Who was worse, nazi Germany or imperial Japan?

Question

People always talk about nazis and how evil they were which i don't think anyone would disagree with. But what about Imperial Japan?

DevilsAdvocator · Accepted Answer

Both were pretty bad, but I'd still go with Nazi Germany over Imperial Japan, because Imperial Japan's descent into evil was essentially driven by their desire to be taken seriously and considered as equals by the European Great Powers. To that end, the modernizers in Japanese society basically sent out emissaries to all of the most advanced and progressive educational institutions, industrial complexes and mega-corporations in the Western World, to glean whatever they could about 'The Ways of the West', and then fast-tracked the implementation of those policies in Imperial Japan, aka as 'The Meiji Revolution'.

The Imperial Japanese brand of racial supremacism, nationalist exceptionalism, and their own take on the 'White Man's Burden', was directly influenced by those which were being espoused in British, American, and German Universities in particular, around the turn of the century. And their descent into madness, and escalation of their atrocities, was a direct result of their WW1 Allies'- The USA and British Empire in particular- outright refusal to ever acknowledge them or any other 'non-whites' as beings of equal status with equal entitlement to basic human rights.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/08/11/742293305/a-century-later-the-treaty-of-versailles-and-its-rejection-of-racial-equality https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1090&context=cibs
If not for the US of America's and British Empire's adamant assertions of their own immutable white supremacism, exceptionalism and exclusionism, forcing Imperial Japan to forced to abandon their calls for universal racial equality as a hopeless and 'politically incorrect' endeavor (instead switching their efforts in the 20's, from attempting to have all 'peoples of color' acknowledged as racial equals by the whites, to merely trying to be acknowledged as 'Honorary Aryans' themselves)- would Imperial Japan have gone off the deep end? Or indeed, been evil at all, relative to any of the other Imperial Colonial Powers?

Their later alignment with the Italian Fascists, and then with Nazi Germany, resulting in the formation of the Anti-Comintern Pact and 'The Axis Powers', with the Japanese following suit in embracing several Fascist policies themselves, was ultimately brought about predominantly because these were the only White European 'Great Powers' willing to afford them that recognition as 'Honorary Aryans' (and this, only really as a matter of convenience- in the instance of the Italians, purely to bribe the Japanese into refraining from intervening on behalf of the Ethiopians in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, as public opinion back in Japan had been massively in favor of doing, having previously been the largest foreign investors in modernizing Ethiopia, to the extent that Ethiopia's modernizers had also been known as 'Japanizers', and in the case of the Germans, because 'the enemy of my enemies is my friend'). As such, I would count Nazi Germany as having been markedly worse, especially if we look at both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan as a whole, over the entire course of their respective histories.

BCA6010 · Accepted Answer

Soviet Russia blows both out of the water.

Japan was more brutal in its treatment of prisoners and civilians in occupied territories than the Germans, particularly in China and southeast Asia. The numbers killed by the Germans are pretty well known and documented while the numbers killed by the Japanese are broader estimates, also fudged quite a bit by the general lack of value of life in that part of the world. This also reflects in WHO was most effected: in Europe the victims were generally targeted, while in Asia it was more indiscriminate.

You're not going to find serious efforts to avoid mass slaughter of civilians or prisoners prior to the end of World War 2. Even the US and UK committed some pretty egregious acts that would be considered war crimes or crimes against humanity in a modern sense that went largely ignored even after the war's end. They were usually over-the-top reactions to other events, or considered acceptable by an "ends justify the means" approach.

BipBipLeddus · Accepted Answer

Nazi Germany. Systematic mass genocide of millions for no other reason than ethnic cleansing is far worse. Why does that need to be explained?

acooke-13 · Accepted Answer

Both as bad as each other - and no, I am not picking one.

NamerOfStars · Answer

They were both pretty damn evil. At a certain point, though, it becomes hard to quantify that kind of awfulness. Here in the US, Japanese wartime atrocities tend to get elided in public education, and even discussion- they'll bring up Pearl Harbor (which wasn't a war crime at all), but that's about it. This is in favor of condemning the US for interning its own citizens simply because they were of Japanese ancestry (interestingly, that the same thing was done to ethnic Italians in the same war goes unmentioned, as does the same thing being done to ethnic Germans in that war, or the previous war, despite Germans making up the single most common ethnic background in the whole country (obviously there were cutoffs)). I don't disagree with that condemnation, of course; racism is racism. But being a victim doesn't mean you're not an awful person.

bean2k21 · Answer

Do you think the Japanese
wanted to resort to guerrilla warfare
Or do you think they just had no choice
I don't think they would have flown
Their aircraft into Navy battleships
If they had had other resources
It just seems more barbaric perhaps
Because of what they pretty much had to do

Alexandrubaschet08 · Answer

Imperial Japan is kinde ignored from all the sides from AXA and Aliaces.
Japan never fight in the interes of the AXA or Aliaces, they fight in theyr own interes been aliated whit AXA powers and they even betraid the AXA by attaking USA when all the members told them not to do so and look for USSR back.

Sparks32 · Answer

Only white atrocities are allowed to be mentioned. Things like Arabs constantly gang raping non Muslims sawing the heads off people with knives in the most racially hateful way must never be mentioned.

slatyb · Answer

The Nazis conducted an explicit campaign of extermination. The Japanese were brutal but AFAIK they didn’t have a policy of genicide.

jshm2 · Answer

You forgot Colonial America : which killed more natives than the Nazi's and Japanese ever killed.

ragooo8 · Answer

Japan has a higher death count than the nazis if you go by that alone.

Jackpot7s · Answer

You know what's worse than both of them? The United States in 2021.

loveslongnails · Answer

Chairman Mao killed a lot more people than Hitler, and most were his own countrymen.

noohair · Answer

The Nazis practiced industrial murder. The Japanese were very racist against other Asians.  On a philosophical level of evil, very similar.

Hellraiser1984 · Answer

Nazis. But the Japanese ate a lot of people during WWII.

Cubus · Answer

Both were unhumanly awful. You can't say one was a bit better and one was a bit worse.

anylolone · Answer

At this level it's pointless. After a certain threshold it's all just very bad.

Guardian45 · Answer

Imperial Japan = Nazi Germany = Fascist Italy ALL the SAME SH! T!

AkshiJanjua · Answer

Both were as bad as each other  Then there's the atomic bomb

emperor90 · Answer

Nazi germany were bad

Wise4myage · Answer

Japan was much worse to POW's.

Aurora1010 · Answer

Imperial Japan

SiberFox · Answer

Evil is Evil.

boobliker · Answer

same in my mind

Anonymous · Answer

Imperial Japan.

Steve1071 · Answer

Both.

Who was worse, nazi Germany or imperial Japan?

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