Kwantung Army

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Kwantung Army

Kwantung Army Headquarters.JPG

Kwantung Army Headquarters in Changchun (1935).
active April 1906 to August 1945
Country JapanJapan Japanese Empire
Armed forces JapanJapan (war flag) Japanese armed forces
Armed forces JapanJapan (war flag) Japanese army
Branch of service infantry
Type Army Group
Strength 1906: 10,000
1941: 700,000
1945: 600,000
Location Hsinking , Manchuria
Butcher Second Sino-
Japanese War. Japanese-Soviet border conflict.
Second World War

The Kwantung Army ( Japanese 関東軍 Kantō-gun ; contemporary Japanese spelling & Chinese  關東軍  /  关东军 , Pinyin Guāndōngjūn , W.-G. Kuan-tung chün ; Kor. 관동군 Kwandonggun ) also called the Guandong Army , was a main army ( Army Group ) of the Imperial Japanese Armyduring the first half of the 20th century. Over time, it developed into the largest and best-known Japanese army unit. Its name is derived from the Chinese name for the Kwantung area in northeast China, leased by Japan in 1905 .

history

The Kwantung Army was initially set up as a garrison unit in 1906 after the Russo-Japanese War had been won in the Kwantung leased area taken over by the Russian Empire . The nominal strength of this garrison unit was a division in the lease area itself and six other battalions , which were to guard the zone around the Japanese-controlled South Manchurian Railway . After various conflicts within the Japanese government about the strength of this garrison and whether it was of any use at all, the actual manpower was initially only 10,000 soldiers, but was continuously increased in the following years. Commander in chief who was Governor General of Kwantung , one each entstamme Direction of the army general , who also directed the civil administration of the lease area.

Over the following years, the Kwantung garrison was strengthened because the Japanese army command feared another war with Russia for supremacy in Manchuria. The planners in the Army General Staff envisaged a first strike as a tactic for such a conflict. The units of the garrison were to be relocated quickly to the north by rail and, in a quick action, were to take up defensive positions north of Mukden and prevent incoming Russian units from accessing the southern areas of de facto Chinese Manchuria, which was under Japanese military administration by the Governor General of Kwantung should fall. As a result, incoming Japanese reinforcements should be able to form themselves thoroughly before they countered the Russian positions along the railway lines.

After the Japanese army under Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake experienced a kind of heyday from the end of 1916 , which also caused the strong expansion of the garrison in Kwantung, the public and political reputation of the army fell into a severe crisis from 1918. This crisis, triggered among other things by the Siberian intervention and the plans of the army to establish an independent supply base on the continent in the event of another major war through closer cooperation with China and further takeover of control of Manchuria, led in September 1918 for the resignation of the Terauchi government. His successor Hara Takashi led a policy that should push back the influence of the army. Since Hara was convinced that Japanese foreign policy should not be in the hands of the military, he dissolved the Government General in the Kwantung lease area in 1919. The Kwantung garrison was transformed into the Kwantung Army, which received its own commander in chief , while the lease area was ruled in the future by the so-called civil Kwantung administration ( Kantōchō ).

In the future, the Kwantung Army provoked numerous clashes with the Chinese army . This also included the blowing up of a railway line on the South Manchurian Railway on September 18, 1931; This so-called Mukden incident was blamed on the Chinese troops. The Kwantung Army then occupied northeastern China without authorization from the Japanese government. In 1932 the puppet state of Manchukuo emerged .

The Kwantung Army is also said to have provoked the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge in 1937 , which led to the Second Sino-Japanese War , and thus laid the foundation for the Pacific part of World War II.

In 1938 and 1939 there were skirmishes between the Kwantung Army and the Red Army of the USSR during the Japanese-Soviet border conflict . During the extensive fighting on Chalchyn gol ( Nomonhan ), which lasted several weeks , the Kwantung Army suffered considerable losses and ultimately showed itself to be no match for the armored forces of the Red Army and the Mongolian Revolutionary People's Army .

In 1941 the army was significantly strengthened. Known for its notorious tendency towards border conflicts and arbitrarily provoked incidents, the army displayed astonishing discipline and peacefulness during the Second World War, when Japan wanted to avoid a conflict with the Soviet Union .

During Operation August Storm in August and September 1945, the Kwantung Army faced the attacking Red Army. At that time the Kwantung Army consisted of about 600,000 men. However, since the best units had been relocated to other locations in the Pacific War and the army lacked modern heavy weapons more than ever before, what was left of it at the time can only be described as a shadow of itself. At this stage the Kwantung Army was no longer suitable for much more than border guard duties and as an occupying power. Their remnants had no chance against the well-equipped units of the Red Army, tried and tested in the battles against the German Wehrmacht . Despite some fierce Japanese resistance, the Soviets quickly advanced into Manchuria , and the Japanese surrender prevented further fighting. The remnants of the Kwantung Army either lay dead (approx. 60,000 dead) on the battlefield, were on the march to the Soviet prisoner-of-war (approx. 600,000 prisoners, of whom 60,000 died in captivity) or tried to make their way home.

The Kwantung Army was also responsible for some of the worst Japanese war crimes such as systematic biological and chemical testing of humans by Unit 100 and Unit 731 . Only 12 members of the army were convicted during the Khabarovsk war crimes trials.

Outline at the end of the war

Kwantung Army in 1941 on a winter maneuver

guide

Commander in chief

  • General Tachibana Kōichirō, April 1919 - January 6, 1921
  • General Misao Kawai, January 6, 1921 - May 10, 1922
  • General Shinobu Ono, May 10, 1922 - October 10, 1923
  • General Yoshinori Shirakawa, October 10, 1923 - July 28, 1926
  • Field Marshal Nobuyoshi Mutō , July 28, 1926 - August 26, 1927
  • General Chotaro Muraoka, August 26, 1927 - July 1, 1929
  • General Eitaro Hata, July 1, 1929 - May 31, 1930
  • General Takashi Hishikari , June 3, 1930 - August 1, 1931
  • General Shigeru Honjō , August 1, 1931 - August 8, 1932
  • Field Marshal Nobuyoshi Mutō, August 8, 1932 - July 27, 1933
  • General Takashi Hishikari, July 29, 1933 - December 10, 1934
  • General Jirō Minami, December 10, 1934 - March 6, 1936
  • General Kenkichi Ueda , March 6, 1936 - September 7, 1939
  • General Yoshijirō Umezu, September 7, 1939 - July 18, 1944
  • General Otozō Yamada , July 18, 1944 - August 11, 1945

Chiefs of staff

  • Major General Matasuke Hamamo, April 12, 1919 - March 11, 1921
  • Major General Kaya Fukuhara, March 11, 1921 - August 6, 1923
  • Major General Kawada Akiji, August 6, 1923 - December 2, 1925
  • Major General Tsune Saito, December 2, 1925 - August 10, 1928
  • Lieutenant Colonel General Koji Miyake, August 10, 1928 - August 8, 1932
  • General Kuniaki Koiso, August 8, 1932 - March 5, 1934
  • General Nishio Toshizō , March 5, 1934 - March 23, 1936
  • General Itagaki Seishirō , March 23, 1936 - March 1, 1937
  • General Tōjō Hideki , March 1, 1937 - May 30, 1938
  • Lieutenant General Rensuke Isogai, June 18, 1938 - September 7, 1939
  • Lieutenant General Iimura Jō , September 7, 1939 - October 22, 1940
  • General Kimura Heitarō , October 22, 1940 - April 10, 1941
  • General Teichi Yoshimoto, April 10, 1941 - August 1, 1942
  • Lieutenant General Yukio Kasahara, August 1, 1942 - April 7, 1945
  • Lieutenant General Hata Hikosaburō , April 7, 1945 - August 11, 1945

literature

  • Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka: The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932 (= Harvard East Asian Monographs. Vol. 196). Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2001, ISBN 0-674-00369-1 .
  • Thomas Weyrauch: China's neglected republic. 100 years in the shadow of world history. Volume 1: 1911-1949. Longtai-Verlag Giessen, Heuchelheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-938946-14-5 .

Web links

Commons : Kwantung Army  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka: The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932. 2001, pp. 88-89.
  2. ↑ Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka: The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932. 2001, p. 105.
  3. ↑ Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka: The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932. 2001, p. 233.
  4. ↑ The Brockhaus in Text and Image 2003 [SW], electronic edition for the office library, Bibliographisches Institut & FA Brockhaus, 2003; Article: "Sino-Japanese War".