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The Other Nuremberg: The Untold Story of the Tokyo War Crimes Trials
The Japanese Class A war crimes trials were plagued with problems from formation to end: they did not receive the same respect as those at Nuremberg; the prosecution found many important documents lost or destroyed; the defense struggled with inadequate staff and time; and some judgments and the legal basis of the trials were subject to harsh criticism. The late author, a correspondent at the trials, used his experience, memoirs, transcripts, and interviews to construct a personal and insightful account of this important event.
482 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1987
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February 15, 2020
“The justices of the eleven Allied nations sitting in judgment were perched on an elevated platform…the accused were arrayed in the dock…Between judges and accused, in the pit, were the legal gladiators: the prosecuting and defense attorneys, their legal aides, and their law clerks. The spectators sat in the balcony. Almost everyone in the courtroom wore earphones, since the official proceedings were conducted in both English and Japanese. The trial lasted two and a half years, including the seven months it took the justices to arrive at a judgment. More than 200,000 spectators attended the trial, 150,000 of them Japanese. No less than 419 witnesses – from buck privates to the last emperor of China – gave testimony…”
- Arnold C. Brackman, The Other Nuremberg: The Untold Tory of the Tokyo War Crimes Trials
“That…great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.”
- Robert Jackson, Chief Prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg
At the end of the greatest conflict in the entire span of human history, the victorious nations of the Allied powers did a most curious thing. Instead of enacting the summary justice that might have been expected against the leaders of the vanquished, they instead put them on trial. The men who had unleashed vicious and aggressive wars that caused the deaths of tens of millions, wounded tens of million more, and disrupted the lives of too many millions to count, were given attorneys, a forum, and a chance to present their sides of the story. It was an opportunity – it goes without saying – that these would-be conquerors, these executioners, these ethnic cleansers, never gave their victims, the living or the dead.
And for this sin of adherence to the rule of law and notions of fairness, the Allies have been criticized for seventy-five years and counting.
Following World War II, there were dozens of war crimes trials, held by various forums in various places around the globe. Postwar justice, however, has come to be symbolized by two major proceedings: the International Military Tribunal (IMT), held in Nuremberg to prosecute top Nazis; and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), held in Tokyo, which prosecuted twenty-eight Japanese Class A war criminals.
Of the two, the Nuremberg tribunal is by far the more famous, the recipient of many gallons of ink and a handful of movies. It had the advantage of being first. More importantly, it had the advantage of taking on the Nazi party, with its over-the-top bad-guy iconography (the grotesque, pill-popping Goering; the death’s head emblems; “Night and Fog” decrees, etc.). While the IMT has come in for some criticism, it never really makes a dent, since the Nazis – and their manifest crimes – are hard to defend (which is not to say they do not have defenders, then and now).
The Tokyo Trials, on the other hand, are an entirely different story. Featuring eleven nations, instead of four, dealing with explosive issues such as race and colonialism, and attempting to make sense of the swirling, ever-changing cliques in Japanese politics, the IMTFE was fated for controversy.
It was also fated for obscurity.
While Nuremberg eventually got a big Hollywood movie – featuring Spencer Tracey – its forgotten younger sibling faded from public memory, with scholarly opinion picking at its rotting corpse. Most of the few books that tackled the Tokyo Trials, such as Richard Minear’s Victor’s Justice, are utterly-biased polemics.
Arnold Brackman’s The Other Nuremberg is one of the few full accounts of the Tokyo Trials. More importantly, it is one of the few accounts that actually speaks up for the tribunal, despite its limitations, flaws, and compromises. In that sense, while The Other Nuremberg is not a great book, it is an important one for students of both WWII and legal history, all the more so because Brackman actually attended large portions of the trials.
Born of the Potsdam Declaration, which warned of the “stern justice” to be meted out to war criminals, the Tokyo Trials began on April 29, 1946. There were twenty-eight total defendants, the most famous being Hideki Tojo. Ultimately, twenty-five were convicted, while two died before judgment, and one was declared incompetent. For all the whinging about unfairness, only seven of those convicted were executed; of those who went to the gallows, all had been convicted of conventional war crimes (such crimes having been recognized throughout history, flatly contradicting the notion they were punished for things they did not know were illegal). Of the surviving prisoners, all were free and clear by 1958, having served sentences that would make many non-violent drug offenders in America quite envious.
Brackman knew he could not hope to cover the whole of the vast proceedings in a single four-hundred page book. After all, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of testimony, and once you get through that, there are thousands of pages of legal opinions summarizing and commenting on that evidence.
The Other Nuremberg is broken down into manageable chapters covering the judges, the prosecution, and the defense, mixing thematic discussions into the overall chronology. Brackman also dives into some of the elements of the trial that he found most fascinating, especially Japanese atrocities in China. Of all the aspects of World War II that I’ve studied, I think I know the least about the Sino-Japanese War. This does not cure that deficit, but it is a helpful reminder that I have more reading to do.
In Brackman’s opinion, which I share, the IMTFE was a noble attempt at achieving the elusive concept of justice in the wake of the most unjust of contexts (the trials, of course, took place in a city ravaged by incendiaries, where the innocent burned with the guilty). Nevertheless, Brackman doesn’t hide flaws in trial, of which there were many. For instance, there is the odd, American-led reticence to delve into Japanese bacteriological warfare, likely connected to the American desire to learn the dark secrets that had been discovered.
The biggest mark against the trials was the decision not to indict the Emperor (who, it is more and more apparent, deserved to be indicted). Even the defendants, fighting for their lives, circled the wagons around Hirohito. As unfortunate as this is, though, it is not a flaw of the trials, per se, but rather a decree from on high, with MacArthur deciding that he needed the Emperor as part of his reconstruction plan. In fact, the chief justice of the IMTFE, William Webb, complained about this vociferously. Politics played a huge role, but that’s hardly a trenchant critique. When you are trying the leaders of a sovereign nation, politics are involved by their very nature.
While Brackman is supportive of the Tokyo Trials, there are time I wish he had done a better job defending them. For instance, he does not engage with IMTFE opponents who claim the trials were illegitimate because the Allies did things that were just as bad – or worse – as the Japanese. This was a big part of Indian Justice Rabhabinod Pal’s dissent, and required a response.
(Since Brackman is silent, I’ll step in. No matter how debatable the Allied tactics – and they were debatable – they were undertaken in response to a war that was thrust upon them. This is an important point, because it turns out your parents were wrong: it does matter who started it. Moreover, the so-called “tu quoque” defense is a logical fallacy, since saying that the Allies were just as bad as the Japanese does not, in fact, prove the innocence of the Japanese defendants).
The aforementioned Justice Pal voted to acquit all the defendants, and issued his thousand-page dissent, greatly coloring subsequent views of the IMTFE. Here, Brackman does good work by damningly demonstrating that Pal noted his intention to acquit – and to write a dissent – before the trial started. Then he absented himself for long periods of the trial to spend time with his sick wife. Thus, Pal’s dissent should be seen for what it was: an argument against western colonialism and an argument for own nation’s independence. Whatever the merits of Pal’s colonial critique, his reading of the evidence (based on the parts of his opinion I’ve read) is not credible. Chinese Justice Mei Ju-ao, whose country lost millions of dead, was certainly aghast that Pal would compare the atomic bombings – meant to end the war – to the barbaric rapes and murders in Nanking that were meant for nothing more than the infliction of human misery.
Most legal critics like to use high-minded slogans, such as “victor’s justice,” or Latin legalisms such as “ex post facto” laws. In law school, when I studied both military tribunals rather extensively, under a moderately-respected international law professor, I was very much overawed with the cold logic and sharp erudition of these arguments. Having had time to grow up, and think about things a bit more, I see them now as little more than elites protecting elites.
Strip away the finery, and you are left with this as a proposal: that making war is always a legitimate tool of the state, no matter what. There are no consequences to waging war, no matter how predatory, how vicious. That is to say, there are no consequences as long as your position on the board is king, queen, knight, bishop, or rook. If you are a pawn, on the other hand, you’ll get all the consequences you can manage, whether you are a conscript sent into an impossible situation, or a civilian caught in a besieged city.
Despite being overshadowed by Nuremberg, the Tokyo Trials remain important, if for no other reason than they are a vast repository of eyewitness testimonials. It represents a first draft of a massive history. If you read some of the transcripts, you will be shocked. You will find within those grim pages the testimony of a Filipino woman who described being torn open by a gang rape in Manila; you will find a railway official in Nanking who counted five-hundred corpses along a single boulevard, before he just stopped counting; you will find the gaunt survivors of the slave-labor camps in Burma, which masqueraded as prisoner-of-war sites, explaining how they somehow survived. The list of murders, sexual assaults, sexual exploitation, torture, and beheadings just goes on and on.
To deny the legitimacy of the Tokyo Trials, which – in the end – tried only a fraction of a fraction of those responsible, is in a way to deny the existence of these horrors. The best rebuttal to this came on July 26, 1946, by the much-maligned Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson. His summation regarding the Nazis applies equally to the Japanese defendants in the Tokyo dock:
“They stand before the record of this Trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain king. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: "Say I slew them not." And the Queen replied, "Then say they were not slain. But dead they are..."”
- Arnold C. Brackman, The Other Nuremberg: The Untold Tory of the Tokyo War Crimes Trials
“That…great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.”
- Robert Jackson, Chief Prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg
At the end of the greatest conflict in the entire span of human history, the victorious nations of the Allied powers did a most curious thing. Instead of enacting the summary justice that might have been expected against the leaders of the vanquished, they instead put them on trial. The men who had unleashed vicious and aggressive wars that caused the deaths of tens of millions, wounded tens of million more, and disrupted the lives of too many millions to count, were given attorneys, a forum, and a chance to present their sides of the story. It was an opportunity – it goes without saying – that these would-be conquerors, these executioners, these ethnic cleansers, never gave their victims, the living or the dead.
And for this sin of adherence to the rule of law and notions of fairness, the Allies have been criticized for seventy-five years and counting.
Following World War II, there were dozens of war crimes trials, held by various forums in various places around the globe. Postwar justice, however, has come to be symbolized by two major proceedings: the International Military Tribunal (IMT), held in Nuremberg to prosecute top Nazis; and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), held in Tokyo, which prosecuted twenty-eight Japanese Class A war criminals.
Of the two, the Nuremberg tribunal is by far the more famous, the recipient of many gallons of ink and a handful of movies. It had the advantage of being first. More importantly, it had the advantage of taking on the Nazi party, with its over-the-top bad-guy iconography (the grotesque, pill-popping Goering; the death’s head emblems; “Night and Fog” decrees, etc.). While the IMT has come in for some criticism, it never really makes a dent, since the Nazis – and their manifest crimes – are hard to defend (which is not to say they do not have defenders, then and now).
The Tokyo Trials, on the other hand, are an entirely different story. Featuring eleven nations, instead of four, dealing with explosive issues such as race and colonialism, and attempting to make sense of the swirling, ever-changing cliques in Japanese politics, the IMTFE was fated for controversy.
It was also fated for obscurity.
While Nuremberg eventually got a big Hollywood movie – featuring Spencer Tracey – its forgotten younger sibling faded from public memory, with scholarly opinion picking at its rotting corpse. Most of the few books that tackled the Tokyo Trials, such as Richard Minear’s Victor’s Justice, are utterly-biased polemics.
Arnold Brackman’s The Other Nuremberg is one of the few full accounts of the Tokyo Trials. More importantly, it is one of the few accounts that actually speaks up for the tribunal, despite its limitations, flaws, and compromises. In that sense, while The Other Nuremberg is not a great book, it is an important one for students of both WWII and legal history, all the more so because Brackman actually attended large portions of the trials.
Born of the Potsdam Declaration, which warned of the “stern justice” to be meted out to war criminals, the Tokyo Trials began on April 29, 1946. There were twenty-eight total defendants, the most famous being Hideki Tojo. Ultimately, twenty-five were convicted, while two died before judgment, and one was declared incompetent. For all the whinging about unfairness, only seven of those convicted were executed; of those who went to the gallows, all had been convicted of conventional war crimes (such crimes having been recognized throughout history, flatly contradicting the notion they were punished for things they did not know were illegal). Of the surviving prisoners, all were free and clear by 1958, having served sentences that would make many non-violent drug offenders in America quite envious.
Brackman knew he could not hope to cover the whole of the vast proceedings in a single four-hundred page book. After all, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of testimony, and once you get through that, there are thousands of pages of legal opinions summarizing and commenting on that evidence.
The Other Nuremberg is broken down into manageable chapters covering the judges, the prosecution, and the defense, mixing thematic discussions into the overall chronology. Brackman also dives into some of the elements of the trial that he found most fascinating, especially Japanese atrocities in China. Of all the aspects of World War II that I’ve studied, I think I know the least about the Sino-Japanese War. This does not cure that deficit, but it is a helpful reminder that I have more reading to do.
In Brackman’s opinion, which I share, the IMTFE was a noble attempt at achieving the elusive concept of justice in the wake of the most unjust of contexts (the trials, of course, took place in a city ravaged by incendiaries, where the innocent burned with the guilty). Nevertheless, Brackman doesn’t hide flaws in trial, of which there were many. For instance, there is the odd, American-led reticence to delve into Japanese bacteriological warfare, likely connected to the American desire to learn the dark secrets that had been discovered.
The biggest mark against the trials was the decision not to indict the Emperor (who, it is more and more apparent, deserved to be indicted). Even the defendants, fighting for their lives, circled the wagons around Hirohito. As unfortunate as this is, though, it is not a flaw of the trials, per se, but rather a decree from on high, with MacArthur deciding that he needed the Emperor as part of his reconstruction plan. In fact, the chief justice of the IMTFE, William Webb, complained about this vociferously. Politics played a huge role, but that’s hardly a trenchant critique. When you are trying the leaders of a sovereign nation, politics are involved by their very nature.
While Brackman is supportive of the Tokyo Trials, there are time I wish he had done a better job defending them. For instance, he does not engage with IMTFE opponents who claim the trials were illegitimate because the Allies did things that were just as bad – or worse – as the Japanese. This was a big part of Indian Justice Rabhabinod Pal’s dissent, and required a response.
(Since Brackman is silent, I’ll step in. No matter how debatable the Allied tactics – and they were debatable – they were undertaken in response to a war that was thrust upon them. This is an important point, because it turns out your parents were wrong: it does matter who started it. Moreover, the so-called “tu quoque” defense is a logical fallacy, since saying that the Allies were just as bad as the Japanese does not, in fact, prove the innocence of the Japanese defendants).
The aforementioned Justice Pal voted to acquit all the defendants, and issued his thousand-page dissent, greatly coloring subsequent views of the IMTFE. Here, Brackman does good work by damningly demonstrating that Pal noted his intention to acquit – and to write a dissent – before the trial started. Then he absented himself for long periods of the trial to spend time with his sick wife. Thus, Pal’s dissent should be seen for what it was: an argument against western colonialism and an argument for own nation’s independence. Whatever the merits of Pal’s colonial critique, his reading of the evidence (based on the parts of his opinion I’ve read) is not credible. Chinese Justice Mei Ju-ao, whose country lost millions of dead, was certainly aghast that Pal would compare the atomic bombings – meant to end the war – to the barbaric rapes and murders in Nanking that were meant for nothing more than the infliction of human misery.
Most legal critics like to use high-minded slogans, such as “victor’s justice,” or Latin legalisms such as “ex post facto” laws. In law school, when I studied both military tribunals rather extensively, under a moderately-respected international law professor, I was very much overawed with the cold logic and sharp erudition of these arguments. Having had time to grow up, and think about things a bit more, I see them now as little more than elites protecting elites.
Strip away the finery, and you are left with this as a proposal: that making war is always a legitimate tool of the state, no matter what. There are no consequences to waging war, no matter how predatory, how vicious. That is to say, there are no consequences as long as your position on the board is king, queen, knight, bishop, or rook. If you are a pawn, on the other hand, you’ll get all the consequences you can manage, whether you are a conscript sent into an impossible situation, or a civilian caught in a besieged city.
Despite being overshadowed by Nuremberg, the Tokyo Trials remain important, if for no other reason than they are a vast repository of eyewitness testimonials. It represents a first draft of a massive history. If you read some of the transcripts, you will be shocked. You will find within those grim pages the testimony of a Filipino woman who described being torn open by a gang rape in Manila; you will find a railway official in Nanking who counted five-hundred corpses along a single boulevard, before he just stopped counting; you will find the gaunt survivors of the slave-labor camps in Burma, which masqueraded as prisoner-of-war sites, explaining how they somehow survived. The list of murders, sexual assaults, sexual exploitation, torture, and beheadings just goes on and on.
To deny the legitimacy of the Tokyo Trials, which – in the end – tried only a fraction of a fraction of those responsible, is in a way to deny the existence of these horrors. The best rebuttal to this came on July 26, 1946, by the much-maligned Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson. His summation regarding the Nazis applies equally to the Japanese defendants in the Tokyo dock:
“They stand before the record of this Trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain king. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: "Say I slew them not." And the Queen replied, "Then say they were not slain. But dead they are..."”
May 22, 2020
While the Nuremberg trials are known to all, not so for The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE). Perhaps this tribunal is lesser known than the one in Germany because it was more complex or because it took place when the world had moved on. Arnold C. Brackman covered the Tribunal for 2+ years as a journalist for United Press International.
Brachman sets the stage by showing the military’s reaction to the announcement that Japan would surrender. Record burning was extensive. With so many records destroyed assembling the prosecution’s case was difficult. I lost count of how many military leaders committed suicide. The result of this was that many potential war criminals did not have to face a trial.
There were 28 “Class A” defendants in the Tokyo trials. Classes B and C were tried elsewhere in Japan. Eleven nations sent jurists. Class A defendants were represented by American and Japanese lawyers. Some of the nations had their own prior tribunals and/or "detainments".
The Tokyo trial was conducted in English and Japanese. Special arrangements had to be made for Chinese and Russian languages. Translators were in short supply. All this was pre-photocopying, so written texts had many technical problems.
Brackman is at his best in humanizing the participants. William Webb of Australia, president of the IMTFE, had the difficult position of being against capital punishment, but handing down death sentences. “British India’s” representative, Radhabinod Pal, felt that the prosecuting nations were guilty of the same crimes throughout their colonial empires. The defending generals didn’t help themselves when they barked their statements in military fashion. There are descriptions of the faces and body language of the generals when atrocities were recounted. On the stand, the civilian defendants showed their diplomacy and polish with their evasive responses.
Given the dearth of government documents, the prosecution relied on diaries, eye witness accounts, the few records saved by the “anti-war” segments of the government. The section on Nanking relied on eye witness testimony from international medical workers, Chinese officials, a representative of the US embassy in Nanking, and Episcopal minister and others. The Japanese had an embassy in Nanking and through it you see how civilian government had been co-opted by the military.
It was clear that a decision was made from above that the Emperor not be prosecuted. This may or may not have been known by the defendants who found ways to shield him. Most defendants said they did not know about the atrocities.
Seven defendants received the death penalty. Two died during the trail and 1 was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. The 16 others, received life sentences; of this group 3 died in prison and the remaining 13 were paroled in the mid 1950’s. The sentences were controversial as well as the failure to explore the many issues that point to the participation of the Emperor.
The book is arranged by topics which are artfully chronological. The index worked for everything I checked. The B & W photos show the somber mood of the court. (I would have liked to have seen a photo of P’u Yi on the stand.) Short resumes for the defendants and their sentences appear at the end.
The writer is talented and humanizes the participants in an engaging way. There is a style that hampers a smooth read. An example is a chapter titled: “Sir William Webb Leaves the Bench”. You think he is going for good. Webb left, but did not miss much and returned. An example from the text is on p. 378 which begins with Justice Webb saying “The tribunal will now proceed to render its verdict..”. The text shifts (same paragraph) to the defendants’ diaries from the night before and then back to the reading of the verdict. Using a chronology or better transitions would make a smoother read. I’m using this as an example because this shift is easy to follow, but when content is difficult reading is not so easy, especially when an opening sentence of a paragraph doesn't fully represent the content as in the chapter title example.
This is the only book I know of on this topic. It has a lot of information. Given the complexity of the material, the author has created a good road map and given some portraits of people and this time in history. Most WWII readers interested in the Pacific Theater will want to read it if they have not already.
Brachman sets the stage by showing the military’s reaction to the announcement that Japan would surrender. Record burning was extensive. With so many records destroyed assembling the prosecution’s case was difficult. I lost count of how many military leaders committed suicide. The result of this was that many potential war criminals did not have to face a trial.
There were 28 “Class A” defendants in the Tokyo trials. Classes B and C were tried elsewhere in Japan. Eleven nations sent jurists. Class A defendants were represented by American and Japanese lawyers. Some of the nations had their own prior tribunals and/or "detainments".
The Tokyo trial was conducted in English and Japanese. Special arrangements had to be made for Chinese and Russian languages. Translators were in short supply. All this was pre-photocopying, so written texts had many technical problems.
Brackman is at his best in humanizing the participants. William Webb of Australia, president of the IMTFE, had the difficult position of being against capital punishment, but handing down death sentences. “British India’s” representative, Radhabinod Pal, felt that the prosecuting nations were guilty of the same crimes throughout their colonial empires. The defending generals didn’t help themselves when they barked their statements in military fashion. There are descriptions of the faces and body language of the generals when atrocities were recounted. On the stand, the civilian defendants showed their diplomacy and polish with their evasive responses.
Given the dearth of government documents, the prosecution relied on diaries, eye witness accounts, the few records saved by the “anti-war” segments of the government. The section on Nanking relied on eye witness testimony from international medical workers, Chinese officials, a representative of the US embassy in Nanking, and Episcopal minister and others. The Japanese had an embassy in Nanking and through it you see how civilian government had been co-opted by the military.
It was clear that a decision was made from above that the Emperor not be prosecuted. This may or may not have been known by the defendants who found ways to shield him. Most defendants said they did not know about the atrocities.
Seven defendants received the death penalty. Two died during the trail and 1 was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. The 16 others, received life sentences; of this group 3 died in prison and the remaining 13 were paroled in the mid 1950’s. The sentences were controversial as well as the failure to explore the many issues that point to the participation of the Emperor.
The book is arranged by topics which are artfully chronological. The index worked for everything I checked. The B & W photos show the somber mood of the court. (I would have liked to have seen a photo of P’u Yi on the stand.) Short resumes for the defendants and their sentences appear at the end.
The writer is talented and humanizes the participants in an engaging way. There is a style that hampers a smooth read. An example is a chapter titled: “Sir William Webb Leaves the Bench”. You think he is going for good. Webb left, but did not miss much and returned. An example from the text is on p. 378 which begins with Justice Webb saying “The tribunal will now proceed to render its verdict..”. The text shifts (same paragraph) to the defendants’ diaries from the night before and then back to the reading of the verdict. Using a chronology or better transitions would make a smoother read. I’m using this as an example because this shift is easy to follow, but when content is difficult reading is not so easy, especially when an opening sentence of a paragraph doesn't fully represent the content as in the chapter title example.
This is the only book I know of on this topic. It has a lot of information. Given the complexity of the material, the author has created a good road map and given some portraits of people and this time in history. Most WWII readers interested in the Pacific Theater will want to read it if they have not already.
November 23, 2014
An interesting account of the Tokyo war crimes trials following WW2. Other than General Tojo, the Japanese military and political leaders of the era are less well known than their German counterparts. The Japanese crimes against humanity, though know less evil in scope, were of a different character than those crimes committed by the Nazis. The book provides a good character sketch of the major figures, from the civilian prime minister, Hirota, who presided over a government held hostage by the military while the Rape of Nanking occurred. to General Doihara, a young officer who rose to power from the plots and schemes of Manchuria to become Tojo's right-hand man.
Japan's road to war always struck me as more tragic than Germany's. Japan evolved from a closed feudal society to a military superpower in only a few decades. It held off European and Chinese domination, educated and modernized its society and fought for equality on the high seas against the British and Americans. But amidst that growth came xenophobia and a belief in racial superiority that led to the horrors of the war in China and the tragic road to Pearl Harbor. In that climate the military ruled and gave rise to ruthless conquerors described here.
Japan's road to war always struck me as more tragic than Germany's. Japan evolved from a closed feudal society to a military superpower in only a few decades. It held off European and Chinese domination, educated and modernized its society and fought for equality on the high seas against the British and Americans. But amidst that growth came xenophobia and a belief in racial superiority that led to the horrors of the war in China and the tragic road to Pearl Harbor. In that climate the military ruled and gave rise to ruthless conquerors described here.
January 21, 2021
First of all, the writing is masterful. The book is well organized, clear, easy to follow, honest, informative, and full of content. The amateur historian is treated with respect. This is what it used to be in the printing world - a well written academic book was usually so well written that it was appropriate for amateur audiences. Today, books for amateurs are written in a simplistic way (and very often propagandist) while academic books are not readable.
The chapters are relatively short, which allows for taking breaks in-between and not in the middle of a chapter.
I was honestly concerned about reading this book. When I read "Justice at Nuremberg" a few years ago it really affected me, but I made a decision to read about Tokyo as well. It took me 3 years to feel ready to face this kind of material again.
Nobody can explain why Japanese atrocities were so quickly forgotten in the world and particularly in Japan. Perhaps because many of the affected countries were not independent at the time of the Tribunal and couldn't be represented well? China, a major victim of Japan, had a civil war during the time of the Tribunal. So did Indonesia.
We read the book with great interest but find ourselves exhausted after the prosecution presents its case. There are a lot of legal formalities discussed in the chapters that follow. The defense was clearly struggling with its case, but to the reader it gradually appeared that the accused resigned themselves to be sacrificed "for the Emperor". Closer to the end, when the verdict is announced and its legals repercussions discussed, the book becomes very interesting again. The author discusses US efforts to keep the Tribunal away from a few difficult topics. The dissenting opinion of judge Pal from India is one of the things that stimulate the reader's own thinking. Was the judge not in attendance when the case was presented? At any rate, this judge's separate opinion still resonates in the legal world.
A wonderful book about a really difficult topic. This book deserves many future editions. How come the last edition of this book is from 1987? So many American lives were lost during the was against Japan that I am having difficulties understanding why this war is already totally forgotten, with the exception of Pearl Harbor.
The chapters are relatively short, which allows for taking breaks in-between and not in the middle of a chapter.
I was honestly concerned about reading this book. When I read "Justice at Nuremberg" a few years ago it really affected me, but I made a decision to read about Tokyo as well. It took me 3 years to feel ready to face this kind of material again.
Nobody can explain why Japanese atrocities were so quickly forgotten in the world and particularly in Japan. Perhaps because many of the affected countries were not independent at the time of the Tribunal and couldn't be represented well? China, a major victim of Japan, had a civil war during the time of the Tribunal. So did Indonesia.
We read the book with great interest but find ourselves exhausted after the prosecution presents its case. There are a lot of legal formalities discussed in the chapters that follow. The defense was clearly struggling with its case, but to the reader it gradually appeared that the accused resigned themselves to be sacrificed "for the Emperor". Closer to the end, when the verdict is announced and its legals repercussions discussed, the book becomes very interesting again. The author discusses US efforts to keep the Tribunal away from a few difficult topics. The dissenting opinion of judge Pal from India is one of the things that stimulate the reader's own thinking. Was the judge not in attendance when the case was presented? At any rate, this judge's separate opinion still resonates in the legal world.
A wonderful book about a really difficult topic. This book deserves many future editions. How come the last edition of this book is from 1987? So many American lives were lost during the was against Japan that I am having difficulties understanding why this war is already totally forgotten, with the exception of Pearl Harbor.
December 30, 2020
Eleven judges representing three quarters of the world’s population hear testimony and determine the innocence or guilt of 28 Japanese men (19 military and 9 government officials) accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Although the Japanese destroyed much evidence near the end of WWII, they did not destroy it all. Also, 419 witnesses, including the last emperor of China, takes the stand and testifies to events that happened between the time of Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in September 1931 until the end of the war in September 1945. These events greatly affected people in the area from Korea in the north to Australia in the south, and from India in the west to the Aleutian Islands and New Guinea in the east. The evidence and testimony deal with issues such as widespread systematic murder, extermination, enslavement, and other inhumane acts such as transporting POWs in hell ships, forcing thousands of females (from the young to the old) to be “comfort women” for the Japanese military, massacres, mass executions, torture, bayoneting, burning and burying victims alive, and beheadings. Atrocities include the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the Siam-Burma Death Railway, and the Rape of Manila. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East skirts topics such as the innocence or guilt of the emperor of Japan and charges against the Japanese performing biological and medical experimentation on civilian populations and POWs.
I’m always curious about the story behind the story. The author reported some of the lengthy (2½ years) war crimes trials in Tokyo. Also, after the war, Agnes de Keyzer, Allied prisoner of war who was imprisoned in Tjideng Camp, Batavia (Jakarta) became the author’s wife.
I’m always curious about the story behind the story. The author reported some of the lengthy (2½ years) war crimes trials in Tokyo. Also, after the war, Agnes de Keyzer, Allied prisoner of war who was imprisoned in Tjideng Camp, Batavia (Jakarta) became the author’s wife.
April 18, 2025
The sequel is seldom as good as the original. In this case, I don't mean the book, I mean the trial.
If you tell people you read a book about the Nuremberg Trial, most of them will know what you're talking about. If you mention a book about the IMTFE (International Military Tribunal of the Far East), you'll get blank stares. Mention the names of the defendants at Nuremberg, most will recognize the key players: Himmler, Goebbels, Speer, Göring. For the IMTFE, I think most will recognize Tojo, but Araki, Doihara, Itagaki, Muto, and the rest? History has mostly forgotten them. Their deeds, though, are not obscure: the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the Siam-Burma Death Railway ("The Bridge on the River Kwai").
This book was written by one of the reporters who attended the trial and therefore was quite familiar with the material before he dove into the millions of words of testimony produced by the trial. I found the research thorough and the book well organized.. The author covers many of the legal issues and presents the facts in as even-handed a way as may be possible for such material.
Recommended to readers who found the Nuremberg trial interesting.
If you tell people you read a book about the Nuremberg Trial, most of them will know what you're talking about. If you mention a book about the IMTFE (International Military Tribunal of the Far East), you'll get blank stares. Mention the names of the defendants at Nuremberg, most will recognize the key players: Himmler, Goebbels, Speer, Göring. For the IMTFE, I think most will recognize Tojo, but Araki, Doihara, Itagaki, Muto, and the rest? History has mostly forgotten them. Their deeds, though, are not obscure: the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the Siam-Burma Death Railway ("The Bridge on the River Kwai").
This book was written by one of the reporters who attended the trial and therefore was quite familiar with the material before he dove into the millions of words of testimony produced by the trial. I found the research thorough and the book well organized.. The author covers many of the legal issues and presents the facts in as even-handed a way as may be possible for such material.
Recommended to readers who found the Nuremberg trial interesting.
February 22, 2024
Japan did atrocities, crimes against humanity, and heinous torture of every kind against civilians, POWs, and their own women during WWII.
The Emperor surrendered on condition he personally would face no consequences.
Others were charged, punished, and executed (both in his place and as war criminals)… but not many. Most never faced justice.
Compassionate yet unflinching, this dense nonfiction book has lots of information. Written respectfully, it humanizes people - victims and perpetrators alike.
Trigger warnings: war crimes and some dated language.
The Emperor surrendered on condition he personally would face no consequences.
Others were charged, punished, and executed (both in his place and as war criminals)… but not many. Most never faced justice.
Compassionate yet unflinching, this dense nonfiction book has lots of information. Written respectfully, it humanizes people - victims and perpetrators alike.
Trigger warnings: war crimes and some dated language.
February 27, 2020
A fascinating eye-witness narrative account of the Tokyo war crimes trial. This book was well-researched, informative, and conveys a real sense of the courtroom drama. Highly recommended!
July 22, 2022
It is simply amazing to me that a civilized society such as Japan could be so cruel, sadistic, inhuman as to allow their military to do all of the terrible thing they did in WWII.
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