by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), General Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964),22 explains the anger about the lack of interest that Chang expressed in her book. U.S. military historian Edward J. Drea emphasized that Chang’s moving testament to the Chinese victims of the sack of Nanjing in 1937 graphically detailed the horror and scope of the crime and indicted the Japa­nese government and ­ people for their collective amnesia about the war­time army’s atrocious conduct. The bestselling book spurred a tremen- dous amount of renewed interest in Japa­nese war­time conduct in China, ­ Korea, the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific.23 It is also impor­tant to consider that the U.S. public had been informed about the atrocities in China early on when reports about the rape, killings, and exe- cutions of unarmed Chinese soldiers appeared in American newspapers and when returning missionaries and other eyewitnesses reported their experi- ences in the war zone. However, the events faded away from public view, and something specific caused Japan’s lack of interest in critically dealing with its own past in con- trast to Germany, whose authorities took responsibility to express guilt for its crimes against peace and humanity between 1933 and 1945, the Japa­nese government rejected and downplayed such a responsibility.24 An official apol- ogy was never granted, and the history textbook controversy25 and the non- depiction of war crimes at the Yasukuni Shrine museum in Tokyo26 caused anger in Asia. If ­there ­were any official or nonofficial comments about the Japa­ nese military’s war crimes, they usually insisted that the numbers stated in the accusations ­were exaggerated. Deniers continue to have a strong lobby in Japan, and the government seems to have backed such voices thus far. The number of ­people actually brought to trial in Japan is also rather low although 28 Class A war criminals had been brought to trial during the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal between May 1946 and November 1948—to be accused of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, eventually reaching 25 convictions—­the imprisoned war criminals ­were released in 1956, and most of the Japa­nese perpetrators never saw the inside of a court- room and continued their lives as if nothing had happened. ­There was never a large-­scale prosecution of former war criminals in Japan, and too many went on to pursue ­ careers in the po­liti­cal and economic sectors. However, the Allied
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