Greater Japan Youth Party
The Great Japan Youth Party ( 大 日本 青年 党 , Dai-Nippon Seinen-tō , English Great Japan Youth Party ), later known as the Greater Japan Sincerity Association ( 大 日本 赤誠 会 , Dai Nippon Sekisei-kai , English Great Japan Sincerity Association ) was one Nationalist youth organization in the Japanese Empire based on the model of the Hitler Youth in the Third Reich . It was active from 1937 until its dissolution in 1945.
history
The Greater Japan Youth Party was a youth organization founded on October 17, 1937 by the ultra-nationalist officer Hashimoto Kingorō . Hashimoto had previously been temporarily placed on reserve because of his involvement in the failed coup attempt on February 26 against the government .
Hashimoto shaped the organization along the lines of the Hitler Youth in the Third Reich . This even happened to the extent that the light brown color was adopted for the members' uniforms, and the party banner was strongly based on that of the NSDAP . It consisted of a red banner with a white circle in the middle. The first party rally took place on the grounds of the Meiji Shrine in downtown Tokyo with around 600 members.
The party's stated aim was to provide Japanese youth with basic survival skills, first aid , life skills, cultural lessons, traditions and basic weapons training. Hashimoto's primary intention, however, was to create idealistic young supporters for the party “Kōdō-ha” ( Japanese 皇 道 派 , Eng. “Faction of the imperial way”) and its nationalistic and militaristic doctrines.
During the third rally of the party in Hibiya Park with around 2000 members in November 1939, Hashimoto expressed his support for the coming three-power pact with the Third Reich, the fascist kingdom of Italy and for a one-party system in Japan. He also set the ambitious goal of increasing party membership to 100,000 members by the end of 1940.
With increasing conscription due to the Second Sino-Japanese War and later the Pacific War , however, most of his target group was drafted into the Japanese military. As a result, the party fell far short of its goals. Although the Greater Japan Youth Party was not explicitly a " political party " in itself , it fell under the overall leadership of the Taisei Yokusankai party , which was organized by Japanese Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro from October 1940.
Hashimoto returned to Manchukuo in late 1940 because he could not achieve his goals in Japan and was stopped by government actions. There he tried to found another local youth organization similar to the Greater Japan Youth Party among the Japanese settler population, with just as little success.
By the end of World War II, the Greater Japan Youth Party had become little more than a disused youth wing of the Taisei Yokusankai. Together with this organization, it was then dissolved in 1945 on behalf of the American occupation authorities .
Individual evidence
- ^ Spencer Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts: Encyclopedia of World War II: A Political, Social, and Military History . ABC-CLIO , 2005, ISBN 1-57607-999-6 , pp. 666 .
- ^ A b Richard Sims: Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868-2000 . Palgrave Macmillan , 2001, ISBN 0-312-23915-7 , pp. 218 .
- ^ A b Ballet Evening, Priscilla Mary Roberts: My Life in China 1926-1941 . Reader Books, 2007, ISBN 1-4067-3966-9 , pp. 274 .
- ↑ Nisuke Ando, Priscilla Mary Roberts: Surrender, Occupation, and Private Property in International Law . Oxford University Press , 1991, ISBN 0-19-825411-3 , pp. 170 .