Doihara Kenji

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Colonel Doihara Kenji (photo 1931/1932)

Doihara Kenji ( Japanese 土肥原 賢 二 , born August 8, 1883 in Okayama , † December 23, 1948 in Tokyo ) was a nationalist Japanese spy, politician and general of the Japanese Empire who was active in China from 1913 to 1940. He was one of the main people responsible for the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1932 and the Second Sino-Japanese War . From the western journalist HGW Woodhead he was nicknamed Lawrence of China (later also Lawrence of Manchuria) in reference to the British secret agent TE Lawrence . In the Imperial Japanese Army, he was the most famous Shina tsu ( 支那 つ , China specialist). Doihara was sentenced to death as a war criminal in the Tokyo Trials from 1946 to 1948 .

biography

Cadet Kenji Doihara (1903)

Doihara Kenji was born the son of a major in the Imperial Japanese Army in the city of Okayama. Because of his origin, his professional career was already determined from the start. Doihara enrolled at the age of 14 in October 1897 in the Tokyo Cadet School ( 陸軍 幼年 学校 , rikugun yōnen gakkō). After successfully completing the cadet school, he attended the Imperial Japanese Army Academy ( 陸軍士 官 学校 , rikugun shikan gakkō , 16th graduation year) until 1904 and, after successfully completing all exams, became an officer together with Okamura Yasuji and Itagaki Seishirō . He was the best graduate of his year and showed a special talent for learning foreign languages. Because of his upbringing, which was strongly influenced by the military, Doihara had his greatest goal since his youth, to make Manchuria (now northeastern China) part of the Japanese Empire.

After completing his training, Doihara served in various infantry units in the Japanese army and was used in the Russo-Japanese War . In the period from November 1904 to January 1905 he witnessed the siege of Port Arthur . In July and August 1905 he took part in the conquest of the Russian island of Sakhalin ( 樺 太 島 , Karafuto-tō ). In 1907 he was promoted to first lieutenant ( 中尉 , Chūi ). From 1909 he attended the Japanese Army University and completed his studies in November 1912 at the age of 29, while in general a minimum age of 30 years was valid for admission to the Japanese Army University.

Spy in China

After completing his studies, Doihara went to Beijing as a military attaché in January 1913 , where he became an assistant to Bansai Rihachirō , one of the most experienced veterans of the Japanese intelligence services in China.

Various sources claim that Doihara took photos of his younger sister and gave them to a prince of the Japanese imperial family, who then chose Doihara's sister as a concubine. As a thank you, Doihara is said to have received the position in Beijing. However, given his abilities, it is more likely that this story was only brought into the world later to characterize him as particularly vicious. Doihara had learned to speak fluently standard Chinese , various regional Chinese languages, and nine European languages. He was personable and open-minded, which made it easy for him to make new friends. In the eyes of the Imperial Japanese General Staff, these skills predestined him for espionage activities.

Bansai Rihachirō's secret organization was concerned with expanding Japanese influence on Chinese domestic politics and served as a training ground for Doihara Kenji. In August 1913 Doihara was promoted to captain (jap. 大尉 , taii ).

Support the Anhui clique

Honjō Shigeru (lower row, 1st from left), Bansai Rihachirō (lower row, 2nd from left) and Doihara Kenji (top row, 4th from left) (1918)
Students demonstrating in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Beijing, 1919)

The Japanese favored the Anhui clique formed in 1916 under General Duan Qirui as the future Chinese government and, in return for extensive military aid, had generous concessions for the extraction of mineral resources issued, which Japanese industry had previously had to import at great expense . The negotiations that led to Duan Qirui taking out the Nishihara credits were largely prepared by Bansai and his co-workers, including Doihara.

Doihara did an above-average intelligence work for the first time in the organization of the support for Anhui. He became an assistant to Major Honjō Shigeru , who was also an early protagonist of Japanese imperialist expansion. Doihara had the opportunity to build up his own network of criminal Chinese from among the Anhui clique. He was promoted to major (Japanese 少佐 , shōsa ) in July 1919 .

In 1920, due to Duan Qirui's political and military mistakes, the Anhui clique was defeated by warring military factions. In the hour of defeat, Doihara rescued the ousted President Duan Qirui in a laundry basket in front of protesting students in Beijing. With the disempowerment of the Anhui clique, the Japanese also suffered a setback and were forced to look for a new partner who could give them access to the Chinese raw material deposits urgently needed for the colonial expansion. Doihara had recommended himself again for responsible tasks due to his successful work in the rescue of Duan.

Japanese intervention in the Russian Civil War

After the end of the rule of the Anhui clique, Doihara stayed from April 1920 to 1922 in the part of the Soviet Far Eastern Republic occupied by Japan during the Russian Civil War . He was stationed in what is now Primorye , where he worked for the first time for the newly founded Tokumu Kikan , a special unit of the Imperial Japanese Army, and supported the Russian Civil War General Grigori Michailowitsch Semjonow in the fight against the Red Army .

On October 27, 1921, three majors of the Imperial Japanese Army met with Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko in Baden-Baden to prepare for Prince Hirohito to take over the reign of his mentally ill father, Emperor Yoshihito . With the help of the young regent, the influence of the old Chōshū clan under the leadership of Yamagata Aritomo on the Imperial Japanese army was to be eliminated. The troops, equipped with outdated technology, had to be converted into a powerful and modern army in order to realize the imperial dreams of the future emperor Hirohito. The officers and Prince Higashikuni selected eleven trustworthy men. Among them were Tōjō Hideki , Itagaki Seishirō and Doihara Kenji.

After his return from the Soviet Union, Doihara belonged again to the China department of the Japanese military intelligence service and further developed his relations with Chinese political celebrities. At the same time he rose further in the hierarchy of the Japanese army. In August 1923 he received the rank of lieutenant colonel (Japanese 中 佐 , chūsa ).

Doihara became an advisor to the Zhili faction politician Cao Kun , who was appointed President of the Republic of China on October 10, 1923. As adviser to the President, Doihara also became a member of the Sino-Japanese Cultural Society, which was established soon afterwards and which included not only well-known Chinese politicians but also some of the best agents of the Japanese intelligence services.

Military aid to warlord Zhang Zuolin

The Zhili faction under the leadership of Wu Peifu was geared towards the independent development of China, which was in contradiction to the imperialist hegemony efforts of the Japanese militarists. Therefore the Japanese secret service agents prepared the seizure of power by the Fengtian clique under the Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin . The successful coup attempt went down in Chinese history in September 1924 as the Second Zhili Fengtian War .

Doihara, together with the military adviser Matsumuro Takayoshi, played a major role in bringing about the decisive change of sides from the Zhili faction's commander, Feng Yuxiang , to the Fengtian clique, by submitting Feng documents about Wu Peifu's intention to forge close ties with the United States , let play. With the help of this information and a large sum of one million yen, he was finally able to persuade Feng to put forward a coup against President Cao Kun on October 23, 1924.

Tianjin

Shortly after his move to the Fengtian faction, the warlord Feng, whose troops also controlled Beijing, had the former Chinese emperor Puyi thrown out of the Forbidden City . Puyi sought protection at the Japanese consulate in Beijing. Since his life was still in danger there, Doihara was commissioned to bring the politically valuable refugee to the Tianjin concession . There he quartered Puyi in the magnificent residence of an expropriated Chinese merchant. In the following years, Doihara became friends with Puyi and took on the role of advisor and bodyguard for the emperor. He made sure that the former Russian Civil War general Semjonow Puyi's bodyguard organized. During 1925, Doihara, in collaboration with British authorities and businessmen, was able to eliminate the supporters of the White Lotus secret society in the city who intended to assassinate the former Manchu Emperor. This success earned him the nickname "Lawrence of China" in the local British press , of which he was very proud.

While in Tianjin, Doihara began to develop relationships with the city's underworld and to participate in the illegal opium trade , which was in the hands of Chinese triads (in Tianjin the “ Green Gang ” ) and Japanese yakuza . He supported the production of opium in the Japanese-occupied Formosa (now Taiwan ) and through his connections organized the sale of the drug on the Chinese mainland. The sale of opium served on the one hand to fill the black coffers of the Japanese military, on the other hand, with the deliberate induction of drug addiction, China was to be weakened and, thirdly, Doihara was able to bind his informants more tightly through their drug addiction.

During his time in Tianjin, Doihara took advantage of the desperate financial situation of many Russian emigrants and employed hundreds of them in a network as informers, contract killers and debt collectors. Russian women worked in brothels that Doihara opened for espionage purposes. The prostitutes received one free for every six opium pipes sold to customers.

Assassination of the warlord Zhang Zuolin

Assassination of Warlord Zhang Zuolin (June 4, 1928) The Jinan Incident manifested the failure of Japan's policy of covert colonization of China in the 1920s. Up until the Tokyo trials, Doihara was credited with planning this assassination attempt.

In 1927 Doihara was promoted to colonel ( 大佐 , taisa ) and transferred to the staff of the 1st division . This unit was the most traditional division of the Japanese army and was particularly interspersed with militaristic officers. For this reason, it is not surprising that Doihara was a member of the radical militarist secret society Futabakai in 1928 and 1929 .

From March 20, 1928 Doihara was assigned by General Matsui Iwane as military advisor to the warlord Zhang Zuolin, who, thanks to the longstanding Japanese military aid, was the strongest internal Chinese opponent of the Kuomintang (KMT) under Chiang Kai-shek . When Zhang suffered defeats in the course of the northern expedition initiated by Chiang Kai-shek and had to evacuate Beijing, he began to free himself from dependence on Japan. For political reasons, Zhang was killed in an assassination attempt on June 4, 1928. The attack was initiated by the Japanese Colonel Kōmoto Daisaku who, like Doihara, belonged to the Futabakai. According to historian Leonard Humphreys, Doihara was not personally involved in the assassination plans. He remained in Mukden until March 15, 1929, military advisor to Zhang Xueliang , the son and successor of Zhang Zuolin, when the "young marshal" finally sided with Chiang Kai-shek in revenge for the death of his father. Doihara had tried with little success to persuade Zhang to declare himself Emperor of Manchuria.

This marked the path to Japanese military intervention in China. As a strong leader of the Kuomintang party, Chiang succeeded in largely unifying the country. That meant the end of the Japanese hegemony efforts, which had hitherto been based on diplomatic means. Desperate attempts, such as the financial support initiated by Doihara in 1929 for the opportunistic warlord and governor of Anhui Province , Shi Yousan in the fight against Chiang, did nothing to change this situation, as the Kuomintang troops all strong, not least with the help of Zhang Xueliang Defeat opponents in the central plains from May to October 1930 in the course of the war .

From 1929 to 1930 Doihara commanded the 30th Japanese Infantry Regiment. In the same year he was transferred to the Imperial Japanese General Staff and entrusted with the task of directing the Japanese military espionage of the Kwantung Army from the residence in Tianjin . Doihara's main task was to create conflicts with the Chinese administration and then to resolve them in line with the Japanese expansionist efforts in China.

Manchuria crisis

Zhang Xueliang (3rd from right) together with his wife (right) and Countess Ciano (daughter of Mussolini and wife of Galeazzo Ciano ) in Peiping in 1931. The "young marshal" was busy with his private life and had no inkling of the preparations being made by the Japanese officers.
Doihara Kenji (middle, in uniform) taking over the office of mayor of Mukden (September 20, 1931)

On July 26, 1931, Doihara was appointed head of the Tokumu Kikan secret service of the Kwantung Army, based in the city of Mukden , with the consent of Emperor Hirohito . His transfer was a clear sign that the Japanese army was now about to implement its conquest intentions in Manchuria, as only secondary Japanese intelligence officers had previously taken on this post. He was now working closely with Ishiwara Kanji , Itagaki and other officers of the Imperial Japanese Army who had been working intensively on a specific plan for the occupation of Manchuria since the summer of 1929. Doihara himself was not the central figure behind the outbreak of the Manchurian Crisis , although he helped Ishiwara and Itagaki implement their plans, which were completed in May 1931. While the main conspirators had a purely military conquest of Manchuria in mind, Doihara was able to push through the plan to establish a puppet regime as the politically smarter alternative. He and his staff began to solicit support for a future rule of the former Emperor Puyi from local Chinese businessmen and officials. These efforts fell on fertile ground, as many rich Manchu, especially in Manchuria, wanted a restoration of the empire. In addition, Doihara also used pan-Asian propaganda to get the Chinese on his side.

At the same time, Doihara made sure that Zhang Xueliang was distracted from Manchuria by other conflicts. In August 1931 he had the warlord Yan Xishan , who lived in exile in Japan in Dairen, fly back to his home province of Shanxi, where Yan was once again an unpredictable power factor for the Kuomintang troops under Chiang. Doihara also encouraged the warlord Shi Yousan to rebel against Chiang Kai-shek once more and to advance with his troops into Hebei Province. Zhang Xueliang succeeded in stopping Shi Yousan, but most of his troops were now outside Manchuria. Zhang, who led a very extravagant private life in addition to his military functions, had no inkling of the preparations of the Japanese.

On September 14, a few days before the outbreak of the Manchurian crisis, Doihara traveled to Tokyo to inform Prime Minister Wakatsuki Reijirō and Foreign Minister Baron Shidehara Kijūrō of the military's plans. Doihara then gave a short interview to Japanese journalists in which he refused to reveal the Japanese government's position on the Manchurian issue. The public did not become aware that Shidehara and Wakatsuki had actually spoken out against an occupation of the country. Separately, the Japanese military began to put into practice its plans, which had been secretly agreed with Emperor Hirohito. On September 15, Doihara left Tokyo with other conspirators. In his luggage he had a not inconsiderable sum of money that was to be used to finance uniforms, ammunition and to pay wages. On his way back to Mukden, however, he stopped in Korea for no further reason, which meant that the money he was carrying was relatively useless. This was viewed as an attempt at sabotage, which is why his co-conspirators no longer trusted him.

After a bogus bomb attack on the Japanese-owned southern Manchurian railway in the late evening of September 17 ( Mukden incident ), the Mukden garrison under the command of Zhang Xueliang was overwhelmed and the warlord's air force destroyed the following night. Zhang's troops did not offer any resistance on the instructions of their commander, because the warlord initially assumed an unfortunate misunderstanding.

Immediately after the Japanese raid, which supposedly served to protect the railway line, Doihara took over the position of mayor of Mukden with the consent of local Chinese celebrities . In this position he began to set up a police force consisting of several hundred Chinese. Its main purpose was to give outside observers the impression that the local population was liberating itself from the reign of terror of the warlord Zhāng and merely supporting the Japanese military in doing so.

While the military occupation of southern Manchuria (consisting of the historic Chinese provinces of Kirin and Fengtian) was a success until September 25, 1931, the Japanese were not sure whether one of the surprised great powers such as Great Britain, the USA , was not after all or the Soviet Union would intervene in favor of the Chinese. On October 5, 1931, Doihara proposed that the Chinese city of Jinzhou be attacked by Japanese bombers in order to further provoke the aforementioned great powers and China. With protests only at the diplomatic level and no serious military resistance offered by either side, it was clear that the invasion of Manchuria would be tolerated internationally.

The Japanese government's countermeasures were limited to the removal of Doihara from the post of mayor of Mukden in October 1931 by Foreign Minister Shidehara. Doihara was now for the public the "independent adviser to the Manchurian provincial government" . In this function he also “advised” the new mayor of Mukdens, the Japanese lawyer Chao Ching-po, who is loyal to Japan.

Establishment of the vassal state of Manchukuo

After the occupation of southern Manchuria, the core of an area de facto under Japanese control was created, which was to bear the name Manchukuo . In order to give the structure a legitimate appearance on an international level, the new “state” had to have come into being at the instigation of the local Chinese population and had a Chinese head of state. At this point, Doihara's plan was to transfer the position of head of state to the former Chinese emperor Puyi . After the conquest of the north Manchurian city of Qiqihar had been delayed until November 18, 1931 by the resistance of the Chinese general Ma Zhanshan and Japan had to accept a considerable loss of face before the League of Nations , the legitimation of the aggression had become a priority problem.

Tianjin Incidents

It was only with the help of agent Yoshiko Kawashima that Doihara managed to lure the last emperor from China to Manchuria

Doihara phoned Puyi on the morning of October 30, 1931, and suggested that he travel to the Japanese-occupied territories to become Emperor of Manchuria. However, the former emperor was unwilling to take this step until the conquest of Manchuria was fully completed and Japan settled its differences with the League of Nations. Doihara argued and debated desperately, but could not change Puyi's mind.

Doihara flew to Tianjin the same day and requested the help of Kawashima Yoshiko ("Eastern Gem") , a Manchu princess who was one of the best agents of the Japanese secret services , via Itagaki . Due to her status and her friendship with Puyi's main wife, she had almost free access to the former emperor. Doihara first met her late in the evening in his office in the Tianjin residence, although because of her disguise he did not initially realize that he was dealing with a woman. Kawashima and Doihara “worked on” Puyi and his wife for the next few days. They used Kawashima's friendship with Puyi's opium addicted wife and also faked threats to change their minds. Doihara arranged threatening phone calls and mock assassinations on Puyi, who was getting increasingly nervous. On November 10th, he was finally smuggled from the Japanese Tianjin concession onto the cargo ship Awaji Maru , which took him to the Japanese port of Port Arthur the following day. There, Puyi and his wife, who had followed him a month later, were under the constant watch of Doihara's assistant Tanaka Takayoshi , who also supplied the couple with opium. To distract the Chinese and British authorities and the bodyguard Semenov, Doihara staged an attack by gunmen on a Chinese police station, which caused chaos in the city for eight days.

After Doihara had succeeded in directing Puyi into the Japanese sphere of influence, he staged a second wave of violence in Tianjin on November 25, the purpose of which was to strengthen the Japanese garrison, which until then had only comprised 1,000 soldiers. In this project, too, the Japanese military were slowed down by their own government. It was not until January 3, 1932, that they succeeded in occupying Jinzhou County .

Completion of the conquest of Manchuria

After securing the Japanese conquests against an attack by the KMT in the south, Doihara was busy consolidating Japanese rule in the future state territory of Manchukuo. This included the infiltration of the northern Manchurian city of Harbin by Tokumu Kikan agents in the period up to the conquest of the place by Japanese troops on February 2, 1932.

At the same time, Doihara began building a Manchurian army , which was essential to maintaining the facade of an independent state. He was looking for volunteers from among the captured soldiers for Zhang Xueliang. So he offered the defeated General Ma Zhanshan in January 1932 a high-ranking position in the newly created army. Ma agreed and a little later left to join the Japanese in Shenyang.

On February 18, 1932, the new state of Manchukuo was proclaimed by the Shenyang Political Society assembled by Doihara and immediately recognized by Japan. On March 1, Puyi was sworn in as President ( 大同 - Datong) of Manchukuo State. The Japanese military, and Doihara in particular, had thus initially achieved their goals: Manchuria could be exploited by Japanese industry without further difficulties, and on the international stage the Japanese intervention appeared to be an aid to the Chinese population plundered by unscrupulous warlords.

Combating Chinese Resistance in Manchukuo

Field of ripe opium poppies in Manchukuo State during the 1930s. The manufacture and sale of opium were an important means of the Japanese military's struggle for hegemony over China and the only booming “industry” of the newly established state.

However, after the establishment of Manchukuo State, the Japanese army and its Chinese allies were unable to fully control the territory of Manchuria. The Chinese general and warlord Ma Zhanshan initially apparently submitted to the new rulers after Doihara had negotiated with him. Ma received the post of Minister of War in the newly formed government of Manchuria and funding from Doihara to re-equip his force. In fact, on April 1, 1932, Ma began to take action against the Japanese again, starting from Qiqihar , with the aim of restoring Chinese rule over the province. As a result, military resistance against the Japanese occupation of the country flared up again and again, although a little later the Japanese military succeeded in crushing Ma's armed forces a second time and forcing the general to flee to the Soviet Union. Ma's successor took over the Society of Blue Shirts (Chinese 藍衣 社 ), a secret society founded in 1931 by former students of the Whampoa Military Academy .

In fact, a large part of Manchukuo's poorer population resisted the new regime, so that the Japanese felt compelled to suppress any opposition to their rule by force. As head of the local Tokumu Kikan department, Doihara was also instrumental in these efforts. As in Tianjin, he began to build up a network of informers and thugs, some of which were recruited from among the Russian civil war refugees, while others consisted of "patriotic" Yakuza. (→ Kodama Yoshio ) These forces should track down any form of anti-Japanese resistance and then fight it with all brutality.

A description of Doihara's approach can be found in the memoirs of the Italian Amleto Vespa, who was recruited by Doihara for the Tokumu Kikan on February 14, 1932 in Mukden. Vespa did not work voluntarily with the Japanese, but was openly threatened and blackmailed by Doihara:

"[...] I know that if you want to, you can do much and do it well. On the other hand, if you do little and do it badly, it will mean that you are not working willingly; and “—slowly and deliberately—“ it is my habit to shoot those who give proof of ill-will. ”

“[…] I know that if you want you can do a lot and do it well. On the other hand, if they are doing little and doing it badly, it means they don't want to work; and - slowly and menacingly - "it is my style to shoot those who give evidence of their hostility."

- Doihara in Amletto Vespa : Secret Agent of Japan , pp. 38-39

Vespa also transmitted the Doihara own fascist attitude towards other peoples:

"[...] and that when you get used to the Japanese and know them better, you will become convinced that they are a thousand times better than the Chinese, that they are far superior to the Americans or any other race on earth. Any European ought to be proud able to work for the Japanese. "

“[…] And when you get used to the Japanese and know them better, you will be convinced that the Japanese are a thousand times better than the Chinese, that they are vastly superior to the Americans or any other race on earth. Every European should be proud to be able to work for the Japanese. "

- Doihara in Amletto Vespa : Secret Agent of Japan , pp. 39-40

Interlude in Tianjin

Due to the success in fulfilling his missions Doihara was promoted to major general ( 少将 , shōshō ) on April 11, 1932 . After the establishment of Manchukuo State, however, he had reached a position of power that his superiors were no longer at ease. Therefore, he was transferred to the post of commander of the 9th Infantry Brigade of the 5th Japanese Division (in Tientsin?) For the remainder of 1932 until February 1933 and worked there in the local Tokumu Kikan, which was led by Itagaki . Doihara and Itagaki hired over 1,000 informers who could cause unrest if necessary. Itagaki tried to induce Chinese warlords to rebel against Chiang, but was unsuccessful because the leader Chang Ching-yao he had built was murdered by the Blue Shirts in May 1933.

Expansion of the Japanese sphere of influence to northern China and Inner Mongolia

In March 1933, Doihara was personally entrusted by Emperor Hirohito with the task of tracking down corrupt Chinese commanders in northern China and helping them to found their own states dependent on Japanese aid. On October 16, 1933 Doihara was therefore reappointed to the post of chief of the Tokumu Kikan in Mukden. In the meantime, as a result of unsuccessful attempts to recapture the warlord Zhang Xueliang and a counter-offensive by Japanese units (→ Operation Nekka ), the province of Rehe had also been incorporated into Manchukuo.

The only obstacle preventing the Japanese from further expansion south was the Soviet-owned Chinese Eastern Railway . During 1934 the Japanese were mainly occupied with obtaining the property rights of the railway line from the Soviet Union and for the time being ceased their aggressive advances towards China. Doiharas Tokumu Kikan supported these efforts by organizing raids on trains and stations on the railway line. The Soviet Foreign Ministry under Litvinov was interested in improving Soviet-Japanese relations and therefore gave in to Japanese demands. On March 23, 1935, the Soviet property rights to the railway line were sold to the puppet state of Manchukuo.

At the same time, Doihara began to work out and coordinate the plans for the expansion of the Japanese area of ​​influence into northern China. A first draft was sent to the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army in Tokyo on April 18, 1934. From June 1934, Doihara tried to pull the leader of the Mongolian minority, Prince Demchugdongrub ( Chinese  德穆 楚克棟 魯普 , also Prince Te), who were striving for more autonomy , into the Japanese camp, which was temporarily prevented only by Chiang Kai-shek's monetary payments to Demchugdongrub . Finally, on December 7, 1934, the military-dominated internal cabinet of the Japanese government held a meeting at which the separation of the five northern Chinese provinces of Chahar , Hebei , Shandong , Shanxi and Suiyuan from the sphere of influence of the Chinese central government in Nanking was an objective of Japanese foreign policy was decided.

The cabinet decision had given Doihara the go-ahead. In February 1935 he went on a two-month trip to central and southern China to hold talks with Chiang Kai-shek's enemies. This trip was conspiratorial only to a limited extent. Doihara gave the press interviews with propaganda statements, which, however, did not make it too difficult to correctly interpret his intentions and those of the Japanese military. He said cynically in an interview in Hong Kong:

“What have I been doing this year in Peiping, in Tientsin, in Shanghai, in Nanking and here in beautiful Hong Kong? Really, gentlemen, I am but a general! What has a general to do in time of peace? "

“What did I do this year in Peiping, in Tientsin, in Shanghai, in Nanking and here in beautiful Hong Kong? Indeed, gentlemen, I am a general! What does a general have to do in times of peace? "

- TIME article of March 18, 1935

and two weeks later in Shanghai:

"Eventually I discovered that the Southwest leaders are as keenly alive as are those of the Chinese Government in Nanking to the necessity for Chino-Japanese cooperation, but they had not publicly expressed their views for reasons of political expediency."

"I discovered that the leaders of the Southwest, like those of the Chinese government in Nanking, are convinced of the need for Sino-Japanese cooperation, but have not made their views known publicly due to political constraints."

- TIME article from April 1, 1935

The Japanese intelligence officer was so convinced of himself and the weakness of the Nanking central government that he no longer seemed to need to hide his intentions.

Doihara planned the artificial creation of a Chinese-backed North China autonomy movement with intelligence means and the subsequent aid of Japanese military for this movement. This aid was supposed to create seemingly autonomous governments in the five provinces. This covert Japanese expansion was supposed to take place without revealing the same indications of aggression as in the case of the Manchuria crisis, which were identified by the Lytton Commission and therefore ultimately led to the withdrawal of Japan from the League of Nations. Western observers would be able to guess the true connections, but would also have great difficulty in finding evidence of the renewed aggression by Japan.

The opportunity to increase diplomatic pressure on the Nanking government finally arose in May 1935 when several anti-Japanese demonstrations took place in Peiping and Tientsin. Two officers of the Imperial Japanese Army then visited the local representative of the Nanking government in Peiping He Yingqin and, under threat of military force, demanded the withdrawal of all Kuomintang cadres from northern China and the creation of an independent political body for the Beijing-Tientsin region. This dispute ended with the signing of the He Umezu Agreement, which essentially provided for the withdrawal of all Kuomintang troops from Hebei Province and the dissolution of the blue shirts. The arrest of four Japanese intelligence officers in Chahar Province on June 5, 1935, known as the North Chahar Incident, had a similar political impact. Although the officers were released very soon, Doihara openly began invading Japanese troops from the local provincial government threaten. The dispute was settled in negotiations from June 23 to June 27 through the signing of an agreement between Doihara and Chinese official Qin Dechun that resulted in the demilitarization of Chahar province. With the knowledge of the provincial governor of Chahar, the official Qin had far exceeded his powers, but Chiang Kai-shek could not prevent this. Both agreements were perceived by the Chinese side as a great disgrace and strengthened the resistance of the Chinese people.

The five-provincial autonomy plan fails

Song Zheyuan, Chahar Provincial Governor
Han Fuju, Shandong Provincial Governor

After the Doihara-Qin Accord was signed, Doihara remained in northern China, where he tried to establish a pro-Japanese autonomous regime by involving various warlords in the five northern provinces. So he came as head of the Tokumu Kikan of the Kwantung Army in competition with Tada Hayao , the new commander of the Japanese China Army ( Japanese 支那 駐屯軍 Shina Chūtongun ), who saw this as an interference in his area of ​​responsibility. Doihara tried to win various rulers of the 1920s such as Wu Peifu, Cao Kun and Duan Qirui as leaders for the regime he planned. He put his main focus on the governors of the five provinces. In September, Doihara flew to Taiyuan to win over the governor of Shanxi Province Yan Xishan for his movement. In Shandong Province, he managed to get Governor Han Fuju to ban all KMT activities. The governor of Chahar Song Zheyuan Province was even forced to support pro-Japanese organizations.

Doihara’s activities caused great unrest in the Nanking government and Chiang Kai-shek began to visit all governors of the five northern provinces and demand loyalty to the Republic of China from them. Doihara's activity was rumored by Tada when the head of the Japanese China Army publicly demanded the autonomy of the five northern provinces in a newspaper interview, claiming the leadership of the northern China autonomy movement for himself.

After a meeting to coordinate Japanese strategy in Dairen from October 12-14, Doiharas Tokumu Kikan began provoking unrest in Xianghe County, Hebei . Under Japanese guidance, Chinese leaders organized an "autonomy movement" that declared the county's independence from Hebei Province on October 23. The Chinese military, which could easily have suppressed this movement, hesitated because of the apparent Japanese involvement and accepted the district's autonomy on October 26, 1935. During the same period, Doihara managed to convince Prince Demchugdongrub that the Mongol minority's aspirations for autonomy were in the Interests of the Japanese military were.

Encouraged by the renewed sign of Chinese weakness, Doihara planned to start his North China Autonomy Movement in November 1935 and published it in Japanese-language newspapers. He met with General Tada in Tientsin on November 6th to coordinate the joint action. Difficulties arose. In truth, Governor Yan Xishan had no intention of cooperating with the Japanese, but wanted Chiang Kai-shek to promise larger troop contingents in the event of a Japanese attack. Since Yen had control over Shanxi Province and also over large parts of Suiyuan, Doihara was limited to Chahar, Hebei and Shandong. Doihara tried to force the governors Song Zheyuan, Shang Chen and Han Fuju to declare the autonomy of their provinces in Peiping under threat of an invasion of the Kwantung army on November 20, 1935 . General Tada held back and did not order the deployment of the China Army. For his part, Chiang Kai-shek was ready to go to war with the Japanese and their Chinese allies if the five northern provinces declared independence. He made this unmistakably clear to the provincial governors concerned.

With the threat of a Japanese invasion, Doihara had exceeded his powers. The Japanese government, although now completely dominated by the military, was not yet willing to go to war in China. This was communicated to Chiang Kai-shek at a meeting with the Japanese Ambassador Ariyoshi Akira on November 20th. Doihara is only traveling as a private person in northern China. Chiang Kai-shek, for his part, firmly pledged military aid to the three provincial governors in the event of a Japanese attack. The song, which was already in Peiping, therefore left the city on November 19 and traveled to Tientsin without speaking to Doihara. Governor Shang missed the November 20 appointment with a publicly circulated "apology" that he had suffered stove poisoning because he was too close to a stove. Doihara was ridiculed. Chinese newspapers reported on November 20, not without pointing to Doihara as the author, of the collapse of the North China Autonomy Movement. Doihara had to briefly confirm this information to Japanese journalists on his departure from Peiping.

Doihara flew to Jinan to get at least Shandong Provincial Governor Han Fuju to cooperate. Han met with Doihara but refused to respond to his demands. In his anger Doihara threatened to have Han killed on the spot, to which the latter replied: “Ah, how interesting. The time now is 11:25 [23:25]. Before I got here, I directed my troops to massacre every Japanese in town if I don't return by midnight. Good evening. ”Han left an angry Doihara behind. The Japanese master spy suffered a severe loss of face.

Escalation and end of the Japanese expansion attempt

Press photo by Doihara Kenji (February – March 1936)

When Han left the Tokumu Kikan residency in Jinan, Doihara realized that his idea of ​​five-provincial autonomy had failed. He did not want to give up, however, and therefore pursued the less ambitious goal of only moving the provinces of Chahar and Hebei into the Japanese sphere of influence for the time being. On November 23, Song Zheyuan, whose Chahar province was particularly exposed to the Japanese-controlled areas, asked Doihara to postpone the date for Nanking's declaration of independence. Doihara refused. The next day, Yin Rugeng , police chief of the demilitarized zone set out in the Ho Umezu agreement, declared the area independent, following Doihara's instructions. On November 25, in the presence of Doihara and Song Zheyuan, the anti-communist Autonomous Council of East Hebei was established under Yin's chairmanship, which controlled an area of ​​22 counties with a total of 5 to 6 million people and was based in Tongzhou City . Demonstrations for the independence of northern China, organized by the Japanese, took place in Tientsin. In Peiping, on the other hand, nationalist students loyal to China began to protest against the establishment of the East Hebei Autonomous Council because they rightly feared the emergence of a second Manchukuo.

The reaction of the Nanking central government to Doihara's secession efforts was quick: On November 26th, Chiang issued an arrest warrant for Yin Rugeng and the police chief was blacklisted as the still active blue shirts. Song Zheyuan, however, was assigned the post of pacification officer for Hebei and Chahar provinces, making him the highest-ranking military in two provinces. On November 27, the exasperated Doihara ordered 3,000 Japanese soldiers to march into the area of ​​East Hebei. At the same time the intensity of the protests of the Peiping students increased. Northern China had become a powder keg that could spark war between Japan and the Nanking government at any time. In order to de-escalate the situation, negotiations between the Japanese and representatives of the Nanking government began on December 3. The protests by Beijing students turned into violent clashes on December 5 when police forces broke up the rallies. (→ Movement of December 5, 1935 ) As the representatives of the Nanking government delayed the negotiations again due to the violent demonstrations, Doihara again played the military card by marching into Chahar on December 8th a Mongolian puppet army supported by the Kwantung army . This army conquered the entire north and central region of the Chahar province by December 25th. On December 11, 1935, a compromise was finally reached between the two sides, which provided for the formation of a political council of Hebei-Chahar under the leadership of Song Zheyuan. The committee represented the interests of the Nanking government as well as those of the Japanese.

Doihara now tried to unite the anti-communist autonomous council of East Hebei, which he regarded as a temporary measure, with the political council of Hebei-Chahar. This failed because of resistance from Yin Rugeng, who unceremoniously renamed the body on December 25, 1935, the anti-communist autonomous government of East Hebei. In January and February 1936, Doihara was therefore engaged in negotiations to unite the two bodies. He tried unsuccessfully to integrate all of Hebei into the demilitarized zone under Yin Rugeng, which failed due to the resistance of Song Zheyuan. At the same time, the dispute with Tada Hayao escalated so much that the coordinator of the 2nd division of the Imperial Japanese General Staff, Kita Seiichi , who was responsible for the Japanese espionage departments in Asia , was sent to China to arbitrate. Doihara accused Tada of inaction, which would have led to the failure of the Five Provinces Autonomy Plan. Tada, in turn, countered with his claim to northern China as an operational area. Kita recognized irreconcilable positions and ordered the return of both adversaries to Japan. One of Doihara's last successes was the proclamation of an independent Mongolian state in the province of Chahar under Prince Demchugdongrub on February 12, 1936. (→ Mengjiang )

Doihara left China in early March. On March 7, 1936, he was promoted to lieutenant general and soon afterwards "parked" in a less important post within the Japanese military apparatus: on the one hand, he had succeeded in drawing Chahar and East Hebei into the Japanese sphere of influence, on the other On the side, however, he had exceeded his competencies, almost starting a war and causing a considerable loss of face for the Japanese military. The Japanese leadership had realized that a further expansion of the sphere of influence in China could only be achieved with military force, so that Doihara's secret service operations were seen as superfluous.

From March 23, 1936 to the end of February 1937, Doihara was the commander of the 1st Supply Division stationed directly in Japan. Although he was temporarily sidelined, he had left behind an unstable political constellation in northern China, the tensions of which were soon to discharge at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War .

First phase of the Second Sino-Japanese War

From March 1, 1937, Doihara was the commander of the 14th Division , which was subordinate to the Kwantung Army. With the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on July 7, 1937, North China, the area of operations of the division, on August 28, the newly formed North China Regional Army ( Jap. 北支那方面軍 , kita-shina Homen-gun ) under Terauchi Hisaichi assigned was . The crossing of the Yongding He river on September 14, 1937 was one of the division's first operations under Doihara's command. This was followed by the conquest of the city of Baoding and an advance along the Peiping-Hankou railway line (now part of the Jing-Guang Line ), which lasted until the beginning of November 1937. In the city of Anyang succeeded Doiharas Division repel a Chinese counter-attack, but she remained until February 1938 in positions in the city. An attack along the western bank of the Yellow River followed and continued until February 26th. The division was then transferred to the area around the city of Pu on the banks of the Yellow River, where it was on standby until early May.

Battle of Lanfeng

Main article: Battle of Lanfeng

At this point the battle for the strategically important Xuzhou railway junction was in its final phase. In order to hinder the retreat of the Chinese troops from the city and to prevent the demolition of the dams of the Yellow River, Doihara began an offensive against the western defensive positions of the Chinese armies with the successful crossing of the Yellow River at Pu Hsien. On May 14th, Doihara succeeded in conquering the city of Hotse. Encouraged by the success, Doihara ordered an attack west over Lanfeng City. This attack threatened the entire northern flank of the Chinese defenders. At this point, however, Doihara’s lack of military leadership and arrogance towards the Chinese resulted in near disaster. Doihara did not consider that he exposed the supply lines of the 14th Division to a Chinese counterattack unprotected and that the Chinese troops at the city of Kaifeng, 45 kilometers away, outnumbered his division by far. Unexpectedly, Doihara's forces ran out of ammunition. The Chinese defenders counter-attacked and trapped the 14th Division at Lanfeng on the banks of the Yellow River. Doihara's troops had found themselves in a desperate situation overnight and the division was threatened with destruction. The lack of coordination between the Chinese units and a completely inappropriate withdrawal order from Chiang Kai-shek prevented Doihara from being completely defeated. His trapped division was detained on May 24, 1938 by other Japanese units and was able to withdraw from the area around Lanfeng on May 27. When the division was finally taken out of action on June 2, it had lost over half of its soldiers. Doihara's reputation as a military commander was permanently damaged.

Chief of Take Kikan

Doihara's superiors realized that he was much better suited to intelligence work. Therefore, on May 28, 1938, he was subordinated to the General Staff of the Kwantung Army as chief of a Tokumu Kikan to be built up by him. Doihara's intelligence service was given the code name Take Kikan ( Japanese 竹 特務 機関 , bamboo intelligence service) and was colloquially referred to as Doihara Kikan. The headquarters of the service was in Shanghai . Other well-known members of this espionage unit were Banzai Rihachirō, and Major General Wachi Takaji. The task of Doihara's organization was the destabilization of the KMT with intelligence resources , which should lead to an end to the impending stalemate in the Second Sino-Japanese War in mid-1938.

Doihara had two specific goals. On the one hand, the Chinese Guangxi Army under Li Zongren, defending Hankou, was to be pulled out of the KMT camp, since Li had subordinated himself to the KMT, but there was still a tense relationship with Chiang. Second, with the help of political dinosaurs like Wu Peifu, Jin Yunpeng and Tang Shaoyi, a counter-government to the KMT under Chiang was to be created that would collaborate with the Japanese. The plan to get the Guangxi Army to collaborate with the Japanese was carried out by Wachi Takaji and quickly failed. Former Prime Minister of the Republic of China Jin Yunpeng had withdrawn from politics and lived as a monk. Doihara failed to dissuade Jin from fulfilling his sacred vows. Tang Shaoyi had good relations with Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT, but advocated a pan-Asian policy, which was also the stated goal of Doihara. So Tang turned to Doihara and wrote a telegram with an offer of peace to the Japanese, the publication of which was to mark the beginning of the joint government with Wu Peifu. When Chiang became known, he had Tang assassinated on September 30, 1938 by a Yutong secret service agent .

In the following years Doihara tried again and again to persuade Wu Peifu to collaborate with the Japanese. In December 1938, however, he succeeded in winning over the politician Wang Jingwei , who was in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek, instead of Tang Shaoyi for the position of head of government of the pro-Japan puppet government . Together they tried unsuccessfully in the summer of 1939 to integrate Wu Peifu into this government. Wu died a short time later. At the same time, Doihara set up a secret service to protect the Chinese collaboration government , as Wang and other politicians cooperating with the Japanese had to reckon with attacks by the Yatong intelligence service set up by the KMT.

Rise to the Japanese leadership level - Pacific War

General Doihara Kenji inspects Indian National Army troops (Singapore, 1944)

The installation of Wang Jingwei was the last significant intelligence operation Doihara carried out. On May 19, 1939, he was appointed commander of the re-established 5th Japanese Army . This army was supposed to secure the border between Manchuria and the Soviet Union.

On September 28, 1940 Doihara was appointed to the Japanese Military Council (Japanese 軍事 参議院 , gunji sangiin ) and took over from Tōjō the post of General Inspector of the Japanese Army Air Force . In the council, at the meeting of November 4, 1941, he endorsed the plan of attack on Pearl Harbor because he was of the opinion that Japan could only wage a short war against the Soviet Union due to the US embargo that had recently come into force and the resulting oil shortage . He speculated that the country would collapse under the German attacks. Only then should Japanese troops march into the Soviet Union. The US-American secret services suspected that Doihara, after the end of his espionage activities in China, was concerned with the expansion of German-Japanese relations via the ambassador Eugen Ott .

On May 1, 1943 Doihara took over the post of commander of the Eastern Military District (Japanese tōbugun ). On March 22, 1944 he was appointed commander of the newly established 7th Japanese Regional Army (Japanese 第七 方面軍 Dai nana hōmen gun ) in Southeast Asia and set up his headquarters in Singapore . At the same time he was governor of the Malay province of Johor . Doihara was jointly responsible for the existence of a number of POW camps on the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java and Borneo.

When he was replaced by Itagaki on April 7, 1945 and returned to Japan a little later, Doihara was appointed inspector general of Japanese military training. With that he had reached one of the three most prestigious posts within the Imperial Japanese Army. A little later he was reappointed to the Japanese Military Council. He held both positions until August 1945. Doihara belonged to the majority of the Japanese military who called for an unconditional continuation of the war, although the military situation in Japan had long since become hopeless. During and after the capitulation of Japan, he took over command of two different armies that were to be used to defend the country against the expected invasion of the American armed forces and have now been demobilized. It was about the 12th Japanese Regional Army from August 25, 1945 to September 12, 1945, after which Doihara switched to the 1st Main Army with the consent of the American occupation authorities , because their commander Field Marshal Sugiyama Hajime had committed suicide. Although he was only too well known to the Americans as an exponent of Japanese aggression, Doihara was initially not arrested because the CIC secret service incorrectly suspected that he was in command of all Japanese intelligence services. It was feared that Doihara's capture could incite all Japanese intelligence agents to a guerrilla war against the American occupiers.

Conviction as a war criminal

Doihara Kenji in captivity
Doihara (2nd row on the far left) along with the other defendants during the Tokyo trials
Doihara's last written words (left, top to bottom)

On September 23, 1945, an arrest warrant was issued for Doihara by the American occupation forces on the instructions of Douglas MacArthur . After learning about it, Doihara went to Yokohama and volunteered. He was arrested and taken to Sugamo Prison . Doihara's military service ended on November 30, 1945 in the course of the final dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Army . From May 3, 1946, he was charged with various war crimes as the only member of the Japanese secret service Kempeitai in the Tokyo trials . The points with which all of the defendants in the trial were confronted were:

  • Participation as leader, organizer, instigator or accomplice in the planning or execution of a joint plan or conspiracy to wage wars of aggression and a war or wars that violate international law (point 1)
  • Waging an unprovoked war against China (point 27)
  • Waging a war of aggression against the United States (Item 29)
  • Waging a war of aggression against the British Commonwealth (Item 31)
  • Waging a war of aggression against the Netherlands (point 32)
  • Waging a war of aggression against France (Indochina) (item 33)
  • Waging a war of aggression against the USSR (items 35 and 36)
  • Order, authorization and permission for the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war and others (point 54)
  • Willful and reckless neglect of the duty to take appropriate steps to prevent atrocities. (Point 55)

Doihara, who refused to testify during the trial and deemed the entire trial to be unlawful, was found guilty on almost all counts except 33 and sentenced to death by hanging on December 23, 1948 . The Tokyo trials were partially called into question because many alleged war criminals ( members of the Japanese imperial family , Ishii Shirō , Kodama Yoshio or Tsuji Masanobu ) remained unmolested for political reasons or ignorance of the facts. The following quote from the memoirs of the US secret service officer Elliott Thorpe can serve as an example for the processing of the cases by the American occupation authorities:

“Kenji Doihara was something else. He was an able army officer with unusual ability in many directions. […] There were many Japanese Leaders whose careers were much more dubious than Doihara's, but they were fortunate enough not to become known to the Western press. I finally put Doihara's name on the war criminal list, because he had taken an aggressive part in the unwarranted attack on China in 1938. Anyway, our people wanted to hang him. So they did. "

“Kenji Doihara was someone else. He was a capable army officer with unusual abilities in many ways. […] There were many Japanese leaders whose careers were far more dubious than the Doiharas, but who were fortunate enough not to be known to the Western press. I put Doihara's name on the list of war criminals because he had an aggressive role in the 1938 attack on China. Anyway, our people wanted to hang Doihara. And so they did it. "

- ER Thorpe : East Wind, Rain , p. 200

While defendants like Tōjō Hideki or Matsui Iwane saw their death sentences as the last victim for Emperor Hirohito, this was not the case with Doihara. He and Hirota Kōki appealed against his sentence, but could only delay the execution of the death penalty. As a result, the execution, originally scheduled for the 7th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, took place three weeks later. Doihara devoted himself to Zen Buddhism during his detention , which intensified after his death sentence was pronounced. Even so, until his death, he did not express the slightest regret about the crimes he had committed against the Chinese people.

Since October 17, 1978, Doihara Kenji has been venerated as Kami in the Yasukuni Shrine , along with the other convicted war criminals of the Tokyo trials .

Publications

  • Basic National Platform Toward China. published in Shinʼyūsha magazine, 1938.
  • Roots of Japan's National Policy toward China. Chuo Kuron magazine November 1938; Translation published in Amerasia magazine . March 1939, pp. 20-24
  • Kōdō no seishin. Tamagawa Gakuen Shuppanbu, 1940
  • Ōdō ron. (On the Royal Path)
  • Hiroku Doihara Kenji: Nitchū yūkō no suteishi / Doihara Kenji Kankōkai. (Japanese 秘錄 土肥原 賢 二: 日中 友 交 の  石 / 土肥原 賢 二 刊行 会 編); Tōkyō: Fuyō Shobō, Shōwa 47 (1972) (Japanese 東京: 芙蓉 書房, 昭和 47 (1972))

Remarks

  1. ↑ At the time of Doihara's transfer, General Yuan Shikai was president of the Republic of China, which was proclaimed in 1911. His power was largely based on the control of the Beijing Army, which grew out of the old imperial army. However, when Yuan wanted to be proclaimed Emperor of China in 1915, his subordinates rebelled against him. When he died in 1916, the Beijing Army was divided into several factions. The period of the Chinese warlords began, and with it a period of increased Japanese influence on Chinese domestic politics. The driving force behind the Japanese effort was former Governor General of Korea and Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake , who had already made a dubious name for himself plundering the Korean peninsula and assimilating the Korean people. (See Seagrave: Gold Warriors , pp. 18-19) Terauchi's plans were put into practice by Bansai Rihachirō.
  2. ↑ Because of the Japanese military support, the Anhui militarists dominated northern China from 1916 to 1920 and were considered the internationally recognized government of China. When the agreement between the Anhui clique and the Japanese became known in 1919 after the Versailles negotiations, which were unfavorable for China , it sparked massive popular protests, which were later referred to as the May Fourth Movement . The military factions that were hostile to Anhui and sympathized with the May Fourth Movement soon succeeded in allying themselves with it and in 1920 defeated the troops of the Anhui clique.
  3. ↑ The position of the Zhili faction was to be taken over by the Fengtian clique under the Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin . The sphere of influence of the Japanese, very benevolent to the Japanese, extended over Manchuria since 1920. Zhang had Japanese diplomats and secret agents, including Honjō Shigeru, to thank for his rise to this position of power. He had already been hired by the Japanese as a gang leader during the Russo-Japanese War and since then has repeatedly appeared as an ally of the Japanese. (see Waldron: From War to Nationalism , p. 176) After Zhāng had tried unsuccessfully to conquer the Chinese heartland in April and May 1922 (→ First Zhili-Fengtian War ), he started one on September 15, 1924 with Japanese support second attempt. (→ Second Zhili-Fengtian War ) The Japanese secret service succeeded in infiltrating Wu Peifu's military apparatus, so that all important information about his troop movements was passed on directly to Zhang Zuolin. (see Waldron: From War to Nationalism , p. 177)
  4. ↑ In the memoirs of the former emperor Pu Yi, Doihara is not mentioned under real or aliases in the period before 1931. However, there are newspaper articles in the British press in Tianjin about the "Lawrence of China" as well as memoirs by contemporary witnesses that confirm Doihara's help for Puyi. This includes Brian Powers autobiography The Ford of Heaven: A Childhood in Tianjin, China in the one by the professor of English at Tianjin University, David Lattimore (father of Owen Lattimore , one of the most famous victims of the wave of defamation of Senator Joseph McCarthy ) Photo by Doihara taken around 1925/1926 is shown.
  5. ↑ The soldiers of the first Japanese infantry division were later members of the Kōdō-ha and played a major role during the attempted coup on February 26, 1936 .
  6. ^ Even later, due to the urging of Chiang Kai-shek, who pursued a policy of appeasement towards Japan, there was no noteworthy resistance against the outnumbered Japanese (see Coble: Facing Japan ; p. 31)
  7. ↑ The troops of the Kwantung Army were also strengthened by Japanese Yakuza, who in return for their liberation from the harsh Japanese prison custody (see Jun'ichi Saga: The Yakuza. Edition Peperkorn, 1995, ISBN 3-929181-04-5 ) the Doing dirty work for Doihara's Tokumu Kikan department and enriching themselves on property belonging to the Chinese people. Among these elements referred to by the Japanese soldiers as Rōnin was Kodama Yoshio , who had been personally recommended to Doihara by the head of the Gen'yōsha secret society , Tōyama Mitsuru . (See Jordan: China's Trial by Fire , p. 80; Kodamas explicitly mentioned in Seagrave, Seagrave: Gold Warriors , pp. 40-41) Even today there are close ties between the Japanese nationalists and the yakuza.
  8. ↑ The current administrative structure of Chinese Manchuria (official name Northeast China) no longer corresponds to the historical borders of 1931 and the Fengtian province no longer exists.
  9. ↑ According to Hansen: Japanese Intelligence , the distribution of propaganda was also part of the field of activity of the Japanese spies, which was unusual in comparison to the intelligence services of other countries.
  10. ↑ After the invasion of the Kuomintang in 1928, the former Chinese capital Beijing was renamed Peiping ( Northern Peace ) to make it clear that the capital was now Nanking in the south.
  11. ^ The provincial governors of the southwestern provinces of China.
  12. ↑ In Shandong Province, most of the Japanese companies were in China.

literature

Literature with contributions on Doihara

  • Richard Deacon: A History of The Japanese Secret Service. Beaufort Books, New York / Toronto 1983, ISBN 0-8253-0131-9 .
  • Richard Fuller: Shokan: Hirohito's Samurai. Arms and Armor Press, London 1992, ISBN 1-85409-151-4 .
  • Shinshō Hanayama: The Way of Deliverance: Three Years with the Condemned Japanese War Criminals. Gollancz Publishing House, London 1955.
  • B. Winston Kahn: Doihara Kenji and the North China Autonomy Movement, 1935-1936. Arizona State University Center for Asian Studies, 1973, ISBN 0-939252-02-3 .
  • Norman Polmar, Thomas B. Allen: Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage. Greenhill Books, London 1997, ISBN 1-85367-278-5 .
  • Ronald Seth: Secret Servants: A History of Japanese Espionage. Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1957.

Literature on the contemporary historical context

The following books mainly deal with the historical context on which Doihara's biography is based. They contain references to Doihara which have been used as individual references. However, the reliability of these individual references is to be rated higher, as it is mostly well-researched scientific literature on the history of Sino-Japanese relations from 1913 to 1945.

  • Gar Alperovitz, Sanho Tree: The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth. Knopf, 1995, ISBN 0-679-44331-2 .
  • Michael A. Barnhart: Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for Economic Security, 1919-1941. Cornell University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-8014-9529-6 .
  • Edward Behr: Hirohito: Behind the Myth. Hamish Hamilton, 1989, ISBN 0-394-58072-9 .
  • Jack Belden: Still Time to Die. Kessinger Publishing, 2005, ISBN 1-4191-1328-3 .
  • David Bergamini: Japan's Imperial Conspiracy. William Heinemann, London 1971, ISBN 0-688-01905-6 .
  • Jamie Previously: White Terror: Cossack Warlords of the Trans-Siberian. Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0-7146-5690-9 .
  • John Hunter Boyle: China and Japan at War, 1937-1945: The Politics of Collaboration. Stanford University Press, 1972, ISBN 0-8047-0800-2 .
  • Robert Joseph Charles Butow: Tojo and the Coming of the War. Princeton University Press, 1961.
  • 陈传刚 『侵华 谍 梟 土肥原 贤 二』 北京 ， 世界 知识 出版社 Chén Chuán'gāng: Qin Hua the xiao Tufeiyuan Xian'er. Beijing: Shi jie zhi shi chu ban she, 1999, ISBN 7-5012-1073-X
  • Parks M. Coble: Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism, 1931-1937. Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1991, ISBN 0-674-29011-9 .
  • Alvin D. Coox: Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, 1939. Stanford University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-8047-1835-0 .
  • Terry Crowdy: The Enemy Within: A History of Spies, Spymasters and Espionage. Osprey Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-84603-217-2 .
  • Marjorie Dryburgh: North China and Japanese Expansion 1933–1937. Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-7007-1274-7 .
  • John Gunther: Inside Asia - 1942 War Edition. Read Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4067-1532-3 .
  • Peter Duus, John Whitney Hall, Donald H Shively: The Cambridge History of Japan - Volume 6: The Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-521-22357-1 .
  • James H. Hansen: Japanese intelligence: The competitive edge. NIBC Press, Washington 1996, ISBN 1-878292-16-1 .
  • Leonard A. Humphreys: The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920's. Stanford University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-8047-2375-3 .
  • Ikei Masaru: Dainiji Hōchoku sensō to Nihon. In: Kurihara Ken (Japanese 栗 原 健 ): Tai-Manmō seisakushi no ichimen: Nichi-Ro sengo yori Taishōki ni itaru. (jap. 対 満 蒙 政策 史 の 一面: 日 露 戦 後 よ り 大 正 期 に い た る ), Hara Shobō, Tokyo 1966, pp. 218–219.
  • Iriye Akira (Ed.) (Japanese 入 江 昭 ): The Chinese and the Japanese - Essays in Political and Cultural Interactions. Princeton University Press, 1980, ISBN 0-691-03126-6 .
  • Donald A. Jordan: China's Trial by Fire. University of Michigan Press, 2001, ISBN 0-472-11165-5 .
  • Kitaoka Shin'ichi: China Experts in the Army. In: Peter Duus, Ramon H. Myers, Mark R. Peattie: The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895–1937. Princeton University Press, 1991, ISBN 0-691-00869-8 .
  • Kodama Yoshio: Sugamo Diary. T. Fukuda, 1960.
  • Kotani Ken: Japanese Intelligence in World War II. Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2009, ISBN 978-1-84603-425-1 .
  • Ping-jui Li: Two Years of the Japan-China Undeclared War and the Attitude of the Powers. Mercury Press, 1933.
  • Tsi-gziou Li, Roman Rome: A China past: military and diplomatic memoirs. University Press of America, 1989, ISBN 0-8191-7377-0 .
  • Li Zongren , Te-kong Tong: The memoirs of Li Tsung-jen [Li Zongren]. Westview Press, 1979.
  • Frederick Fu Liu: A military history of modern China, 1924–1949. Princeton University Press, 1956.
  • Gavan McCormack: Chang Tso-lin in Northeast China, 1911-1928. Stanford University Press, 1977, ISBN 0-8047-0945-9 .
  • Meng Chih Meng u. a .: China Speaks - On the Conflict Between China and Japan. Read Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4067-5840-5 .
  • Stephen C. Mercado: Shadow Warriors of Nakano: A History of the Imperial Japanese Army's Elite Intelligence School. Brassey's, 2003, ISBN 1-57488-538-3 .
  • Noyori Hideichi (Japanese 野 依 秀 市 ): Heiwa no hakken ni tsuzuku: ichimei Zoku heiwa no hakken. (Japanese 平和 の 發 見 に つ づ く: 一名 續 平和 の 發 見 ); Tōkyō: Sekai Bukkyō Kyōkai, Shōwa 24 (1949).
  • Brian Power: The Ford of Heaven: A Childhood in Tianjin, China. Signal Books, 2005, ISBN 1-904955-01-0 .
  • Carl Randau, Leane Zugsmith: The Setting Sun of Japan. Random House, 1942.
  • Sterling Seagrave, Peggy Seagrave: Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold. Verso, 2003, ISBN 1-85984-542-8 .
  • Seki Hiroharu (Japanese 関 寛 治 ): Manshū Jihen Zenshi, 1927–1931. ( Before the Manchurian crisis, 1927–1931. ) In: Kokusai, Seiji, Gakkai: Taiheiyō sensō e no michi. ( The Road to the Pacific War. ) Volume 1, Asahi Shinbunsha, Tokyo 1962.
  • Jonathan D. Spence, Annping Chin: Le Siècle Chinois. Arthaud publishing house, Paris 1996, ISBN 2-7003-1116-7 .
  • Ger Teitler, Kurt W. Radke: A Dutch Spy in China - Reports on the First Phase of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1939). Brill-Verlag, Leiden / Boston / Cologne 1999, ISBN 90-04-11487-4 .
  • Elliott Raymond Thorpe: East Wind, Rain: The Intimate Account of an Intelligence Officer in the Pacific, 1939-1949. Gambit Publishing, Boston 1969.
  • Arthur Waldron: From War to Nationalism - Chinas Turning Point, 1924–1925. Cambridge University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-521-47238-5 .
  • 王朝柱「太阳旗与星条旗:日本间谍与美国使着」上海,上海人民出版社 ( Pinyin -Lautschrift: Wáng Cháozhù: Tài yáng qí yǔ Xing tiáo qí: Rì běn jiàn dié yù Mei guó shǐ Zhao. German: Sun Banner and Stars and Stripes: How Japanese Spies Damaged the United States ; Shàng hǎi rén mín chū bǎn shè, German: Volkseigener Verlag Shanghai) 1999, ISBN 7-208-02999-7 .
  • James Weland: Misguided Intelligence: Japanese Military Intelligence Officers in the Manchurian Incident, September 1931. In: Journal of Military History. Volume 58 (July 1994), pp. 445-460.
  • Amleto Vespa: Secret agent of Japan - A handbook to Japanese imperialism. Gollancz Publishing House, London 1938.
  • Brian Daizen Victoria: Zen War Stories. Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-7007-1581-9 .
  • Wen-Hsin Yeh: Wartime Shanghai. Taylor & Francis, 1998, ISBN 0-415-17441-4 .
  • Takehiko Yoshihashi: Conspiracy at Mukden: The Rise of the Japanese Military. Greenwood Press, London 1980, ISBN 0-313-22443-9 .
  • Takeshi Komagome (Japanese 駒 込 武 ): Shokuminchi Teikoku Nihon no Bunka Togo (Japanese 植 民 地 帝国 日本 の 文化 統 合 , The cultural integration of the Japanese colonial empire ); Iwanami Shoten Tokyo, 1996, ISBN 4-00-002959-2 .
  • Yan Lu: Re-understanding Japan: Chinese Perspectives, 1895–1945. University of Hawaii Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8248-2730-9 .
  • A. Morgan Young: Imperial Japan 1926-1938. Read Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4067-1127-1 .
  • 太平洋 戦 争 研究 会 (German: Research Group Pacific War): 「満 州 帝国」 が よ く わ か る 本: 20 ポ イ ン ト で 理解 す る る な ぜ 築 か れ た の か 、 ど ん な 国家 だ か た の, Publishing House (German: Mandschuk: «» た の PHP) 2004 ISBN 4-569-66301-X .

Web links

Commons : Kenji Doihara  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Doihara Kenji  - Quotes

Newspaper article with interviews and mentions of Doihara

Articles that deal directly with Doihara are highlighted in bold.

TIME magazine

Article in the New York Times

Article in the Asahi Shimbun

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Waldron: From War to Nationalism. P. 16.
  2. ↑ Kotani: Japanese Intelligence in World War II. P. 43.
  3. ↑ a b c Hiroku Doihara Kenji ( 秘錄 土肥原 賢 二 ), p. 179.
  4. ↑ Terry Crowdy: The Enemy Within. P. 221 ff., The rumor goes back to Amleto Vespa.
  5. ^ A b c d Richard Deacon: A History of The Japanese Secret Service. Pp. 141-156.
  6. ↑ a b Iriye: The Chinese and the Japanese. P. 146.
  7. ^ Edward Behr: Hirohito: Behind the Myth ; P. 93.
  8. ↑ Randau, Zugsmith: The Setting Sun of Japan. P. 90.
  9. ^ Seth: Secret Servants pp. 110-111.
  10. ↑ Weland: Misguided intelligence. P. 452.
  11. ^ Bergamini: Japan's Imperial Conspiracy , p. 326.
  12. ↑ Kitaoka: China Experts in the Army. P. 343.
  13. ↑ Yan: Re-understanding Japan. P. 138.
  14. ↑ Mccormack: Chang Tso-lin in Northeast China, 1911-1928. P. 132.
  15. ^ Coox: Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, 1939. Volume 1, p. 13.
  16. ↑ Ikei: Dainiji Hōchoku sensō to Nihon. Pp. 218-219
  17. ^ John Gunther: Inside Asia - 1942 War Edition. P. 146.
  18. ^ Brian Power: The Ford of Heaven: A Childhood in Tianjin, China. P. 101.
  19. ^ Brian Power: The Ford of Heaven: A Childhood in Tianjin, China. P. 103.
  20. ↑ Amleto Vespa: Secret Agent of Japan. P. 43.
  21. ↑ Jamie Previously: White Terror. P. 298.
  22. ↑ Humphreys: The Way of the Heavenly Sword. P. 203.
  23. ↑ Koichi Okamoto: On NHK's Interview with Zhang Xueliang , chinajapan.org ( memento of the original from January 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on February 13, 2009; PDF; 211 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / chinajapan.org
  24. ^ Leonard A. Humphreys: The Way of the Heavenly Sword. Pp. 149-170.
  25. ^ The China Quarterly ; Contemporary China Institute of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, 1987; no.109-112 (born 1987), p. 47.
  26. ^ Norman Polmar, Thomas B. Allen: Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage, p. 170.
  27. ↑ Photo database of the Mainchi Shimbun newspaper (enter "土肥原 賢 二" as the search term)
  28. ^ Bergamini: Japan's Imperial Conspiracy. P. 415.
  29. ↑ Bergamini: Japan's Imperial Conspiracy pp. 420-426.
  30. ↑ Behr: Hirohito: Behind the Myth. P. 92.
  31. ↑ Takeshi: Shokuminchi Teikoku Nihon no Bunka Togo. Pp. 236-237.
  32. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. P. 31.
  33. ↑ Spence, Chin: Le Siècle Chinois. P. 109.
  34. ^ Young: Imperial Japan 1926–1938 : p. 80.
  35. ↑ Seki: Manshu Jihen Zenshi. P. 435.
  36. ↑ Hsu, Chang: History of The Sino-Japanese War. P. 155.
  37. ^ Edward Behr: Hirohito: Behind the Myth , p. 37.
  38. ^ Bergamini: Japan's Imperial Conspiracy p. 422.
  39. ^ Young: Imperial Japan 1926–1938 : p. 83.
  40. ↑ Ah Xiang: Manchurian Incident : p. 3.
  41. ^ Young: Imperial Japan 1926–1938 : p. 84.
  42. ^ Young: Imperial Japan 1926–1938 , p. 121.
  43. ↑ Meng u. a .: China Speaks. P. 78.
  44. ^ Bergamini: Japan's Imperial Conspiracy , p. 449.
  45. ^ Bergamini: Japan's Imperial Conspiracy , p. 450.
  46. ^ Bergamini: Japan's Imperial Conspiracy , p. 451.
  47. ^ Bergamini: Japan's Imperial Conspiracy , p. 452.
  48. ^ Power: The Ford of Heaven. P. 176.
  49. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. P. 32.
  50. ^ Stephan: The Russian Fascists. P. 62.
  51. ^ TIME Magazine, April 25, 1932
  52. ^ Wakeman: The Shanghai Badlands. P. 18.
  53. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. P. 103.
  54. ^ Bergamini: Japan's Imperial Conspiracy , p. 541.
  55. ↑ Harold Scott Quigley, George Hubbard Blakeslee, World Peace Foundation: The Far East: An International Survey . Johnson Reprint, 1966, p. 84.
  56. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. P. 199.
  57. ^ Chinese Culture, Chinese Cultural Research Institute . Institute for Advanced Chinese Studies, Taipei 1977, p. 78.
  58. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. Pp. 197-198.
  59. ↑ Boyle: China and Japan at War. P. 35.
  60. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. Pp. 192, 193, 198-199
  61. ^ A b c Dryburgh: North China and Japanese Expansion 1933-1937. P. 61.
  62. ^ Butow: Tojo And the Coming of the War. Pp. 78-79.
  63. ↑ Barnhart: Japan Prepares for Total War. P. 40.
  64. ↑ a b Coble: Facing Japan p. 208.
  65. ↑ Nihon Gaiji Kyokai: Contemporary Japan: A Review of Japanese Affairs The Foreign affairs association of Japan . 1936, p. 298.
  66. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. P. 276.
  67. ↑ Barrett, Shyu, Shyu: Chinese Collaboration with Japan, 1932-1945. P. 46.
  68. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. Pp. 243-244.
  69. ↑ Boyle: China and Japan at War. P. 125.
  70. ↑ Barnhart: Japan Prepares for Total War. P. 42.
  71. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. P. 267.
  72. ^ A b John Gunther: Inside Asia , pp. 56-57.
  73. ↑ China Society of Science and Arts, Arthur de Carle Sowerby, John Calvin Ferguson (Ed.): The China Journal , Volume 30, January – June 1939, p. 94.
  74. ^ North China Split Suddenly Put Off . Special Cable to The New York Times . November 21, 1935
  75. ^ Dryburgh: North China and Japanese Expansion 1933-1937. P. 84.
  76. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. Pp. 272-273.
  77. ^ Israel: Student Nationalism in China. P. 118.
  78. ^ Israel: Student Nationalism in China. Pp. 118-129.
  79. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. Pp. 274,276.
  80. ^ Dryburgh: North China and Japanese Expansion 1933-1937. Pp. 105-108.
  81. ^ Organization of the intelligence services from Hansen: Japanese Intelligence. P. 24.
  82. ^ Coble: Facing Japan. P. 209.
  83. ↑ a b Coble: Facing Japan. P. 277.
  84. ↑ Hsu, Chang: History of The Sino-Japanese War. P. 184.
  85. ↑ Hsu, Chang: History of The Sino-Japanese War. Cards 4, 9-1
  86. ↑ Hsu, Chang: History of The Sino-Japanese War. Pp. 230-235, map 9-2
  87. ^ Li, Rome: A China past: military and diplomatic memoirs. P. 122.
  88. ^ Teitler, Radtke: A Dutch Spy in China. Pp. 192-195.
  89. ↑ Belden: Still Time to Die. Pp. 173-174.
  90. ↑ Belden: Still Time to Die. P. 174.
  91. ^ Liu: A military history of modern China, 1924–1949
  92. ↑ Hsu, Chang: History of The Sino-Japanese War. Pp. 230-235.
  93. ↑ TIME Magazine June 13, 1938
  94. ↑ a b Boyle: China and Japan at war. P. 161.
  95. ^ Contradiction: in Kotani Japanese Intelligence p. 45 Doihara Kikan and Take Kikan are two separate special services.
  96. ^ Modern History Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: Class-A War Criminals - Enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine. P. 25.
  97. ↑ Boyle: China and Japan at war. P. 163.
  98. ↑ Yeh: Wartime Shanghai. Pp. 119-120.
  99. ↑ Wou: Militarism in modern China. P. 255.
  100. ^ Hanson: Humane Endeavor. P. 188.
  101. ↑ Chang: Chiang Kai Shek - Asia's Man of Destiny , p. 105.
  102. ↑ Yeh: Wartime Shanghai, pp. 139–140.
  103. ^ Wasserstein: Secret War in Shanghai. P. 24.
  104. ^ Counterintelligence Bulletin, Military Intelligence War Department, Washington, April 5, 1942, reproduced in The Amerasia Papers: A Clue to the Catastrophe of China , p. 176.
  105. ↑ Hiroku Doihara Kenji (秘錄 土肥原 賢 二), p. 343ff.
  106. ↑ Gar Alperovitz, Sanho Tree: The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth S. 653rd
  107. ↑ Mercado: Shadow Warriors of Nakano. P. 185.
  108. ^ The World Almanac & Book of Facts 1946 , Newspaper Enterprise Association, 1946, p. 98.
  109. ^ TIME Magazine, October 1, 1945
  110. ^ Butow: Tojo And the Coming of the War, p. 526, Description of the execution, pp. 536-537.
  111. ^ Brian Daizen Victoria: Zen War Stories. Pp. 181-183.
  112. ↑ see Donald George Tewksbury: Source Book on Far Eastern Political Ideologies. Berkeley, Univ. California, 1949, p. 155.
Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Doihara is the family name, Kenji the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Doihara, Kenji
BRIEF DESCRIPTION japanese spy
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Okayama
DATE OF DEATH December 23, 1948
Place of death Tokyo