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2 Japan’s Wartime Medical Atrocities

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13 Prior to and during the Second World War, the Japanese Army established
14 programs of biological warfare throughout China and elsewhere. In these “factories
15 of death,” including the now-infamous Unit 731, Japanese doctors and scientists
16 conducted large numbers of vivisections and experiments on human beings,
17 mostly Chinese nationals. However, as a result of complex historical factors
18 including an American cover-up of the atrocities, Japanese denials, and inadequate
19 responses from successive Chinese governments, justice has never been fully
20 served.
21 This volume brings together the contributions of a group of scholars from
22 different countries and various academic disciplines. It examines Japan’s wartime
23 medical atrocities and their postwar aftermath from a comparative perspective and
24 inquires into perennial issues of historical memory, science, politics, society and
25 ethics elicited by these rebarbative events. The volume’s central ethical claim is
26 that the failure to bring justice to bear on the systematic abuse of medical research
27 by Japanese military medical personnel more than six decades ago has had a
28 profoundly retarding influence on the development and practice of medical and
29 social ethics in all of East Asia. The book also includes an extensive annotated
30 bibliography selected from relevant publications in Japanese, Chinese and
31 English.
32
33 Jing-Bao Nie is an Associate Professor at the Bioethics Centre, University of
34 Otago, New Zealand, and Furong Visiting Professor at the Centre for moral
35 culture, Hunan Normal University, China.
36
37 Nanyan Guo is an Associate Professor at the International Research Center for
38 Japanese Studies, Kyoto, Japan.
39
40 Mark Selden is a Research Associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell
41 University, USA and a coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.
42
43 Arthur Kleinman is the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology,
44 Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Professor of
45 Medical Anthropology and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, USA.
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 Japan’s Wartime Medical
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Atrocities
6 Comparative inquiries in science,
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8 history, and ethics
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13 Edited by Jing-Bao Nie,
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Nanyan Guo, Mark Selden
16 and Arthur Kleinman
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First published 2010
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2010 Editorial selection and matter, Jing-Bao Nie, Nanyan Guo,
Mark Selden and Arthur Kleinman. Individual chapters, the contributor.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Japan’s wartime medical atrocities: comparative inquiries in science, history,
and ethics / edited by Jing-Bao Nie . . . [et al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. World War, 1939–45–Atrocities–Japan. 2. World War,
1939–45–Biological warfare–Japan. 3. World War,
1939–45–Atrocities–China. 4. Human experimentation in
medicine–Japan–History–20th century. 5. Human experimentation
in medicine–Moral and ethical aspects. 6. War crimes–History–
20th century. 7. War crime trials–History–20th century. I. Nie,
Jing-Bao, 1962–
D804.J3J38 2010
940.54’050952–dc22
2009052329

ISBN 0-203-84904-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-58377-2 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0-203-84904-3 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-58377-0 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-84904-0 (ebk)
1
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0
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13 To all victims of medical atrocities for whom
14 justice has never been fully served
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1
2 Contents
3
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13 Notes on contributors xiii
14 Acknowledgments xvii
15
16 Introduction: medical atrocities, history and ethics 1
17 arthur kleinman, jing-bao nie and mark selden
18
19
PART I
20
Japan’s medical war crimes and post-war trials 21
21
22
  1 Unit 731 and the Japanese Imperial Army’s biological
23
warfare program 23
24
tsuneishi keiichi
25
26
  2 Medicine-related war crimes trials and post-war politics and
27
ethics: the unresolved case of Unit 731, Japan’s bio-warfare
28
program 32
29
suzy wang
30
31
  3 Research on humans at the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trial:
32
a historical and ethical examination 59
33
boris g. yudin
34
35
36 PART II
37 Guilt and responsibility: individuals and nations 79
38
39   4 Data generated in Japan’s biowarfare experiments on human
40 victims in China, 1932–1945, and the ethics of using them 81
41 till bärnighausen
42
43   5 Discovering traces of humanity: taking individual
44 responsibility for medical atrocities 107
45 nanyan guo
 xii   Contents
1   6 On the altar of nationalism and the nation-state: Japan’s
2 wartime medical atrocities, the American cover-up, and
3 postwar Chinese responses 123
4 jing-bao nie
5
6
PART III
7
Ethics and historical memory: parallel lessons from
8
Germany and the U.S.A. 139
9
0   7 Bioethics and exceptionalism: a German example of
11 learning from “medical” atrocities 141
12 ole döring
13
14   8 Racial hygienist Otmar von Verschuer, the Confessing Church,
15 and comparative reflections on postwar rehabilitation 155
16 peter degen
17
18   9 America’s memory problems: diaspora groups, civil society
19 and the perils of “chosen amnesia” 166
20 david b. m ac donald
21
22 10 Japanese and American war atrocities, historical memory,
23 and reconciliation: the Asia-Pacific War to today 183
24 mark selden
25
26
27 PART IV
28 Annotated bibliography and appendices 203
29
30 11 Annotated bibliography: primary sources and secondary
31 literature in Japanese, Chinese and English 205
nanyan guo and jing-bao nie
32
33
Appendix A
34
The experiments conducted under the Third Reich and
35
Imperial Japan and postwar use of such data 232
36
suzy wang
37
38
Appendix B
39
The experiments conducted under the US government 235
40
suzy wang
41
42
43 Index 242
44
45
1
2 Notes on contributors
3
4
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0
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12
13 Till Bärnighausen is Assistant Professor of Global Health at the Harvard School
14 of Public Health. Previously, he was Associate Professor of Health and
15 Population Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and senior epidemiologist
16 at the Africa Centre for Population Studies in South Africa, prior to which he
17 worked as senior associate at McKinsey & Company and as post-doc at the
18 Centre for Health Care Administration at Tongji Medical University, Wuhan,
19 China. Till Bärnighausen is a medical specialist in family medicine. He has
20 published more than 30 articles in peer-reviewed journals, three books and
21 multiple book chapters (on HIV epidemiology, population health, health
22 systems, and history of medicine). He holds doctoral degrees in History of
23 Medicine (University of Heidelberg, Institute for History of Medicine) and in
24 International Health (Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Global
25 Health and Population), and Master’s degrees in Health Systems Management
26 (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and Financial Economics
27 (University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies).
28
Peter A. Degen holds a Ph.D. in History of Science from Drew University in
29
Madison, NJ. Before taking up his current position as an independent researcher
30
at the Horst-Goertz Institute for Chinese Life Sciences at the Charite, Berlin, he
31
was affiliated with the Institute for History of Science at the Goethe University
32
in Frankfurt. He was postdoctoral Fellow at the Office for History of Science
33
and Technology, University of California, Berkeley from 1989–93 and at the
34
Center of Biomedical Ethics, Stanford University Hospital and Packard
35
Children’s Hospital in 1992. He has published in history of science and medicine,
36
for example, in Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences and
37
Isis. He is interested in the area of science and religion, particularly physics and
38
religion; see, for example: “Albert Einstein. Ein deutsch-jüdischer Physiker
39
zwischen Assimilation und Zionismus” in Den Menschen zugewandt leben.
40
Festschrift für Werner Licharz (1999), ed. Ulrich Lilienthal und Lothar Stiehm
41
(Innsbruck: secolo Verlag, pp. 147–63) and in the history of informed consent
42
in medicine and the life sciences; see, for example: “Reflections of a Protestant
43
Christian on the History of Informed Consent in Germany” in Advances in
44
Chinese Medical Ethics (2001), ed. Ole Döring and R.B. Chen, pp. 73–84.
45
 xiv   Notes on contributors
1 Ole Döring is a philosopher and sinologist with a special focus on bioethics in
2 China and cross-cultural understanding. He holds a Magister Artium degree
3 from Göttingen University and a Ph.D. from Bochum University. Since 1996,
4 he has conducted several pioneering research projects, in Hamburg and
5 Bochum, as part of a research program for culturally reflected bioethics, in a
6 diversity of areas of application, including “Concepts of Humanity in
7 Contemporary Chinese Bioethics” (DFG funded Research Group, Culture
8 Transcending Bioethics, KBE). He teaches at different German and Chinese
9 universities, has published widely and serves as a consultant in international
0 bioethics for government, industry and stakeholder organizations. Currently, he
11 is a core member of the European-Chinese FP6 consortium BIONET: “Ethical
12 Governance of Biological & Biomedical Research: China–EU Co-operation,”
13 EC FP6. His numerous publications include the seminal monograph: Chinas
14 Bioethik verstehen (Hamburg 2004).
15
16 Nanyan Guo was educated at Fudan University, Shanghai. She holds M.A. and
17 Ph.D. degrees in Japanese literature from Ochanomizu University, Japan. She
18 is Associate Professor at the International Research Center for Japanese
19 Studies, Kyoto, Japan. Before taking up her current position, she taught at the
20 University of Otago, New Zealand, from 1993 to 2008. Her research interest
21 includes modern Japanese literature, environmental culture and China–Japan
22 relations. Her recent publications include Tsugaru and Otago: Periphery in
23 Intellectuals’ Consciousness (Hirosaki University Press 2007), The
24 Environmental Culture of the Ogasawara Islands from the Perspective of the
25 Asia-Pacific Region (Hibonsha, Tokyo 2005), Tsugaru: Regional Identity on
26 Japan’s Northern Periphery (University of Otago Press 2005), and The
27 Formation of Tsugaru’s Identity (Iwata shoin, Tokyo 2004).
28 Tsuneishi Keiichi is a Professor at Kanagawa University in Japan. His major
29 research field is history of science. He is a researcher in Unit 731 network’s
30 activities. He has published widely on Unit-related topics. His major books are
31 Epidemiology of Battle Field (Kaimeisha, 2005), Crimes by Chemical Weapons
32 (Kodansha, 2003), The Crossroad of Conspiracy: The Investigation of the
33 Empire Bank Incident and Unit 731 (Nihon hyoronsha, 2002), The Organized
34 Crimes of Medical Personnel: Unit 731 of the Kwangtong Army (Asahi
35 Shimbunsha, 1999), Unit 731: Truth of Crimes by Biological Weapons
36 (Kodansha, 1995), and The Disappeared Biological Warfare Unit (Kaimeisha,
37 1981 and later from Chikuma shobo, 1993).
38
39 Arthur Kleinman, M.D., is one of the world’s leading medical anthropologists.
40 He is also a major figure in cultural psychiatry, global health, and social
41 medicine. Kleinman is the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology,
42 Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of
43 Medical Anthropology and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is
44 currently Victor and William Fung Director of Harvard University’s Asia
45 Center. His chief publications are Patients and Healers in the Context of
 Notes on contributors   xv
1 Culture; Social Origins of Distress and Disease: Neurasthenia, Depression and
2 Pain in Modern China; The Illness Narratives; Rethinking Psychiatry; Culture
3 and Depression (co-editor); Social Suffering (co-editor); and his most recent
4 book, What Really Matters.
5
6 David B. MacDonald holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London
7 School of Economics. He is currently Associate Professor of the Political
8 Science Department at the University of Guelph. Prior to this he was Senior
9 Lecturer at Otago University, and Assistant Visiting Professor at the Graduate
0 School of Management, Paris. His first book, Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and
11 Croatian Victim Centred Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia, was
12 published in 2002 by Manchester University Press. His second book Identity
13 Politics in the Age of Genocide, was published in 2008 by Routledge. He is
14 also co-editor of The Ethics of Foreign Policy (Ashgate Press, 2007) and is
15 published widely in peer-reviewed journals and edited books. His third book,
16 Thinking History, Fighting Evil, was published in 2009 by Lexington/Rowman
17 & Littlefield.
18 Jing-Bao Nie, B.Med., M.Med., M.A., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the
19 Bioethics Centre, University of Otago, New Zealand, and Furong Visiting
20 Professor at the Centre for moral culture, Hunan Normal University, China.
21 Growing up in a remote Southern Chinese village, he was trained in traditional
22 Chinese medicine and medical history in China, and lectured at Hunan College
23 of Chinese Medicine for several years. He also received training in sociology,
24 medical humanities and bioethics in North America. He has published nearly
25 80 journal articles and book chapters including three chapters in The Cambridge
26 World History of Medical Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2009). He is the
27 author of Behind the Silence: Chinese Voices on Abortion (Rowman & Littlefield,
28 2005) and Medical Ethics in China: A Cross-cultural Study (forthcoming).
29 Currently, he is working on a research project entitled “Predicaments of Social
30 Engineering: The Ideologies and Ethics of China’s Birth Control Program.”
31
32 Mark Selden is a Research Associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell
33 University and a coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
34 at http://www.japanfocus.org. A specialist in the modern and contemporary
35 geopolitics and political economy of the Asia Pacific, his recent books include:
36 War and State Terrorism: The United States, Japan, and the Asia-Pacific in the
37 Long Twentieth Century; Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan,
38 China and the United States; China in Revolution: The Yenan Way Revisited;
39 Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance; and Chinese Village:
40 Socialist State.
41 Suzy Wang holds two Master’s degrees – one in International Relations and the
42 other in International History. Born of German and Chinese descent, Suzy grew
43 up learning about the history of the war (1931–45) from both the perspective of
44 a victim (China) and the aggressor (Germany). Having encountered a “general
45 amnesia” regarding Japan’s actions during that period while studying for her
 xvi   Notes on contributors
1 B.A. there, she began her research on Japan’s medical atrocities. Spanning over
2 a decade, Suzy’s research has taken her to archives in Japan, China and the U.S.
3 She is currently completing her doctorate degree in International History at the
4 University of Chicago.
5
Boris G. Yudin holds a Ph.D. in Philosophical Sciences (since 1987) and since
6
1990 has been a Professor of Lomonosov’s Moscow State University, and is
7
Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 2000). He
8
has served as editor-in-chief of the journal Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznaniya I
9
Tekhniki (Questions of History of Natural Sciences and Technology) at the end
0
of the 1980s, editor-in-chief of the scientific and popular journal Chelovek
11
(The Human Being) since 1989, and as the Russian representative in the
12
Steering Committee on Bioethics of Council of Europe since 1997, Director of
13
Institute of Human Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences from 1998 to
14
2004, Head of Department of Comprehensive Problems of Human Studies of
15
the Institute of Philosophy in Russian Academy of Sciences since 2005, Head
16
of the Center of Bioethics in Moscow Humanitarian University since 2006, and
17
Vice-Chairman of the Russian Bioethics Committee under the Commission of
18
RF for UNESCO since 2006. His areas of research include philosophy and
19
sociology of science, ethics of science and bioethics.
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1
2 Acknowledgments
3
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13 This volume would not have been possible without the generous support of
14 many individuals and institutions. It is especially heart-warming to acknowledge
15 our gratitude to them here, as the book’s subject matter is so inherently
16 dispiriting.
17 This volume is the first of two final products resulting from a research project
18 supported by a grant (2003–5) from the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of
19 New Zealand, with Jing-Bao Nie as principal investigator, Nanyan Guo and Arthur
20 Kleinman as associate investigators, and Mark Selden as advisor (the second
21 product is a forthcoming volume by Nie). Two grants from the Bequest Fund of
22 the Dunedin School of Medicine provided financial support for Nie to conduct a
23 pilot study and for professional editing of the chapters written by scholars whose
24 first language is not English.
25 We are grateful to all the contributors. Most of the chapters are based on
26 material presented at three separate conference sessions: a panel (co-organized by
27 Nie and Japanese bioethicist Takashi Tsuchiya) at the fourth annual meeting of the
28 American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (Nashville, October 2001); a
29 symposium (co-organized by Nie and Korean historian of science and bioethicist
30 Sang-yong Song) at the 22nd International Congress of the History of Science
31 (Beijing, July 2005); and a special session (organized by Nie) at the 8th World
32 Congress of Bioethics (Beijing, August 2006). We highly appreciate the
33 participation and inspiration of Takashi Tsuchiya and Sang-yong Song and greatly
34 regret that they were unable to contribute to this volume due to extremely heavy
35 workloads.
36 Along with all the contributors, we owe special thanks to Dunedin-based
37 freelance writer and editor Dr Paul Sorrell, who has expertly exercised his
38 professional skills on our research proposal and chapters 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10; and
39 to Dr Rachel Hall-Clifford in Boston, research assistant to Arthur Kleinman, for
40 her marvelous editorial work on the whole manuscript.
41 We also thank Li Fujun, the Beijing science reporter for Nanfang Zhoumo
42 (Southern Weekend) and Li Wenjing, currently a Ph.D. student in the philosophy
43 of science at Beijing University, for their thoughtful reports to a Chinese audience
44 on our project and research results presented at the 2005 Beijing International
45 Conference on the History of Science.
 xviii   Acknowledgments
1 Earlier versions of chapters 1 and 10 were published in The Asia-Pacific
2 Journal: Japan Focus (available online at www.japanfocus.org) respectively on
3 November 20, 2005 and April 15, 2008. Chapter 4 is based on materials published
4 in W. Eckart (ed.) 2005, Man, Medicine, and the State: The Human Body as an
5 Object of Government Sponsored Research, 1920–1970 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner
6 Publishing House) and A. Frewer and U. Schmidt (eds) 2006, History of Medical
7 Ethics and Ethics of Human Experimentation (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Publishing
8 House). We thank the editors and publishers for their permission to include the
9 modified and revised versions of these articles and book chapters in this volume.
0 The reports by two anonymous reviewers of Routledge have been very helpful
11 for revising the whole manuscript.
12 We hope that this book will serve as a material witness of our collegiality,
13 friendship and the good times we – editors, contributors and associates – have
14 spent together in different parts of our small planet as well as via enormous email
15 communications.
16 Finally and most importantly, we hope that this volume will serve as a reminder
17 of the medical atrocities for which justice has never been fully served. We would
18 like our work to stand as a humble memorial to all those who were “sacrificed” in
19 the course of the medical atrocities discussed here. Let us never forget, we dare
20 not forget, the victims of all medical atrocities and of any kind of unethical medical
21 research or practice.
22
23 Jing-Bao Nie (Dunedin)
24 Nanyan Guo (Kyoto)
25 Mark Selden (Ithaca)
26 Arthur Kleinman (Boston)
27 November 2009
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
1
2 Introduction
3
4 Medical atrocities, history
5
6
and ethics
7
8 Arthur Kleinman, Jing-Bao Nie and Mark Selden
9
0
11
12
13 Facing Japanese wartime medical atrocities
14
If our age – the long twentieth century – has exhibited remarkable progress in
15
areas of science, technology, and economic and social development, it has been
16
equally notable for the scale of violence and destruction: including two World
17
Wars, genocide, mass political violence, and terrorism. To this deplorable list, it is
18
necessary to add Japanese wartime medical atrocities. From the early 1930s to the
19
end of the Second World War, Japanese military doctors and scientists conducted
20
a wide range of experiments with infectious disease agents and the vivisection of
21
thousands of human guinea pigs in a quest to develop effective biological weapons.
22
These horrific medical atrocities were carried out mainly in the biological warfare
23
(BW) programs that the Japanese Imperial Army established throughout occupied
24
China and Southeast Asia, among which those of Unit 731 were the most extensive
25
and the best documented. Japanese researchers also actively participated in
26
employing bacteriological and chemical weapons not only in military battles but
27
in bombing entire city and village populations.
28
This was not just another serious if less well-known episode of human cruelty,
29
one limited in its significance to Japan’s war in Asia and the Pacific. This was the
30
counterpart of Nazi medicine for East Asia. While significant political, social
31
historical, and cultural differences exist between Nazi medicine and Japanese
32
wartime medical atrocities, in both cases doctors and scientists participated in the
33
state-sanctioned intentional killing and torture of human beings in the name of
34
nation, science, and medicine, and other “sacred” causes (Bauman 2000). Like
35
Nazi medicine, we aver, Japanese wartime medical atrocities constitute a
36
paradigmatic case of how human lives and fundamental values such as justice,
37
caregiving, medical ethics, and scientific integrity can all be sacrificed in the
38
pursuit of winning wars and advancing ideology. Like Nazi medicine, Japanese
39
wartime medical atrocities rank among the most egregious misuses of science and
40
technology under state power. The enormity of this abuse raises the questions:
41
How do we persist in resisting inhumanity and in advocating for humanity? And
42
how do we do so not in an ideal world of ethical dreams, but in the gritty, gray,
43
everyday world of contradictory, untoward, and inadequate moral realities?
44
Indeed, as Nanyan Guo points out in Chapter 5 (this volume), the seeds of
45
 2   Introduction
1 atrocities may be found in all of us, capable of surfacing under stressful conditions.
2 If dictatorships are particularly prone to such abuses, Ole Döring observes in
3 Chapter 7, it is important to reflect on “the different ways in which abuses can
4 become embedded within ‘normal’ life and what they have to tell us about the
5 structures of inhumane practices that begin with ‘exceptions’ and slippery slopes
6 that start off ever so gently.”
7 As in the case of Nazi medicine, and not only in the case of Nazi medicine,
8 there are universal ethical lessons to be drawn from Japanese medical atrocities,
9 in addition to the unique historical issues that we must also address.
0 These medicine-related war crimes, in Asia or in Europe, are not isolated events
11 (for a comparative study on wartime science and politics, see Sachse and Walker
12 2005). War crimes such as slaughtering civilians have been practiced from the
13 dawn of world history. During the Second World War, both the Axis powers and
14 the Allies routinely bombed non-combatant areas and populations, and mistreated
15 and abused captured prisoners. This was total war in which the commission of war
16 crimes, specifically the slaughter of civilians and non-combatants, was not limited
17 to one side. Indeed, some of the largest killing of civilians took place during the
18 carpet bombing and the firebombing of Japanese and German cities in 1944 to
19 1945 (Selden and So 2004; Selden 2007). In assessing Japanese wartime medical
20 atrocities, the authors of this volume seek to locate them within the structure of
21 war-making during the Second World War and subsequent wars.
22 Along with wartime medical atrocities, the Japanese Imperial Army committed
23 massacres of Chinese soldiers and civilians as exemplified by the Nanjing
24 (Nanking) Massacre, carried out the Three All Policy (burn all, kill all, and loot
25 all) across the Chinese countryside, created the “comfort women” (enslaving
26 women as military prostitutes), and forced hundreds of thousands of civilians and
27 captured prisoners into hard labor with inadequate food and minimal, if any, care.
28 The subject of this book needs to be seen in the context of the 50 million deaths
29 that took place during the Second World War.
30 Like many other events of mass violence in recent history, one of the most
31 disturbing features of the case at hand is the international community’s failure to
32 pursue justice. Japanese wartime medical atrocities have been largely ignored by
33 the world, with the partial exception of China, for nearly four decades. It was not
34 until the 1980s that the Asian version of Nazi medicine started to become widely
35 known to researchers and the public. The historical fate of those Japanese who
36 engaged in medical atrocities has been very different from that of most Nazi
37 doctors. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (the Tokyo Trials)
38 failed to recognize, address, or pursue Japanese microbiological and chemical
39 warfare and the involvement of doctors in inhuman experimentation, a position
40 that remained unchanged after Soviet prosecutors drew attention to these crimes
41 and offered to present documentation (Boris Yudin, Chapter 3, this volume). The
42 United States government instead struck a secret deal with the perpetrators
43 immediately after the war, accepting “precious” scientific data in exchange for a
44 cover-up and cash payments, and shielding the scientists from prosecution. No
45 official inquiry has ever addressed this U.S.–Japanese devil’s bargain. Moreover,
 Introduction   3
1 neither Chinese Nationalist nor Communist governments have seriously sought
2 justice for the victims, most of whom were Chinese civilians and soldiers. No
3 Japanese government has officially admitted to or apologized for these atrocities,
4 or provided compensation for victims.
5 Although the issues remain contentious, numerous historical and journalistic
6 works on this subject have been published in Japan, China, and the West over the
7 past three decades (see the comprehensive bibliography at the end of this book).
8 This is one aspect of the emergence of worldwide concern about war crimes since
9 the 1980s. Yet, in the case of Japanese wartime medical atrocities, the central
0 theme of this work – namely, the ethical and human rights implications of human
11 testing – remains largely unexplored. We have yet to fully gauge the nature and
12 depth of the inhumanity of these wartime medical atrocities as a form of state
13 violence committed in East Asia by the military and medical professions in the
14 name of science. Nor have we located it in a broad global context as one of the
15 signal ethical and scientific events of modern warfare. The experiments performed
16 by Japanese perpetrators on human subjects as well as the employment of
17 bacteriological and chemical weapons on Chinese troops and civilians raise crucial
18 historical, political, cultural, and legal questions. Not least of these is the existential
19 question of the relevance of these abuses for the contemporary moral experience
20 of physicians, researchers, and patients in today’s East Asian societies.
21 Through the contributions of scholars from China and Japan as well as from
22 Europe and the United States, and from various academic disciplines, this volume
23 examines Japanese wartime medical atrocities in multiple comparative
24 perspectives: cross-national, cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary, and crossing local
25 and global boundaries of politics, law, ethics, and lived experiences. The chapters
26 present fresh studies of historical events and historical framings of what happened,
27 new explorations of the moral responsibility of individuals and scientific
28 communities, comparisons with Nazi Germany and with the Germany of today,
29 reflections on U.S. wars and atrocities since the Second World War, and
30 investigations of war and historical remembrance in East Asia, Europe, and the
31 United States.
32 It is our aim to show how the silence over these and other wartime atrocities
33 necessitates a more central place for ethics and the tenets of international law in
34 considerations of medicine, science, ordinary social life, and history in East Asia and
35 beyond. It is our belief that only by starting from the stark inhumanity of these
36 terrible practices and the failure of politics, law and ethics that followed can the
37 culture of silence and denial that has so frequently accompanied war crimes and
38 atrocities in East Asia and beyond be transformed. In its place, we foresee possibilities
39 for a more reflective, critical, and enabling culture of empathy and responsibility that
40 replaces nationalism with justice, retribution, and reconciliation as a means toward
41 pro-social policies and practices that build a more human world. The double failure
42 – in the atrocities of war and in the subsequent state and societal responses – requires
43 that ethics now be given a heightened place in global thinking.
44 In the aftermath of wartime atrocities, whether those of Japan, of Nazi Germany,
45 of the United States, or others, human beings carry a grave responsibility to
 4   Introduction
1 safeguard humanity and advance ethics. As the writer and conscience of the
2 twentieth century’s horrors, Albert Camus, once reminded us, we never know
3 when the “plague” will return. Our ordinary lives must strip away silence and
4 pretense to examine the past failure of our existential responsibility for moral
5 practices in the face of catastrophe in order to create a more humane future.
6
7
Medical atrocities in East Asia
8
9 It is far from unusual for scientists in all countries to devote themselves to serving
0 national power, especially in a time of war and cross-national conflict. Here we
11 draw attention to the active role played by Japanese physicians and scientists in
12 setting up biological warfare programs, including manufacturing biological agents
13 in laboratories, testing them on unwilling participants, and employing microbio­
14 logical weapons in the field to kill as well as to test and refine weapons of mass
15 destruction. The 1925 Geneva Protocol, which was created in response to the
16 horrors of the First World War, banned biological and chemical warfare. Signed by
17 the great powers with the exception of Japan and the United States, it established
18 an international milieu critical of its use (Geneva Protocol of 1925). The Japanese
19 army invested heavily in creating a BW system, beginning in the early 1930s as it
20 embarked on the conquest of Manchuria and continued research and testing
21 throughout the war years. While other major powers created BW programs then
22 and since, Japan alone appears to have systematically deployed BW warfare in the
23 Second World War against both military and civilian targets. The heart of this
24 system was an extensive network of programs centered in Northeast China
25 (Manchuria), with additional facilities in other parts of China and Southeast Asia.
26 Its most important components were Unit 731 in Pingfang (near Harbin) with
27 branches in Mudanjiang, Hailar, and Dalian; Unit 100 in Changchun; Unit 1855
28 in Beijing; Unit 1644 in Nanjing; Unit 8604 in Guangzhou and Hong Kong; and
29 Unit 9420 in Singapore.
30 General Ishii Shiro, a specialist in microbiology, a physician, and the major
31 designer and leader of the BW program in the Japanese Army, described human
32 experimentation as the system’s “secret of secrets.” To speed up the development
33 of biological weapons, Japanese doctors and scientists experimented upon
34 thousands of live human subjects. Their experiments involved:
35
36 • Intentionally infecting healthy men and women with the disease agents
37 causing plague, anthrax, cholera, and typhoid by injection, by breathing in
38 contaminated air, or by eating food and drinks laced with specific germs.
39 • Conducting vivisections and autopsies on these human subjects in order to
40 study the natural progression of the infectious diseases created in them.
41 • Exposing research subjects to extreme cold for long periods of time to test
42 physiological and psychological responses to frostbite, including use of anti-
43 frostbite techniques.
44 • Experimenting with other responses to extreme conditions, such as deprivation
45 of oxygen and high-voltage electric shocks.
 Introduction   5
1 • Exposing subjects to infectious agents released in explosions in order to
2 evaluate the effects of biological weapons.
3 • Conducting experiments whose deadly consequences were predetermined,
4 such as bleeding subjects to death, replacing human blood with horse blood,
5 and injecting horse urine into the kidneys of human subjects.
6
7 (The Khabarovsk Trial 1950; Tsuneishi 1981; Chinese Central Archive 1989;
8 Williams and Wallace 1989; Gold 1996; Fujii 1997; Harris 2002; Unit 731
9 Criminal Evidence Museum 2005; summarized in Nie et al. 2009).
0 Japanese doctors did not see the Chinese and other subjects of their gruesome
11 experiments as human beings, but rather as “experimental materials.” Those who
12 tortured and murdered referred to their victims simply as maruta, a Japanese term
13 for “logs of wood” or “lumber.” People were sent to Unit 731 and other units by
14 the Japanese military and their policy on “special consignment.” Japanese doctors
15 and scientists vivisected healthy people as well as patients in order to perfect their
16 surgical skills and to teach human anatomy and pathology. Vivisection was also
17 conducted to prepare medical specimens, and there is evidence that it was
18 performed at times simply for fun (Chinese Central Archive 1989: 747–830).
19 The victims were mostly Chinese, but also included Russians and Koreans.
20 Most of these human subjects were healthy men, women, and children. They
21 included a three-day-old baby. Unit 731 alone, from 1939 through 1945, killed as
22 many as 600 subjects each year (The Khabarovsk Trial 1950: 57).
23 Many more died as a result of the Japanese Army’s BW program. In addition to
24 the use of BW weapons in battle, notably in the attack on Soviet forces at
25 Nomonhan in 1939, the Japanese Army carried out BW attacks on cities, towns,
26 and villages throughout China. Ningbo in Zhejiang and Changde in Hunan were
27 among the major aerial targets. Human experimentation, then, was not limited to
28 the research facilities, the so-called “factories of death.” Experimentation also
29 took the form of the deployment of biological weapons in bombs.
30
31
Justice denied
32
33 In contrast to the punishment of some of the abuses of Nazi medicine in Europe,
34 justice has never been served for the perpetrators and victims of Japanese military
35 medical atrocities. While Japanese war crimes and atrocities were prosecuted at
36 Tokyo, and in subsequent B and C class tribunals most of the perpetrators of Unit
37 731 were never prosecuted. Whereas many Nazi doctors were charged and
38 sentenced or their careers ruined because of involvement with atrocities, most
39 Japanese perpetrators got off scot-free. Ishii Shiro and his colleagues lived with
40 impunity on generous pensions. The knowledge, skills, connections, and experience
41 gained in the BW program fostered careers which made several of them pillars of
42 the medical establishment in education, research, and administration (Williams
43 and Wallace 1989: 286–304). Seven of the directors of Japan’s postwar National
44 Institute of Health, and five of the Institute’s vice-directors, actively participated
45 in these inhuman experiments during the 1930s and 1940s (Harris 2002: xiv,
 6   Introduction
1 336–344). Even today, their names and reputations are protected by the Japanese
2 government.
3 How to face history has been and remains divisive in contemporary Japanese
4 society, as the protracted controversies over colonial and war atrocities in
5 textbooks, shrines, museums, monuments, and public statements demonstrate.
6 Japanese courts have processed the lawsuits filed by Chinese victims supported by
7 Japanese lawyers. In many instances the court accepted the fact of human
8 experimentation and BW-related deaths, but did not award compensation to
9 victims, citing statute of limitations (Chapter 2, this volume). As the bibliography
0 here shows, numerous ground-breaking scholarly and journalistic reports have
11 been published in Chinese, Japanese, and English, with quite a few translated into
12 Chinese and other languages. As a result of the joint efforts of local governments
13 in Tokyo and many volunteers, the traveling Unit 731 exhibition, a remarkable
14 event, increased public awareness in Japan (Gold 1996). Japan’s numerous private
15 peace museums, as well as art exhibits and memorials have repeatedly brought
16 other Japanese war atrocities to public attention (Lafleur et al. 2007; Nishino
17 2007; Xinhua 2009). However, the Japanese government, while apologizing
18 repeatedly for various war atrocities, continues to adhere to a policy of no
19 admission, no apology, and no compensation to victims or their heirs for BW
20 crimes. It continues overall to refuse official compensation for victims of atrocities,
21 claiming that its responsibilities have been fulfilled in postwar treaties
22 re-establishing diplomatic relations with China, South Korea, and other nations.
23 This pattern contrasts strongly with that of the German government, for which
24 the Nazi era with its crimes against humanity, most notably the Holocaust,
25 eventually elicited strong official expressions of national responsibility
26 accompanied by extensive programs of mass education, laws and ethical codes,
27 public monuments consecrating apologies, a public attitude of regret, remorse and
28 restitution, and large payments to victims and their heirs (Buruma 2002;
29 Underwood 2006; Jager and Mitter 2007; Dudden 2008; Bazyler 2009). Denial of
30 the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities is in fact illegal in Germany. In Japan,
31 despite heroic efforts by many individuals and organizations to face history
32 squarely, official denial of war crimes and denial of official compensation for
33 victims, supported by neo-nationalist individuals and non-governmental groups of
34 “deniers,” remain in place.
35
36
How did this come about?
37
38 In late 1949, the former Soviet Union conducted a public trial of eight Japanese
39 physicians and research scientists and four other military servicemen in the eastern
40 Siberian city of Khabarovsk on the Russian–Chinese border. In spite of its
41 ideological framing and lack of international participation, as well as shortcomings
42 in legal procedure, and despite the fact that the Soviets, who also had a BW
43 program, were interested in obtaining the Japanese data, the trial established
44 beyond reasonable doubt that the Japanese Army had prepared and deployed
45 bacteriological weapons, and that Japanese researchers had conducted cruel and
 Introduction   7
1 inhuman experiments on captive human subjects (the Khabarovsk Trial Materials
2 1950; Yudin, Chapter 3, this volume). In the geopolitical context of the Cold War,
3 the trial, its evidence, and major findings were published in Russian, Japanese,
4 Chinese, English, and other languages in 1950. Over time, its findings have proved
5 remarkably accurate, but they were dismissed at the time in the West as communist
6 propaganda and, until the 1980s, were largely ignored (Nie 2004).
7 The role of the U.S. was particularly troubling. With the aim of monopolizing
8 the “scientific” data obtained by Japanese researchers and thereby advancing its
9 own BW programs, notably those at Fort Detrick in Maryland, U.S. authorities
0 immediately after the war secretly granted immunity from war crimes prosecution
11 to those involved in the research. U.S. authorities also publicly denounced the
12 findings of the Khabarovsk Trial and evidence from other sources (Powell 1981;
13 Williams and Wallace 1989; Harris 2002). Recent research documents the fact that
14 U.S. authorities paid Unit 731 researchers for information (Tsuneishi 2005). The
15 American cover-up took place shortly after the U.S.-led Nuremberg and Tokyo
16 trials. Privileging security concerns, the U.S. scientific and military authorities
17 engaged in what the English Common Law tradition defines as “complicity after
18 the fact” (Nie 2006). To this day, the U.S. has never formally admitted to or
19 publicly apologized for covering up and exploiting the information generated by
20 Japanese military medical atrocities.
21 The U.S. government also classified and systematically suppressed information
22 on Japanese and American research on the medical effects of the atomic bombings
23 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, information that could have been used to alleviate the
24 suffering of atomic survivors (Hein and Selden 1997). Moreover, at the height of
25 the Cold War, a number of U.S. government-sponsored research projects exposed
26 unknowing citizens to radiation (Advisory Committee on Human Radiation
27 Experiments 1996), and radiation experimentation is but one of the cases of secret
28 state-sponsored experiments which American scientists and research conducted
29 upon human beings (Moreno 2001). Recently, U.S. medical professionals and
30 psychologists participated in designing and implementing the abusive interrogation
31 and torture of prisoners detained in Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and other U.S.-
32 maintained or supported torture sites scattered across the globe (McCoy 2006;
33 Miles 2006). In the U.S., as in wartime Japan, medical and scientific ethics have
34 frequently been sacrificed at the altar of the national security or the anti-terrorist
35 state.
36 Chinese responses to the suppression of information about Japanese wartime
37 medical atrocities have been puzzling. On the one hand, Japanese wartime
38 atrocities are even today still publicly recalled by Chinese people with deep
39 anguish. This should not be surprising given wartime devastation and Chinese
40 death-tolls estimated at between 10 and 30 million. Yet neither the Republic of
41 China on Taiwan nor the People’s Republic of China has systematically pursued
42 justice in the international community on behalf of victims. These ambiguous
43 attitudes toward medical atrocities echo the silent stance of the Nationalist
44 representatives at the Tokyo Trial and of communist authorities subsequently.
45 Nevertheless, a number of high-profile efforts by Chinese victims and non-official
 8   Introduction
1 organizations have been made since the 1990s to file suits in Japanese courts
2 concerning war crimes, including exposure to biological and chemical warfare,
3 forced labor, and coerced “comfort women” (Underwood 2006; Kingston 2008).
4 Remarkably, international bioethics, which has remained focused on Nazi
5 crimes against humanity, has paid little attention to Japanese atrocities. In Japan
6 and China, as well as in Europe and North America, the subject was long treated
7 as if it held little relevance to contemporary science, medicine, or medical ethics.
8 Only in the last decade have bioethicists, in small ways, begun to initiate ethically
9 relevant analyses (e.g., Tsuchiya 2000; Döring 2001; Nie 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
0 2005, 2006; for a review see Nie et al. 2009). The questions that have been
11 explored in this limited literature include the following: What historical,
12 sociocultural and medical environments led to the establishment of factories of
13 death and prevented doctors from resisting? What are the challenges of those
14 atrocities for medical ethics today, notably for East Asian medical ethics? How can
15 East Asia learn from the past in light of German experience? Why should we bring
16 up past atrocities at all? Can the argument that “it was wartime” justify the
17 atrocities and the failure to bring the doctors who perpetrated them to justice?
18 The studies included here document the fact that Japan’s medicine-related war
19 crimes during the Second World War and earlier “have been denied and
20 marginalized” (Barenblatt 2004: xxii). Jing-Bao Nie has called the postwar
21 response to Japanese wartime medical atrocities “the triumph of inhumanity” (Nie
22 2004: 32). This verdict can and should be reversed. This volume is an attempt to
23 face up to the implications of these and other instances of inhumanity and the
24 failure of ethics, and to assess responses to them.
25 Part I of this volume elucidates Japan’s medical war crimes and examines the
26 postwar trials of these crimes. In Chapter 1, Keiichi Tsuneishi, the leading
27 authority on Unit 731 and Japan’s wartime BW program, summarizes a scholarly
28 lifetime of historical research. He describes in detail the origins and development
29 of the Japanese Imperial Army’s BW program. He outlines the human
30 experimentation conducted in Unit 731, with an emphasis on large-scale BW field
31 trials and the failure of a new type of biological bomb. Finally, he, together with
32 Suzy Wang in Chapter 2, documents the American authorities’ decision to shield
33 731 scientists from prosecution and to buy their research findings.
34 Historian Suzy Wang examines various war crimes trials and shows how Allied
35 courts handled Japanese BW and medical atrocity cases. After noting how the
36 International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) declined to investigate
37 the BW program despite having collected evidence, she examines the “B and C
38 War Crimes Trials” on human experimentation involving American POWs. She
39 also studies trials held by Soviet authorities, by Chinese Nationalist and communist
40 governments, and, more recently, by Japanese courts. For Wang, while justice has
41 never been fully served, the trials conducted in the course of six decades establish
42 irrefutable evidence of Japan’s medicine-related crimes.
43 In Chapter 3, Russian bioethicist Boris Yudin offers a historical analysis and
44 ethical interpretation of the 1949 Khabarovsk Trial. Drawing on Russian primary
45 and secondary materials, he emphasizes the extraordinary rapidity of the trial and
 Introduction   9
1 the leniency in sentencing convicted war criminals. Interrogating the evidence
2 uncovered in the trial, he inquires into the nature of the abusive wartime culture of
3 coerced human experimentation.
4
5
Guilt and responsibility: individual, professional, state,
6
and transnational
7
8 A vast international literature assesses the ethical implications of war atrocities
9 and the responsibility of perpetrators. Shortly after the fall of the Third Reich, to
0 address “the question of German guilt,” one of the great twentieth-century
11 philosophers Karl Jaspers (1948), who experienced what he called “internal exile”
12 under the Nazis, distinguished four types of responsibility: criminal or legal guilt,
13 political guilt, moral guilt, and metaphysical guilt. Although only a finite number
14 of individuals are directly responsible for criminal actions, as citizens and human
15 beings, all of us bear moral and metaphysical responsibility for the perpetration of
16 atrocities by our government and the failure to bring the perpetrators to justice.
17 Later, the influential political philosopher Hannah Arendt deliberated on the issue
18 of responsibility from both societal and individual perspectives. While in The
19 Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) she traced the social and historical roots of
20 Nazism and Stalinism, in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of
21 Evil (1963) she stressed that individuals are ultimately responsible for their
22 judgments and actions. That is to say, in collective guilt – in this case that of the
23 Nazi Party – the individual remains responsible for his or her specific acts,
24 including acts of omission.
25 The Nuremberg and Tokyo trials established the responsibility of individuals
26 from citizens to generals and presidents for the conduct of their states. Yet levels
27 of responsibility require attention: What is the degree of responsibility of the
28 soldier or bombardier who, following orders, carries out lethal medical tests or
29 unleashes bombs on civilians? What is the responsibility of the generals or national
30 leaders who went to war and command at the highest level? What are the ethical
31 responsibilities of medical, research and other professionals in time of war? And
32 what is the level of responsibility borne by later generations for war crimes or
33 atrocities committed by their nations during previous wars? These are among the
34 issues addressed by the authors of this volume.
35 Elsewhere, Arthur Kleinman (1995, 2006; Kleinman et al. 1997) has argued
36 that a major obstacle to the development of a serviceable ethics for health care and
37 health science professionals is the tendency to refrain from confronting ethical
38 ideals and aspirations with on-the-ground moral realities. Genuine reality (as
39 William James named it) constitutes the actual lived experience of ordinary people
40 situated in a particular life world where serious issues are at stake – status, careers,
41 resources, relationships, religious and cultural commitments, life itself. In this
42 sense of lived values, we are always engaged in moral worlds, yet the moral may
43 be, and often is, in opposition to the ethical, as in the case of murderous racism.
44 That is to say, entire communities have acted on shared racist values to injure
45 human targets of racial hatred. Here, racism is a shared moral practice – people
 10   Introduction
1 are committed to it – that needs to be so described and then criticized in
2 terms of ethical aspirations that transcend the local. Or indifference may implicate
3 us through compliance with, conformity to, and collaboration with inhuman values
4 and practices such as slavery, abuse of children, and murder of research subjects.
5 Absent real cases that highlight the political, economic, cultural, institutional,
6 and relational constraints on local worlds and people’s lives that clarify real
7 moral practices, statements of ethical requirements sound hollow, utopian, and
8 irrelevant.
9 No progress in human values can be achieved unless there is acknowledgment
0 of the actual limitations and abuses of the moral worlds we live in and the lives we
11 lead. Acknowledgment of what is unacceptable requires criticism of real moral
12 conditions (Jonas 1984; Kleinman 1986; Glover 1999). Where such criticism does
13 not exist locally, it is the responsibility of outsiders to help inform it.
14 It may at first seem ludicrous and even dangerous to classify the abuses by
15 Japanese perpetrators as “moral practices,” but doing so enables us to understand
16 how these inhuman acts were sustained in an actual world by real people. For what
17 was at stake for (and deeply valued by) Japanese physicians and scientists were
18 not only careers, technological goals, institutional commitments, and close
19 relationships, but a political and cultural orientation that privileged the survival
20 and flourishing of an expansive nation predicated on the subordination of China
21 to Japanese power. The same value orientation that stripped the humanity from
22 Chinese and other research subjects viewed the construction of Japan’s Asian
23 imperium as a force for overcoming the baneful effects of European colonialism
24 and creating a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere that would bring salvation
25 to Asian people.
26 Below we consider examples of some Japanese researchers and military
27 physicians who were reluctant to participate in the program, or who even resisted.
28 Most, however, assiduously carried out their terrible responsibilities and many
29 expressed commitment to, even passion for, their work in private and public
30 communications. We know this was the case with many Nazi perpetrators, too,
31 who believed in killing Jews, felt good in doing so, and committed themselves
32 passionately to the worst atrocities. Even when ordinary Nazis felt their religious
33 or family backgrounds to be in conflict with their professional and institutional
34 commitments to eliminationist anti-Semitism, many struggled to be “responsible”
35 Nazis by killing Jews. In contrast to the eliminationist goals of many Nazi
36 researchers, Japanese physicians and researchers of Unit 731 bore no such animus
37 toward the Chinese people. They nevertheless likewise bear ethical and legal
38 responsibility for conducting wartime medical atrocities.
39 Noda Masaaki’s War, Crime and Responsibility (1998) examines the unwillingness
40 of many Japanese to accept responsibility for crimes they committed in the Second
41 World War. He claims Japanese culture has a tendency to suppress consciousness of
42 guilt. Japan’s postwar peace movements are mainly based on the consciousness
43 of being victims. Thus Noda and others have pointed out that participants in
44 anti-nuclear movements in response to Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the bombing of
45 other cities, as well as those Japanese who experienced the war as soldiers,
 Introduction   11
1 frequently privilege their experience as victims of war. Yet it is also the case, as
2 Selden argues in this volume, that significant elements of Japanese anti-war and
3 peace movements have recognized Japanese war responsibility. Important examples
4 include the Beheiren movement (Japan Peace for Vietnam) of the 1960s and 1970s
5 which recognized the position of Japanese in the Asia-Pacific War as both assailants
6 and victims – aggressors in war, but also victims both of the Japanese military and
7 the bombing that destroyed almost every Japanese city and took more than half a
8 million lives (Tanaka 2007).
9 Noda interviewed military doctors, military police, and ordinary soldiers in
0 order to understand their perceptions of the Chinese. He draws on the analysis by
11 psychologist Stanley Milgram who conducted a series of famous experiments
12 from 1960 to 1963 on obedience to authority, in which, with rare exceptions,
13 participants followed orders and showed no sympathy toward their “victims.”
14 Noda points out a similarity among Japanese interviewees to those analyzed by
15 Milgram. In both cases, people suppressed their sensitivity or their ability to make
16 moral adjustments when obeying immoral orders. They tried to justify their
17 obedience retrospectively, frequently blaming their superiors for any moral lapses.
18 Noda is surely correct that most Japanese followed orders even where they were
19 led to commit horrific crimes, but does this require an understanding of a unique
20 Japanese pathology? Comparative studies of, for example, German or U.S. military
21 and civilian wartime behavior does not result in substantially different findings:
22 whether our point of reference is Auschwitz or the bombing of German or Japanese
23 cities, or the napalming of Vietnamese. We need to understand the powerful
24 positive and negative incentives that lead many people under wartime conditions
25 to obey orders whose consequences may cross both legal and ethical lines, just as
26 we need to understand the conditions under which some break with such behavior
27 and challenge the legitimacy of such orders.
28 In spite of pressures to conform, Noda notes situations in which other outcomes
29 are sometimes possible: among those who look to a higher authority such as
30 religion, those who refuse military service, and those who critically examined
31 their own actions.
32 Although rare, some did refuse to obey illegitimate authority due to their
33 religious values. Buddhism, particularly Zen, actively promoted the Japanese war
34 effort and trained its disciples for war (Victoria 2006). Yet some Japanese monks
35 had refused to kill Chinese on the basis of Buddhist beliefs on the sanctity of life;
36 others refused to follow orders to raid civilian homes, and a few refused to accept
37 a military pension after the war. Some Japanese soldiers, following detention in
38 China, returned to Japan and publicly criticized the atrocities they had themselves
39 committed. Some Americans became conscientious objectors during the Second
40 World War and in all subsequent wars; others chose draft resistance, desertion, or
41 anti-war activities during the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. Nevertheless, in all societies
42 that we have studied, including Japan, Germany, and the United States, organized
43 religions – Buddhist, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish – worked with the military
44 in support of the war effort, and the great majority of citizens obeyed orders to
45 fight, apparently without feeling any sense of personal wrongdoing, even in
 12   Introduction
1 ethically compromised situations involving committing atrocities such as those
2 outlined above and discussed in other chapters in this volume.
3 Among 2000 patients in the Konodai Army Hospital in Chiba prefecture, a
4 research center for mental illness in the years 1937 to 1945, Noda found that only
5 two were overcome by memories of slaughtering victims. Both repeatedly saw the
6 faces of the Chinese in their dreams. Noda uses several examples to show that
7 recalling victims’ faces is usually the beginning of recognizing the victims’
8 humanity, and the start of regretting war crimes. This is also a healing process of
9 regaining the perpetrators’ humanity that was lost in the war, and of reconciling
0 with victims. Noda emphasizes the importance of each individual accepting moral
11 responsibility as a means to reduce obedience to immoral orders. In contrast to the
12 findings of Noda and others, Janice Matsumura challenges statistics indicating the
13 exceptionally low incidence of Japanese soldier trauma, noting that there were
14 severe pressures on military psychiatrists and hospital staff to suppress such
15 information and to send traumatized soldiers back to the front as quickly as
16 possible (Matsumura 2004).
17 Part II of this book explores the responsibility of nation-states, scientific
18 communities, and individuals from the perspective of human ethics. Chapter 4 by
19 physician and public health expert Till Bärnighausen focuses on scientific data
20 obtained under inhumane conditions. He addresses two key questions: Are the
21 bestial human experiments conducted by Japanese military scientists of any
22 scientific value, and should data that were thus obtained be used for scientific and
23 medical purposes today? Bärnighausen, through examining the Japanese
24 experiments for their reliability and validity as well as considering research
25 alternatives from the scientific angle, concludes that, contrary to the assumptions
26 of the U.S. investigators who struck a deal with the perpetrators, they were of
27 virtually no scientific value. Further, he argues that unethically obtained data,
28 even those that are scientifically relevant and reliable, should never be used except
29 for historical documentation and ethical condemnation.
30 Nanyan Guo (Chapter 5) examines the moral life and ethics of Japanese who
31 perpetrated atrocities. Drawing from primary Japanese accounts (e.g., participants’
32 confessions and testimonies of witnesses) she presents examples of those who
33 refused to directly participate in atrocities and those who experienced a sense of
34 remorse over their participation in causing the suffering and death of others. Even
35 in the midst of this dark account of barbarity, criticism and aspiration for something
36 more human, though limited and fragile, was not entirely absent. Indeed, these
37 examples of going against the grain in the face of powerful impulses of careerism,
38 nationalism, perverse scientism, and pressures to conform reveal that some had
39 the strength to resist the most inhumane practices in the face of intense pressures
40 to conform.
41 For ethicist and historian of medicine Jing-Bao Nie (Chapter 6), Japanese
42 wartime medical atrocities constitute a paradigmatic case of how human lives and
43 fundamental values such as morality, justice, professional ethics, and scientific
44 integrity can be sacrificed on the altar of the nation-state and its nationalistic
45 ideology. He explores the role of the nation in this two-sided ethical failure: both
 Introduction   13
1 the abdication of human and professional ethics on the part of Japanese scientists
2 who participated in the Unit 731 experiments, and the United States in covering
3 up Japanese atrocities on the basis of a national security calculation. Nie goes on
4 to observe that nationalism has also dominated China’s retrospective responses to
5 the war, including Japanese medical atrocities. Drawing on the major East Asian
6 moral tradition of Confucianism, he argues that, in the face of the increasing power
7 of the state and nationalistic ideology, it is urgent to uphold the ethical core of
8 Chinese and East Asia medical ethics. Here, in common with the highest
9 international ethics, medicine is defined as an art of humanity (yi nai renshu),
0 rather than a political tool of the nation.
11
12
Lessons from Germany and historical memory
13
14 We have repeatedly referred to Nazi medicine as a point of reference in our
15 discussion of Japanese medical atrocities. Not only is it the archetype of the dark
16 side of modern medicine and science, but Nazi medicine is also the most
17 thoroughly studied case. There are far more important historical, psychological,
18 sociological, legal, and ethical studies on Nazi medicine than on Japanese medical
19 war crimes (see Lifton 1986; Annas and Grodin 1992; Caplan 1992; Nicosia and
20 Huener 2002). Some significant similarities exist in these two major cases of
21 medical atrocities, notably the fact that both involve systematic torture and killing
22 of human beings in the name of science and medicine. At the same time, while
23 it is crucial to highlight shared aspects of the two cases, one should not ignore
24 their unique features. For instance, Nazi medicine was integral to the Final
25 Solution to eliminate the “unfit” (the Jewish people and other targeted victims
26 including homosexuals and Roma) through eugenics, euthanasia, and inhuman
27 experimentation. Japanese medical war crimes, while founded on racist
28 assumptions concerning the superiority of Japanese in contrast with Chinese,
29 never sought to eradicate an entire people. Rather, Japan sought to conquer and
30 colonize China. Nonetheless, the killing of tens of millions of Chinese during the
31 15-year China–Japan War underscores the seriousness of the case and provides a
32 benchmark for comparison with the Holocaust.
33 Part III includes two chapters that draw parallels with the German case and two
34 chapters that grapple with the ethical implications of the construction of Japanese
35 wartime medical atrocities, both for the past and the future. Sinologist and
36 bioethicist Ole Döring (Chapter 7) examines Nazi medicine in the setting of the
37 German concentration camp at Ravensbrück. He draws from poetic and
38 philosophical traditions to provide an account of individual moral integrity.
39 Rejecting ethical relativism and local exceptionalism, Döring insists that accounts
40 of moral life transcend particularly situated worlds. Only by advancing universal
41 values, he argues, can we make sense of Japanese wartime medical atrocities and
42 inhuman practices in general, and that critical sense is crucial for preventing
43 similar abuses from happening again. For Döring, it is critical to continuously
44 remember the social and individual suffering caused by crimes against humanity
45 as a way of living a moral life. Historical remembrance concerns not only what
 14   Introduction
1 happened in the past, but provides a guide to what should be done now. In this
2 sense, historical remembrance is always about the future.
3 Historian of science Peter Degen (Chapter 8) examines the influence of racial
4 eugenicist Otmar von Vershuer on his infamous Nazi student, Josef Mengele. His
5 focus is on facing up to the denial of historical truths that challenge our deeply
6 held moral biases. In contrast to Nanyan Guo’s account of religion as a source of
7 inner resistance to participation in atrocities, Degen offers a cautionary tale of
8 how religious institutions and commitments can serve to protect perpetrators from
9 public scrutiny and just punishment, even (and most troubling) from awakening a
0 genuine sense of responsibility and guilt.
11 The remaining two chapters concern the historical remembrance of Japanese
12 wartime medical atrocities and the postwar failure of justice in East Asia, Europe
13 and, in particular, the United States. David MacDonald (Chapter 9) explores the
14 implications of U.S. suppression of information about Japanese war crimes. Seen
15 not as an isolated event, but rather as part of a larger social amnesia that kept
16 Americans “innocent” of genocide and mass political murders, particularly those
17 committed by Americans, MacDonald argues that American responsibility for the
18 cover-up of Japanese wartime medical crimes should be viewed in light of their
19 own suppressed crimes. From the ethnocide of American Indians to radiation
20 experiments without informed consent and the Tuskegee syphilis study supported
21 by the U.S. Public Health Service, Americans have not drawn historical lessons
22 that might help to prevent future abuses. MacDonald emphasizes the failure of the
23 U.S. government to acknowledge either atrocities committed by its military or its
24 own central role in the cover-up.
25 Mark Selden (Chapter 10) concludes this book by offering comparative
26 reflections on historical memories of Japanese and American war atrocities and
27 possibilities for reconciliation. He considers wartime medical atrocities in light of
28 other war crimes committed by the Japanese Imperial Army, including the Nanjing
29 Massacre, enslavement of the military comfort women and the killing of prisoners,
30 locating the activities of Unit 731 within the wider structure of violence in the
31 Asia-Pacific War. Selden points to an often ignored dimension of war crimes,
32 the United States bombardment of more than 60 Japanese cities prior to dropping
33 the atomic bombs in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, initiating a pattern of civilian
34 bombing that the U.S. would relentlessly pursue in subsequent wars in Korea,
35 Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He concludes that not only Japanese medical
36 experiments but also American bombing practices systematically violate both
37 international laws and ethical norms that mandate protection of civilians during
38 warfare. Selden breaks with analyses that highlight exclusively the failures of
39 Japanese and Americans to come to terms with their nations’ war atrocities, noting
40 in particular the strengths of postwar Japanese pacifism, and the contributions of
41 Japanese scholars to unearthing the truth about the Nanjing Massacre, the coercion
42 of the comfort women as well as of Chinese and Korean forced laborers, and the
43 activities of Unit 731. Perhaps most important, he links the citizen response to the
44 defeat and destruction that the Asia-Pacific War brought to Japan to the fact that
45 for 60 years since its surrender in 1945, Japan has not gone to war, though it has
 Introduction   15
1 faithfully provided support for successive U.S. wars. Nevertheless, much remains
2 to be done by the Japanese and U.S. governments and their citizens. Ultimately,
3 reconciliation and peace in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond require that Japan
4 and the United States, as well as others, reassess the historical record and, where
5 appropriate, apologize and provide compensation to victims of their abuses. Such
6 actions make it possible to bring to closure unresolved war legacies and create a
7 moral climate conducive to the prevention of future conflicts and wars.
8
9
Defending humanity and ethics in East Asia and globally
0
11 The bibliography compiled and annotated by Nanyan Guo and Jing-Bao Nie offers
12 a survey of the major available primary sources, important historical studies,
13 journalistic investigations, and ethical inquiries in Chinese, Japanese, and English
14 on Japan’s wartime medical atrocities. This provides a guide to the development
15 and current status of studies conducted in China, Japan, and internationally that
16 constitute a new field of scholarly inquiry. Together with the chapters in this book,
17 these works represent a quest for discovering historical truth, creating cross-
18 national understanding, finding justice, and commencing restitution that merits
19 the attention of those who seek to repair and rebuild the world and to enhance
20 human ethics.
21 We recognize that the failure to pursue justice with respect to perpetrators of war
22 crimes and atrocities in the Asia-Pacific War and subsequent wars seriously impedes
23 the development of medical ethics and ethics more generally. That delayed
24 development continues to be challenged by powerful cultural and political forces
25 associated with nationalism in Japan, China, the U.S. and beyond that make serious
26 engagement with the devastating moral reality depicted in this volume difficult.
27 Other forces at work in East Asia suggest more hopeful possibilities, at least in the
28 case of Japanese atrocities: after years of official resistance to reparations for
29 victims by both the Japanese government and corporations that profited from forced
30 labor, there are preliminary signs of willingness by both to accept responsibility and
31 provide compensation (Underwood 2009). The changing outlook is a product not
32 only of the deepening economic bonds among East Asian nations of China, Japan,
33 and Korea, but also of the findings by Japanese courts that the Japanese government
34 is not legally liable for war compensation. As in the case of Germany, this could
35 open the way for a new Japan Democratic Party government that has prioritized its
36 relations with East Asia to take creative and ethical steps to resolve the issues.
37 Nevertheless, it will require bold efforts by the governments concerned to bring the
38 issues to closure through apology and reparations for victims, steps that seem far
39 more likely in the case of Japan than of the United States.
40 To prevent recurrence of the war crimes that we describe in this volume,
41 together with the contributors, we call on nations, communities, and individuals to
42 face facts, criticize moral premises that their forebears took for granted and valued,
43 and acknowledge the dark aspects of their histories so that ethical alternatives may
44 be articulated and practiced. We note some encouraging achievements in
45 addressing historical injustice, including the German government’s apology and
 16   Introduction
1 compensation to Nazi victims and U.S. government apology and compensation to
2 Japanese Americans interned during the Second World War. The Japanese
3 government has also issued a number of apologies for its wartime conduct. It has,
4 for example, apologized and provided compensation to the comfort women, albeit
5 it has thus far chosen to do so through an ostensibly private fund that shields the
6 government from assuming full responsibility. These are promising, albeit limited
7 developments, which point to a way forward.
8 We contend that it is both necessary and possible to confront history in the
9 service of ethical aspirations for justice and a better world. On both societal and
0 individual levels, we see such ethical analysis and reframing as the basis not only
11 for resisting collaboration with unethical practices, but for preventing future
12 medical atrocities and promoting human rights. Ethics, understood in these terms,
13 is essential for our professions, our institutions, ourselves, and above all for
14 international peace and harmony.
15 Core unresolved political, ethical, and professional questions remain: What
16 kind of justice can be served for these crimes against humanity? What should
17 and can be done to remake the value structure of medicine and science? In
18 general, how do we defend humanity, ethics, human dignity, fundamental human
19 rights, and the professional integrity of medicine and science in the face of a
20 variety of yet-to-be-healed historical wounds and new challenges that are rooted
21 in the human condition? The response to these catastrophes must simultaneously
22 address both what is culturally distinctive and also universal in our worlds and
23 lives.
24
25 References
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 Introduction   17
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 18   Introduction
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 Gendered bodies and physical
Introduction   19
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2 Part I
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1
2 1 Un­­it 731 and the Japanese
3
4 Imperial Army’s biological
5
6
warfare program
7
8 Tsuneishi Keiichi, translated by
9 John Junkerman
0
11
12
13 The Ishii Network
14
Unit 731 was the common name of a secret unit of Japan’s Manchuria-based
15
Kwantung Army whose official name was the Epidemic Prevention and Water
16
Supply Department. The leader of the unit was Ishii Shiro (1892–1959), who held
17
the rank of lieutenant general at the end of World War II. The unit epitomized the
18
extensive organization for the development of biological weapons within the
19
Imperial Army, which was referred to, beginning in the late 1930s, as the Ishii
20
Network.
21
The Network itself was based at the Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory,
22
established in 1932 at the Japanese Army Military Medical School in Tokyo. Unit
23
731 was the first of several secret, detached units created as extensions of the
24
research lab; the units served as field laboratories and test sites for developing
25
biological weapons, culminating in the experimental use of biological weapons on
26
Chinese cities. The trial use of these weapons on urban populations was a direct
27
violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which outlawed the use of biological and
28
chemical weapons in war. It was also understood by those involved that the use of
29
human subjects in laboratory and test site experiments was inhumane. This was
30
why it was deemed necessary to establish Unit 731 and the other secret units.
31
32
33 Lt. General Ishii Shiro
34
The Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory was created under the initiative of
35
Ishii Shiro after he returned from two years of field study of American and
36
European research facilities. It was set up, with the approval of top-level army
37
authorities, as a facility to develop biological weapons. It is said that Ishii first
38
became convinced of the need to develop biological weapons with the signing of
39
the Geneva Protocol in 1925.
40
The biological weapons Ishii sought to develop had humans as their target, and
41
Unit 731 was established with this goal in mind. In order to produce biological
42
weapons as quickly as possible, Ishii considered it essential to have a human
43
experimentation site at the disposal of his research laboratory. Japan had occupied
44
northeastern China, and in 1932, the puppet state of Manchukuo was established.
45
 24   Tsuneishi Keiichi
1 Within this “safe zone,” Ishii set up what was called the Togo Unit, based in the
2 village of Beiyinhe, about 100 kilometers south of Harbin. Human experimentation
3 began there in the fall of 1933. The Togo Unit was a secret unit under the vice-
4 chief of staff of the Kwantung Army. It was set up to determine whether it was
5 possible to conduct human experiments in northeastern China and, if it was
6 possible, whether the experiments would produce useful results. The launching of
7 this feasibility study reflects the deliberate nature of Ishii as the organizer of the
8 research. All of those involved in this research and development were military
9 doctors, but they all used false names. At this stage, the scale of the project
0 involved about ten doctors, along with a staff of about 100.
11
12
The inauguration of Unit 731
13
14 Unit 731 was officially established in 1936. Its establishment is reflected in
15 a memo dated April 23, 1936, entitled “Opinion Regarding the Reinforcement
16 of Military Forces in Manchuria,” from the chief of staff of the Kwantung
17 Army to the vice-minister of the Ministry of War (contained in the Ministry of
18 War Journal for the army in Manchuria, Rikuman Mitsu-dainikki). Under the
19 heading “Establishment and Expansion of the Kwantung Army Epidemic
20 Prevention Department,” the memo states that the department will be “newly
21 established” in 1936, and “one part of the department will be expanded in fiscal
22 1938.” This is the oldest official document concerning Unit 731 that has been
23 found to date.
24 In addition to inaugurating Unit 731, this memo also laid the foundation for
25 establishing two other units. It called for the establishment of an additional
26 biological weapons development unit, independent of Ishii’s unit, which was called
27 the Kwantung Army Military Horse Epidemic Prevention Workshop (later referred
28 to as Manchuria Unit 100), and for preparations to set up a chemical weapons
29 development unit called the Kwantung Army Technical Testing Department (later
30 referred to as Manchuria Unit 516).
31 Several months later, the memo’s recommendations were approved by Emperor
32 Hirohito, the two units were established, and preparations began for creating the
33 Testing Department. The Ministry of War Journal for May 21, 1936, recorded this
34 development under the heading “Imperial Hearing on Military Force Improvement
35 Consequent upon Budget Approval.” The journal noted, “Units concerned with
36 epidemic prevention: One unit each is established for epidemic prevention among
37 humans and horses.”
38 Having been officially established, Unit 731 moved its facilities from Beiyinhe
39 to a newly established laboratory at a hospital in Harbin. This laboratory served as
40 a front-line headquarters while the unit’s permanent facilities were being built in
41 Pingfan, outside of the city of Harbin. These facilities were completed and capable
42 of conducting research in the fall of 1939, after the hostilities at Nomonhan (on
43 the border between Manchuria and Mongolia) had ended.
44 With the construction of the Pingfan facilities, the primary research staff
45 changed in composition from the military doctors of the Togo Unit to private-
 Unit 731 and Japan’s BW program   25
1 sector medical researchers affiliated with universities and other institutions. The
2 first group to be posted to the unit was a team of eight assistant professors and
3 instructors from Kyoto Imperial University in the spring of 1938. The group
4 consisted of two bacteriologists, three pathologists, two physiologists, and one
5 researcher specializing in experiments using animals. Within a year, a second
6 group had arrived at the facility, and the research staff had expanded considerably.
7 The prominence of researchers in pathology and physiology in the development of
8 biological weapons reflected the need for specialized judgment in assessing the
9 results of human experimentation.
0 With the expansion of the war front throughout China after 1937, sister units
11 affiliated with Unit 731 were established in major Chinese cities. These units were
12 also called Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Departments. Then Unit 1855
13 was established in Beijing on February 9, 1938; Unit 1644 in Nanjing on April 18,
14 1939; and Unit 8604 in Guangzhou on April 8, 1939. Later, after Japan occupied
15 Singapore, a similar unit (Unit 9420) was established there on March 26, 1942.
16 These affiliates comprised the scope of the Ishii network through the end of the
17 war. As of the end of 1939 (that is, before the establishment of the Singapore unit),
18 the network had a total staff of 10,045, of which 4,898 were assigned to the core
19 units in Tokyo and Pingfan.
20
21
Human experimentation
22
23 Human experimentation took place at all the units of the Ishii network, but it was
24 conducted systematically by Unit 731 and Unit 1644. Of these two, there are
25 extant reports from a U.S. Army survey of human experimentation by Unit 731, so
26 the general outline of its program is known.
27 Table 1.1 was compiled from two sources: a report to U.S. occupation authorities
28 dated December 12, 1947 by Edwin Hill and Joseph Victor, concerning human
29 experimentation by Unit 731 and related facilities; and a list of specimens brought
30 back to Japan by a Unit 731 pathologist in July 1943. Aside from Ishii and another
31 unit leader, Kitano Masaji, the names of individual researchers do not appear; they
32 are identified as military personnel: (M), primarily military doctors, (C), civilian
33 technicians conducting research within the military, and (PT), part-time researchers
34 working outside of the military.
35 The number of specimens reflects the number of subjects who died as a result
36 of human experimentation as of July 1943. Consequently, the total number of
37 victims of human experimentation at the time of Japan’s surrender two years later
38 would be higher than these figures. The figures also do not include victims of
39 germ bomb tests at the Anda field test site or from other experiments.
40 Technicians who were civilian employees of the army were treated as officers.
41 The status of civilian employees ranged from infantry class to general class, but
42 technicians were treated as lieutenants and above. Ranking below the technicians
43 were operators, clerks, and staff. For the most part, the Ishii Network took on
44 university researchers as technicians. The part-time researchers were part-time
45 employees of the Military Medical School Epidemic Prevention Research
 26   Tsuneishi Keiichi
1 Table 1.1  The number of specimens in human experimentation by July 1943
2
Subject Researcher Total Medically usable
3
specimens specimens
4
5 Anthrax M 36 31
6 Botulinus Ishii 2 0
7 Brucellosis Ishii, M, C, M 3 1
CO poisoning 1 0
8
Cholera C, C 135 50
9 Dysentery M, M, PT, PT, M 21 12
0 Glanders Ishii, C 22 20
11 Meningitis Ishii, C 5 1
12 Mustard gas 16 16
Plague Ishii, C, M, C 180 42
13
Plague (from the Shinkyo [Changchun] epidemic) 66 64
14 Poison 2 0
15 Salmonella M, C 14 11
16 Songo (epidemic hemorrhagic fever) C, Kitano, C 101 52
17 Smallpox Ishii, C 4 2
Streptococcus 3 1
18
Suicide 30 11
19 Tetanus Ishii, PT, C 32 14
20 Tick encephalitis C, Kitano 2 1
21 Tsutsugamushi (scrub typhus) C 2 0
22 Tuberculosis C, Ishii 82 41
Typhoid C, C 63 22
23
Typhus C, M, C, Kitano, C 26 9
24 Vaccine 2 2
25 Total­­­­ 850 403
26
27
28
29 Laboratory; they were professors at Tokyo and Kyoto imperial universities who
30 were contracted to perform research in their own laboratories. In short, a large
31 number of civilian researchers were mobilized.
32
33
Biological warfare trials
34
35 For the most part, the use of the biological weapons developed by the Ishii
36 Network amounted to field trials. The first of these trials took place during the
37 Nomonhan Incident in 1939. In August, toward the end of the hostilities,
38 pathogens that cause gastrointestinal disease were placed in the Holsten River, a
39 tributary of the Halha River that the Soviet Army used as its source of water. It is
40 not clear how many Soviet soldiers suffered from this attack, but it is thought that
41 casualties were not widespread. This was because the typhoid bacillus and the
42 other pathogens that were used lose their infectivity when placed in water. This
43 fact was known to Ishii’s group. It is thought that they nonetheless carried out
44 the attack because they wanted to conduct a field test of biological weapons in
45 combat. While there were likely few Soviet casualties, at least one Japanese soldier
 Unit 731 and Japan’s BW program   27
1 became infected when he spilled liquid from a drum filled with contaminated
2 water while dumping it into the river. He died of typhoid fever at an army hospital
3 in Hailar.
4 During the following year, 1940, larger-scale field trials were conducted in
5 central China, using biological weapons dropped from airplanes. The pathogens
6 were cultivated by Unit 731 and shipped to Unit 1644 in Nanjing, which served as
7 the forward base for the attacks through 1942. During the first two years, these
8 attacks were carried out in cities along the Yangzi River. Of these, the large-scale
9 attack on the city of Ningbo on October 27, 1940 is well documented and has also
0 been thoroughly investigated by the Chinese.
11 The attack took place at 7 a.m. from heavy bombers flying a low-altitude run at
12 200 meters. The bombers dropped fleas, grain, and strips of cotton on the streets
13 in the center of the city. The fleas were infected with the plague. They had ingested
14 blood from plague-infected rats and were called “plague fleas.” The plague
15 bacteria were not dissipated directly, as it was considered more effective to infect
16 the carrier fleas and release them, in order to target a specific area with a focused
17 attack. It was also expected that the bacteria would live longer in the bodies of the
18 fleas. The fleas were dropped with grain and cotton to ensure that they reached the
19 target area, and it was also thought that the cotton would absorb some of the shock
20 of impact on the ground.
21 The first death was recorded on the fourth day, October 30, and casualties
22 increased rapidly in the days that followed. By November 2, it was clear that the
23 disease was an epidemic, and the area was sealed off as disease-contaminated. The
24 following day, it was determined that the disease was the plague. By then 37 deaths
25 had been reported. The quarantine imposed on the area slowed down the spread of
26 the epidemic.
27 The plague epidemic ended on December 2, with the death of the last two
28 victims. Deaths totaled 106 people. These figures were reported in a survey,
29 conducted by two Ningbo researchers and published in March 1994 by Dongnan
30 University Press. This historical account of the epidemic tracked down all of the
31 victims and listed them by name, and it is thus a very valuable document. This
32 attack, killing more than 100 people, was the most lethal in this series of attacks
33 on Chinese cities. However, when one considers that the attack was carried out by
34 heavy bombers on a risky low-altitude run, these results have to be considered a
35 military failure.
36 There were two primary reasons for this failure. First, the bacteria used was so
37 infectious that it immediately set off alarms among its victims. Second, there were
38 exaggerated expectations of the ability to artificially spark an epidemic. In
39 February 1941, Ishii reported to his superior officer, Lt. Gen. Kajitsuka Ryuji,
40 chief of the medical department of the Kwantung Army, “plague epidemics arose
41 easily under natural conditions, but that it was not easy to induce them artificially.
42 A study of the reasons for this showed . . . that it was not enough to have the
43 pathogenic agents to start an epidemic; it was necessary to have a good knowledge
44 of physiological conditions and the physiological properties of human beings.”
45 (The Khabarovsk Trial 1950: 299) It was expected that pathogens dropped in a
 28   Tsuneishi Keiichi
1 densely populated area like Ningbo would quickly spread from person to person,
2 but these expectations were unfulfilled.
3
4
Great failures
5
6 In November 1940, the month after the attack on Ningbo, the Chinese began to
7 take countermeasures in response to biological warfare attacks on urban
8 populations. On November 28, the central Chinese city of Jinhua was the target of
9 a failed attack. According to a Chinese Ministry of Health document
0
11 At the time that the plague epidemics were continuing in Ningbo and its
12 vicinity, three Japanese airplanes flew over Jinhua and dropped a large number
13 of small granules the size of small shrimp eggs. These strange objects were
14 gathered and examined at a local hospital.  .  .  . They showed the physical
15 characteristics of the bacteria that cause the plague. In any case, the plague
16 did not break out in Jinhua and as far as this town was concerned the Japanese
17 experiment in germ warfare ended in failure.
18
19 No effort was made to collect the material dropped from the airplanes on Ningbo,
20 but one month later the objects dropped on Jinhua were gathered and analyzed.
21 There had been rapid progress in securing evidence in response to the attacks. It
22 is also likely that townspeople were warned to stay inside their houses. As a result,
23 the Japanese experiment was deemed a failure.
24 Biological weapons are not only useful as potent instruments of war. Their use
25 can also be accompanied by an important element of strategic disinformation, if it
26 is claimed that the enemy itself used them, or if it is implied that they were used
27 in retaliation. In this sense, when biological weapons are used, one tactic is to
28 cause confusion as to whether they were used or not, but if the enemy deems the
29 trial use a failure, the tactic itself fails decisively.
30 Nonetheless, the trial use of biological weapons on central Chinese cities
31 continued in the fall of 1941. One of the targets was the city of Changde, about
32 1000 kilometers west of Shanghai in the Chinese interior. The Chinese applied the
33 lessons they learned the previous year and were able to keep casualties in the
34 single digits. Thus the results of the trials through the end of 1941 indicated that
35 dropping plague fleas from airplanes as a means of attacking urban areas was
36 some what ineffective.
37 Beginning in 1942, Japan began dropping pathogens from airplanes into
38 battlefield zones, on a scale that amounted to a combat operation. In April, Japan
39 launched the Zhejiang campaign. During this campaign, Ishii and company carried
40 out massive biological weapons attacks. Cholera bacteria was the main pathogen
41 employed, and the attacks resulted in more than 10,000 casualties. It has also been
42 reported that some victims contracted dysentery and the plague. More than 1700
43 soldiers died, mostly from cholera. This would have been considered a great
44 success for the Ishii group, save for the fact that all of the victims were Japanese
45 soldiers.
 Unit 731 and Japan’s BW program   29
1 A Japanese medic captured by American forces at the end of 1944 described the
2 casualties among the Japanese Army during his interrogation:
3
4 When Japanese troops overran an area in which a [biological weapons] attack
5 had been made during the Chekiang [Zhejiang] campaign in 1942, casualties
6 upward from 10,000 resulted within a very brief period of time. The Diseases
7 were particularly cholera, but also dysentery and pest [bubonic plague].
8 Victims were usually rushed to hospitals in rear. . . . Statistics which POW
9 saw at Water Supply and Purification Dept Headquarters at Nanking showed
0 more than 1,700 dead, chiefly from cholera; POW believes that actual
11 deaths were considerably higher, “it being a common practice to pare down
12 unpleasant figures.”
13
14
A new type of bomb
15
16 Following the 1942 failure, the Japanese army general staff lost all confidence in
17 the efficacy of biological weapons. The pressure was on to find a new approach
18 that would ensure the safety of friendly troops and deliver a more reliable, more
19 devastating blow to the enemy.
20 The new approach developed was to pack the pathogens in bombs or shells,
21 which would be dropped from airplanes or delivered by artillery. This would
22 satisfy both of the requirements to deliver massive carnage while maintaining the
23 safety of the attacking troops. At the same time, the only way to prevent disasters
24 like that of the Zhejiang campaign was to improve communication among the
25 troops.
26 Two hurdles confronted the effort to load bombs with pathogens. The first was
27 the need to keep the pathogens alive for long periods of time. The second was the
28 need to develop a bomb made of materials that would break apart upon impact
29 using little or no explosives; this would prevent the pathogen from being destroyed
30 by heat. Alternatively, if a bombshell could not be made of fragile material, a
31 pathogen that could withstand the heat of an explosion would have to be selected.
32 When a bomb or a shell lands, people do not immediately gather at the point of
33 impact, so it was necessary to convey the pathogen from that spot to wherever
34 people were located. Again a live host like a plague flea that would physically carry
35 the pathogen and infect people was considered the best solution to this problem.
36 A bacteria bomb using the plague bacteria was developed to satisfy most of
37 these requirements. The bomb used plague fleas packed in a shell casing of
38 unglazed pottery made from diatomaceous earth (a soft, sedimentary rock
39 containing the shells of microscopic algae). This same material was used in a
40 water filter that Ishii had developed and patented. Since this bomb would break
41 apart using minimal explosive, it was expected that the plague fleas inside would
42 survive the heat and scatter in all directions, to bite people and spread the disease.
43 This bomb, called the Ishii bacterial bomb, was perfected by the end of 1944. At
44 the beginning of 1945, the collection of rats went into high gear, and Unit 731
45 went to work cultivating fleas to be infected with the plague.
 30   Tsuneishi Keiichi
1 Japan’s defeat
2
The main force of Unit 731 left the unit headquarters by train soon after the
3
Japanese surrender and returned to Japan between the end of August and early
4
September 1945. Some members of the unit and officers of the Kwantung Army
5
were captured by the Soviet military. Twelve of these POWs were tried by the
6
Soviet Union at a war crimes trial in Khabarovsk in December 1949. In addition
7
to members of Unit 731, officers of the Kwantung Army and the Army’s chief
8
medical officer were also charged as responsible parties. All of those charged were
9
given prison sentences ranging from two to 25 years, but aside from one man who
0
committed suicide just before returning to Japan, all had been repatriated by 1956.
11
The record of the Khabarovsk trial was published in 1950 as Materials on the Trial
12
of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and
13
Employing Bacteriological Weapons (Foreign Languages Publishing House,
14
Moscow).
15
On the other hand, not one of the members of Unit 731 who safely returned to
16
Japan immediately after the defeat was tried as a war criminal. Instead, the
17
American military began investigating the Unit in September 1945, and Unit
18
officers were asked to provide information about their wartime research, not as
19
evidence of war crimes, but for the purpose of scientific data gathering. In other
20
words, they were granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for supplying
21
their research data. The American investigation continued through the end of 1947,
22
and resulted in four separate reports. The investigation took place in two phases.
23
The first phase resulted in the Sanders Report (dated November 1, 1945) and
24
the Thompson Report (dated May 31, 1946). These two reports contained
25
information on the Unit’s bacteria bombs, but did not address the subject of human
26
experimentation or the trial use of biological weapons. Kitano Masaji, who was in
27
Shanghai at the time of Japan’s surrender, was interrogated in January 1946.
28
However, he was instructed by Lt. Gen. Arisue Seizo, the Japanese chief of
29
intelligence, that he should not talk about “human experimentation and biological
30
weapons trials,” Kitano later told the author of this chapter. In other words, until
31
that time, these two subjects had been effectively concealed.
32
33
34 Body disposal at Unit 731
35
However, at the end of 1946, American authorities received notice from the
36
Soviets that they intended to try cases involving human experimentation and
37
biological warfare. Ishii and others were interrogated again, and they confirmed
38
the general content of the Soviet claims. The American investigation began anew,
39
headed by new investigators. Two additional reports were produced: the Fell
40
Report (dated June 20, 1947) and the Hill and Victor Report (dated December 12,
41
1947). These documents described the human experiments conducted by Unit 731
42
and its related units, based primarily on the interrogation of researchers involved
43
in the experiments.
44
45
 Unit 731 and Japan’s BW program   31
1 The Hill and Victor Report concludes with the following evaluation:
2
3 Evidence gathered in this investigation has greatly supplemented and ampli-
4 fied previous aspects of this field. It represents data which have been obtained
5 by Japanese scientists at the expenditure of many millions of dollars and years
6 of work. Information had accrued with respect to human susceptibility to
7 those diseases as indicated by specific infectious doses of bacteria. Such
8 information could not be obtained in our own laboratories because of scru-
9 ples attached to human experimentation.
0
11 The above account makes clear the nature of the crimes committed by the Ishii
12 Unit. At the same time, it is necessary to question the responsibility of the
13 American forces who provided immunity from prosecution in exchange for the
14 product of these crimes.
15
16
Acknowledgment
17
18 This chapter was originally written by Tsuneishi Keiichi for publication in Sekai
19 senso hanzai jiten (Encyclopedia of War Crimes in Modern History) (Tokyo:
20 Bungei Shunju, 2002), edited by Hata Ikuhiko, Sase Masamori, and Tsuneishi.
21 This English version was first posted at the online journal Japan Focus on
22 November 20, 2005.
23
24
References
25
26 The Khabarovsk Trial 1950, Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese
27 Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons. Moscow:
28 Foreign Language Publishing House.
29 Kobayashi, Hideo 小林英夫 & Kojima Toshiro 児嶋俊郎 1995, ed. Germ Troops of Unit
731: New Material from China 七三一細菌戦部隊・中国新資料, Tokyo: Fuji
30
shuppan.
31
Tanaka, Akira and Matsumura Takao 田中明, 松村高夫 1991, ed. Documents from Unit
32 731 七三一部隊作成資料, Tokyo: Fuji shuppan.
33 Tsuneishi, Keiichi 常石敬一1984, Targeting Ishii: Unit 731 and the American Army’s
34 Intelligence Service 標的・イシイ：七三一部隊と米軍諜報活動, Tokyo: Otsuki
35 shoten.
36 —— 1994, 1999 Organized Crimes by Medical Researchers: Unit 731 of the Kwantung
37 Army 医学者たちの組織犯罪：関東軍第七三一部隊, Tokyo: Asahi shimbunsha.
38 —— 1995, Unit 731: The Truth about Biological Weapons and Crimes 七三一部隊：生物
39 兵器犯罪の真実, Tokyo: Kodansha.
40
41
42
43
44
45
1
2 2 Medicine-related war crimes
3
4 trials and post-war politics
5
6
and ethics
7
8
The unresolved case of Unit 731,
9 Japan’s bio-warfare program
0
11 Suzy Wang
12
13
14 Introduction
15
16 The International Military Tribunal (IMT) held in Nuremberg, and the International
17 Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) held in Tokyo, were meant to be, as
18 their titles suggest, international in nature, and in both cases they included judges,
19 investigators, and prosecutors from multiple nations (four in the German case and
20 11 in the Japanese case). Military, civilian, and economic leaders charged primarily
21 with Crimes against Peace, but also including Crimes against Humanity and
22 Conventional War Crimes, made up the list of defendants: 24 in the German case
23 and 25 in the Japanese case.
24 In addition to these international tribunals, provisions were made with Control
25 Council Law No. 10 which also allowed occupying authorities to prosecute war
26 criminals who committed conventional crimes. The official website for the Museum
27 of Tolerance provides a postwar estimate of 80,000 Germans and tens of thousands
28 of local collaborators convicted for their crimes in Europe during World War II.
29 Between 1945 and 1949, over 500 Nazi criminals were convicted in the American,
30 British, and French zones alone. Similarly, between October 1945 and April 1956,
31 over 2200 trials were held in 49 locations in Asia and the Pacific simultaneously
32 with and subsequently to the IMTFE by various authorities, including those of the
33 U.S., China, Australia, and Britain. According to a 2002 report by the Interagency
34 Working Group of the United States National Archives, of the 5700 war criminals
35 charged,1 4300 were convicted, with 984 sentenced to death and 475 sentenced to
36 life imprisonment. Investigations into war crimes were conducted on a wide range
37 of issues over a vast territory occupied by Japanese forces.2 Politics also dictated
38 which crimes would be tried and by whom. These were known as B and C class
39 trials, as opposed to the IMT and IMTFE trials, and they received far less
40 international attention. A review of these trials permits a better understanding of
41 issues surrounding contemporary trials and controversies taking place in Japan.
42
43 International Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Tribunal)
44
By the time the IMTFE (May 3, 1946 to November 12, 1948) was created as the
45
Asian counterpart to the IMT, Cold War tensions had begun and politics played a
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   33
1 much larger role in how the tribunal was run. 3 Although the number of
2 participating nations at the Tokyo Tribunal was 11 compared to the four in the
3 German case, General Douglas MacArthur, the central figure in the U.S.
4 occupation, controlled many decisions pertaining to the legal proceedings, much
5 to the exasperation of investigators from other nations.4 The goal of the
6 United States to contain communism and quickly rebuild Japan governed many
7 of the decisions made by SCAP even before the tribunal convened in early
8 May 1946.
9 Various declassified archival materials and testimonies reveal that Japan’s BW
0 program, headed by Ishii Shiro, had conducted inhumane experiments – including
11 vivisections, freezing experiments, BW, and chemical warfare (CW) experiments
12 as well as aerial tests and bombing of Chinese, Korean, Manchurian, Mongolian,
13 and Soviet subjects (which were conducted in a controlled environment at Unit
14 100) from as early as 1932 to the end of the War.5 While most of the victims were
15 Chinese, some testimonies have also claimed that U.S. prisoners of war were
16 subjects of such human experimentation (The Khabarovsk Trial 1950).
17 The numerous declassified government documents lay to rest any doubts
18 about the U.S. government’s postwar cover-up of Japan’s BW program. Not only
19 did the Japanese scientists receive 250,000 yen in payments in exchange for their
20 data, but immunity from prosecution of war crimes was also granted to all those
21 associated with the program.6 The deal was struck with full knowledge that the
22 data collected were from human subjects, almost all of whom were killed in the
23 experiments. Although internal memos indicate otherwise, the United States
24 government continues to maintain that no U.S. prisoners of war were victims of
25 the experiments conducted under the BW program.7
26 The issue of the Japanese BW program was virtually excluded from the IMTFE
27 with the exception of comments made on record by an American Associate
28 Prosecutor of the International Prosecution Section (IPS) assigned to the China
29 case, David Nelson Sutton. This, together with the Khabarovsk Trial conducted by
30 the Soviet Union, would become the starting point for international research on
31 the issue.
32
33 Significance of the IPS documents
34
35 While discussing the Nanjing Massacre on August 29, 1946, Sutton shocked
36 the IMTFE court when he mentioned the Tama Detachment of Nanjing
37 (also known under the designation of Unit 1644) and the human medical
38 experiments conducted by their detachment during the Japanese occupation of
39 the city.
40
41 Mr. [David Nelson] Sutton: The enemy’s TAMA Detachment carried off
42 their civilian captives to the medical laboratory, where the reactions to
43 poisonous serums were tested. This detachment was one of the most secret
44 organizations. The number of persons slaughtered by this detachment cannot
45 be ascertained. . . .
 34   Suzy Wang
1 The President [Australian Chief Judge William Flood Webb]: Are you going
2 to give us any further evidence of these alleged laboratory tests for reactions
3 to poisonous serums? This is something entirely new, we haven’t heard before.
4 Are you going to leave it at that?
5
6 Mr. [David Nelson] Sutton: We do not at this time anticipate introducing
7 additional evidence on that subject.8
8 (IMTFE 1946, 4546–4547)
9
0 The prosecution case remained firmly on the Nanjing Massacre, and thus the
11 opportunity to include the issue of Japan’s BW experiments was lost and never
12 brought up again in the IMTFE proceedings. This exchange between Sutton and
13 Webb is nevertheless significant, as it left a written record of early U.S. awareness
14 of the program.9
15 Sutton’s comments during the IMTFE proceedings are all the more surprising
16 since Sutton, on April 25, had recommended to Chief of Counsel Joseph B. Keenan
17 that “no attempt be made to establish the use of bacteria warfare by the Japanese
18 against China” due to lack of evidence.10
19 Interestingly, a month before the group’s departure to China in April 1946 for
20 collecting evidence, Colonel Thomas H. Morrow, Sutton’s colleague at the IPS,
21 had written a series of reports concerning the BW and chemical warfare (CW)
22 issues for Keenan. His recommendations indicated that the responsibility lies in
23 “the Tokyo Government and not field commanders,” thus implying the inclusion
24 of this issue within the scope of war crimes to be raised in the IMTFE. Sutton’s
25 interest in collecting evidence of individual atrocity and Morrow’s search up the
26 chain of command for culpability led to their different recommendations. In his
27 final report, handed to Keenan on the same day as Sutton’s report on BW, Morrow
28 concluded that there is enough evidence to charge Japan with the use of poison gas
29 in China (Williams and Wallace 1989, 173).
30
31
The possibility of a Nanjing trial?
32
33 The difficulties of collecting evidence in China in the midst of a civil war became
34 evident to the IPS. Sutton’s mention of the Tama Detachment alerted researchers
35 to the fact that the IPS may have known more than they were willing (or allowed)
36 to let on. John W. Powell points out that “the Chinese procurator at Nanking [had]
37 sent a report on the TAMA Detachment’s activities to the IMTFE, in Tokyo, asking
38 that it be included in the war crimes charges against the Japanese”
39 (1980, 5). Perhaps the new evidence compelled Sutton to mention the use of
40 poison gas by the Japanese.
41 A search into the materials held in Nanjing does reveal the existence of
42 three indictments against 14 former members of the Tama Detachment dated
43 October 22, 1946.11 Xie Fusheng of the Nanking Central Hospital charged
44 Nagayama (長山) with using Chinese Nationalist prisoners as subjects for
45 experimentation, injecting them with various germs and drugs. The second
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   35
1 indictment charged Senior Captain Hiromoto (広本) and First Lieutenant Morita12
2 (森田) with choosing 100 prisoners of the Laohuqiao Camp in October 1942, to
3 be sent to the Tama Detachment for experimentation, causing the death of all
4 prisoners. The third indictment was based on the testimony of Xie Jinlong, a
5 former laborer recruited from Taiwan, which charged First Lieutenant Morita with
6 ordering Xie in January 1942 to transport over 100 prisoners to the Tama
7 Detachment, where no one survived (Fujii 1997, 432–433). According to Zhang
8 Lianghong, the historian and Director of the Nanjing Massacre Study Center at
9 Nanjing Normal University (email correspondence, February 10, 2007), in
0 addition to Xie’s testimony, two others regarding human experiments committed
11 by the Tama Detachment may be found in the Nanjing archives. Among them, the
12 one by Chimba Osamu 榛叶修 (榛葉修) is especially significant, its being a rare
13 testimony provided by a former member of the Tama Detachment who defected
14 to China during the War.
15 Williams and Wallace (1989), in their archival research, also found the Chimba
16 testimony among the IPS documents,13 but under a slightly different name: Hataba
17 Osamu (hereafter referred to as Chimba). Taken on April 17, 1946, Chimba
18 describes the 1942 Zhejiang Campaign in which Ishii had solicited the support of
19 the Tama Detachment. After reading reports of the spread of epidemics during
20 1942 and 1943 in the areas that had been targeted, Ishii was known to have touted
21 the campaign as a major success (Harris 1994, 111). Chimba, however, insisted
22 that the winds had changed course during the summer maneuvers and poisoned
23 soldiers from the Tama Detachment were hospitalized well into September of the
24 following year. Chimba’s testimony corroborates previously gathered intelligence
25 reports,14 and Sutton’s claim in court that poison was used by the Tama
26 Detachment may have come from Chimba’s statement in the affidavit that Japan’s
27 research was not confined to BW but to poisons as well (Williams and Wallace
28 1989, 176–177).
29 These materials, collected for the IMTFE or a subsequent trial, provide the first
30 material evidence of the activities of the Tama Detachment as well as partial data
31 indicating the specific number and location of Chinese prisoners taken from one
32 camp to be killed by experimentation. More importantly, the materials serve as an
33 early indication that Japan’s BW program extended at least as far south as Nanjing
34 and was not confined to Manchuria (present-day Northeast China).
35 Beginning in December 1945, military tribunals in postwar China ended in
36 late 1947 due to “heavy court costs,” while “mounting Communist rebellion
37 diverted attention” away from the tribunals (Cady 1980, 172). According to
38 John F. Cady, charges were brought against 41,000 Japanese war criminals;
39 however, a Chinese source indicated that only 2435 were tried (of which 110 were
40 executed) (Zhongguowang 2005). Currently available materials do not confirm
41 whether those of the Tama Detachment charged with war crimes were ever brought
42 to trial in China. As we will see later, U.S. investigators, hindered in their
43 search for truth by SCAP directives protecting the Japanese scientists, missed
44 opportunities to put the BW researcher under scrutiny. Investigators were
45 stonewalled.
 36   Suzy Wang
1 Subsequent U.S. Army and Navy trials –
2 USA vs. Karl Brandt et al.
3
Among the more infamous cases tried in Europe after the end of World War II was
4
that of United States of America vs. Karl Brandt et al. Held between October 1946
5
and November 1947, “the Doctor’s Trial,” as it was commonly known, was the first
6
of 12 cases to be brought before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal (NMT). The
7
defendants included senior doctors and administrators in the armed forces and SS,
8
charged with conducting a series of medical experiments (see Appendix A) during
9
the course of the War within the context of genocide and the systematic elimination
0
of those deemed “life unworthy” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).
11
PostWar discourse of medical atrocities committed by Imperial Japan often
12
refers to the Doctor’s Trial – citing it as an example of justice served in Europe but
13
“denied” in the Asian case. Indeed, no case was filed against Japan comparable to
14
that of USA vs. Karl Brandt et al. given the decision to protect the Japanese BW
15
scientists from prosecution in exchange for their data.
16
17
18 Subsequent Japanese trials
19 Initial regulations governing the scope and procedures of trials to be conducted by
20 the U.S. military commissions in the Asian Theater were set by General Douglas
21 MacArthur on September 24, 1945, with subsequent changes implemented
22 through SCAP. Japanese war criminals (including Koreans and Formosans serving
23 the Japanese military) were tried by the US military commissions in Army and
24 Navy courts.15 The Army courts were held in China, Japan, and the Philippines
25 and generally followed more relaxed SCAP regulations on evidence. However,
26 according to Glazier (2003), the Navy, while recognizing the relaxed SCAP
27 regulations, adhered to the stricter regulations found in the Naval Courts and
28 Boards16 and brought in Japanese lawyers as part of their defense team (p. 2070).
29 Since this would be the Navy’s first experience holding war crime tribunals, great
30 efforts were made to ensure fair trials. The Navy also wanted to distinguish its
31 trials from those of the IMTFE and the Army trials, which were being criticized
32 for displaying “victor’s justice.”
33 Imperial Japan was not the only nation to have conducted research on BW.
34 Others include Germany and the United States (For a list of U.S. experiments, see
35 Appendix A). What stands out in the Japanese research, as in the case of Germany,
36 is the extensive use of humans as experimental subjects with death as the
37 prescribed outcome of the experiments. Given the extent of the cover-up by the
38 U.S. government during and after the IMTFE proceedings, it is interesting that
39 trial-related materials reveal at least three cases of human experimentation.
40
41
42
USA vs. Iwanami Hiroshi et al. and
43
USA vs. Asano Shimpei et al.
44 There was much postwar destruction of evidence and elaborate cover-ups designed
45 to hide crimes by the Imperial Japanese Navy stationed at Dublon Island, Truk
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   37
1 Atoll, Caroline Islands. In the following case, it took an undercover operation to
2 eventually reveal what had occurred during the War on this military installation.
3 The case file records of United States of America vs. Iwanami, Hiroshi et al.
4 indicate that the atrocities committed went beyond the starvation and beatings of
5 POWs and locals,17 and included shocking details of experiments conducted on
6 American airmen. On June 10, 1947, charges were brought against 19 Japanese
7 defendants for murdering eight American POWs. According to William H. Stewart
8 (1986), a Japanese defendant named Nakamura whose job was to take notes during
9 the various experiments provides the fullest account.18 Nakamura explained that
0 Iwanami Hiroshi, the Commanding Officer of Fourth Naval Hospital on Dublon
11 Island, Truk, requested eight American POWs from the Commanding Officer of
12 the Naval Guard Unit, where the prisoners were kept, for use in experimentation.
13 Details of the experiments were as follows:
14
15 On 30 January 1944, two doctors, now deceased, and Iwanami performed
16 shock experiments on four of the POWs by placing tourniquets on their arms
17 and legs for long periods. The tourniquets were taken off of two POWs at the
18 end of about two hours and off the other two at the end of seven hours, the
19 latter died immediately from shock, the former survived. The four other
20 POWs were injected with streptococcus bacteria to cause septicemia (blood
21 poisoning). These four developed a high fever and soon died.
22 (USA vs. Iwanami, Hiroshi et al.)
23
24 The two POWs who had survived the shock experiments were strangled to death
25 the following day. This was after explosions of dynamite intentionally placed in
26 shallow holes in proximity to the bound, naked POWs injured their legs but still
27 left conscious and in pain. These, along with the bodies of the other two POWs,
28 were taken to the hospital and all were dissected. The hearts and organs of the four
29 POWs who were victims of the shock experiments were said to have been removed
30 and placed in specimen bottles. Iwanami’s files further indicate that he confessed
31 to cutting off the heads of the shock experiment subjects and boiling them for
32 specimens to be sent to Tokyo (USA vs. Iwanami, Hiroshi et al.).
33 During this trial, testimonies were given by two defendants in another case,
34 United States of America vs. Asano, Shimpei et al. Ueno Chisato was the acting
35 head medical officer of the Forty-first Naval Guard Unit and Nakase Shoichi was
36 the acting executive officer of the same unit where Iwanami conducted his
37 experiments. Five months after the experiments were conducted by Iwanami, a
38 separate request for POWs came from Ueno Chisato.
39 Within the case file, a 1948 review of the trial by John D. Murphy19 shows that
40 the six Japanese defendants of United States vs. Asano Shimpei et al. were variously
41 charged with cutting and wounding, beheading, and stabbing two American POWs.
42 Among them, former Rear Admiral Asano Shimpei was charged with failing to
43 control his subordinates and not protecting prisoners under his jurisdiction, while
44 Ueno was charged with illegally mistreating and torturing one American POW (the
45 other was spared vivisection but was killed as a target for bayonet practices).
 38   Suzy Wang
1 The prosecution charged that Ueno had informed a surgeon lieutenant at
2 the Naval Guard Unit that he was going to operate on the prisoners and that the
3 operations would be of educational value for younger surgeons. According to
4 the postwar review by Murphy, “The right toe nail was removed . . . the right thigh
5 was incised and the femoral artery exposed . . . the right testicle was incised . . . and
6 removed . . . an incision was made in the abdomen . . . and an incision was made
7 in the right breast.” Ueno, however, objected to the charges and claimed that the
8 operation was to correct a paronychial (nail bed infection) condition and other
9 incisions were made to check for internal bleeding (USA vs. Asano, Shimpei
0 et al.). Although not found in Murphy’s review, Stewart, in his 1986 publication,
11 stated that Ueno had killed “one prisoner by chloroforming him and dissecting
12 him alive on the operating table” (p. 104). Iwanami, Asano, and Ueno were all
13 sentenced to death by hanging and their sentences were carried out as part of a
14 series of executions which began in 1949 (Stewart 1986). A point which warrants
15 further scrutiny is the fact that while these individual cases brought to trial under
16 the U.S. military ended up in the death of the perpetrators, the IMTFE failed to
17 bring the Unit 731 scientists to trial – indeed, they received immunity and payments
18 in exchange for their data.
19 The fact that two different naval doctors could at different times have access to
20 POWs for use in experimentation indicates that these were not isolated acts. While
21 Ueno’s surgery may have been an isolated case of a medical surgeon seeing POWs
22 as better utilized in experimental surgeries for “educational purposes,” Iwanami’s
23 experiments point to a possible connection with the larger network under which
24 Japan’s BW program operates. It remains curious that the heads of the POWs
25 were processed as skull specimens to be sent to Tokyo. What the review and
26 memoranda do not indicate is where in Tokyo Iwanami sent the specimens.
27 Perhaps further investigation into related material would reveal whether the
28 legal team pushed further for information regarding a possible connection between
29 the Navy experiments in the Caroline Islands and Tokyo. So far, all indications are
30 that the investigative style of the Navy investigators was similar to that of Sutton’s,
31 with the focus on the specific crimes rather than placing it within the larger context
32 of the networks within the scientific community.
33
34
The Army trial: USA vs. Kajuro, Aihara et al.
35
36 In contrast to the two Navy trials that took place far from Japan, the case of United
37 States of America vs. Kajuro, Aihara et al. was part of several that took place in
38 Yokohama on the mainland and collectively referred to as the “Yokohama Trials”
39 or the “B and C War Crimes Trials.” The media on this case was short-lived and
40 while there was almost disbelief that human experiments on POWs were conducted
41 on Japanese soil, the headlines quickly moved on to other news. Over the early
42 months of the occupation, SCAP received many anonymous and named tips asking
43 the investigators to look into certain doctors connected to Unit 731 and to include
44 their crimes in the IMTFE.20 This, combined with the near exposure of Japan’s
45 BW program by Sutton during IMTFE proceedings and the continued Russian
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   39
1 insistence on interrogating Ishii, resulted in the transfer of much effort from the
2 prosecution of criminals to cover-up.
3 On May 5, 1945, on their return flight to Guam, after having completed their
4 mission to attack the Tachiarai Air Base in southwestern Japan, Captain Marvin S.
5 Watkins and the rest of his B-29 bomber crew were attacked and had to abandon
6 their airplane. Watkins, who was sent to Tokyo owing to his rank and possible
7 knowledge of intelligence, was thus spared the same fate as that of his crew
8 members. According to Fukubayashi Toru, a co-founder of the POW Research
9 Network Japan, in May 1945, Army District Headquarters were ordered from
0 Tokyo “to dispose of ” the bodies of crew members and interpreted this as
11 execution without trial. In fact,
12
13 in or about June 1945, Japanese Kempeitai commander Lt. Gen. Sanji Okido
14 secretly ordered each Army District Kempeitai commander that they should
15 make contact with the Army District commander and strictly dispose [sic] of
16 all the captured fliers. This order substantially meant to execute the captured
17 fliers secretly without trial.21
18
19 Between May 17 and June 2, 1945, a series of experiments was conducted on
20 eight American fliers who were held in detention barracks near and under the
21 jurisdiction of the Western Army Headquarters. The first experiments were
22 performed to explore respiratory conditions; the second series of two operations
23 was on the brain and the stomach; the third series of operations was on the liver,
24 artery, stomach, and heart; and the fourth and final series was on the lung and the
25 brain. Aside from one crewman, who was injured in a scuffle with locals when he
26 landed, the other seven “all appeared to be in good health and did not need medical
27 or surgical treatment and the organs removed did not appear diseased” – all were
28 noted to have been able to walk into the autopsy room, believing that they were
29 there to receive medical care (USA vs. Kajuro, Aihara et al.).
30 Kamisaka (1979) and Landas (2004), in their postwar study of the Kyushu
31 Imperial Medical University experiments, both question the use of a less
32 experienced prosecution team for this case. Moreover, in his research of SCAP
33 Legal Section case files, Landas (2004) found Kyushu Imperial Medical University
34 to be one of three main research centers experimenting with artificial blood
35 substitutes. The other two were Nagoya Imperial University and Niigata Medical
36 College. Landas explained that:
37
38 each research facility conducted its own experiments and pursued different
39 types of substitutes. They only needed to report their data and conclusions to
40 the Densenbyo Kenkyusho. In that sense, each university and research
41 laboratory functioned semi autonomously.
42 (Landas 2004, 146)
43
44 If the connection to Ishii’s research had been pursued by the prosecutors, the
45 larger network of the medical community, pharmaceutical companies, and the
 40   Suzy Wang
1 military government would have been exposed. Ultimately, on March 25, 1950,
2 “the Office of the Judge Advocate General (JAG) ruled that due to severe judicial
3 errors on the part of the presiding commission members, the rulings were deemed
4 questionable” and that “the president-law member ‘exhibited a decided lack of
5 judicial temperament and control’ ” (Landas 2004, 253–54). Finally, a rehearing
6 was ordered but was never carried out due to the changing political environment
7 at the start of the Korean War and the official reduction of most of the sentences
8 in September 1950 by General Douglas MacArthur. None of the 30 defendants in
9 this case were executed for their crimes (Easton 1995), and by 1958, all had been
0 freed following reversion to the Japanese government of responsibility for
11 Japanese war criminals (Landas 2004, 255).
12
13
Significance of the trials
14
15 In the early 1990s, when atrocities committed by former members of the Imperial
16 Army came to be widely debated, there were those who, in order to separate
17 themselves from negative media attention, proudly emphasized that they had
18 served in the Imperial Navy during the War and not in the Imperial Army. It has
19 long been argued that the Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy largely operated
20 separately and oftentimes disagreed with the military maneuvers of the other – yet
21 again adding to the distancing between the two. Within this context, the Navy
22 trials were significant because, though they were not of the large-scale organized
23 nature of those of Unit 731, they left a record that proved human experimentation
24 was not confined to the Imperial Army and the medical facilities attached to them.
25 Furthermore, both the Army and Navy trials ask us to reconsider what was
26 previously only thought of as a hierarchical relationship between the military and
27 the medical community.
28 The fact that Iwanami admitted to preparing the skull specimens to be sent to
29 Tokyo provides a likely link between the medical communities in both places.
30 Understood in the context of Landas’ (2004) allegations of a relationship between
31 Kyushu Imperial University and Tokyo’s Densenbyo Kenkyusho (Center for
32 Infectious Diseases), it is quite probable that Iwanami’s experiments were not
33 simply isolated cases conducted in the Caroline Islands.
34 On July 22, 1989, over 100 human remains (including complete skulls) were
35 found at a construction site in the vicinity of the former Tokyo Imperial Army
36 Medical University and Ishii’s wartime research laboratory. Seventeen years
37 later, on June 24, 2006, Asahi Shimbun published an article that confirmed
38 the connection between the remains and the Japanese Army Military Medical
39 School (“What is the Problem of Human Remains?” 2003). A former nurse who
40 worked there disclosed that she knew of at least three locations where human
41 remains were buried and, furthermore, that these remains – both Japanese and
42 foreign (including Chinese) – had been dissected, made into specimens, and stored
43 at that location. In one location she had helped to remove specimens from their
44 glass containers and bury them after the War to prevent discovery by the occupying
45 forces.
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   41
1 This dispels any doubts that Japan’s BW program was operating solely under
2 the Imperial Army – more specifically, the Kwantung Army located in Manchuria.
3 The larger question that certainly warrants further research should then be which
4 governmental or military organization controlled the medical research networks
5 within the scientific community.
6 United States vs. Kajuro, Aihara et al. is significant because it provides material
7 evidence that human experimentation was conducted on the Japanese mainland –
8 against the long-held belief that the rush of Japanese doctors to fill jobs in the
9 colonies was because human experimentation was not allowed on the Japanese
0 mainland. Both trials indicate that doctors were able to procure human subjects
11 through the military.
12 Whether Watkins’s postwar effort to locate his missing crew members led to
13 prosecution in the Faculty of Medicine of Kyushu Imperial Medical University
14 case and not in the case of the Tama Detachment experiments is not clear. What is
15 clear, however, is that the United States placed national interests over justice.
16 Frustrated by the stonewalling and non-disclosure of the Americans at every
17 turn when it came to trying members of Japan’s BW program at the IMTFE, the
18 Russians decided to hold their own trial in December 1949. Although officially
19 known as the Military Tribunal of the Primorye Military Area, the trial has since
20 commonly been referred to as the “Khabarovsk Trial.”
21
22
Military tribunal of the Primorye military area,
23
“Khabarovsk Trial”22
24
25 According to Georgy Permyakov, the tribunal was rushed because Stalin was to
26 re-introduce the death penalty early in 1950 (Working and Chernyakova 2001).
27 Unfortunately, the rushed nature of the tribunal lent itself to the image of a “show
28 trial.” Postwar comments made by MacArthur’s camp jumped at the opportunity
29 to reinforce that image of Stalin’s Russia, dismissing the short five-day trial as
30 “just another show trial” reminiscent of those reported by the media in 1938, and
31 discrediting it as “communist propaganda” (Working and Chernyakova 2001;
32 Powell 1981, 48–49).
33 Since the 1990s, the works of Sheldon H. Harris (1994) and Jingbao Nie (2004)
34 have given the 1950 Russian publication and the proceedings of the tribunal greater
35 credence. Harris reiterated his belief that “the evidence presented at the trial was
36 reasonably faithful to the facts” seven years after the publication of his book
37 (Working and Chernyakova 2001). Further research by authors such as Kondo Shoji
38 (personal communication, November 17–18, 2006) indicates the existence of
39 interrogation records of at least 100 other members of Japan’s BW program within
40 the 18-volume trial record. Thus despite accusations that the trial was merely a
41 “show trial,” evidence shows that the Russian prosecutors as well as scientists
42 conducted thorough investigations before the five-day tribunal in December 1949
43 and indeed, that they had captured many more than the 12 who stood trial.
44 The Russian charges suggested that Emperor Hirohito as well as other members
45 of the imperial family knew about the BW program and allowed the experiments.
 42   Suzy Wang
1 It is the only primary material we have that specifically places the BW program
2 within a larger context, one that includes the scientific community, the military,
3 the government, and the emperor (The Khabarovsk Trial 1950).
4 Of the approximately 600,000 Japanese captured by the Russians at the end of
5 the War, only a minority were prosecuted, while many more did forced labor at
6 various railroad construction sites, during which 10 percent died and the final
7 prisoners returned to Japan in 1956. About 3000 were deemed to be war criminals,
8 and 2000 of them were indicted in Soviet military court. Some 969 were deemed
9 to have committed crimes in China and were not tried by the Soviets (Zhang et al.
0 2005, 6).
11 Despite long being out of print, Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of
12 the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological
13 Weapons, published in 1950 in Chinese, English, and Japanese, survived the years
14 in various libraries and countries. The Chinese version served later as a reference
15 to the tribunal held in China in 1956.
16
17
Superior people’s court special military tribunal
18
(Shenyang and Taiyuan trials)
19
20 On February 14, 1950 the leaders of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic
21 of China (PRC) signed the Sino–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual
22 Assistance. As a token of goodwill, the Russians transferred to the newly formed
23 Communist government in July of the same year the 969 Japanese war criminals
24 believed to have committed crimes against the Chinese during the War. Camp
25 records (Zhang et al. 2005) and trial records (Wang 1991) indicate that at least
26 nine prisoners admitted to either being part of the Unit 731 network or to having
27 conducted vivisections on patients in hospitals. These prisoners were taken to
28 Fushun Prison in Changchun, the former Japanese stronghold in the Northeast.
29 Together with the 140 Japanese prisoners already held in the Taiyuan Prison in
30 Shanxi,23 these prisoners were to wait six years before any of them saw
31 prosecution.
32 There were several reasons for the six-year interval between initial incarceration
33 and the eventual trial of the Special Military Tribunal of the People’s Supreme
34 Court. The main reason was obvious. This would be the first major war crimes
35 trial for the newly created Communist government. The sheer responsibility of the
36 new nation to allocate24 and train people in the legalities pertaining to these cases
37 necessitated the assembly of a new team, which came to be known as the Northeast
38 Working Group on the Processing of Japanese Prisoners (NEWG). The legal
39 significance did not go unnoticed by members of the young regime, and exhaustive
40 preparations were made to ensure that this trial would place China, if not within
41 the international community, then at least within the international legal community.
42 To help achieve this goal, Chinese delegates who had returned from the IMTFE
43 were called to assist in training this team in international law.
44 Zhou Enlai, then PRC Premier and Foreign Minister, had taken part in the
45 Soviet transfer of the prisoners and had on previous public occasions repeatedly
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   43
1 instructed that they be treated humanely.25 With those instructions, members of
2 NEWG went about the difficult task of locating witnesses and collecting
3 testimonies. As a result, in 1954, a series of simultaneous archiving of materials
4 throughout the Northeast took place. After three years of substantial progress, the
5 camp administrators were still faced with one of the biggest obstacles – despite
6 repeated interviews, none of the prisoners had admitted to any wartime atrocities.
7 In the beginning and well into the third year, most continued to deny personal
8 responsibility for any crimes (Zhang et al. 2005, 32–37).
9 In late 1955, as the trials approached, Zhou again publicly stressed the
0 government’s policy regarding the Japanese prisoners.
11
12 there will be no death penalty or life sentences given, and those who are
13 sentenced should be few in number. The indictment should clearly state and
14 verify the basic crimes [committed by the defendant] before it can be brought
15 to court. There will be no charges brought against general crimes. This is the
16 decision of the Central [government].26
17 (Zhang et al. 2005, 227, Translated by author)
18
19 Zhou’s statements were made available to the Japanese prisoners as reassurance
20 from China’s Premier. Emotions ran high during the trials (June to July 1956), and
21 much publicity surrounded its proceedings and re-emphasized the humane
22 treatment given to those who remained within the Fushun camp.27 In a post-trial
23 interview in the People’s Daily, former IMTFE judge Mei Juao stressed the
24 legality and fairness of the trial, stressing its legitimacy within the realm of
25 international law.28
26
27
Collaboration between the military, medical universities and
28
the pharmaceutical companies
29
30 Like other commanders stationed near the Russian border, Major Kamihara Toshio
31 was given instructions to destroy all evidence of BW at his Unit 162 (an auxiliary
32 of Unit 731) and evacuate before Russian troops entered Manchuria on August 8,
33 1945 (Zhang et al. 2005, 35). The immediate postwar destruction of evidence was
34 so thorough that it was difficult to gauge the specific kinds of work conducted in
35 any of the Units. The Chinese trial records, however, provide valuable information
36 on the area of research as well as scale of production of the little known Unit 162,
37 also known as the Linkou Unit, and the Chinese experts came to the same
38 conclusion as the Russians – the fact that these BW units calculated the fleas in
39 kilograms and bacteria culture in tons confirms that these materials could not be
40 used for anything other than massive BW use (The Khabarovsk Trial 1950; Wang
41 1991, 466–85).
42 Moreover, Chinese trial records substantiate the Russian claim that the
43 Kempeitai or military police supplied Japan’s BW program with human
44 experimental subjects, a claim documented at the Khabarovsk Trial proceedings.
45 In Chinese custody were three former Kempeitai commanders who admitted to
 44   Suzy Wang
1 their connection with Unit 731. Major Horiguchi Masao (堀口正雄) admitted in
2 his testimony that during his time in Jinzhou, he sent nine people to Unit 731
3 (Wang 1991, 179–80), while Lieutenant Colonel Kamitsubo Tetsuichi (上坪鉄一)
4 admitted to sending 22 people to Unit 731 during his time in Siping (Wang 1991,
5 181–85). Unlike the Khabarovsk Tribunal, we are not given the full picture of
6 Japan’s BW program due mainly to the fact that former unit members in custody
7 were very few in number and low in rank. Nevertheless, by sifting through the trial
8 records and contextualizing the relevant testimonies, we are able to better
9 understand the vast networks between the military and medical community under
0 the umbrella of science, of which Japan’s BW program was an intricate part. This
11 is an important contribution to the discourse of wartime medical ethics. Not only
12 does it widen the scope to include non-military experiments, it also clarifies the
13 relationships between hospitals, the military, and pharmaceutical companies both
14 in Japan and overseas.
15 Some of the more disturbing information revealed in the trial records may be
16 found in the testimony of Major Kobayashi Kiichi (小林喜一). Kobayashi had
17 worked at Kempeitai headquarters for five years but stated that he could not
18 specify how many people he had sent to Unit 731 and to various hospitals for
19 vivisection. Kobayashi testified that they were simply too many to recall. This
20 testimony not only hints at the sheer volume of human experimentation victims
21 who passed through Kempeitai hands, but undercuts any argument that Unit 731
22 had exclusive rights to request prisoners from the Kempeitai. The fact that the
23 Kempeitai provided human subjects for various organizations makes clear that use
24 of human experimental subjects within China was far from limited to the BW
25 program. The testimonies of two other prisoners, Tamura Yoshio (田村良雄) and
26 Yuasa Ken (湯浅謙), who continued to speak out against the atrocities following
27 their return to Japan, add credence to this argument. Tamura admitted, in a 1954
28 testimony, to amputating the legs of a young Chinese patient in the Manchuria
29 Medical University (now the China Medical University located in Shenyang,
30 northeast China) without anesthetics, leading to blood-loss-related death (Eda
31 et al. 1991, 25).
32 Indeed, the medical community in Manchuria was equally guilty of conducting
33 human experimentation. Yuasa was a medical doctor and Associate Director at the
34 Luan Army Hospital in Shanxi province, China from 1942 until the end of the
35 War. He had studied medicine under Kitano Masaji, who taught at the Manchuria
36 Medical University and for a time headed Unit 731 in Harbin. Although not for
37 use in bacteriological experiments, Yuasa admitted that during the three years and
38 six months he was at the Luan Army Hospital, he “practiced vivisections for the
39 purpose of practicing surgery and other methods seven times on fourteen conscious
40 Chinese victims”’ (Kokoro 1994, 44).
41 Yuasa recalls the time when the five hospitals assembled 40 medics for group
42 training.
43
44 We all had to go to the Epidemic Prevention Center in Taiyuan for lectures.
45 The next day we were brought to the Taiyuan Jail. They took four Chinese
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   45
1 men out, shot them each twice and told us to dissect them. I didn’t want to do
2 it, but the other medics told me, “Every military unit does it, you don’t have
3 to make such a big deal out of it.”29
4 (Kokoro 1994, 48; translated by author)
5
6 This testimony provides a picture of the far-reaching scope of this network within
7 the Japanese scientific community,30 which included not only units within Japan’s
8 BW program and medical universities/hospitals, but pharmaceutical companies
9 as well.
0
11 We received requests from a Japanese pharmaceutical company for brain-
12 cortex tissue. They were making adrenocortical hormones. We cut tissue from
13 the brains and sent it along. We sent one bottle. Then a second request came
14 from the company for ten bottles, which we filled. This was a “private route.”
15 Everybody was involved.
16 (Cook and Cook 1992, 150)
17
18 In addition to research on chronic adrenocortical insufficiency (also known
19 as Addison’s disease), pharmaceutical companies in Japan were also interested
20 in studying the effects of steroid hormones on asthma and rheumatism (Kokoro
21 1994, 48). According to Matsumura Takao, a professor emeritus at Keio University,
22 medical universities in China were not the only ones seeking the “private route.”
23 Knowing that human experimentation was not allowed in Japan, “many doctors
24 put in requests to Unit 731 so as to obtain accurate results” (Kokoro 1994, 21).
25 To make sense of the seamless collaboration between these industries, one
26 must take into account the hierarchical nature of the Japanese university and
27 medical system, within which fraternity between classmates was especially
28 binding. Ishii astutely involved the medical community within Japan as a source
29 of financial and technical support, buying their allegiance and their silence
30 about the atrocities by concealing their tacit participation in experiments which
31 allowed them to obtain and use materials gathered through inhumane means.
32 Unfortunately for researchers interested in exploring this connection, while
33 numerous captured military documents may now be obtained through archival
34 research, those of the pharmaceutical companies remain locked up in private
35 archives. Even retired pharmaceutical company employees are tight-lipped
36 about their companies and their personal involvement in medical research during
37 the War.
38
39
Political significance of the trials
40
41 The political significance of the Shenyang and Taiyuan trials was not overlooked
42 by Chinese leaders. When the prisoners were handed over to the Chinese in 1950,
43 both China and the Soviet Union were at war with the Americans in Korea and,
44 while pressure mounted for it to remilitarize, Japanese industry supported the U.S.
45 war, thereby jump-starting its postwar economy. By June 1956, China’s leaders
 46   Suzy Wang
1 were actively seeking to establish diplomatic relations with Japan. At the Third
2 National People’s Congress, Premier Zhou Enlai commented that
3
4 even though both countries are still in a state of war, the Chinese government
5 is taking its own initiative to adhere to the policy of leniency while processing
6 the imprisonment and examination of Japanese war criminals. . . . The Chinese
7 government has continued to make such efforts because of its correct appraisal
8 that the people of both China and Japan not only want peaceful coexistence
9 and friendly relations, but also the normalization of relations between the two
0 countries.31
11 (Zhang et al. 2005, 318; translated by author)
12
13 That same month, the Shenyang and Taiyuan trials took place. Of the 1108
14 prisoners, only 45 were charged in a series of tribunals that lasted two months. In
15 the end, five of the nine who had ties with Unit 731 were sentenced to 12 to
16 15 years in prison. The other four were returned home on one of three repatriations
17 of the remaining Japanese prisoners that took place in 1956.32 As China and Japan
18 had no formal relations at the time, the logistics for repatriation were handled by
19 organizations including the Red Cross and the Sino-Japanese Friendship
20 Association.
21 In 1957, former prisoners of the Fushun camp who had been returned to Japan
22 formed the organization “Chukiren.”33 Members of the group published memoirs
23 and books on wartime atrocities. They also criticized the remilitarization of Japan
24 despite numerous threats to their lives by right-wing organizations. However, most
25 of postwar Japan was eager to leave the War behind, and thus many of these
26 publications as well as other discussions of the War were marginalized by the
27 mainstream public discourse until the 1970s.
28
29
Recent trials in Japan
30
31 Zhou Enlai’s 1956 speech at the National People’s Congress foreshadowed the
32 normalization of the Sino–Japanese relationship which was finally achieved in a
33 series of communiqués and treaties in 1972 in the wake of the US-China opening.34
34 These treaties would later be used by Japanese courts as proof that China had
35 given up its claims for compensation for wartime atrocities. By 2007, at least
36 27 cases in Japan (Kang 2007),35 15 cases (including appeals) in the U.S., and one
37 each in Korea and China sought compensation for victims for various wartime
38 atrocities including those of forced labor, comfort women, and abandoned
39 chemical weapons, as well as the BW case. The majority of the cases were filed
40 on behalf of Korean and Chinese victims.
41 While most of the above-mentioned cases were not filed until after the death of
42 Emperor Hirohito in 1989, a 1965 textbook screening lawsuit against the Japanese
43 Ministry of Education brought by Ienaga Saburo, a Japanese historian, would lay
44 the foundation for future World War II-related lawsuits. However, in a 1997
45 verdict, Ienaga was ordered to delete all descriptions related to Military Unit 731
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   47
1 “on the ground that no reliable academic study, paper or publication was available
2 for reference by then, therefore it was too early to address this issue in a textbook”
3 (Judgments of the Supreme Court 1997).
4 Ienaga’s lawsuit spurred scholarly research into issues concerning Japanese
5 wartime atrocities including the BW program. Ienaga enlisted the help of Japanese
6 scholars to collaborate with Chinese scholars in order to collect victim testimonies
7 and visit local Chinese archives for primary documents. The collaborations
8 resulted in the publication of scholarly works that were later entered into evidence
9 for the case.36
0 The Ienaga case and the 1989 discovery of buried human remains sparked the
11 interest of citizen activist groups, Japanese lawyers, and scholars, who began
12 recording the testimonies of former members of Japan’s BW programs. According
13 to Gold (1996), while the national government continued to deny wartime
14 atrocities, some Japanese local governments were more responsive. Between 1994
15 and 1995, the efforts of various local governments and citizen activists resulted in
16 a 61-location “Unit 731 Exhibition.” A subsequent book by Gold contained the
17 testimonies given by former Unit 731 members at the exhibit, many of whom were
18 speaking out for the first time.
19 Two years after the first lawsuit of Chinese war victims was filed, a group of
20 Japanese lawyers37 sued the Japanese government on August 11, 1997 on behalf
21 of 180 Chinese plaintiffs – all victims of Japan’s bacteriological warfare. Chinese
22 Sufferers and Bereaved of the Victims by Bacterio-weapons of the 731 Corps of
23 Japan Army v. Japan or the “Unit 731 Lawsuit” was the first lawsuit specifically
24 targeting Japan’s wartime BW program filed in Japan.38 Due largely to the scope
25 of Japan’s BW program and given the lack of Chinese primary materials and
26 testimonies, the lawyers decided to limit their case to certain localities rather than
27 filing a general lawsuit. The decision was made to focus on Changde (Hunan) and
28 Yiwu (Zhejiang), two areas that were described in detail in the IPS documents
29 submitted by Sutton to Keenan as well as submitted to IPS by the Chinese
30 procurator in Nanking in 1946. Those documents as well as local newspaper
31 reports during the 1941 and 1942 attacks corroborated that the two areas would
32 yield the highest possible number of witness testimonies.
33 The Japanese courts, however, ignoring the evidence of atrocities, have
34 repeatedly invoked the “statute of limitations” or “state immunity” to dismiss the
35 cases. Nevertheless, five years after the Unit 731 trial was filed on June 12, 2001,
36 in a case brought by Liu Lianren, a former Chinese forced laborer, the Tokyo
37 District Court rejected the “statute of limitations” defense (Kang 2007).
38 In August 2002, the Tokyo District Court recognized for the first time that
39 Japanese Army units had engaged in bacteriological warfare. Moreover, it
40 recognized the responsibility of the State for its actions. However, the court
41 dismissed demands for compensation on the ground that foreign individuals do
42 not have the right to sue for war damages. With courts rejecting former defense
43 arguments, in 2001 the Japanese government began using the argument of
44 “abandonment of the right to claim” as its main defense. This argument maintains
45 that the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the 1952 Sino–Japanese Peace Treaty (or
 48   Suzy Wang
1 Treaty of Taipei),39 and the 1972 Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan
2 and the Government of the People’s Republic of China had already resolved the
3 issues regarding war compensation (Kang 2007). In refutation of the Court’s
4 decision, the Chinese plaintiff ’s legal team cited a March 1995 statement made
5 by China’s Vice-premier Jiang Chunyun during the National People’s
6 Congress: “What China gave up was not compensation between individuals and
7 nations, but only between nations. The government should not interfere with
8 compensation matters, since each individual has a right to claim it” (Anti-
9 Saikinsen Website 2002).
0 On July 19, 2005, the final verdict of the High Court was read by presiding
11 Judge Ota Yukio who acknowledged that the Imperial Army had violated the
12 Geneva protocol of 1925, which explicitly prohibits the use in war of asphyxiating,
13 poisonous gases, and of bacteriological methods of warfare. Judge Ota also
14 acknowledged that the use of bacteriological weapons ultimately caused the deaths
15 in the two provinces that the cases covered. However, the judge affirmed the
16 District Court’s ruling of August 27, 2002 to dismiss the demand for direct
17 compensation and apology from the Japanese government.
18 While it may still be too soon to determine the overall implications the trials
19 will have for Japan and its neighbors, lasting legacies have already been made.
20 Because of the trials, first- and second-hand witness testimonies of the remaining
21 few living victims are being recorded in multiple areas in China for use in future
22 court cases. Former Unit 731 members, mostly in their late eighties and nineties,
23 now have a forum to leave behind a record of truth. Finally, the cases prompted the
24 research and production of scholarly work on BW and Unit 731 within China,
25 Japan, and internationally.
26
27
Conclusion
28
29 These court cases have proven that in the face of Japanese government
30 intransigence, there are lawyers, citizen activists, and former imperial soldiers
31 within Japan who are interested in seeing their government acknowledge its past
32 atrocities and compensate its victims.
33 China has, on a number of occasions, brought up war issues in the context
34 of criticizing official Yasukuni Shrine visits by successive Japanese Prime
35 Ministers. Moreover, Chinese anger culminated in massive, simultaneous
36 anti-Japanese demonstrations that occurred within various provinces in 2005. The
37 focus of reparation efforts, according to Underwood (2007), may well shift
38 to China. Chinese leaders announced in 2006 that they will not only permit non-
39 profit organizations and the Non-governmental Fund to Support Lawsuits by
40 Victims of the Japanese Army’s War of Invasion, but also that they may allow
41 lawsuits of former forced laborers to take place in Chinese courts. The significance
42 of the latter has not gone unnoticed by major Japanese corporations with
43 investments in China.
44 On January 15, 2007, Japan’s Supreme Court decided to hold back on all
45 decisions regarding wartime atrocity lawsuits – including the Unit 731 lawsuit –
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   49
1 and instead scheduled a March 16 debate on the “abandonment of the right to
2 claim” issue. This historical debate is part of the forced laborer lawsuit that resulted
3 in a 2004 victory for the plaintiffs in the Hiroshima High Court and was being
4 appealed by the company sued, namely Nishimatsu Construction Company.
5 However, celebrating the road to legal justice, and the prospect for a sincere,
6 official apology from the Japanese government to the victims of their wartime
7 atrocities, may still be premature. Touted by the Chinese Embassy as a historic
8 “ice-thawing” visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (the last visit to Japan by a
9 Chinese premier was in 2000) to promote “political trust and expand reciprocal
0 cooperation and friendly exchanges so as to push forward Sino–Japanese relations
11 to develop in a long-term, healthy and stable way,” Wen’s public relations campaign
12 followed Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s denial that there was any evidence
13 that the military coerced women into sexual slavery.
14 On April 27, less than three weeks after Wen’s visit, the Japanese Supreme
15 Court deliberated on two landmark hearings – the Nishimatsu Forced Labor Case40
16 and the Comfort Women Case – both of which resulted in defeat for the plaintiffs.
17 The Supreme Court’s debate ended with the ruling that the 1972 Joint Communiqué
18 signed by Japan and China had settled all compensation issues, including those of
19 individual claims (Kim 2009).
20 In a meeting called by lawyers of the plaintiffs of the two cases (and other
21 pending cases) later that same day, citizen activists learned that lawyers of five
22 other pending cases had been notified by telephone that their cases had been
23 dropped by the Supreme Court. There was outrage expressed when no
24 representatives from the Nishimatsu Corporation (or their lawyers) showed up for
25 the verdict, while one of the plaintiffs, blind, hard of hearing, and in his nineties,
26 had traveled all the way from rural China. During the meeting, the irony of the
27 Comfort Women verdict was also emphasized. It was given on the same day as
28 Abe Shinzo’s apology to the United States president – not the victims – for
29 his public remarks on the comfort women issue. Abe’s goal was to weaken support
30 for House of Representative Resolution H-121 calling on Japan to formally
31 apologize and compensate the women,41 which passed three months after his trip
32 on July 10, 2007.
33 To say that we have a full understanding of Imperial Japan’s wartime BW
34 program and all its implications may still be premature, and a shift in focus from
35 that of the International Tribunals to local trials may reveal a different perspective
36 on events as well as offer new revelations of postwar politics. Furthermore, rather
37 than understanding the most recent (2007) verdict of dismissal of the Unit 731
38 trial as just another failed lawsuit, the focus should be the Tokyo Supreme Court’s
39 first recognition that Japan’s Unit 731 did indeed engage in bacteriological warfare
40 and that the victims’ testimonies and legal proofs given by the Japanese lawyers
41 representing the plaintiffs prove that these were victims of Japan’s bacteriological
42 warfare program. Given the non-prosecution in the IMTFE, the marginalization of
43 the Khabarovsk Trial by the West, and the relatively understudied other trials, this
44 is no small feat. Most importantly for historians, the records of the testimonies
45 should be collected and kept for future research.
 50   Suzy Wang
1 Acknowledgment
2
Suzy Wang would like to dedicate this chapter to the memory of Attorney Tsuchiya
3
Koken, former President of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, and
4
Chairperson of the Japan Committee of the International Solidarity Council for
5
Redress of World War II Victims by Japan who passed away on September 25, 2009.
6
Attorney Tsuchiya and his team of lawyers were very generous in supporting
7
interested researchers by providing opportunities as well as primary sources. Despite
8
battling kidney cancer for the last four years of his life, he continued his work in
9
seeking compensation for the victims of Japan’s wartime crimes until the end.
0
11
12 Notes
13   1 Of the defendants, five were sentenced to death by hanging, while 16 were sentenced
14 to life imprisonment and two were given lesser jail terms. Other than those who were
15 hanged and the six who died in prison, all were released by April 1958 (Interagency
16 Working Group 2002).
17   2 According to Stratford, the British alone conducted investigations and trials in Burma,
British North Borneo, the Netherlands East Indies, French Indo-China, Singapore,
18 Hong Kong, Tianjin, Shanghai . . . etc., and by early 1948, 931 Japanese war criminals
19 had already been tried by the British (Stratford 2007).
20   3 For an excellent article comparing the rules of evidence and procedure applied in the
21 International Military Tribunal and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East,
22 see Wallach 1999.
  4 There were similar criticisms made concerning the IMT: critics, including some judges,
23 charged that the trials exemplified victor’s justice due to the ex-post facto nature of the
24 trials, and that the U.S. “ran the show.” The fact that the legal procedures protected
25 Japan’s imperial family from prosecution for war crimes was another issue raised by a
26 number of the judges.
27   5 According to Guo (Anqing City 2005), Japan’s BW program consisted of seven main
units and 63 subunits, employing up to 20,000 personnel, and which claimed to have
28 successfully employed BW 36 times.
29   6 A December 12, 1947 report written by Dr. Edwin V. Hill, Chief of Basic Sciences at
30 Camp Detrick, Maryland, pointed out that 250,000 yen was “a mere pittance by
31 comparison with the actual costs of the data” which the U.S. government was to
32 purchase. These data, according to Hill, “have been obtained by Japanese scientists at
the expenditure of many millions of dollars and years of work” (Powell 1981, 47). It
33 has also been established that those involved in the cover-up included top leaders of the
34 United States government and SCAP (Powell 1980, 1981; Harris 1994).
35   7 In a declassified May 23, 1995 memo titled “DOD Q’s &A’s Regarding Unit 731,” the
36 U.S. Department of Defense stated that “no documentary evidence could be found to
37 support the claims that American POWs were used for Japanese BW experimentation
and research.” Provided by Wang Ao, President of the Mukden Prisoner of War
38 Remembrance Society (MPOWRS) on August 25, 2009.
39   8 Copy of the Record of the Proceedings for August 29, 1946 provided by the Hoover
40 Institution on War, Revolution and Peace.
41   9 The IMTFE was in session for 404 days and its more than 3000 court exhibits and
42 40,000 pages of the records of trial proceedings cover crimes committed between 1928
and 1945 (Liu 1948, 168). In his article, written before the verdict of the IMTFE was
43 delivered, Liu stressed the importance of the IMTFE materials as offering a complete
44 overview of Japan’s history and urged the preservation of these materials. A year later,
45 Delmer A. Brown wrote that within the IPS alone, 2200 of the 4336 exhibits were
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   51
1 submitted by the prosecution, but the numbering system indicated that there were at
2 least 8279 documents within the IPS (Brown 1949, 1013). This material, which was
published in the early 1990s (Awaya and Yoshida 1993), revealed further the extent of
3
IPS knowledge of Japan’s BW program in China (Williams and Wallace 1989, 176).
4 10 Sutton’s 36-page report to Keenan included expert testimonies by Chinese and foreign
5 observers such as Dr. P.Z. King, Director General of the National Health Administration
6 of China, and Dr. Robert Pollitzer, who has been involved in public health and plague
7 prevention work in China for 25 years. Their testimonies included autopsy reports on
plague outbreaks in the cities of Chongqing (Sichuan), Ningbo (Zhejiang), and
8
Changde (Hunan) – cities reportedly bombed with BW in the early 1940s. While
9 reports of the plague outbreaks coincided with sightings of Japanese planes flying at
0 low altitudes dropping globules and other matters, Sutton concluded that no direct
11 correlation could be made without further investigation into the matter (Sutton 1946).
12 11 Author Fujii Shizue dates the handover of the report to Sutton as October 22, 1946, “to
be presented at the IMTFE. But, because the Americans had already decided to cover
13
up the issue, it was not taken up as evidence in the IMTFE” (1997, 43). The discrepancy
14 between the dates may, however, be due to the fact that several of the reports sent to
15 members of the Chinese prosecution team in Tokyo required follow-ups with the
16 addition of new information.
17 12 First names not available in the document.
13 “Affidavit of Osamu Hataba, on Bacterial Warfare carried on by Ei 1644 Force in
18
China, 1943” cited as IPS Evidentiary Document 1896, Files Unit of IPS Document
19 Division (Williams and Wallace 1998, 176).
20 14 A December 18, 1944 U.S. Army G-2 intelligence report entitled “Japanese Chemical
21 & Bacteriological Warfare in China,” by the Sino-translations and Interrogation Center
22 (SINTIC), noted that a Japanese captive revealed that “a BW attack . . . made during the
Chekiang campaign in 1942, [Japanese] casualties upward from 10,000 resulted within
23
a very brief . . . time. Diseases were particularly cholera, but also dysentery and [plague].
24 Statistics which POW saw at Water Supply and Purification Dept. Hq. at Nanking
25 [TAMA Detachment headquarters] showed more than 1700 dead” (Powell 1980, 6).
26 15 Most trials were held to try war criminals for atrocities against Americans, but there
27 were also cases where U.S. military tribunals tried war criminals for atrocities against
the British or other local natives. There were also regulations for specific areas such as
28
the China Theater which allowed for the “creation of mixed inter-Allied military
29 tribunals” (Bradsher 2007, 186).
30 16 Timothy Maga’s (2001) research showed that Rear Admiral John D. Murphy, the Navy’s
31 Director of War Crimes, “sought to protect the Navy’s ‘good name’ against the
32 backdrop of criticisms regarding IMTFE and Army trials, by emphasizing fairness and
avoiding what he saw as Army and international tribunal mistakes.” The Navy followed
33
standard court martial procedures, allowed for Japanese counsel, and obtained live
34 witnesses and physical evidence whenever possible (Glazier 2003, 2069–2070; Navy
35 Department 1937).
36 17 According to Stewart (1986), “evidence was collected on war crimes committed against
37 ten Americans, twelve Nauruans, five Australians, one British, one French, one Swiss, four
Trukese and thirteen white victims whose nationality could not be established” (p. 103).
38
18 Nakamura committed suicide after having testified and thus his name was not included
39 among the 19 charged.
40 19 A retired Rear Admiral of the U.S. Navy and Director of the War Crimes Commission,
41 Pacific Fleet to the Commander in Chief of the Pacific, the United States Pacific Fleet,
42 and the Commander of the Marianas Area.
20 For example, Nishimura Takeshi, in his 1946 letter to SCAP, accused three named
43
veterinary surgeons of being connected with Unit 100 where Nishimura claimed that
44 Allied POWs were dissected (Nishimura 1946). In the same year, Ueki Hiroshi, a
45 former army doctor, also wrote to SCAP and specifically to General MacArthur that
 52   Suzy Wang
1 Ishii had established in Harbin a laboratory where Allied POWs were executed through
2 human experimentation (Ueki 1946). The major concern of Washington at the time was
whether American POWs were used as human experimentation subjects of Japan’s BW
3
program. Despite various indications and charges to the contrary, it was officially
4 concluded that no Americans were experimented on, thus paving the way for a deal. As
5 a response to the postwar pleas by former U.S. POWs of Camp Hoten in Mukden,
6 Manchuria, for medical care for illnesses related to experiments by the Japanese, the
7 U.S. House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Subcommittee on Compensation, Pension
and Insurance held a hearing on September 17, 1986 and continued to officially state
8
that no experiments were conducted on American POWs of Camp Hoten (Yang
9 2007).
0 21 Private email correspondence with Sasamoto Taeko, co-founder of the POW Research
11 Network Japan, on August 10, 2007.
12 22 See Boris Yudin (Chapter 3, this volume) for an in-depth analysis of the Khabarovsk
trial and its ethical implications.
13
23 Many of the prisoners in the Taiyuan Prison were either captured after the 15-year war
14 as holdouts waiting for the remilitarization of Japan or those who had gone underground
15 and mixed with the Nationalist troops during the civil war between the Nationalist
16 (KMT) and Communist (CCP) forces. Because of this, many of them were regarded by
17 the Communist government as having committed “double atrocities.”
24 In 1949 a large number of professionals trained in law and government administration
18
fled to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek.
19 25 Because many of the Chinese within NEWG suffered directly at the hands of the
20 Japanese, there was repeated emphasis from government leaders that “though there
21 may be personal hatred, the Party’s enterprise may not be violated” and that “individual
22 sentiment cannot replace the Party’s policy” (“个人仇恨不能违背党的事业, 个人感
情不能代替党的政策,” Zhang et al. 2005, 19). Their goal was to make sure that these
23
prisoners would move from their previous ideology of militarism to that of peace.
24 26 Original quote cited in pp. 432–433 of Liu and Tie (1993).
25 27 The conditions were designed as a model among Chinese prison camps – the Japanese
26 prisoners were not forced to work and were well fed. They were treated promptly for
27 illness and given expensive medical care to which the locals did not have access. These
factors convinced the prisoners that execution may not be the only sentence in their
28
future and that there was hope that they would eventually see their families in Japan.
29 After confessions among the prisoners were completed and before sentencing began in
30 1956, the prisoners were taken on group trips around the Northeast to interact with
31 their former victims as well as witness Chinese economic progress. Even after the trial,
32 those who were sentenced were allowed visits with family members who had traveled
from Japan (Zhang et al. 2005).
33
28 Judge Mei Juao stated in the article that “not only did we provide witness testimony and
34 documentary evidence, each defendant was given the opportunity to defend themselves.
35 This was completely in line with international regulations and international law. [The
36 trials] were in the spirit of humanity and at the same time fulfilled the requirement of
37 legal justice” (Wang 1991, 756; translated by author).
29 Yuasa recalls his first experience with vivisection:
38
39 I was trembling with fear the first time, but the second time, the third time, I got
40 more daring and I just did as if it were a normal procedure. During that time, I was
trained as a soldier. I even remember calling the Kempeitai myself once to ask for
41 a victim. I gave the Chinese victim anesthesia, opened him up and showed the
42 younger soldiers, “this is the liver, this is the kidney, and this is the heart.”
43 (Kokoro 1994, 48)
44 30 Collaboration between pharmaceutical companies and the military is not particular to
45 the Japanese case. Although the circumstances under which American experiments
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   53
1 were conducted differed, ethical questions surround both cases. See Appendix B for a
2 preliminary list of experiments conducted by the U.S. military in conjunction with
pharmaceutical companies and state prisons.
3
31 Original quote found in Central Chinese Archives, File Record 119–1, Record 584.
4 32 The first repatriation took place on June 21, 1956; the second on July 15, 1956, and the
5 last on August 21, 1956 (Zhang et al. 2005). All Japanese prisoners held in China were
6 repatriated to Japan by 1965.
7 33 中國歸還者連絡會 (Network of Returnees from China). The group, made up of
former prisoners of the Fushun camp, is now officially run by younger support members
8
due to the passing of most of its original members. <http://www.ne.jp/asahi/tyuukiren/
9 web-site/index.htm> (February 15, 2007).
0 34 The Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of
11 the People’s Republic of China signed on September 29, 1972 and the Treaty of
12 Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People’s Republic of China signed on
August 12, 1978.
13
35 The Center for Research and Documentation on Japan’s War Responsibility numbered
14 the trials taking place in Japan as 61, but that number includes appeals. According to
15 Kang (2007), Chinese war victims have filed lawsuits in Japanese courts not only in
16 Tokyo, but in “Sapporo, Kyoto, Nagano, Fukuoka, Niigata, Gunma, Yamagata,
17 Miyazaki and Kanazawa.”
36 For an example, see Matsumura et al. 1997.
18
37 The number of sponsoring lawyers listed in the most recent court document is 175.
19 Court records, case number 4815 regarding appeals for case numbers 16684 and 27579.
20 Final verdict from the High Court delivered on July 19, 2005.
21 38 An August 1995 lawsuit filed by a separate group of Japanese lawyers on behalf of the
22 victims of the Nanjing Massacre included eight victims of Unit 731. This lawsuit was
dismissed in September 1999 (Center for Research and Documentation on Japan’s War
23
Responsibility 2003).
24 39 Although most of the cases involved plaintiffs from the People’s Republic of China and
25 not Taiwan, the Court had on occasion used the Sino–Japanese Peace Treaty or Treaty
26 of Taipei signed in 1952 between Japan and Taiwan as grounds to dismiss claims made
27 by Chinese plaintiffs. Kang (2007) and other lawyers claim that the Japanese courts, by
invoking this treaty, violated the 1972 Peace Treaty signed between the People’s
28
Republic of China and Japan, which recognizes one China. The actions of
29 the Court, while trying to maintain the attitude of denial of wartime atrocities by the
30 government, have contributed to more tension between the two nations.
31 40 Two years after the Court ruling, an illegal donations scandal related to bid-rigging
32 involving the former Nishimatsu president Kunisawa Mikio and former Democratic
Party leader Ozawa Ichiro led to a change in the company’s top management. Along
33
with this change came the voice of social responsibility, and the company’s
34 representatives began talks of a settlement for the former Chinese forced laborers (Kim
35 2009). On October 23 2009, Nishimatsu Construction Company agreed to 250 million
36 yen (2.74 million U.S. dollars) to its Chinese victims as well as issuing an apology and
37 building a memorial for them (Xiong 2009). This news brought about renewed hopes
that while legal routes may have been effectively cut off, there may be other routes
38
available to seeking compensation for the victims.
39 41 The resolution stipulated
40
that the Government of Japan should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept
41 historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed
42 Force’s coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as
43 “comfort women,” during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the
44 Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II.
45 (U.S. House 2007)
 54   Suzy Wang
1 References and further reading
2
Annas, George J. and Michael A. Grodin (eds) (1992) The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg
3 Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation. New York: Oxford University Press.
4 安庆市疾病预防控制中心网站。揭开[被隐瞒的一章] – 郭成周教授谈侵华日军细菌战
5 历史真相 (2005) 健康报 [Anqing City Disease Prevention Center Website. Exposing
6 “A hidden chapter” – Professor Guo Chengzhou speaks on the historical truth of
7 Japan’s Bacteriological Warfare. (2005) Health Newspaper] [online]. <http://www.
aqcdc.org/newsout.asp?ID=611> (Accessed March 10, 2007).
8
Anti-Saikinsen Website (2002) Statement of the Chinese Plaintiffs Legal Team [online].
9 <http://www.anti731saikinsen.net/en/seimei-en.html> (Accessed on February 11, 2007).
0 栗屋憲太郎　吉田裕　編集・解説 (1993) 国際検察局 <IPS> 尋問調書 東京 ：日本図
11 書センター現代資料出版事業部　第 1–27 巻 [Awaya, Kentaro and Yoshida Yutaka
12 (compilation/explanation) (1993) International Prosecution Section <IPS> Written
13 Interrogation Records. Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Center Modern Documents Publication
14 Division, Vols 1–27].
15 Bradsher, Greg (compiled) (2007) “Japanese War Crimes and Related Topics: A Guide to
16 Records at the National Archives.” Maryland: Interagency Working Group (IWG), The
17 U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
18 Brown, Delmer A. (1949) “Instruction and Research: Recent Japanese Political and
Historical Materials.” The American Political Science Review 43 (5), pp. 1010–17.
19
Cady, John F. (1980) Review of The Japanese on Trial: Allied War Crimes Operations in the
20 East, 1945–1951. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
21 451, pp. 171–72.
22 Center for Research and Documentation on Japan’s War Responsibility (2003) Postwar
23 Compensation Cases in Japan [online]. <http://space.geocities.jp/japanwarres/center/
24 hodo/hodo07.htm> (Accessed February 4, 2007).
25 Cook, Haruko Taya and Theodore F. Cook (1992) Japan at War: An Oral History. New
26 York: The New Press.
27 Dower, John W. (1987) War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York:
28 Random House.
29 Easton, Thomas (1995) “A Quiet Honesty Records a World War II Atrocity.” The Baltimore
Sun, May 28.
30
江田憲治、児島俊郎、古川万太郎（編訳）(1991)『生体解剖-旧日本軍の戦争犯罪』東
31 京：同文館. [Eda Kenji, Kojima Toshio, and Furukawa Mantaro (compilation/translation)
32 (1991) Vivisection – the Crimes of former Japanese Soldiers. Tokyo: Dobunkan.
33 Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States of America Website (2007)
34 Chinese Premier Begins “Ice-thawing” Visit to Japan [online]. <http://www.
35 china-embassy.org/eng/xw/t310544.htm> (Accessed August 15, 2007).
36 籐井志津枝. (1997)『 731 部隊 : 日本魔鬼生化的恐怖』台北 : 文英堂 [Fujii Shizue].
37 Unit 731: The Horror of Japan’s Monstrous Biological Weapon. Taipei: Weningtang]
38 Glazier, David (2003) “Kangaroo Court or Competent Tribunal? Judging the 21st Century
39 Military Commission.” Virginia Law Review 89(8), pp. 2005–2093.
40 Gold, Hal (1996) Unit 731 Testimony. Tokyo: Yenbooks.
Harris, Sheldon H. (1994) Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932–1945 and
41
the American cover-up. New York: Routledge.
42 “人骨｢別にも埋めた｣” (2006) 朝日新聞 [“Human Remains: Also Buried Elsewhere.”
43 Asahi Shimbun, June 24, 2006.
44 Interagency Working Group (IWG) (2002) “Implementation of the Japanese Imperial
45 Government Disclosure Act and the Japanese War Crimes Provisions of the Nazi War
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   55
1 Crimes Disclosure Act: An Interim Report to Congress.” The U.S. National Archives
2 and Records Administration (NARA) [online]. <http://www.archives.gov/iwg/reports/
3 japanese-interim-report-march-2002-1.html> (Accessed March 13, 2007).
4 International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Record of the Proceedings for August 29,
1946, pp. 4546–52.
5
姜力（编） 《1949 伯力大审判 – 侵华日军使用细菌武器案庭审实录》解放军文艺出版
6
社 (2006) [Jiang, Li (2006) 1949 Khabarovsk Trial – Trial Record of the Case of the
7 Use of Bacteriological Warfare Weapons by the Japanese Military during the Invasion
8 of China. People’s Liberation Army Literary Arts Publication Co.].
9 裁かれる細菌戦 (2002) 資料集シリーズ No. 8: “特集 7 3 1 部隊細菌戦裁判 第―審判
0 決.” 東京: 7 3 1 部隊細菌戦被害国家賠償請求訴訟弁護団, 7 3 1 菌戦裁判キャン
11 ペーン委員会、ABC 企画委員会 [Judged: Germ Warfare (2002) Material Series No.
12 8: “Special Edition – First Judgment Decision of the Unit 731 Germ Warfare Case”
13 Tokyo: Published jointly by Lawyers Group for Japan’s Compensation for Victims of
14 Unit 731 Germ Warfare, the Unit 731 Lawsuit Campaign Organization and the ABC
15 Planning Organization].
Judgments of the Supreme Court (1997) Case Number 1994(O) No.1119 [online]. <http://
16
courtdomino2.courts.go.jp/promjudg.nsf/0/85ca688815fae0f649256c60002e13a1?O
17
penDocument> (Accessed February 11, 2007).
18 The Khabarovsk Trial 1950, Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese
19 Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons. Moscow:
20 Foreign Language Publishing House.
21 上坂冬子 (1979) 人体解剖 ： 九州大学医学部事件.　東京 ： 毎日新聞社. [Kamisaka,
22 Fuyuko (1979) Vivisection: The Incident at Kyushu University Medical Department.
23 Tokyo: The Mainichi Newspaper Co.].
24 Kang, Jian (2007) “The Basis of the ‘Abandonment of the Right to Claim’ Argument and
25 the Reason for the Japan Supreme Court’s Special March 16 Hearing.” The Asia-
26 Pacific Journal [online]. <http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details2369> (Accessed
March 12, 2007).
27
Kim, Soon Hi (2009) “Nishimatsu Plans Compensation for Chinese Wartime Laborers”.
28
The Asahi Shimbun, May 2.
29 アジアの声 (第8集) <七三一部隊> 戦争犠牲者を心に刻む会／編　東方出版 (1994)
30 [Kokoro Kizamu Group (compilation) (1994) The Voice of Asia: Unit 731. Tokyo:
31 Tohou Shuppansha, Vol. 8].
32 Landas, Marc (2004) The Fallen: A True Story of American POWs and Japanese Wartime
33 Atrocities. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
34 Liu, James T.C. (1948) “The Tokyo Trial: Source Materials.” Far Eastern Survey 17 (14),
35 pp. 168–70.
36 刘家常，铁汉《日伪蒋战犯改造纪实》春风文艺出版社, 1993 [Liu, Jiachang and Tie
37 Han (1993) The Record of Transformation of the Japanese and Puppet Jiang War
Criminals. Chunfeng Wen Yi Publishing Co.].
38
Maga, Timothy P. (2001) Judgment at Tokyo: The Japanese War Crimes Trials. Kentucky:
39
University Press of Kentucky.
40 Masalski, Kathleen Woods (2001) “Examining the Japanese History Textbook
41 Controversies.” Japan Digest, November.
42 松村高夫、郭洪茂、李力、 江田いづみ、 江田憲治 (1997) ＜戦争と疫病―7 3 1 部隊のも
43 たらしたもの＞ 本の友社 [Matsumura, Takao, Guo Hongmao, Li Li, Eda Izumi and
44 Eda Kenji (1997) War and Disease – Those Brought On by Unit 731. Hon-no-Tomosha
45 Publishing Co.].
 56   Suzy Wang
1 Minear, Richard H. (1971) Victor’s Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial. Princeton, NJ:
2 Princeton University Press.
3 Mitscherlich, Alexander and Fred Mielke (1949) Wissenschaft ohne Menschlichkeit:
4 Medizinische und eugenische Irrwege unter Diktatur, Bürokratie und Krieg. Heidelberg
[Science without Humanity: False Directions of Medicine and Eugenics under
5
Dictatorship, Bureaucracy and War. Heidelberg].
6
Museum of Tolerance Online Multimedia Learning Center (1997) 36 Questions About the
7 Holocaust. The Simon Wiesenthal Center [online]. <http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/
8 pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=394663> (Accessed January 3, 2007).
9 National Archives Collection of Records of Allied Operational and Occupational
0 Headquarters, World War II. Record Group 331, Records of Trials and Clemency
11 Petitions for Accused Japanese War Criminals Tried at Yokohama, Japan, by a Military
12 Commission Appointed by the Commanding General, Eighth Army, 1946–1948.
13 Microfilm Publication M1726, 59 rolls.
14 Navy Department (1937) Naval Courts and Boards. Washington, D.C.: Government
15 Printing Office.
Nie, Jing-Bao (2004) “The West’s Dismissal of the Khabarovsk Trial as ‘Communist
16
Propaganda’: Ideology, Evidence and International Bioethics.” Journal of Bioethical
17
Inquiry, 1 (1), pp. 32–42.
18 Nishimura, Takeshi, to CI&E, GHQ, SCAP, SCAP (1946) Report on War Criminals,
19 original letter accusing YAMAGUCHI Motoji, WAKAMATSU Yujiro, & HOZAKA
20 fnu of dissection of prisoners of the Allied Forces by Unit 100; Record Group 331,
21 Entry 1331, Box 1772. National Archives Building, Maryland, August 23.
22 Powell, John W. (1980) “Japan’s Germ Warfare: The U.S. Cover-up of a War Crime.”
23 Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 12 (4), pp. 2–17.
24 Powell, John W. (1981) “A Hidden Chapter in History.” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,
25 37 (8), pp. 44–52.
26 Prévost, Ann Marie (1992) “Race and War Crimes: The 1945 War Crimes Trial of General
Tomoyuki Yamashita.” Human Rights Quarterly, 14 (3), pp. 303–38.
27
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Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE). 29 April 1946–12 November 1948.
29 Amsterdam: University Press Amsterdam.
30 Spurlock, Paul E. (1950) “The Yokohama War Crimes Trials: The Truth about a Misunderstood
31 Subject.” American Bar Association Journal, 36 (5), pp. 387–89, 436–37.
32 Stewart, William H. (1986) Ghost Fleet of the Truck Lagoon. Montana: Pictorial Histories
33 Publishing Co.
34 Stratford, Stephen (2007) “Stephen’s Study Room: British Military & Criminal History in
35 the period 1900–999” [online]. <http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/ukjaptrials.htm>
36 (Accessed February 20, 2007).
37 Sutton, David Nelson (1946) “Bacteria Warfare” WO 208/4291, War Office, Directorate of
Military Operations and Intelligence and Directorate of Military Intelligence, Japanese
38
Biological Warfare in China, Public Record Office, April 23.
39
Sutton, David Nelson (1950) “The Trial of Tojo: The Most Important Trial in All History?”
40 American Bar Association Journal, 36 (2), pp. 93–96.
41 Taylor, Telford (1949) Final report to the Secretary of the Army on the Nuremberg War
42 Crimes Trials under Control Council law No. 10. Washington, D.C.: Government
43 Printing Office, in The Avalon Project: Control Council Law No. 10 [online]. <http://
44 www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt10.htm> (Accessed February 15, 2007).
45 “The Nishimatsu Case” (2009) The Asahi Shimbun [Editorial], July 20.
 War crimes trials and post-war politics   57
1 Ueki, Hiroshi, SCAP, to G-2, ATIS, General MacArthur (October 11, 1946) Motoji
2 YAMAGUCHI et al. ATIS Translation #23836 of letter [3rd version] by Hiroshi UEKI
3 accusing Shiro ISHII of establishing human experimental station in Harbin and
4 executed Allied POWs; Record Group 331, Entry 1294, Box 1434, DOC ID#23836,
Folder # 18. National Archives Building, Maryland.
5
Underwood, William (2007) “Japan’s Top Court Poised to Kill Lawsuits by Chinese
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War Victims.” The Asia-Pacific Journal [online]. <http://japanfocus.org/-
7 William-Underwood/2369> (Accessed September 4, 2009, March 2).
8 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Online Exhibitions: The Doctors Trial [online].
9 <http://www.ushmm.org/research/doctors/index.html> (Accessed January 9, 2007).
0 U.S. House (2007) Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International
11 Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight. House Resolution, 121 (July 30) 110th
12 Congress. Washington 2007: Government Printing Office.
13 U.S. House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Subcommittee on Compensation, Pension, and
14 Insurance (1986) Treatment of American Prisoners of War in Manchuria. 99th Congress,
15 2nd Session, September 17. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
United States of America vs. Asano, Shimpei et al. File No. unnumbered dated September
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22, 1947 (Vol. I), roll 16 in National Archives Collection of Records of the Office of
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the Judge Advocate General (Navy), Record Group 125, Navy JAG Case Files of
18 Pacific Area War Crimes Trials, 1944–1949, Microfilm Publication C72, 16 rolls.
19 United States of America vs. Iwanmai, Hiroshi et al. File No. 160413 dated June 10, 1947,
20 roll 8 in National Archives Collection of Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate
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22 Trials, 1944–1949, Microfilm Publication C72, 16 rolls.
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and Occupation Headquarters, World War II, Microfilm Publication M1112,
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30 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 37 (11), pp. 851–883.
31 王战平（主编） 《正义的审判-最高人民法院特别军事法庭审判日本战犯记实》人民法
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35 “人骨問題と何か？” (2003) 軍医学校跡地で発見された人骨問題を究明する会. [“What
36 is the Problem of Human Remains?” (online since 2003) Organization investigating
37 the problem of human remains found at the former site of the Military Medical
University] [online]. <http://www.geocities.jp/technopolis_9073/zinkotuhp/document.
38
htm> (Accessed February 9, 2007).
39
Williams, Peter and David Wallace (1989) Unit 731: Japan’s Secret Biological Warfare in
40 World War II. New York: The Free Press.
41 Working, Russell and Bonna Chernyakova (2001) “The Trial of Unit 731.” The Moscow
42 Times. April 27.
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44 [online]. <http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/japdeny/tokyo_trial.html> (Accessed
45 March 6, 2005).
 58   Suzy Wang
1 Xiong, Tong (ed.) (2009) “Japan’s Construction Firm Pays $2.74 Mln to Wartime Chinese
2 Laborers” October 23, 2009. China View, October 23 online. <http://news.xinhuanet.
3 com/english/2009–10/23/content_12309262.htm> (Accessed October 23, 2009).
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Interim Assessment.” In Researching Japanese War Crimes: Introductory Essays.
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7 张辅麟，田敬宝，夏芒， 张岩峰《中国教育改造日本战犯实录》吉林人民主版社 2005。
8 [Zhang, Fulin, Tian Jingbao, Xia Mang and Zhang Yanfeng (2005) Factual Record of
9 China’s Educational Transformation of Japanese War Criminals. Jilin People’s
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12 Japanese War Criminals” April 22]. [online]. <http://www.china.com.cn/chinese/
13 MATERIAL/845231.htm> (accessed February 1, 2007).
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
1
2 3 Research on humans at the
3
4 Khabarovsk War Crimes Trial
5
6 A historical and ethical
7 examination
8
9
0 Boris G. Yudin
11
12
13 This chapter deals with the trial of Japanese biowarfare scientists which took place
14 in Khabarovsk, in the Russian Far East, on December 25–30, 1949. One of the
15 points of indictment against the 12 Japanese military defendants referred to
16 “criminal experiments on living humans” performed during the Second World War
17 in Manchuria. This was the first time these experiments, which had been carried
18 out with extreme cruelty over a 15-year period, had been investigated by a court.
19 Aspects of the trial, such as its setting, timing, its rapid execution, and the leniency
20 of the sentences handed down by the court, are discussed.
21 At the end of 1949, on December 25–30, in Khabarovsk, one of the biggest
22 cities in the Soviet Far East, a trial took place of Japanese biowarfare scientists. Up
23 until now the trial has been rather poorly covered in the literature of the Second
24 World War in the East. This is true notably for Russian sources – despite the fact
25 that the trial was organized by the Soviet authorities and was intended to achieve
26 a number of political and ideological goals.
27 In this chapter, I present data which provide a window on the Russian perspective
28 to the lead-up to the Khabarovsk Trial, the trial itself, and its outcome. The primary
29 focus of inquiry is the medical experiments performed on human subjects by
30 Japanese scientists that were elucidated at the trial. I also discuss the premises and
31 efficacy of the Japanese wartime program of bacteriological warfare. In addition,
32 I pose the question: How was it possible – from the moral point of view – to carry
33 out such experiments?
34
35
The road to Khabarovsk
36
37 The final months of 1949 were marked by a number of events, played out in the
38 international arena as well as the Pacific region, which were relevant to the
39 Khabarovsk Trial. On August 23, the Soviet Union successfully carried out its first
40 nuclear weapons test. On October 1, the People’s Republic of China was created.
41 The flame of the Cold War, which had been set alight with Winston Churchill’s
42 speech of March 1946, burned more and more brightly. On December 21, Josef
43 Stalin, the Soviet dictator, marked his seventieth birthday. His jubilee was
44 commemorated far and wide, and some traces of the celebration can even be found
45 in the published materials of the Khabarovsk Trial. Yet, the most influential event
 60   Boris G. Yudin
1 had occurred the previous year. The trial at Khabarovsk was preceded by the
2 International Military Tribunal for the Far East, carried out in Tokyo from May 3,
3 1946 to November 12, 1948. The Tokyo Tribunal had conducted its affairs in the
4 international arena, with the participation of prosecutors and judges representing
5 11 powers which had been involved in the war against Japan.
6 Some signs of the growing conflict between the two superpowers – the U.S.S.R.
7 and the U.S.A. – were revealed at the Tokyo Tribunal. For instance, in his speech at
8 the Khabarovsk Trial, State Counsel for the Prosecution L. Smirnov noted:
9
0 the prosecutor of the Nanking city court presented information to the
11 International Military Tribunal in Tokyo, in which it had been specifically
12 mentioned that Unit “Tama” – one of the most secret divisions of the Japanese
13 Army – had systematically carried out experiments on living humans,
14 inoculating them with poisoned serum.
15
16 This information about Japanese atrocities attracted the attention of the
17 International Military Tribunal, which requested that American prosecutors,
18 representing the Kuomintang government of China at the Tokyo trial, submit
19 further evidence on the criminal activities of the “Tama” Unit.
20 Soon afterward, the Soviet prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal
21 transmitted written testimony by [Major General] Kawashima [Kiyoshi] and
22 [Major] Karasawa [Tomio] regarding the malicious experiments performed on
23 living human subjects to the American Chief Prosecutor, Joseph Keenan.
24 It seemed, however, that some influential figures were attempting to prevent
25 disclosure of the monstrous crimes committed by Japanese military personnel, and
26 documents describing similar experiments carried out by the “Tama” and Ishii
27 Units were not presented to the Tribunal (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 441–442).
28 Investigators from a number of countries, including Russia, agree that in
29 the course of the Tokyo Tribunal, the United States, which played a decisive
30 role in the trials, took steps to prevent the airing of war crime charges against
31 those involved in human experimentation. The Japanese historian of science,
32 Tsuneishi Keiichi, notes that the American military began investigating these
33 activities in September 1945. However, this initial investigation was aimed
34 not at amassing evidence for prosecutions but at gathering scientific data
35 acquired in the course of Japanese biological and chemical weapons research.
36 None of the Japanese military personnel who had provided such information
37 were subsequently tried as war criminals. “In other words, they were granted
38 immunity from prosecution in exchange for supplying their research data”
39 (Tsuneishi, 2005).
40 However, at the end of 1946, the Soviets gave notice of their intention to
41 investigate claims of human experimentation and biological warfare. In response,
42 the Americans began a more comprehensive study of the issues. One result of this
43 new investigation was the Hill and Victor report, dated December 12, 1947.
44 Tsuneishi reproduces the conclusion of the report, where the emphasis fell once
45 more on the scientific value of the Japanese experiments:
 Research on humans at the Khabarovsk Trial   61
1 Evidence gathered in this investigation  .  .  .  represents data which have
2 been obtained by Japanese scientists at the expenditure of many millions of
3 dollars and years of work. Information had accrued with respect to human
4 susceptibility to those diseases as indicated by specific infectious doses of
5 bacteria. Such information could not be obtained in our own laboratories
6 because of scruples attached to human experimentation.
7 (Hill 1947, emphasis added)
8
9 According to G. Permyakov, the chief Russian-Japanese interpreter at the
0 Khabarovsk Trial, the Soviet authorities were disappointed with some aspects of
11 the Tokyo International Tribunal. He recalled that in 1946, the Soviet prosecutor
12 at the Tribunal, S. Golunsky, had proposed the submission of a large number of
13 documents describing the bacteriological crimes of the Kwantung Army in
14 Manchuria. Yet, U.S. prosecutors had opposed adding these materials to the file.
15 Consequently, once the Tokyo Trial ended in November 1948, the Soviet authorities
16 decided to institute further proceedings.
17 The Soviets were also keen to study the Japanese biowarfare program for their
18 own military purposes. After the war with Japan was over, the Soviets and
19 Americans engaged in sharp competition to obtain Japanese research data. This
20 story, however, is much better known from the U.S. than from the U.S.S.R. side.
21 Up until now, publications on Soviet biological weapon programs have been few.
22 Ken Alibek, one of the leading Soviet specialists in bacteriological weapons (now
23 living in the U.S.), states that evidence supplied by former Japanese prisoners and
24 documents seized by the Soviet Army was sent to Moscow for detailed study.
25 These documents included working drawings of factories for the production of
26 biological weapons; these factories were
27
28 bigger and more advanced than those in our country at that time. In Sverdlovsk
29 [a major industrial center in the Ural mountains, now Ekaterinburg], a new
30 military research complex was built by order of Stalin. In its construction,
31 Soviet engineers and designers were indebted to drawings and knowledge
32 gained from the Japanese.
33 (Alibek, 2003: 60)
34
The Russian historian of science Eduard Kolchinsky writes of the reluctance of
35
the Soviet scientists involved in these developments to make public their activities
36
in the field, and notes that their silence cannot be fully explained by the secrecy
37
required by their research activities:
38
39 Like their American colleagues involved in the development of biological
40 weapons . . . Soviet scientists, remembering the fate of Japanese and German
41 experimenters on humans, preferred to keep silent about their contributions
42 to the advancement of the country’s defense capability. In this respect they
43 differed sharply from the domestic and Western creators of atomic and
44 hydrogen weapons, missiles etc.
45 (Kolchinsky, 2007: 397)
 62   Boris G. Yudin
1 During and after the War, the Red Army imprisoned about 600,000 Japanese
2 military personnel. The KGB had the immense task of seeking out those prisoners
3 involved in bacteriological warfare research. Their success was considerable and
4 even some of the gendarmes whose task was to dispatch prisoners for experiments
5 were identified (see Supotnitzky, 2006). Military interpreter Georgy Permyakov
6 recalled:
7
8 In 1946, cipher messages from Moscow were received. We were requested to
9 gather materials on bacteriological warfare. At the same time we were
0 “digging up” Unit 731 and we ascertained that there were three generals in
11 our prisoners-of-war camp who were in charge of these activities [Kajitsuka,
12 Kawashima, and Takahashi]. They began giving evidence, but it did not come
13 all at once.
14    Altogether we talked with 1000 prisoners. Starting with evidence gleaned
15 from the lower ranks, we proceeded to interrogate the senior ranks. Once this
16 evidence was gathered, we were able to confront these three generals and
17 force them to give further evidence. We went to Harbin and interrogated
18 the Chinese. We gathered a huge amount of data and were proud of this
19 achievement. All this data was prepared for the Tokyo Tribunal – the Eastern
20 “Nuremberg”. However, none of it was used.
21 (Permyakov, 2000)
22
23 Then, on October 20, 1949 Permyakov, along with 20 other experienced
24 interpreters, was ordered to a meeting convened by Colonel [first name unknown]
25 Karlin, who had been empowered by the Ministry of the Interior of the U.S.S.R. to
26 bring legal charges against a number of officers of the Japanese Army who had
27 used bacteriological weapons during the war. Permyakov noted that, for reasons of
28 personal safety, the identities of Karlin and himself were kept secret. This explains
29 why Permyakov, unlike other interpreters, was never mentioned by name in the
30 published version of the Materials.
31 The preliminary investigation lasted a little over two months: “The Japanese
32 were initially kept in the Khabarovsk prison  .  .  .  High-ranking investigators
33 came from Moscow. . . . The Japanese told everything they knew, without pressure.
34 The interrogations lasted from 9 a.m. till 12 p.m. Investigators, interpreters,
35 prisoners – everybody was worn out” (Permyakov, 2000). As we shall see, the
36 Soviet authorities had important reasons for expediting matters.
37
38
Setting the scene for the trial
39
40 At the Khabarovsk Trial, 12 Japanese military personnel were accused of the
41 manufacture and use of bacteriological weapons during the Second World War.
42 They were: General Yamada Otozo, former Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung
43 Army; Lt.-General Kajitsuka Ryuiji, former Chief of Medical Administration of
44 the Kwantung Army; Lt.-General Takahashi Takaatsu, former Chief of the
45 Veterinary Division of the Kwantung Army; Major General Kawashima Kiyoshi,
 Research on humans at the Khabarovsk Trial   63
1 former Chief of the Department of Bacteriological Production, Unit 731; Major
2 Karasawa Tomio, former Chief of a section in the Department of Bacteriological
3 Production of Unit 731; Lt.-Colonel Nishi Toshihide, former Chief of Branch 673
4 of Unit 731; Major Onoue Masao, former Chief of Branch 643 of Unit 731; Major
5 General Sato Shunji, former Chief of Medical Services, Canton Branch, 5th Army;
6 Lt. Hirazakura Zensaku, a former researcher in Unit 100; Senior Sergeant Mitomo
7 Kazuo, a former member of Unit 100; Corporal Kikuchi Norimitsu, a former
8 medical orderly in Branch 643 of Unit 731; and Private Kurushima Yuji, a former
9 laboratory orderly in Branch 162 of Unit 731.
0 The charges against them were based on extenstion to Japan of Article 1 of the
11 Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., “On measures of
12 punishment for German Fascist criminals guilty of the murder and torture of
13 Soviet civilians and Red Army prisoners of war; also for spies and traitors to the
14 Fatherland among Soviet citizens and their accomplices” (April 19, 1943). It is
15 important to note the extreme severity of the Decree (see, for instance, Ulitzky,
16 2000: 29). Article 1 states that sentences handed down under previous instruments
17 (which had included the death penalty) were of insufficient severity for “the most
18 infamous evil deeds.” In this context, a special means of capital punishment –
19 hanging, which in some cases was to be carried out publicly – was introduced. The
20 Decree also authorized punishments, such as terms of penal servitude lasting 15
21 to 20 years. It is interesting to note that despite the fact from 1943 until 1952 no
22 fewer than 40,000 persons, including at least 25,209 foreigners, were sentenced
23 under this Decree (Epiphanov, 2001: 73), the Decree itself was classified. Neither
24 the accused nor their counsel were given the opportunity to become acquainted
25 with it. However, on May 26, 1947, following the end of the war and cases entailed
26 by it, the death penalty was canceled by the Decree of the Presidium of the
27 Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.
28 The timing of the trial deserves special comment. As we have seen, the
29 Khabarovsk Trial began more than a year after the completion of the Tokyo Trials
30 at the end of 1949. In Permyakov’s opinion, it was necessary to end the trial before
31 the New Year:
32
33 Moscow forced the investigators to hurry. It was known in high quarters in the
34 Ministry of the Interior that the death penalty would be restored the following
35 year. That is why the people at the top requested the completion of the
36 Khabarovsk bacteriological trial before the end of 1949 – at that time some
37 awkward talks were planned between Moscow and Tokyo on the fate of
38 Japanese POWs. And it is clear that Japan was especially concerned about
39 [the status of senior] officers from the Kwantung and Korean Armies.
40 (Permyakov, 2000)
41
42 The last evening session of the court, held on December 30, finished late at night
43 when the verdicts were announced. We may conclude that, from the very beginning
44 of the preparations for the trial, it had been predetermined that the defendants
45 would not receive harsh punishments. Indeed, on January 12, 1950, the death
 64   Boris G. Yudin
1 penalty was restored in the Soviet Union. On that day the Decree of the Presidium
2 of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., “On use of the death penalty for traitors to
3 the Fatherland, spies, and subversive saboteurs,” was issued. In a departure from
4 the Decree of May 26, 1947, this Decree permitted the use of the death penalty for
5 those who committed especially heinous crimes against the State.
6 In Khabarovsk, the cases were heard by the Military Tribunal of the Primorsky
7 Military District, presided over by Major General of Justice D. Chertkov. The bill
8 of indictment, dated December 16, 1949, was signed by the Military Prosecutor of
9 the Primorsky Military District, Colonel of Justice A. Berezovsky. As mentioned
0 above, L. Smirnov, State Legal Advisor third class, was State Counsel for the
11 Prosecution at the trial. Although each defendant was provided with a Soviet
12 defender, these defenders played secondary, mainly decorative roles – a situation
13 characteristic of the Soviet juridical system in general.
14 An expert commission on bacteriological and medical issues, headed by
15 Nickolay N. Zhukov-Verezhnikov, also participated in the trial. The commission
16 comprised six members, experts in epidemiology, immunology, microbiology,
17 parasitology, and veterinary science. Nickolay Zhukov-Verezhnikov, a
18 microbiologist and immunologist, had been an Academician of the Academy of
19 Medical Sciences of the U.S.S.R. since 1948 and, at the time of the Khabarovsk
20 Trial, was Vice-President of the Academy. He was researching methods of
21 prophylaxis against plague and cholera, research which was set against a
22 background of controversy and debate. In August 1948, only about a year before
23 the Khabarovsk Trial, a dramatic Session of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural
24 Science, named after Lenin (VASHNIL), had been held. At the Session, genetics
25 was sharply criticized and rejected by Trofim Lysenko and his followers as a
26 “bourgeois pseudo-science.” Some rather exotic “scientific” theories were
27 promulgated in the years of Lysenko’s domination over Soviet biology. One
28 of them, on the potential transformation of the plague pathogen into
29 pseudo-tuberculosis, was proposed by Zhukov-Verezhnikov, who was an active
30 supporter of Lysenko’s theories (see Domaradsky, 1995).
31 Officially, the trial was carried out “with open doors.” The hearings took place
32 in the District House of Officers of the Red Army. According to G. Permyakov,
33 attending the sittings of the court was relatively easy: it was only necessary to buy
34 an entrance ticket. However, the journalist Evg. Sholokh claimed that special
35 permission was necessary to observe the trial – which seems more plausible, given
36 accepted practice at the time. Many who could not obtain tickets gathered near the
37 House of Officers, where the trial took place, to hear radio broadcasts of
38 the proceedings.
39 The indictments handed down at the Khabarovsk Trial fell into four areas: the
40 organization of dedicated units for the preparation and implementation of
41 bacteriological warfare; the commission of criminal experiments on living human
42 subjects; the use of bacteriological weapons in the war against China; and activities
43 undertaken in preparation for bacteriological warfare against the U.S.S.R. (The
44 Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 7–27). Only the second of these areas, human
45 experimentation, will be discussed in this chapter. Charges of “personal
 Research on humans at the Khabarovsk Trial   65
1 participation” in the human experimentation program were brought against four
2 of the defendants (Kawashima, Karasawa, Nishi, and Mitomo). Three others
3 (Yamada, Kajitsuka, and Takahashi) were accused of knowingly permitting the
4 experiments to proceed.
5
6
Crime and punishment
7
8 Nine of the accused were charged with crimes committed while they were serving
9 with the notorious Unit 731. The Unit was created in 1936 by a secret decree of
0 the Japanese Emperor and organized by Lt.-General Ishii Shiro. For security
11 reasons, its predecessor had been named the “Water Supply and Prophylaxis Board
12 of the Kwantung Army.” Unit 731 was located near Pingfan railway station,
13 20 kilometers from the city of Harbin in northeastern China. According to the bill
14 of indictment, by early 1939 a large-scale military camp with many laboratories
15 and service buildings had been constructed. The staff numbered around 3000
16 personnel (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 8).
17 Unit 731 consisted of eight divisions. Human experimentation was carried out
18 within Division 1, the main function of which was the investigation and growing
19 of pathogens for bacteriological warfare. In the course of this research many
20 experiments on animals and humans were carried out. For this purpose –
21 experimentation on human subjects in a “laboratory setting” – a prison compound
22 was constructed inside the camp with the capacity to hold between 300 and 400
23 people. The object of these experiments was the production of bacteria capable of
24 infecting humans with plague, cholera, gas-gangrene, anthrax, typhoid,
25 paratyphoid, and other diseases.
26 According to evidence provided by one of the accused, Kawashima Kiyoshi,
27 who headed Division 1 for some time, approximately 3000 people were killed
28 in Unit 731 between 1940 and 1945 through infection with deadly bacteria.
29 Kawashima claimed not to know the number of prisoners killed before 1940 (The
30 Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 19). For the most part, the experiments were directed
31 toward the development of bacteriological weapons intended to infect humans.
32 However, other experiments were also carried out, including depriving subjects of
33 food and water, inducing frostbite to the hands, and the injection of animal blood
34 into humans. During his preliminary testimony Kawashima stated:
35
36 Constant experiments on living human subjects – Russian and Chinese
37 prisoners – were conducted. They were transported to Unit 731 by Japanese
38 gendarmerie in Manchuria – to test bacteriological warfare samples as
39 well as to investigate ways of treating epidemic diseases in the Unit. Unit 731
40 had a dedicated prison for these detainees, where “experimental humans”
41 were kept in stringent conditions including isolation; these subjects
42 were habitually known as “logs” [maruta in Japanese]. I myself heard such
43 names for test subjects used many times by the commander of Unit 731,
44 General Ishii.
45 (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 55–56)
 66   Boris G. Yudin
1 When interrogated at the trial, Kawashima once again referred to these subjects as
2 “logs.” When asked why Manchuria had been chosen as the site for bacterio­logical
3 warfare research, he answered that Manchuria was most suitable for
4 experimentation into bacteriological warfare because of the plentiful quantity of
5 “test material” – people who could be used for experiments and were referred to
6 as “logs.” Kawashima also explained that these subjects were not held in the
7 Unit’s prison under their names, but were listed as numbers (The Khabarovsk
8 Trial, 1950: 259).
9 In another case, Kawashima was cited as saying that the name “logs” was used
0 “for security reasons” (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 15). We shall return to this
11 point below.
12 Alongside the experiments conducted in a “laboratory setting,” trials were also
13 carried out on testing grounds administered by Unit 731 and under battle
14 conditions. In his testimony, Kawashima stated:
15
16 In June 1941, I . . . took part in the testing of bombs filled with plague fleas
17 at the Unit’s testing ground near Anda railway station. In the course of
18 the experiment, bacteriological bombs delivered from the air were tested on
19 10 to 15 prisoners who were tied to stakes in the ground.
20 (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 56)
21
22 When interrogated at a preliminary hearing, another accused, Nishi Toshihide,
23 stated:
24
25 It was known to me that (planned) experiments involving compulsory
26 infection with deadly bacteria took place on Russian and Chinese subjects
27 (including prisoners of war from the Unit’s prison). . . .
28    These experiments were carried out throughout the year; after the research
29 subjects died, they were burned in a crematorium created for this purpose.
30    Also, I know that  .  .  .  between January and March 1945, experiments
31 exposing Russian and Chinese prisoners to typhus were carried out in the
32 prison. In a separate experiment, five Chinese prisoners were exposed to the
33 plague utilizing infected fleas at a testing ground near Anda in October 1944.
34 In addition, frostbite experiments on human extremities were conducted at
35 Unit 731 in the winter of 1943–44.
36    Furthermore, in January 1945 ten Chinese prisoners were exposed to gas
37 gangrene with my participation. The goal of this experiment was to ascertain
38 the potential impact of exposure to gas gangrene under conditions of –20 ° C
39 frost. Ten Chinese prisoners of war were tied to individual stakes 10 or
40 20 meters away from a shrapnel bomb contaminated with gas gangrene.
41    To prevent the immediate deaths of the prisoners their heads and backs
42 were protected with special metal shields and thick quilts, leaving the legs
43 and buttocks exposed. After an electric current was switched on, the bomb
44 was exploded and the area where the prisoners were placed was saturated with
45 shrapnel contaminated by gas gangrene. As a result, all of the test subjects
 Research on humans at the Khabarovsk Trial   67
1 were wounded in the legs or buttocks and lived an additional seven days
2 before dying in severe pain.
3 (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 61–62)
4
5 During the hearings of arguments at the trial, State Counsel for the Prosecution
6 L. Smirnov stated:
7
8 It has been proved that, in Unit 731, inhuman experiments on living human
9 subjects were carried out not only for research into bacteriological warfare.
0 There were also other, no less inhuman and painful experiments,
11 which . . . were carried out on a larger scale. These experiments were aimed
12 at determining the limits of a human organism’s endurance under specific
13 conditions, and at studying . . . the prevention and treatment of non-infectious
14 diseases. . . .
15    To carry out such experiments . . . Unit 731 was equipped with a pressure
16 chamber in which the limits of the human organism’s endurance of high
17 altitudes were ascertained. . . . People placed in this pressure chamber died a
18 slow death involving unimaginable torment.
19 (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 431)
20
21 The indictment prepared for the trial described the fate of those prisoners who
22 happened to survive an experiment:
23
24 If a prisoner recovered following his or her contamination with lethal bacteria,
25 it did not save them from repeat experiments, which were continued until
26 their death as a result of further contamination. Contaminated persons were
27 treated, and different methods of treatment were subsequently studied. They
28 were normally fed and, following their full recovery, they were used for a
29 subsequent experiment, utilizing another kind of bacteria. In any case, no one
30 left this death factory alive.
31 (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 17, emphasis added)
32
33 Three of the 12 Japanese military personnel indicted were accused of conducting
34 human experiments while members of Unit 100, which was located in Mogaton,
35 10 kilometers south of Changchun city, also in northeastern China. Unit 100 was
36 charged, among other duties, with researching new military uses for bacteria and
37 developing acute poisons for the mass extermination of people. Experiments for
38 these purposes were carried out on both animals and living human subjects.
39 At the Khabarovsk Trial, defendant Mitomo Kazuo, formerly of Unit 100,
40 testified that experiments on living humans were carried out between August and
41 September 1944. These experiments, using Russian and Chinese prisoners,
42 consisted of giving test subjects imperceptible amounts of soporifics and poisons.
43 There were seven or eight Russian and Chinese test subjects. Among the
44 medications used in these experiments were Korean bindweed, heroin, and castor
45 oil seeds. These poisons were mixed in with their food. Each test subject received
 68   Boris G. Yudin
1 food poisoned in this way five or six times for a period of two weeks. Within the
2 fortnight, all the test subjects became very weak and it was impossible to use them
3 for further experiments. In order to maintain secrecy, they were all killed.
4 Mitomo was then subject to detailed questioning by the court:
5
6 Question: How was [the killing] done?
7 Answer: By order of researcher Matsui, one Russian test subject was killed by
8 an injection with one tenth of a gram of potassium cyanide.
9 Question: Who killed him?
0 Answer: I injected him with potassium cyanide.
11 Question: What did you do with the corpse of this Russian?
12 Answer: I dissected the corpse at the Unit’s cattle cemetery.
13 Question: What did you do with the corpse afterwards?
14 Answer: I buried it.
15 Question: Where was the grave dug?
16 Answer: In the cattle cemetery behind the Unit’s buildings.
17 Question: In the same place where cattle carcasses were buried?
18 Answer: In the same place, but in another burial site (Stir, buzz of indignation
19 in the hall.)
20 Question: Tell us, how did you accomplish the murder?
21 Answer: As a result of previous instructions issued by Matsui, the test subjects
22 already had diarrhea. This diarrhea was the basis for the injection of
23 potassium cyanide.
24 Question: Does that mean you deceived the test subject? After telling him you
25 were giving him an injection for the sake of treatment, in reality you
26 were injecting him with potassium cyanide?
27 Answer: Correct.
28 (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 322–323)
29
30 During its session of December 28, 1949, the Court put four questions to the
31 Forensic Medical Expert Commission. The Commission concluded:
32
33 all studies [carried out by Units 731, 100, and 1644] were concluded with
34 evaluations of the experimental effectiveness of different kinds of weapons or
35 delivery systems. In these experiments . . . living human subjects were used
36 as “guinea pigs.” Bacteriological weapons were regarded as suitable for
37 testing in battlefield conditions . . . if the experiments conducted in the testing
38 grounds led to . . . the forcible contamination and deaths of people. Hence,
39 bombs filled with plague and anthrax bacteria infected many test subjects.
40 The efficacy of bombs filled with plague fleas was studied.
41 (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 396)
42
43 The verdict of the Court was announced on the evening of December 30, 1949.
44 All 12 defendants were found guilty and sentenced to various terms in labor
45 camps. In his closing speech, the State Counsel for the Prosecution requested
 Research on humans at the Khabarovsk Trial   69
1 sentences of 25 years of imprisonment (the maximum sentence at that time) for
2 Yamada, Kajitsuka, Takahashi, Kawashima, and Sato, with sentences ranging from
3 15 to 20 years for Karasawa, Nishi, Onoue, Hirazakura, and Mitomo. He demanded
4 up to three years’ imprisonment for both Kikuchi and Kurushima. The usual
5 practice of the Soviet justice system at that time was that the Court’s verdict just
6 rubber-stamped any recommendations made by the prosecution. In this case,
7 however, there was some divergence from these unspoken practices: Sato (20
8 years), Onoue (12 years), Hirazakura (10 years) and Kikuchi (two years) were all
9 given lighter sentences than those demanded by the prosecution.
0 Many observers have sought explanations for the unusual leniency of the
11 Khabarovsk Court decision. It became clear to G. Permyakov that, when the death
12 penalty was reinstated in early 1950, those convicted of bacteriological warfare
13 crimes during the trial would be spared capital punishment, even though it was
14 richly deserved. Permyakov remarked that the temporary exemption provided by
15 the earlier Decree had been necessary to keep them alive (Permyakov, 2000), but
16 why was such lenient treatment felt to be necessary? In 2001, journalists
17 R. Working and N. Chernyakova put forward this explanation: “Clearly, Stalin was
18 afraid that Japan would kill Soviet POWs if the Japanese military physicians were
19 executed” (Working and Chernyakova, 2001). However, there are problems with
20 this theory. During the War with Nazi Germany, Stalin had categorized all POWs
21 (including his own son) as traitors. Soviet POWs liberated by the Red Army were,
22 for the most part, dispatched from German prison camps straight to Soviet labor
23 camps. Thus, it would be difficult to imagine Stalin harboring fears about the fate
24 of Soviet prisoners in Japan. Furthermore, it is hard to imagine that there were any
25 Soviet POWs still detained by Japan by the end of 1949.
26 More recently, E. Sholokh has offered another reason for the lenient treatment:
27 the reason was the same as for the Americans, who had also managed to capture
28 leaders from the Unit. The light sentences were handed down in exchange for the
29 very useful information disclosed by the Japanese prisoners. “Otherwise,” writes
30 Sholokh, “it would be difficult to understand such humaneness shown by the
31 Soviet justice and special services systems” (Sholokh, 2004). This seems the
32 most convincing explanation – the unusually light sentences handed down at
33 Khabarovsk were a form of barter. The Japanese convicts would receive only light
34 punishment in exchange for information about bacteriological weapons –
35 information that could prove invaluable to the Soviet Union’s own developing
36 biowarfare program.
37 Another fate was in store for those mid-level operatives of Unit 731 who
38 were not convicted at the trial. M. Supotnitzky retells the story first told by
39 G. Permyakov. On June 2, 1950, Permyakov received an order to come to
40 Khabarovsk-2 railroad station where he was confronted by a huge number of red
41 carriages. He was told that these carriages held Japanese POWs who had worked
42 at Unit 731 and other sites involved in bacteriological research. The Soviet Union
43 had decided to pass these individuals on to China, and Permyakov was to
44 accompany them as he was fluent in both Japanese and Chinese. It turned out that
45 the Japanese did not know that they were en route to China. In all, there were 1002
 70   Boris G. Yudin
1 people on the train. For 16 years, Permyakov knew nothing of their fate. However,
2 following the shooting incident on Damansky Island (March 1969) which took
3 place in the period of severe tensions between the USSR and China, Permyakov
4 read in the English communist newspaper, the Morning Star, that these Japanese
5 prisoners had been placed on probation. With their help, the Chinese had opened
6 their own research center for the development of bacteriological weapons. Since
7 the Morning Star was supported with Soviet money, Permyakov concluded that
8 this information had been deliberately fed to the newspaper from the U.S.S.R.
9 (Supotnitzky, 2006: Book 2, 569).
0
11
The reliability of data and evidence disclosed at the trial
12
13 The Khabarovsk Trial has turned out to be one of the most controversial episodes
14 in the history of the Second World War in the East. Some authors are inclined to
15 dismiss it as nothing more than an example of Soviet propaganda, the kind of
16 rhetoric which was so widespread during the Cold War. Thus, in his review of the
17 first edition of one of the best-known books on Japanese biological warfare,
18 Factories of Death by Sheldon Harris, J. Vance reproached the author: “The one
19 weakness in his evidence may be the extensive use of the proceedings of the
20 Russian BW show trial at Khabarovsk in 1949” (Vance, 1995: 452). Later, when
21 the second edition of Factories of Death was published, L. Fouraker expressed the
22 same view:
23
24 Harris relies . . . on a translated record of a Soviet trial of accused Japanese
25 war criminals. . . . This suspect source is the basis for a great many of the
26 details of Harris’s narrative. . . . Without secondary substantiation, I would
27 tend to put all of the Khabarovsk trial information in the questionable
28 category.
29 (Fouraker, 2004: 2)
30
31 An opposing point of view has gained ground recently, the proponents of which
32 maintain that a great deal of irrefutable data was presented at the trial. According
33 to bioethicist Nie Jing-Bao, “the trial established beyond reasonable doubt the
34 basic facts about Japanese BW war crimes including systematic cruel human
35 experimentation, and its conclusions turned out to be remarkably accurate” (Nie,
36 2006: 25). This second position seems most plausible, and I want here to propose
37 some secondary substantiation for it, using a rather specific methodology.
38 Unlike the authors cited here, I can rely on my own personal experience of the
39 Soviet system – for more than 40 years I lived in the Soviet Union and was
40 submerged in a political and social reality which was to a great extent produced
41 by Soviet propaganda. At that time, anything more than bare survival depended on
42 a person’s ability to develop and cultivate a peculiar skill, which would allow one
43 to extract grains of more-or-less accurate knowledge from a huge body of
44 deliberately distorted information. Even propaganda needs to be based on some
45 real facts and events, which are then interpreted perversely. Aware that such
 Research on humans at the Khabarovsk Trial   71
1 manipulation took place on a constant and predictable basis, Soviet citizens needed
2 to develop corresponding “countermeasures” and to employ them systematically.
3 There was a more-or-less limited set of methods and tricks used by the state to
4 manufacture the disinformation it put out. Thus, if one knew, first, that a particular
5 event had taken place (or even could have taken place), second, that the official
6 information about it was inevitably distorted, and third, that some particular tricks
7 from the state’s restricted propaganda repertoire had in all likelihood been used,
8 one would have some chance of extracting those few pieces of knowledge that had
9 been distorted in the process. However, a couple of caveats should be mentioned
0 at this point. While Soviet citizens grew very adept at deploying these deciphering
11 skills they were not infallible. In addition, because such skills were based on
12 subjective personal experience, it was difficult to make them reproducible and
13 objective.
14 The trial took place in the extraordinary frame of reference which was the Soviet
15 system of justice. Although this system included the roles of accused, judge,
16 prosecutor, defender, and so on, their meaning had little in common with legal
17 practices found elsewhere. For instance, as we have seen, the functions of a defender
18 were negligible – it was never expected that a defender would try to convince the
19 Court of a client’s innocence. The task of a defender was mainly to seek out
20 mitigating circumstances. At the same time, the actual status of a prosecutor placed
21 him on a higher level than a judge, whose verdict usually faith­fully reproduced the
22 prosecutor’s indictment. The verdict in the Khabarovsk Trial diverged somewhat
23 from this norm. Bearing in mind that, for the Soviet authorities, the trial’s chief
24 importance lay in its political significance, it is at least possible to understand the
25 function of much of the ideological rhetoric that colored the speeches of many its
26 participants. The published materials of the trial, as well as the rather rare first-
27 hand recollections of it, allow us to conclude that the behavior of its participants
28 was to a considerable extent staged – first of all, in the ease with which accused as
29 well as witnesses admitted almost all the charges. Nevertheless, such divergence
30 from the legal standards accepted in Western countries does not necessarily imply
31 falsifications and distortions at the level of fact.
32 While Nie Jing-Bao draws attention to the “many problems and shortcomings
33 associated with the operation of the Khabarovsk trial itself ” (Nie, 2004: 38) and
34 notes such features as the deliberate exclusion of international observers and the
35 use of propaganda, I support his views on the basic validity of the trial. We need
36 to draw a clear distinction between all these details of the legal process on the one
37 hand, and the great quantity of evidence and factual material presented at
38 Khabarovsk on the other.
39 My personal experience gained over a long period immersed in the Soviet
40 propaganda system convinces me that it would have been impossible to fabricate,
41 without any real grounds, the vast amount of evidence presented at the trial. Soviet
42 history was rich in causes célèbres which received a great deal of publicity. It is
43 instructive to compare the Khabarovsk materials with the famous political trials of
44 the 1930s, which were widely reported in Soviet newspapers, when so-called
45 “enemies of the people” were on the docket. The materials produced at these trials
 72   Boris G. Yudin
1 contained many more unfounded invectives and much less factual material than
2 was the case at Khabarovsk. Moreover, many of the alleged crimes of these
3 “enemies of the people” simply defied credibility and common sense.
4 In fact, I have been able to confirm only one factual error from among the
5 many alleged by those who dismiss the significance of the Khabarovsk Trial –
6 an anecdote that was supposedly “taken from the trial record” concerning
7 “the distribution of bacteria-laden chocolates to Chinese children” (Vance, 1995:
8 452; the same story is reproduced in Fouraker, 2004: 2). I could find no mention
9 of this story in the Russian version of the “Materials”; it is included, however, in
0 Chapter 1 of the memoirs of Morimura Seiichi, The Devil’s Gluttony (Morimura,
11 1983: 6).
12
13
Offensive medicine
14
15 Having considered some examples of human experimentation presented at the
16 Khabarovsk Trial, we turn now to the rationale behind such practices developed by
17 the medical arm of the Japanese military – pre-eminently by Ishii Shiro, head of
18 Unit 731. The Soviet jurist Mark Raginsky presented a striking piece of evidence
19 at the trial. Describing the activities of the anti-epidemic laboratory in Tokyo,
20 Raginsky produced evidence from “the former worker of the laboratory, a Captain
21 of Medical Services, who spoke at the Khabarovsk Trial under the pseudonym
22 Nakagava Posirii” (Raginsky, 1985: 166). According to Posirii, Ishii Shiro once
23 told the laboratory personnel: “military medicine consists not only of treatment
24 and prevention, but genuine military medicine is designed for offensive warfare”
25 (Raginsky, 1985: 167).
26 This unorthodox understanding of medicine found its embodiment in a very
27 extensive program of research, which included aggressive experimentation on
28 humans. Yet Japan’s efforts to develop effective bacteriological weapons were far
29 from successful.
30 Russian biologist Mikhail Supotnitzky, the author of a two-volume history of
31 the plague (Supotnitzky, 2006), discusses some of the difficulties in artificially
32 inducing epidemic diseases in human populations. He argues that “the failure of
33 Ishii lay not in the lack of the lethal potential of bacteria and viruses, but in the
34 fact that it is too deeply hidden by nature.” He added that the experimenters had
35 chosen unrealistic scenarios for their trials:
36
37 The Japanese succeeded in exploding ceramic bombs at preset altitudes over
38 the geographically flat testing grounds, detonating them on prisoners bound to
39 stakes. These prisoners, in their turn, “waited” until the plagues fleas crawled
40 onto them. However, it would be impossible [to provoke an epidemic] against
41 an actively resisting enemy, especially over large tracts of countryside.
42 (Supotnitzky, 2006: Vol. 2, 547)
43
44 Indeed, according to Supotnitzky, Japanese efforts at inducing epidemics were far
45 from successful:
 Research on humans at the Khabarovsk Trial   73
1 Official Chinese sources, which were inclined to exaggeration, noted that
2 in total the Japanese subjected 11 major towns in different districts to
3 bacteriological attacks. . . . In 1952, China estimated that 700 people had been
4 the victims of an artificially induced plague between 1940 and 1944. . . . It
5 turns out that this was a smaller number than those Chinese infected as “logs”!
6 As for the Soviet troops, there were no cases of disease at all, despite the fact
7 that they carried out military operations in natural strongholds of infection
8 and entered cities enveloped in plague. Artificially induced bubonic plague
9 “refused” to create pulmonary complications among the Chinese and did not
0 form self-replicating foci within populations.
11 (Supotnitzky, 2006: 539)
12
13 In a Web article reprinted in the journal Japan Focus, Tsuneishi Keiichi reaches
14 similar conclusions on the limited effectiveness of Ishii’s program. Describing one
15 of its early stages, the large-scale attack on the city of Ningbo on October 27,
16 1940, Tsuneishi notes:
17
18 This attack, killing more than one hundred people, was the most lethal in this
19 series of attacks on Chinese cities. However, when one considers that the
20 attack was carried out by heavy bombers on a risky low-altitude run, these
21 results have to be considered a military failure.
22    There were two primary reasons for this failure. First, the bacteria used was
23 so infectious that it immediately set off alarms among its victims. Second, the
24 effort suffered from exaggerated expectations of the ability to artificially
25 spark an epidemic. . . . It was expected that pathogens dropped in a densely
26 populated area like Ningbo would quickly spread [from] person to person, but
27 these expectations were betrayed.
28 (Tsuneishi, 2005)
29
30 Tsuneishi then gives a similar assessment of some of the subsequent stages of the
31 program:
32
33 In April [1942], Japan launched the Zhejiang campaign. In this campaign,
34 Ishii and company carried out massive biological weapons attacks. Cholera
35 bacteria was the main pathogen employed, and the attacks resulted in more
36 than 10,000 casualties. It has also been reported that some victims contracted
37 dysentery and the plague. More than 1700 soldiers died, mostly from cholera.
38 This would have been considered a great success for the Ishii group, but for
39 the fact that all of the victims were Japanese soldiers.
40 (Tsuneishi, 2005)
41
42 It is worth noting at this point that some commentators have sought to uphold the
43 effectiveness of the Japanese biological warfare tests. According to an estimate
44 included by Sheldon Harris in Factories of Death, “By the end of 1942 the casualty
45 count in the open tests surely fell into the six-figure range” (Harris, 2002: 104;
 74   Boris G. Yudin
1 reproduced in Nie, 2004: 36). However, one of the reviewers of Factories of
2 Death noted that Harris had borrowed casualty figures from an unreliable source,
3 namely David Bergamini’s journalistic and unscholarly book published in 1971
4 (Fouraker, 2004: 2).
5 Supotnitzky notes that Ishii regularly exaggerated the significance of his unit’s
6 work to the Kwantung Army’s command. Indeed, during the Khabarovsk Trial one
7 of the witnesses, Colonel Tamura, former head of the Personnel Department of the
8 Kwantung Army, testified:
9
0 Ishii told me about the effectiveness of bacteria on human test subjects in
11 experiments in laboratory settings as well as in field conditions, and claimed
12 that bacteriological weaponry was the most powerful weapon in the hands of
13 the Kwantung Army. He informed me that Unit 731 was on full alert and if
14 required  .  .  .  the Unit would be ready to deluge enemy troops with huge
15 masses of deadly bacteria; and that the Unit could also use the air force to
16 carry out military operations against the enemy’s rear and over its cities.
17 (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 349)
18
19 Later, Tamura claimed to have reported on the Unit’s preparedness for
20 bacteriological warfare to the Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army,
21 General Yamada.
22 Supotnitzky’s response to these reports is dismissive:
23
24 While Ishii was talking about his 10 old airplanes, the Soviet Army was
25 preparing for war against Japan with 3800 airplanes of the latest design.
26    Let us now consider whether it really was possible to have harmed Soviet
27 troops using Japanese bacteriological weapons. Let us suppose that a Japanese
28 plane had forced its way through the air defense system and attacked Soviet
29 troop emplacements. Suppose that the air temperature and humidity were at
30 optimal levels for flea activity. Suppose that the fleas were adequately
31 protected and that, when the bombs exploded, they were not blown to pieces.
32 Suppose further that our soldiers failed to notice that these plague-infected
33 fleas were biting them. Even under such optimal conditions, the Japanese
34 military would not achieve the results they anticipated from bacteriological
35 attacks. Even before the war, many Russian and Chinese inhabitants of Harbin
36 were aware of the function of the “hospital” near Pingfan. The General
37 Consulate of the USSR regularly received information about it. In 1945 it was
38 no secret that Japan had carried out bacteriological warfare. . . . Thus, it is not
39 surprising that the Soviet Army was thoroughly prepared for bacteriological
40 attacks in advance. Personnel of the Far Eastern Military District were
41 immunized with highly effective plague vaccine.
42 (Supotnitzky, 2006: Vol. 2, 549–550)
43
44 We may conclude, first, that it was impossible for the Japanese to carry out the
45 development of bacteriological weapons without a sustained increase in the
 Research on humans at the Khabarovsk Trial   75
1 numbers of human test subjects, and second, that the whole project was doomed
2 to failure.
3
4
Maruta technology
5
6 We turn now from the discussion of empirical data on the human experimentation
7 conducted by Unit 731 to pose the question: What were the ethical values and
8 moral premises that made it possible to perform without scruples these experi­
9 ments on a mass – or even industrial – scale? The question can be reformulated:
0 What understanding of a human being is held by those who regard it as permissible
11 to subject large numbers of people to torture and atrocities? While a single act of
12 atrocity might be ascribed to chance, we must assume that experimenters working
13 on such a large scale had developed rationalizations that allowed them to approve
14 this kind of research. Regrettably, this case is far from unique: human history
15 abounds in examples of mass brutality. Yet it allows us to clarify some aspects of
16 the technology of these practices as they were realized in the field of biomedical
17 research.
18 First of all, the perpetrators need to find a way of drawing a distinction between
19 “us” and “them.” “Us” includes those who performed the experiments as well as
20 those perceived by the experimenters to be in the same category. “They” belong to
21 another category and may be treated as to some extent “non-humans.” At the moral
22 level, such a premise provides the pretext for setting aside or weakening the
23 efficacy of the golden rule.
24 The most common ground for such a distinction is race and/or ethnicity. Indeed,
25 in our case this ground was used. In his book War Without Mercy, John W. Dower
26 describes the Japanese theory of a racial hierarchy prevalent at the time of the war.
27 According to the theory, there were three levels of beings in Asia: “First the master
28 race, which was Japan, second was the kindred races such as China and Korea, and
29 third was the guest races that were made up of the island people like the Samoans.
30 All the non-Japanese races were seen as lower life forms and should be subservient
31 to Japan” (Dower, 1986: 8). Such a worldview meant that it was possible to
32 sacrifice people who were members of “inferior” ethnic groups.
33 As we have seen, the question of race played an essential role in the choice of
34 test subjects. There is no mention in the trial materials of any use of Japanese
35 subjects; most of the experiments carried out by Unit 731 were performed on
36 Chinese, members of one of the “kindred races.” Thus the race criterion was not
37 the only one used for categorizing people into “us” and “them.” Another ground
38 used by the Japanese military was the choice of test subjects from their national
39 enemies, whether actual or potential. The so-called “laws of wartime” were very
40 often interpreted as an excuse for atrocities of various kinds, including the Unit’s
41 hideous experiments. An additional justification was developed by Ishii in his
42 view of military medicine as intended not only for the treatment and prevention of
43 disease in humans, but for offensive attacks on them.
44 There was nothing unusual in the use of such criteria to distinguish between
45 “us” and “them” (which included categories such as prisoners and criminals) in
 76   Boris G. Yudin
1 the context of the Japanese biowarfare program. What is unique and deserves to
2 be seen as an important innovation in the field of socio-psychological “technology”
3 is the development of a new category – the use of the Japanese term maruta
4 (wooden log) to designate a test subject.
5 As we have seen, Kawashima testified that the designation “logs” was used
6 “for security reasons.” It seems, however, that security or secrecy was far from
7 being the only reason. In his book, Morimura recalled that a former officer from
8 Unit 731 once told him:
9
0 We did not regard “logs” as people – they were even lower than cattle. There was
11 not one scientist or researcher who had even a minimal regard . . . for these “logs.”
12 Everybody in the Unit – military personnel as well as civilians – . . . regarded
13 the destruction of these “logs” as something absolutely natural.
14 (Morimura, 1983: 13)
15
16 In this way, the emphasis was placed on the “non-human” nature of the test
17 subjects – they were perceived as nothing more than inanimate material to be
18 tested. Certainly, we can interpret such a categorization in terms of the psycho­
19 logical protection of the researchers and personnel in the Unit. Akiyama, who was
20 a soldier in Unit 731, recalled that it took him some time and a great deal of
21 emotional turmoil before he could become indifferent to the sufferings of those
22 whom he became accustomed to treating as “logs” (Akiyama, 1958: 67). Along
23 with its psycho-emotional significance this “maruta technology” had a social
24 meaning. It would be difficult for an individual to treat a human being as a log
25 in only a single instance. However, if the individual (and those around him)
26 were constantly forced to accept such identification, he (and those around him)
27 could be persuaded that there is no real difference between the test subjects
28 and logs.
29 As is known, in Unit 731 the Japanese resorted to such practice as using
30 numbers – instead of names – for prisoners/research participants. We can designate
31 such practice as depersonalization, in which a human being ceased to be perceived
32 as an individual. Maruta technology goes further: in this case we can speak even
33 about dehumanization, through which prisoners in some essential sense ceased to
34 be perceived as human beings at all. This terminological innovation is a striking
35 example of social construction; with this invention new entities, new objects came
36 into existence. While those designated by the term did share some properties
37 intrinsic to humans, they were not perceived as human in the true sense; rather
38 they were seen as not-quite-human. To be sure, the use of a specific word to
39 designate people belonging to some category of “them” is quite common. We may
40 recall, for example, the use of the word “vermin” by Nazis to characterize Jews.
41 What makes this case unique is that the term maruta was applied exclusively in
42 the context of biomedical research and its participants.
43 Morimura provides some insight into this process of dehumanization: “Before
44 they were sent to the Unit by the gendarmerie, despite the cruel interrogations they
45 endured, they were still human beings with tongues who were forced to speak. But
 Research on humans at the Khabarovsk Trial   77
1 once these people were  .  .  .  sent to the Unit, they became nothing more than
2 raw material for research – ‘logs’  ” (Morimura, 1983: 5). Among documents
3 presented at the Khabarovsk Trial were excerpts from a set of guidelines on the
4 interrogation of prisoners of war which describe the use of very severe methods of
5 torture to extract accurate information (The Khabarovsk Trial, 1950: 231–233).
6 Nevertheless, in such cases it was still necessary for the interrogators to perceive
7 the prisoner, despite the fact that he was an enemy, as a person, a human being
8 possessing knowledge, able to understand questions and give answers, and so on.
9 These specifically human traits were redundant when people were turned into
0 logs as test subjects. It no longer mattered whether they were Japan’s enemies or
11 not. From that point on, the main – if not the only – quality which really mattered
12 was the health of these subjects. As has been shown, the Unit’s personnel went to
13 considerable efforts to provide those who survived the experiments with the best
14 available treatment and food so as to restore their health in order to prepare them
15 for further trials. This gave rise to a paradoxical situation: actions which in normal,
16 everyday life would be interpreted as expressions of genuine humanity – providing
17 those in need with medical care and food – turned out to be their opposite: the
18 commission of atrocities and preparation for further cruel experimentation.
19 As Morimura wrote: “Healthy ‘logs’ were required for  .  .  .  research. Health
20 became the only quality demanded of these test subjects. Any features more
21 properly defined as human were simply not recognized” (Morimura, 1983: 6).
22 Health and nutrition are among the most basic human needs; yet we can be certain
23 that, if they had been properly informed and asked, the test subjects would not
24 have given their consent to this treatment with its prospects of still further
25 suffering. Thus, the “treatment” offered constituted an additional layer of
26 inhumanity – the satisfaction of basic human needs in order to turn human beings
27 into “logs” once again.
28
29
References
30
31 Akiyama, H. Special Army Unit 731. Moscow, 1958 (in Russian, translated from Japanese).
32 Alibek, Ken with Handelman Stephen. Biohazard. Moscow, 2003 (in Russian).
33 Bergamini, David. Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy. New York: William Morrow and
34 Company, 1971.
Domaradsky, I. V. Inverted. Moscow, 1995. http://www.domaradsky.ru/life.htm (in
35
Russian).
36 Dower, John W. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York:
37 Pantheon Books, 1986.
38 Epiphanov, A. E. “Case Studies of Rehabilitation Practices Applied to Foreigners
39 Condemned for War Crimes,” Pravo I Politika (Law and Politics), 2001, 2 (in
40 Russian).
41 Fouraker, Lawrence. Review of Sheldon H. Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese Biological
42 Warfare, 1932–1945, and the American Cover-up, H-Japan, H-Net Reviews, February
43 2004. http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=221861080297858.
44 Harris, S. H. Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932–1945 and the American
45 Cover-up, 2nd edn. New York: Routledge, 2002.
 78   Boris G. Yudin
1 Hill, Edwin V. 1947, Summary Report on B. W. Investigations, Camp Detrick, December 12,
2 in Kondo, Shoji, ed., 2003, CD-ROM Japanese Biological Warfare; Unit 731: Official
3 Declassified Records, Vol. 6, Tokyo: Kashiwa shobo, 1947.
4 The Khabarovsk Trial. Materials of the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army
Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons. Moscow:
5
Foreign Language Publishing House, 1950 (in Russian).
6
Kolchinsky, Eduard I. Biology in Germany and Russia-USSR During the Social and
7 Political Crises of the First Half of the XX Century. St. Petersburg, 2007 (in
8 Russian).
9 Morimura, Seiichi, The Devil’s Gluttony (Russian translation). Moscow: Progress
0 Publishers, 1983.
11 Nie, Jing-Bao. “The West’s Dismissal of the Khabarovsk Trial as ‘Communist Propaganda’:
12 Ideology, Evidence and international Bioethics,” Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2004,
13 1, 1, 32–42.
14 Nie, Jing-Bao. “The United States Cover-up of Japanese Wartime Medical Atrocities:
15 Complicity Committed in the National Interest and Two Proposals for Contemporary
Action,” American Journal of Bioethics, 2006, 6, 3, 21–33.
16
Permyakov, Georgy. “Death Zone,” Tikhookeanskaya zvezda [Pacific Ocean’s Star],
17
February 29, 2000 (in Russian).
18 Raginsky, M. Yu. Militarists in the Dock. From Materials Presented at the Tokyo and
19 Khabarovsk Trials. Moscow: Publishing House, “Juridical Literature,” 1985 (in
20 Russian).
21 Sholokh, Eug. “The Infernal Kitchen of ‘Daddy’ Ishii Shiro,” Konkurent.ru, Weekly, 50,
22 December 21, 2004 (in Russian).
23 Supotnitzky, Mikhail V. and Supotnitzkaya, Nadezhda S. Studies in the History of the
24 Plague, 2 vols. Moscow: Vuzovskaya Kniga Publishing House, 2006 (in Russian).
25 Tsuneishi, Keiichi. Unit 731 and the Japanese Imperial Army’s Biological Warfare Program.
26 http://www.tokyoprogressive.org/index/weblog/comments/unit 731-and-the-japanese-
imperial-armys-biological-warfare-program, November 23, 2005.
27
Ulitzky, S.Ya. The Struggle against Crime during the Patriotic War. Vladivostok, Far
28
Eastern University Publishing House, 2000 (in Russian).
29 Vance, Jonathan F. “Book Review of Sheldon H. Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese
30 Biological Warfare, 1932–1945, and the American Cover-up,” Canadian Bulletin of
31 Medical History/Bulletin canadien d’histoire de la médecine, 1995, 12, 2, 451–452.
32 Working, R. and Chernyakova, N. The Japanese Physicians – Crime and Punishment.
33 Vladivostok, 1058, December 10, 2001 (in Russian).
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2 Part II
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1
2 4 Data generated in Japan’s
3
4 biowarfare experiments
5
6
on human victims in China,
7 1932–1945, and the ethics of
8
9 using them
0
11 Till Bärnighausen
12
13 Introduction
14
In 1932, the Imperial Japanese Military leadership decided to set up an offensive
15
biological warfare (BW) program (cf. Leitenberg 2003; Tsuneishi 1986; chapters
16
1–3, this volume). Under the leadership of General Dr. Ishii Shiro,1 Japan’s
17
Kwantung Army built research centers to develop biological weapons in several
18
Chinese cities, including Beiyinhe, Harbin (Unit 731), Nanjing (Unit 1644), Beijing
19
(Unit 1855), Mengjiatun (Unit 100), and Guangzhou (Unit 8604). In these centers,
20
Japanese military scientists isolated viruses and bacteria that were thought to have
21
potential as biological weapons, studied the natural course of the diseases caused
22
by these pathogens, and attempted to increase pathogen lethality. They further tried
23
to develop vaccines to protect against infection with the pathogens and investigated
24
methods to produce the viruses and bacteria in large quantities and to disseminate
25
them through weapon systems. In many of these experiments, the Japanese
26
scientists used prisoners of war and other prisoners as experimental subjects. In
27
order to conduct such human experiments, the research centers – in particular Unit
28
731 in Harbin – had the functional capabilities of both concentration camps and
29
research laboratories. The victims of the human experiments were routinely killed,
30
autopsied, and incinerated in the crematories of the Japanese BW units. Estimates
31
of the number of victims killed by the units range from 3000 to tens of thousands
32
(see Bärnighausen 2002; Han and Xin 1991; Harris 1994).
33
The history of the BW units of the Japanese Army has been chronicled
34
elsewhere (Bärnighausen 2002; Han and Xin 1991; Williams and Wallace 1989).
35
Here, I will describe and discuss the human experiments of the Japanese military
36
scientists. The discussion of the relevance and scientific rigor of the experiments
37
and the existence of ethical research alternatives is not intended to relativize that
38
bestiality, but to inform the debate over whether or not the data obtained in the
39
experiments may ever be used for purposes other than historical documentation
40
and ethical condemnation. The technical characteristics of the Japanese experi­
41
ments will be used to discuss three ethical stances toward the use of unethically
42
obtained data: the “position of strict non-use” (unethically obtained data should
43
never be used under any circumstances), the “position of conditional use”
44
(unethically obtained data may be used in exceptional circumstances), and the
45
 82   Till Bärnighausen
1 “position of unrestricted use” (unethically obtained data may always be used
2 independent of the circumstances of its collection). This chapter draws on and
3 expands previous work by the author (Bärnighausen 2002, 2005, 2007).
4 Different types of sources give accounts of the human experiments of the
5 Japanese BW units (Bärnighausen 2002). A large number of documents written by
6 American Intelligence officers between 1945 and 1947 provide detailed and
7 scientifically exact descriptions of the human experiments (see, for instance,
8 Bacteriological Warfare Experiments by Japanese 1947; Hill and Victor 1947;
9 Thompson 1946). These descriptions were based on interviews with the Japanese
0 scientists who conducted the experiments (see Bärnighausen 2002 for a detailed
11 description of other publicly available sources on the experiments). The American
12 intelligence documents based on interviews with Japanese military scientists
13 provide the most comprehensive overview of the experiments conducted by the
14 Japanese BW units. Since the interviews were conducted to further the BW
15 knowledge of the American military, they contain detailed descriptions of the
16 questions pursued in the experiments, the methods employed, and the results
17 including data on the numbers of human subjects abused in the experiments,
18 dosages of the infectious agents, the modes of infection, symptoms, and mortality
19 rates. While the accounts are detailed and comprehensive, they lack information
20 that one would expect to find in primary sources. The primary trial protocols,
21 however, are not publicly available and it is unclear whether they still exist. It is
22 thus impossible to confirm the validity of the Japanese reports, in many cases
23 made years after the experiments were conducted. The Japanese military scientists
24 may have distorted their accounts of the human experiments, either to downplay
25 the bestiality of the experiments (in order to avoid prosecution) or to exaggerate
26 the importance of the findings (to increase the interest of the American scientists
27 in their research).
28 Examining the interview process and the content of the final rounds of
29 interviews (led by Dr. Edwin Hill and Dr. Joseph Victor), it seems unlikely that the
30 Japanese military researchers were trying to diminish the number of Chinese
31 prisoners they had abused and killed. On the contrary, the researchers stated
32 repeatedly that the human experimental victims died or “were sacrificed” during
33 and after the trial – when such a confession did not add any information of
34 scientific interest. For instance, Dr. Kitano Masaji and Dr. Kasahara Shiro, who
35 reported on their human experiments investigating the natural course of epidemic
36 hemorrhagic fever, state that the mortality among Japanese soldiers had been
37 reduced from 30 percent to 15 percent through treatment with intravenous
38 electrolytes, glucose, and insulin. The two researchers then state that “mortality in
39 experimental cases was 100% due to the procedure of sacrificing experimental
40 subjects” (“Songo – Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever, Interview with Shiro Kasahara
41 and Masaji Kitano” 1947: 42).
42 It seems more likely that some of the scientists exaggerated the success of their
43 experiments. For instance, Dr. Ishii clearly exaggerated the success of one of his
44 tetanus experiments. He stated that he infected 20 victims with Clostridium tetani
45 (or Bacillus tetani in the nomenclature of the time) and then gave them a tetanus
 Data from BW experiments in China   83
1 antitoxin that he had produced. Ishii claims that he was able to cure all 20 victims
2 of his experiment. In addition, he states that the serum was successful in curing
3 symptomatic tetanus in all 30 cases that had occurred among Japanese soldiers
4 (“Tetanus, Interview with Shiro Ishii” 1947: 51). Such a cure ratio is implausible.
5 Given today’s intensive care technology, including medication that did not exist at
6 the time, such as modern muscle relaxants, diazepam and beta-blockers, the
7 lethality of tetanus when treated with antiserum is about 20 percent to 30 percent
8 once symptoms have occurred (Stille 1992: 889–890). Thus, Dr. Ishii is likely to
9 have overstated the success of his treatment: “Serum therapy has effectively cured
0 100% of 50 cases” (“Tetanus, Interview with Shiro Ishii” 1947: 51). While we can
11 only speculate why Dr. Ishii exaggerated the success of the treatment, it seems
12 plausible that he intended to increase the value of the results of the experiments in
13 the eyes of his American interrogators.
14 While the accounts of the experiments clearly contain some exaggerations, it is
15 unlikely that such distortions were common. For one, the interviewers were medical
16 and biological scientists with extensive experience in BW research, and would thus
17 have questioned implausible claims made by the Japanese scientists. The
18 interviewers were Dr. Murray Sander (a microbiologist who had taught at the
19 College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University before joining
20 the Army where he conducted BW research at Fort Detrick, the BW research center
21 of the U.S. Army Medical Command), Lieutenant Dr. Arvo T. Thompson
22 (a veterinary physician and BW researcher at Fort Detrick), Dr. Norbert Fell
23 (a microbiologist and head of Planning and Pilot Engineering at Fort Detrick),
24 Dr. Edwin Hill (head of the Department of Basic Sciences at Fort Detrick), and
25 Dr. Joseph Victor (a pathologist at Fort Detrick). During the interviews, the
26 interviewers frequently probed statements by the Japanese scientists, but failed to
27 detect implausibility. Moreover, in a number of instances the Japanese army
28 scientists admitted freely that experiments had been failures when they could easily
29 have claimed success, which suggests that the accounts were truthful. For instance,
30 Masuda Tomosada, who researched vaccinations against bacterial dysentery,
31 describes a number of vaccination methods, but admits that none of them had
32 conferred any protection against the disease (“Report on Dysentery, Information by
33 Tomosada Masuda” 1947: 33). Thus, while some Japanese scientists are likely to
34 have misrepresented the success of their experiments (see Dr. Ishii’s reporting of
35 the results of his tetanus experiments above), others appear to have truthfully
36 reported their results. This inconsistency suggests that there was no concerted effort
37 by the Japanese scientists to exaggerate the success of their experiments in order to
38 increase the perceived value of the information they shared with the American
39 interrogators, even though individual scientists may have tried to do so.
40 The bestiality of artificially infecting human beings against their will with
41 disease pathogens and killing them in the course of the experiments is self-evident.
42 Of course, from a pacifist position rejecting any development of weapons to harm
43 or kill people, the experiments conducted by the Japanese military scientists could
44 never have been ethically justified, even if human beings had not been brutally
45 victimized in the course of the experiments. While the Japanese researchers did
 84   Till Bärnighausen
1 not succeed in developing a biological weapon that could be applied on a large
2 scale, based on a range of sources (Chinese reports, testimonies during the
3 Khabarovsk war crime trials, and U.S. military intelligence reports), it is clear that
4 the Japanese Army did conduct a number of attacks in China (Deng 1965; Han and
5 Yin 1986; “Intelligence Research Project No. 2263” 1945; “Japanese BW Units,
6 Water Purification Units” 1944; Jia 1985; Jiang 1983; Lou 1987; Materials 1950;
7 Shi 1985; Sun and Ni Weixiong 1984; Tang and Cheng 1985; G. Wang 1985; Z.
8 Wang 1984; Williams and Wallace 1989). Table 4.1 summarizes the BW attacks
9 that the Japanese Army is reported to have carried out in China between 1939
0 and 1944.
11
12
Technicalities: relevance, rigor, and research alternatives
13
14 Technical analyses play an important role in the debate on the ethics of using data
15 generated in inhumane experiments (Berger 1990). The question whether data
16 from an experiment should be used will arise only if the experiment was relevant
17 (i.e., it investigated a research question that had not already been answered in
18 previous studies and it had at least two outcomes that could plausibly occur) and
19 conducted rigorously (i.e., it was executed such that the data it generated are both
20 reliable and valid).
21 The question of ethical research alternatives to unethical experiments is
22 important in the debate on the ethics of using unethically generated data because
23 the benefits of using such data will differ substantially depending on whether
24 ethical alternatives exist. If ethical alternatives do exist, the only benefits that can
25 possibly arise from the use of the unethically obtained data are cost savings
26 because ethical research to replace the unethical experiments does not need to be
27 conducted. If, on the other hand, ethical alternatives do not exist, the benefits of
28 using the unethically obtained data will be as high as the value of the information
29 they contain (which could, for instance, be a life-saving treatment). The value of
30 data will not influence the decision whether it should be permissible to use
31 information generated in an unethical experiment, if decision makers adhere either
32 to the “position of strict non-use” or the “position of unrestricted use.” Yet,
33 decision makers adhering to the “position of conditional use” are likely to take the
34 value of the unethically obtained data into account in their evaluation of the ethics
35 of data use.
36
37
Relevance
38
39 Many of the human experiments conducted by Unit 731 were not relevant because
40 they investigated research hypotheses that had either already been proven to be true
41 or were highly implausible. Irrelevant experiments included trials investigating the
42 nature and effects of typhoid, paratyphoid, cholera, bacterial dysentery, smallpox,
43 botulism, gas gangrene, tularemia, plague, anthrax, epidemic typhus, glanders,
44 tuberculosis, brucellosis, and epidemic hemorrhagic fever. This is illustrated in the
45 following paragraphs.
0
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

45
44
43
42
41
40
39
38
37
36
35
34
33
32
31
30
29
28
27
26
25
24
23
22
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
Table 4.1  BW attacks Japanese BW troops are reported to have carried out in China, 1939–1944

Date Place Diseases Dissemination mode

July, August 1939 Western bank of the Hailar River Typhoid, paratyphoid, Bacterial suspension introduced into the rivers
bacterial dysentery
Summer 1939 Western bank of the Hailar River Anthrax Bullets coated with Bacillus anthracis
June 1940 Ningbo, Zhejiang Province Typhoid, cholera Bacterial suspensions introduced into rivers and lakes
July 1940 Xinwu, Heilongjiang Province Cholera Bacterial suspensions introduced into rivers and lakes
October 1940 Zhuxian, Zhejiang Province Plague Rice and wheat grains coated with Yersinia pestis and
infected with Yersinia pestis dropped from airplanes
October 1940 Ningbo, Zhejiang Province Plague Wheat grains coated with Yersinia pestis dropped from
airplanes
November 1940 Xinhua, Zhejiang Province Plague Wheat grains coated with Yersinia pestis dropped from
airplanes
December 1940 Shangyu, Zhejiang Province Plague Yersinia pestis disseminated from airplanes
December 1940 Tangxi, Zhejiang Province Plague Yersinia pestis disseminated from airplanes
Spring 1941 Changde, Hunan Province Plague Cotton balls contaminated with Yersinia pestis
dropped from airplanes
April 1941 Xindeng, Hunan Province Plague Rice grains, wheat grains, and paper shavings
contaminated with Yersinia pestis dropped from
airplanes
November 1941 Changde, Hunan Province Plague Cotton balls contaminated with Yersinia pestis
dropped from airplanes
December 1941 Zhuji, Zhejiang Province Plague Cotton and cloth balls contaminated with Yersinia
pestis dropped from airplanes
(continued)
0
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

45
44
43
42
41
40
39
38
37
36
35
34
33
32
31
30
29
28
27
26
25
24
23
22
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
Table 4.1  (continued)

Date Place Diseases Dissemination mode

1942 Ningshan, Suiyuan, Plague Rodents infected with Yersinia pestis released
Shanxi Province
1942 Wuji, Shanzi, Hebei Province Plague Mice infected with Yersinia pestis released
May 1942 Jiangxi Province Typhoid Dropped from airplanes
May 1942 Shangxiao, Zhejiang Province Typhoid, cholera, Dropped from airplanes
bacterial dysentery
August 1942 Nanyang, Hunan Province Plague Grains coated with Yersinia pestis dropped from
airplanes
August 1942 Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province Anthrax, typhoid, N/A
paratyphoid, cholera,
bacterial dysentery
September 1942 N/A Typhoid, paratyphoid Bacterial suspensions injected mantou (Chinese
dumplings) distributed to Chinese prisoners of war
before release from prison
Winter 1942 Yi’an, Heilongjiang Province Plague Fleas infected with Yersinia pestis released
November 1943 Changde, Hunan Province Cholera Dropped from airplanes
August 1944 N/A Plague Mice infected with Yersinia pestis released

Note
BW = biological warfare, N/A = not available.
 Data from BW experiments in China   87
1 Examples of irrelevant experiments with research hypotheses
2 that had already been proven to be true
3
Dr. Ishii conducted the following smallpox experiment. He opened the skin
4
vesicles of patients with smallpox, dried the vesicle content, and forced 10 human
5
beings to inhale the dried substance. All 10 victims fell ill. They developed “large
6
geographically shaped erythematous, swollen and hemorrhagic areas on the body
7
measuring up to 20–30 cm [centimeters] in greatest dimension.” None of the
8
victims of the experiment developed vesicles. According to Dr. Ishii, “[a]bout four
9
died” due to the disease (“Smallpox, Interview with Dr. Shiro Ishii” 1947: 50). No
0
relevant research question could have been answered with the experiment. The
11
mode of transmission of smallpox (via droplet infection) as well as the clinical
12
appearance and incubation period were well known at the time (Zimmermann
13
1940: 157–158). The fact that the content of smallpox vesicles was infectious had
14
been proven 1500 years before in China. The early Chinese scientists had drawn
15
fluid from the pustules of patients with smallpox and had introduced the fluid into
16
the nose cavities of healthy human beings. The healthy humans fell ill with a mild
17
form of smallpox disease and were subsequently vaccinated against the disease
18
(Zeiss and Rodenwaldt 1943: 242).
19
An experiment with Francisella tularensis was similarly irrelevant:
20
“Experiments in M were conducted with 10 subjects who were injected s.c.
21
[subcutaneously]. All developed fever lasting as long as 6 months” (“Tularemia,
22
Interview with Dr. Shiro Ishii” 1947: 54). The mode of infection of tularemia and
23
the symptoms of the disease were well known at the time.
24
Dr. Tabei Kanau, a former member of Unit 731, described another human
25
experiment (with Salmonella paratyphi A (stem Kurokawa)) that could not have
26
been expected to – and indeed did not – produce any research finding of value,
27
because the symptoms of paratyphoid, the mode of infection, and the fact that
28
during fever salmonella bacteria may be found in blood and stool samples were
29
general medical knowledge at the time (Zeiss and Rosenwaldt 1943):
30
31
32 Experiments in M:
33 30 mgm [milligram mass] wet weight were fed in 100 cc [cubic centimeter]
34 8% sucrose. After an incubation period of 3–6 days, fever and diarrhea
35 appeared lasting five days. Blood and stools are positive during fever and
36 stools remain positive for 7 days after fever subsided. The symptoms may
37 recur over many months.
38 The disease was highly contagious. When a patient was placed in a room
39 with 3 normal people, the others invariably contracted the disease.
40 (“Paratyphoid, Interview with Dr. Tabei” 1947: 31)
41
42 Another reason for irrelevant experiments was the lack of coordination between
43 the different research groups of Unit 731. Three experiments concerning
44 brucellosis are a case in point. Dr. Ishii conducted the following infection
45 experiment with Brucella melitensis: “Experiments in M were carried out by the
 88   Till Bärnighausen
1 subcutaneous injection of more than 20 subjects. Does not remember the result of
2 such experiments except that undulant fever followed injection and persisted for
3 many months” (Brucellosis, Interview with Dr. Shiro Ishii 1947: 10).
4 Dr. Hayakawa, on the other hand, undertook the following Brucellosis infection
5 experiment:
6
7 A subject was injected s.c. with 0.01 mgm of B. melitensis. After an incubation
8 period of between 2–3 weeks, undulant fever appeared. With the fever, blood
9 cultures became positive. The subject was followed for 6 months and had
0 fever episodes throughout that period.
11 (“Brucellosis, Interview with Dr. Kiyoshi Hayakawa” 1947: 11)
12
13 Finally, Dr. Yamanouchi injected 10 healthy human beings subcutaneously with
14 different doses of Brucella melitensis (ranging from 0.05 to 5.0 milligram bacteria
15 solution). All of the victims exposed to doses above 0.1 milligram contracted
16 Malta fever, while only half of the patients who had been exposed to doses between
17 0.05 and 0.1 milligram fell ill. In all victims, the Brucella melitensis agglutinin
18 titer rose to levels of about 1/10,000 following exposure (“Brucellosis, Interview
19 with Dr. Yujiro Yamanouchi” 1947: 12).
20 If Dr. Yamaonouchi, who intended to determine the dosis infectiosa minima
21 with his experiment, had known of the results of Hayakawa’s experiment, he would
22 have used lower doses in his trial. Dr. Hayakawa had succeeded in infecting an
23 experimental victim with a dose that was one-fifth of the lowest dose used in
24 Dr. Yamanouchi’s experiment (“Brucellosis, Interview with Dr. Kiyoshi Hayakawa”
25 1947: 11). On the other hand, Dr. Ishii’s experiment (in which 20 human beings
26 were killed) could not have been expected to lead to any result that could not also
27 have been obtained through Dr. Yamanouchi’s experiment.
28
29
Examples of irrelevant experiments with highly implausible hypotheses
30
31 In order to test the infectiousness of different viruses and bacteria when they were
32 suspended in aerosols, a 26-cubic-meter large gas chamber was built on the
33 premises of Unit 731 (“Aerosols, Interview with Dr. Takahashi” 1947: 6). Bacteria
34 and virus aerosols could be generated within the chamber or blown into the
35 chamber through rubber tubes (“Aerosols, Interview with Dr. Takahashi” 1947: 6;
36 Morimura 1985: 144). Researchers of Unit 731 investigated whether and in what
37 doses the following diseases could be transmitted via inhalation of aerosols of the
38 causative agents of the following diseases: plague, anthrax, epidemic typhus,
39 glanders, smallpox, tuberculosis, bacterial dysentery, typhoid, brucellosis, gas
40 gangrene, cholera, and epidemic hemorrhagic fever. For instance, Dr. Tabei
41 exposed five people in the gas chamber for 10 minutes to an aerosol suspension of
42 Salmonella typhi (or Bacillus typhosus in the nomenclature of the time). None of
43 the victims developed any symptoms of typhoid, but all of them suffered from a
44 heavy cough with sputum as well as malaise and headaches (“Aerosols, Interview
45 with Dr. Takahashi” 1947: 6–7). At the time, it was well known that plague,
 Data from BW experiments in China   89
1 anthrax, smallpox, glanders, and tuberculosis were commonly transmitted via the
2 airways, while epidemic typhus and brucellosis are rarely transmitted through
3 inhalation of the causative agents. Finally, bacterial dysentery, gas gangrene, and
4 typhoid cannot – as was well established – be transmitted through inhalation
5 (Zinsser and Bayne-Jones 1939). Of the aerosol experiments with the pathogens
6 causing the 12 diseases listed above, only the experiments with cholera bacteria
7 tested an uncertain, plausible mode of infection. From 1914 to 1930, Professor
8 Trillat from the Institute Pasteur in Paris had shown in a series of experiments that
9 – given a certain ambient pressure, temperature, air velocity, and humidity –
0 chickens could be infected with cholera through inhalation of the bacterium, while
11 such infections in human beings had not been described (Hojo 1941: 19).2
12 It is likely that the Japanese military scientists conducted the above infection
13 experiments in order to discover routes of infection which do not occur in nature
14 (for instance, because naturally occurring doses are too low). Such new infection
15 routes may have been used to construct weapon systems to deliver the BW agents.
16 As we shall see, however, the Japanese scientists must have realized that many of
17 their infection experiments could not reasonably be expected to yield any results
18 relevant to their purpose of developing effective biological weapons.
19
20
Rigor
21
22 The Japanese military scientists conducted many experiments which lacked
23 scientific rigor. For instance, Dr. Ikeda started to investigate the mode of
24 transmission of epidemic hemorrhagic fever in January 1941 in the following
25 experiment. He collected fleas and lice in an area in Manchuria in which epidemic
26 hemorrhagic fever was endemic. He then let the fleas and lice suck blood from
27 patients who had contracted the disease and placed the insects on the skin of
28 healthy human victims. Two weeks after the exposure, a few of the victims showed
29 symptoms of hemorrhagic fever. The experiment was of doubtful rigor because all
30 experimental victims came from the area in Manchuria in which the fleas and lice
31 had been collected, i.e., from an area in which the disease was endemic. Since the
32 incubation period of epidemic hemorrhagic fever is 12 to 24 days it cannot be
33 decided whether those victims of the experiment who showed signs of the disease
34 had been infected by the exposure to the fleas or lice or had been previously
35 infected via another, naturally occurring mode of infection (Tsuneishi 1986: 91).
36 Another example of an experiment of questionable scientific rigor is a study
37 conducted by Dr. Kasahara and Dr. Kitano. The two scientists attempted to test the
38 hypothesis of whether mites transmit epidemic hemorrhagic fever:
39
40 203 mites picked from field mice in that area were emulsified in 2 cc saline
41 and injected s.c. in one man with positive results. Another emulsion
42 containing 60 mites produced no effect in another subject. In this way, the
43 subsequent human material was derived from the first case subject who had
44 been injected with 203 mites. In general, the incubation period was between
45 2 and 3 weeks. Blood from the first experimental case was drawn during fever
 90   Till Bärnighausen
1 20 days after injection of the mites. 10 cc were injected into a 3rd man as well
2 as into white mice and monkeys. Subsequent cases were produced either by
3 blood or blood free extracts of liver, spleen or kidney derived from individuals
4 sacrificed at various times during the course of the disease. Morphine was
5 employed for this purpose.
6 (“Songo – Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever, Interview with
7 Shiro Kasahara and Masaji Kitano” 1947: 42–43)
8
9 Drs. Kasahara and Kitano concluded that mice transmit epidemic hemorrhagic
0 fever. This conclusion, however, does not follow from the results of the experiment.
11 Since a completely artificial route of infection had been chosen, the result can only
12 validly indicate that mice carry the virus but not that they transmit it to humans. In
13 spite of the invalidity of their conclusions, Dr. Kasahara and Dr. Kitano were able
14 to publish part of the results of their human experiments. In their publication they
15 hid the fact that they had used humans in the experiments by claiming they had
16 used monkeys (Kasahara and Kitano 1943). Although the Japanese military
17 scientists must have expected that the value of their publication would be lessened
18 if they did not give details about age, gender, weight, and so on of their “laboratory
19 animals,” they stated simply that they had used “Monkeys,” “Formosa monkeys,”
20 and “Longtail monkeys” (Tsuneishi 1986: 88–89; Wang 1987: 27–28). The
21 description of their experiment in the 1944 publication is strikingly similar to
22 the description they gave Dr. Hill and Dr. Victor (see above) – however, the word
23 “man” was replaced by the word “monkey” (Tsuneishi 1986: 90).
24
25
Research alternatives
26
27
Examples of relevant experiments with ethical research
28
alternatives involving human beings
29
30 A number of experiments conducted by Unit 731 had relevant hypotheses but
31 could have been undertaken without relying on forced human participation. For
32 instance, tests to demonstrate whether or not a typhoid immunization was effective
33 could have been conducted by comparing the naturally occurring incidence rates
34 in a group of immunized people with incidence rates in a non-immunized control
35 group. Instead, scientists under the leadership of Dr. Tabei of Unit 731 conducted
36 the following three immunization experiments. First, 15 Chinese prisoners of war
37 were given one of three immunizations, which had been developed at different
38 locations in the Japanese empire (in Dalian, in the Kitasato Laboratory in Tokyo,
39 and at the Medical University of the Army). The 15 prisoners as well as 15
40 further victims who had been assigned to a control group were each made to
41 swallow 100 milligrams of typhoid bacteria. Most of the victims contracted
42 typhoid; two died of the disease; one committed suicide. According to Tabei
43 the experiment had been a failure, because none of the immunizations had
44 conferred protection (“Typhoid, Interview with Dr. Tabei” 1947: 56). Second,
45 a similar experiment in which 13 immunized and 13 non-immunized prisoners
 Data from BW experiments in China   91
1 were each given a dose of 150 milligrams of typhoid bacteria had a more suc
2 cessful outcome. Five of the immunized, but 12 of the non-immunized prisoners
3 contracted the disease (“Naval Aspects of Biological Warfare” 1947: 56). Third,
4 during the war criminal trials at Khabarovsk, one of the Japanese witnesses who
5 had worked for Tabei’s group described the following typhoid experiment at which
6 he had assisted (in 1943). In the experiment, 50 men were given different
7 “preventive inoculations” and were then forced to drink “water contaminated with
8 typhoid germs” (The Khabarovsk Trial 1950: 356–357). In total, 217 people are
9 reported to have been killed in typhoid experiments which could have been
0 replaced by ethical research.
11
12
Examples of relevant experiments with ethical
13
research alternatives involving animals
14
15 Another type of experiment with ethical research alternatives were studies testing
16 the infectiousness of fluids or viral cultures. Many of these experiments could
17 have been replaced by animal studies, because it was known at the time that certain
18 animals could contract the disease under investigation. For instance, Kasahara and
19 Kitano did not need to use human victims in their studies of the infectiousness of
20 the agent causing epidemic hemorrhagic fever (carried out between 1939 and
21 1945), because Japanese scientists had already discovered that monkeys as well as
22 rabbits and horses could be infected with the agent (“Songo – Epidemic
23 Hemorrhagic Fever, Interview with Shiro Kasahara and Masaji Kitano” 1947: 42,
24 44). Bärnighausen (2002) describes six types of human experiments on the
25 infectivity of epidemic hemorrhagic fever that could have been replaced by animal
26 studies. Kasahara and Kitano reported that they killed more than 100 human
27 beings in these experiments.
28 For instance, the two scientists showed that liver and spleen tissue emulsions of
29 people whom they had infected with the pathogen causing epidemic hemorrhagic
30 fever could infect healthy humans only if the organs were obtained during the
31 fever phase of the disease. For this purpose, they killed seven people whom they
32 had infected during the fever phase and compared the infectiousness of their tissue
33 emulsions with the infectiousness of tissue emulsions of artificially infected
34 victims who had died – as Hill and Victor word it in their report – of a “natural
35 death” (“Songo – Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever, Interview with Shiro Kasahara
36 and Masaji Kitano” 1947: 43).
37
38
The ethics of using of unethically obtained data
39
40 The question of whether unethically obtained data may ever be used for scientific
41 purposes has been discussed with regard to the bestial experiments conducted by
42 Nazi doctors on Jewish and Gypsy victims in the concentration camps at Dachau,
43 Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. The negative consequences of any
44 use other than to expose and condemn a “medicine without humaneness”
45 (Mitscherlich and Mielke 1995) include the following:
 92   Till Bärnighausen
1 • Using the data means forgoing an opportunity to build – in the explicit
2 non-use of the data – a symbolic memorial to the victims of the barbaric
3 experiments. Data use is like “building on top of Auschwitz” (Mostow
4 1993–1994).
5 • Using the data violates the rights of the victims many times over again (Post
6 1991; Sheldon and Whitely 1989). Using the data derived from the victims’
7 sufferings renders the data user – in an act of moral complicity – the torturer
8 of the victims (Cohen 1990).
9 • Using the data implies that the humans who were abused and killed in the
0 experiments were “physiological entities” and not human beings. Data use
11 thus would keep alive a “philosophy” that the value of human beings differs
12 (Pozos 2003).
13 • The data belong to the victims; only they can give us permission for its use
14 (Post 1988).
15 • Data use may relativize crimes against humanity and honor the perpetrators,
16 because some good has been gleaned from horrendous deeds (Gaylin 1989;
17 Weitzman 1990).
18 • Data use may signal to future scientists that immoral research is, in fact,
19 rewarded with citation and reference (even if the ethics of the research are
20 simultaneously condemned) (Angell 1990; Schafer 1986).
21 • Data use would corrupt the institution of medicine itself (Beecher 1966). It
22 would undermine medicine’s public legitimacy by signaling to society that
23 science cares about knowledge above anything else (Post 1991). In fact,
24 knowledge “may be less important to decent society than the way it was
25 obtained” (Angell 1990).
26
27 Three ethical positions have evolved on the use of unethically obtained data. First,
28 a “position of strict non-use” holds that unethically obtained data should never be
29 used because the negative consequences of such use always outweigh any good
30 that could be salvaged from data use under any circumstances (Angell 1990;
31 Beecher 1966; Gaylin 1989; Post 1991). Second, a “position of conditional use”
32 allows that unethically obtained data may be used in exceptional circumstances
33 (e.g., a cure for an otherwise incurable disease is contained in the data) given that
34 certain conditions are met (e.g., the means by which the data were obtained is
35 condemned in any publication of the data) (Moe 1989; Neter 1980; Post 1991;
36 Sheldon and Whitely 1989). Third, a “position of unrestricted use” states that data
37 of scientific value should always be available to be used because there are no
38 absolute ethics and each potential user should decide for him- or herself whether
39 data use can be justified. This position requires that publication of the data is
40 always accompanied by detailed accounts of the research methods used to generate
41 the data, so that the reader can make an informed decision on the ethics of data
42 use (Singer 1980).
43 Even proponents of the “position of unrestricted use” would never consider using
44 a large proportion of the data obtained in the experiments by the Japanese BW units
45 because the research was irrelevant (e.g., smallpox, botulism, paratyphoid, and
 Data from BW experiments in China   93
1 brucellosis infection experiments), or the data generated were unreliable or invalid
2 (e.g., infection experiments with the epidemic hemorrhagic fever virus). Proponents
3 of a “position of conditional use” would likely extend the non-use of the Japanese
4 data to results from those experiments for which ethical research alternatives existed
5 (e.g., typhoid vaccination experiments and infection experiments with epidemic
6 hemorrhagic virus). For instance, one type of “position of conditional use” requires
7 that, first, the scientific value of the data is unquestionable; second, publication or
8 citation is accompanied by a strong ethical condemnation of the means by which
9 the data were obtained; and, third, there is no alternative source of information
0 (Moe 1989). In many cases, technical analyses thus obviate the need for an ethical
11 decision on the use of data from some of the inhumane Japanese experiments.
12 However, among the known Japanese experiments, examples exist which require an
13 ethical decision because they generated data that – judging from all publicly
14 available evidence – may be valid and could not be generated through ethical
15 research methods. Such experiments include tuberculosis vaccination trials, studies
16 with mustard gas, and experiments investigating the effects of extreme cold on
17 human beings. These three examples will be analyzed below.
18
19
Examples of relevant experiments without ethical alternatives:
20
tuberculosis vaccination experiments
21
22 Dr. Futagi Hideo, who conducted tuberculosis vaccination experiments while a
23 member of Unit 731, summarized the results of his research to the American BW
24 experts Hill and Victor as follows:
25
26 1 “Comparison of reaction of tuberculin positive and negative individuals to
27 inhalation of 1 mgm Cl. tuberculosis hominis revealed significant differences
28 in the clinical course without x-ray changes.”
29 2 “Tuberculin positive individuals were more resistant to infection by inhalation
30 of these bacteria.”
31 3 After inhalation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis “Tuberculin negative cases
32 developed positive tuberculin reaction just before bacteria appeared in
33 sputum. Blood cultures were negative in both series.”
34 4 “In tuberculin positive subjects, Cl. tuberculosis hominis was much more
35 virulent than BCG (bovine) when injected i.v. [intravenously].”
36 5 “BCG produced miliary tuberculosis when injected i.v.”
37 6 “Intravenous Cl. tuberculosis hominis was less severe clinically, but had
38 greater mortality in tuberculin negative than in tuberculin positive individuals.
39 It produced miliary tuberculosis. The tuberculin reaction became positive in
40 tuberculin negative cases.”
41 7 “Cl. tuberculosis hominis produced chronic, progressive inflammation lasting
42 more than 6 months when injected i.c. [intracutaneously] in tuberculin
43 positive individuals. B.C.G. results in similar but less severe infection of
44 shorter duration.”
45 (“Tuberculosis, Interview with Dr. Hideo Futagi” 1947: 61–64)
 94   Till Bärnighausen
1 During World War II, different scientific teams attempted to determine the degree
2 to which a positive tuberculin test would protect from tuberculosis; whether or not
3 a vaccination with Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) conferred protection and how
4 harmful it could be; and which application mode of BCG should be employed in
5 order to minimize harm to patients (Zeiss and Rodenwaldt 1943: 176–178; Zinsser
6 and Bayne-Jones 1939: 454–455). Dr. Futagi’s experiments were thus relevant
7 given the knowledge of the time. The tuberculosis vaccination experiments were
8 likely to have been reliable, as may be judged from Dr. Futagi’s descriptions in the
9 Hill and Victor document. Finally, had Dr. Futagi restricted his research to the
0 investigation of naturally occurring cases rather than abusing humans against their
11 will in the experiments, he would not have been able to realistically obtain the
12 above results. A standard textbook of hygiene and infectious diseases of the time
13 summarizes the difficulty of tuberculosis research as follows (after posing
14 the question whether the BCG vaccination confers any protection at all): “As with
15 all questions relating to tuberculosis, only observation over decades and sound
16 statistics may bring clarification” (Zeiss and Rodenwaldt 1943: 178). Dr. Futagi’s
17 ethically reprehensible human experiments (as in all experiments of Unit 731, all
18 human subjects were eventually killed) had an advantage over ethical experiments
19 addressing the same questions in that they reduced the length of time needed to
20 obtain meaningful results. From a practical perspective, ethical experiments were
21 virtually impossible to complete, while Futagi’s experiments could be easily
22 completed in a comparatively short period of time. In addition, the experiments
23 enabled the researchers to derive results that were far more detailed and powerful
24 than could have been obtained in ethical research, because the mode of infection
25 and the exposure doses were controlled. The benefits to society derived from the
26 results of the inhumane tuberculosis experiments might have been quite large,
27 because the research was relevant to finding effective protection against a common,
28 highly burdensome, and potentially deadly infectious disease.
29
30
Examples of relevant experiments without ethical alternatives:
31
mustard gas experiments
32
33 A second example of research conducted by members of Unit 731, which was
34 relevant, likely sufficiently rigorous, and not reproducible with ethical research
35 methods are the experiments with mustard gas. In September 1940, members of
36 Unit 731 chained 16 human beings to poles in an open-air experimentation field
37 close to Harbin. The experimentation field was divided into three areas.
38 Experimental victims in the first area wore “no caps, no masks, regular cloths,
39 underwear, and slippers”; the victims in the second and third area wore “army
40 trousers”; and those in the third area also wore gas masks. After the “objects” had
41 been chained to the poles, Japanese soldiers attacked the field with mustard
42 gas bombs using canons and grenade throwers. “The shooting time lasted for
43 40 minutes: 15 minutes of shooting, 15 minutes break, 10 minutes shooting.”
44 Next, the experimental victims were unchained and transported back to the prisons
45 of Unit 731, so that military physicians could examine their health status.
 Data from BW experiments in China   95
1 Laboratory examinations added information on the health effects of mustard
2 gas attacks. For instance, the scientists examined the fluid from the blisters that
3 had formed on the skin of the victims 12 hours after the attack and found that on
4 average one milliliter of fluid contained 20–50 cells, 52.9 percent of which were
5 polymorpho-nuclear leucocytes, 41.2 percent were lymphocytes, and 5.9 percent
6 monocytes (Matsumara 1986: 49). The scientists then conducted a number of
7 follow-up experiments. For instance, they injected fluid from the blisters on the
8 skin of the initial victims into the skin on the upper arms or the corneas of
9 additional victims in order to investigate whether the fluid had poisonous
0 properties.
11 The results of the mustard gas experiments were not only relevant for the design
12 of offensive chemical weapons, but also for the treatment of victims of attacks
13 with such weapons. Judging from the publicly available data, the experiments
14 yielded meticulous descriptions of the clinical symptoms and laboratory
15 parameters at frequent intervals after attacks with chemical weapons that had been
16 carried out under controlled conditions. Obviously, such experiments can never be
17 conducted ethically.
18
19
Examples of relevant experiments without ethical alternatives:
20
frost bite experiments
21
22 Another type of relevant and rigorous research without ethical alternatives is the
23 freezing experiments conducted by a research group under Dr. Yoshimura Hisato
24 at Unit 731. These experiments were of incredible cruelty. The scientists forced
25 prisoners to stand motionless for 20 to 30 minutes in a –30 to –40 degrees Celsius
26 environment, while exposing a naked finger, hand, foot, arm, leg, nose, or scrotum
27 to the cold (Han 1986: 20–21). The scientists used a ventilator to generate air
28 currents of different velocities in order to accelerate the freezing process (Han
29 1986: 20–21; Morimura 1985: 103).
30 Starting in 1943, Dr. Yoshimura conducted cold experiments in a special
31 laboratory building on the premises of Unit 731. The laboratory allowed the
32 scientists to keep experimental conditions (such as temperature) constant and to
33 conduct freezing experiments throughout the year (Cao 1951: 10–11; Han and Xin
34 1991: 116; Morimura 1985: 103). Despite the immense cruelty of the experiments,
35 Yoshimura and his colleagues were able to publish some of their data in the
36 English-language Japanese Journal of Physiology after presenting them at the
37 21st (in 1942), 22nd (in 1943), and 25th (in 1948) meeting of the Japanese
38 Physiological Society (Yoshimura and Iida 1952a, 1952b, 1952c).
39 In these publications, the scientists do not explicitly mention some of the most
40 inhumane aspects of their experiments, namely that all of the experimental subjects
41 were forced against their will to participate and were killed following completion
42 of the studies. However, those who read the article should have been highly
43 suspicious of the nature of the experiments. For one, the trial participants were
44 “Chinese coolies” and “Chinese pupils,” while the researchers were Japanese,
45 and the experiments had been conducted during the Second Sino-Japanese War
 96   Till Bärnighausen
1 and World War II, when Japan had invaded large parts of northeastern China.
2 Moreover, the participants included children under 15 years of age and a baby
3 (Yoshimura and Iida 1952b: 177–178):
4
5 The temperature reaction in ice-water was examined on about 100 Chinese
6 coolies from 15 to 74 years old and on about 20 Chinese pupils of 7 to
7 14 years. . . . The maximum reactivity was found at the ages of 25 to 29 years,
8 and, as the age became younger and older, the reactivity generally decreased
9 more and more, except that in childhood it was higher than in puberty. Thus
0 the general aspect of change of reactivity with age was similar to that of the
11 other physiological functions. Though detailed studies could not be attained
12 on children below 6 years of age, some observations were carried out on a
13 baby. As is seen in fig. 2, the reaction was detected even on the 3rd day after
14 birth, and it increased rapidly with the lapse of days until at last it was nearly
15 fixed after a month or so.
16
17 A number of later studies cite the three articles published by Yoshimura and
18 colleagues in 1952 (Bridgman 1991; Hirai et al. 1968; Konda et al. 1981; Miura
19 et al. 1977; Nelms and Soper 1962; Sawada et al. 2000; Spurr et al. 1955; Tanaka
20 1971a, 1971b). The authors of these articles and other medically trained readers
21 would have realized that the experiments had caused the participants considerable
22 pain. During the experiments, the middle finger, the whole hand, the toe, or lower
23 leg of a victim was immersed into water of 0 degrees Celsius for either 30 or
24 60 minutes. The water was regularly stirred in order to maintain 0 degrees around
25 the immersed body part and the skin temperature of the body part was measured
26 every minute. The temperature curves show a fall from normal body temperature
27 to around 5 degrees Celsius in the first 10 minutes and then an oscillation around
28 5 degrees Celsius for the remainder of the experiment (i.e., up to either 30 or
29 60 minutes). Exposure to such temperatures for these lengths of time causes
30 enormous pain. Indeed, Sawada Shinichi, Araki Shunichi, and Yokoyama Kazuhito
31 (2000: 85) describe the pain caused by Yoshimura’s procedure as follows:
32
33 As mentioned above, Yoshimura et al. proposed a local cold tolerance test,
34 because the CIVD [cold-induced vasodilation] reactivity is closely related
35 to an individual’s frostbite resistance. This test method has, however, consisted
36 of 30-min immersion of fingers in ice water (0 ° C [Celsius]). Under this test
37 condition, most of the participants have tended to feel much pain and distress,
38 and some have either fainted or had to withdraw prematurely from the
39 experiment. We, therefore, previously proposed a simplified and less painful
40 test for evaluating local cold tolerance as a substitute for Yoshimura’s
41 method.
42
43 Unlike follow-up studies, which used Yoshimura’s local cold tolerance test, not
44 one participant withdrew from the original study, suggesting that the participants
45 did not have the choice to withdraw.
 Data from BW experiments in China   97
1 Some of the results of the experiments described in the three 1952 articles by
2 Yoshimura and colleagues were relevant for medical practice. The reported effects
3 of environmental factors (such as wind velocity or humidity) and individual
4 factors (such as diet or sleep) on resistance to extreme cold could help to minimize
5 cold-related injury. The experiments may also have been conducted reliably. The
6 Japanese military scientists meticulously recorded the temperatures of each of the
7 victims and controlled a large number of individual and environmental factors that
8 are known to influence resistance to cold. Further, no research alternative existed
9 for the experiments. In addition to the extreme pain experienced by the individuals
0 forced to participate in the experiments, some of the victims suffered vasospasms
11 that can completely block the blood supply to the affected body parts, causing
12 necroses (Ulmer 1997: 721) – an unacceptable consequence in ethically conducted
13 research.
14 As the examples of the tuberculosis vaccination, mustard gas, and freezing
15 experiments show, at least some of the data generated by Unit 731 may be
16 considered for publication or use by proponents of a “position of conditional use.”
17 Certainly, the information contained in the data is not sufficient to fully establish
18 reliability. For instance, no information on the victims’ weight, body fat, health
19 status, current medication, or smoking history – all of which may influence cold
20 resistance – is provided in the published articles. However, since the publicly
21 available data on the freezing experiments are only secondary data, it cannot
22 be ruled out that such information does in fact exist in the primary sources.
23 In addition, even if the Japanese scientists had not documented some factors,
24 the relevant information could possibly be inferred or generated from other
25 sources.
26 The uncertainty about the existence of data that is not yet publicly available
27 renders the case of Unit 731 more complex than other cases of unethically obtained
28 data that have been discussed in the literature. The publicly available data are
29 sufficient to evaluate some of the experiments as certainly irrelevant, unreliable,
30 or reproducible with ethical experiments. For other experiments, it may be
31 established that the research question pursued was relevant and that no ethical
32 research could replicate the barbaric human experiments. While some doubt might
33 remain about the reliability of this subset of experiments, it cannot be ruled out
34 that they were conducted with sufficient scientific rigor to generate valid results.
35 In this context, it is important to know that Hill and Victor as well as the State–
36 War–Navy Coordinating Subcommittee for the Far East (SWNCC) evaluated the
37 data they had obtained from the Japanese military scientists as highly valuable.
38 For instance, Hill and Victor (1947: 5) write:
39
40 Evidence gathered in this investigation has greatly supplemented and
41 amplified previous aspects of this field. It represents data that have been
42 obtained by Japanese scientists at the expenditure of many millions of
43 dollars and years of work. . . . These data were secured with a total outlay of
44 ¥ 250,000 to date, a mere pittance by comparison with the actual cost of the
45 studies.
 98   Till Bärnighausen
1 In their evaluation, Hill and Victor stress the fact that the experiments could not be
2 replicated in the United States: “Such information could not be obtained in our
3 own laboratories because of scruples attached to human experimentation” (Hill
4 and Victor 1947: 5).
5 The SWNCC, in turn, implicitly attributes value to the data in proposing a
6 rationale for why Russian prosecutors, who had demanded access to the Japanese
7 scientists (arguing that they had obtained evidence that these scientists had
8 committed war crimes), should be denied such access:
9
0 This Japanese information is the only known source of data from scientifically
11 controlled experiments showing the direct effect of BW agents on man. In
12 the past it has been necessary to evaluate the effects of BW agents on man
13 from data obtained through animal experimentation. Such evaluation is
14 inconclusive and far less complete than results obtained from certain types of
15 human experimentation.
16 (SWNCC 1947: 7)
17
18 The data that have been made publicly available to date at the Library of
19 Congress and the National Archives in Suitland, Maryland, are certainly of value
20 to the scientist studying the history of biological warfare and human
21 experimentation. It is of only questionable value for medical science and practice.
22 As shown above, a large proportion of the publicly known experiments were either
23 irrelevant or unreliable; other experiments provided evidence of relevant research,
24 but would require additional information to be of direct scientific value. Because
25 the American BW specialists Hill and Victor as well as the SWNCC attached high
26 value to the data, it seems likely that only a proportion of the data secured by Hill
27 and Victor has to date been declassified.
28 Given the content of the publicly available information on the experiments and
29 the uncertainty about the existence of additional data, the case of the Japanese BW
30 units offers a (currently) unique opportunity for a debate on the ethics of the use
31 of unethically obtained data. The problem posed by the Japanese experiments
32 demands an ethical decision in a situation where there is evidence, but not certain
33 evidence, that the data obtained in some of the most barbaric human experiments
34 known are, in fact, of scientific value.3 Behind such an imperfect veil of ignorance
35 (Rawls 1971), a decision for one of the three positions on the use of unethically
36 obtained data outlined above carries more ethical weight than if we had either
37 complete certainty about the scientific value of the data or no evidence that
38 such data existed. In the first case, technical arguments about the reliability and
39 validity of the data might lead to the same action recommendations as ethical
40 arguments about data use or non-use, and thus reduce the burden on the ethical
41 argument to prove its conclusion. In the latter case, the ethical arguments have
42 no urgency, and the defenders of any position are free to imagine extreme
43 examples – however implausible – that make it hard for proponents of an opposing
44 view to maintain their position. (For instance, proponents of a “position of
45 conditional use” may ask adherents of a “position of strict non-use” if they would
 Data from BW experiments in China   99
1 maintain their stance if the unethically obtained data contained a cure for all
2 cancers.)
3 Two counter-arguments might be brought forward against the claim that the
4 case of the Japanese BW units is distinctive owing to its specific mix of knowledge
5 and uncertainty. First, it may be argued that all data from the inhumane Japanese
6 experiments are worthless to civil society – irrespective of the reliability and
7 validity of the findings – because the purpose of the experiments was to develop
8 offensive biological weapons. This claim can be easily refuted. For one, not all of
9 the experiments conducted by Unit 731 were concerned with a goal of producing
0 offensive BW (e.g., the freezing experiments). Further, results of BW research are
11 commonly useful for both offensive and defensive BW, as well as for non-military
12 purposes (Leitenberg 2003). A case in point is the vaccination research conducted
13 by Unit 731. The fact that an army conducting offensive BW will need effective
14 vaccinations to protect its own soldiers does not preclude the use of the same
15 vaccination in defending a country against a BW attack or in preventing naturally
16 occurring infections.
17 The second argument might hold that “good science” can never come from
18 unethical experiments. It may not be a coincidence that a large proportion of the
19 research conducted by the Nazi physicians in German concentration camps and by
20 the Japanese military physicians in China has no scientific value. For one, research
21 that brutally abuses human subjects must lack the normal quality controls built
22 into ethical scientific endeavors. Neither the Nazi physicians nor the Japanese
23 military scientists could discuss their research with international colleagues or
24 routinely submit their findings for publication. Neither obtained the funding for
25 their research from scientific institutions but from a wartime bureaucracy and the
26 army. Consequently, these researchers lacked an integral part of good science:
27 criticism and approval from the larger research community. Moreover, researchers,
28 whose conscience did not prevent them from killing other human beings in brutal
29 experiments, may be more likely to distort or falsify scientific results than
30 researchers who refused to partake in such experiments.
31 However, while many of the experiments conducted by Unit 731 may indeed
32 have lacked scientific rigor, it does not necessarily follow that all of the experi­
33 ments produced useless data. Evidence that results of some of the experiments
34 may have had scientific value includes articles published by members of Unit 731
35 and the U.S. Intelligence reports documenting the interest of American BW
36 researchers in the findings. Further (indirect) evidence that some of the Japanese
37 BW research had scientific merit may be seen in the remarkable careers of many
38 of the Japanese scientists upon their return from occupied China (Williams and
39 Wallace 1989: 236–242); former members of Unit 731 rose to some of the highest
40 positions in Japanese academic medicine. For instance, after World War II
41 Dr. Kasahara, who conducted many of the barbaric experiments described above,
42 became Chief Pathologist of the renowned Kitasato Institute in Tokyo and later
43 rose to the position of Vice-President of the Institute. Dr. Yoshimura, who killed
44 hundreds of human beings in the frostbite experiments described above, became
45 President of the Medical Faculty of Kyoto University as well as Scientific Advisor
 100   Till Bärnighausen
1 to the Japanese Antarctic expedition and President of the Japanese Society for
2 Meteorology (Han and Xin 1991: 332–352; Tsuneishi 1986: 22; Who’s Who in
3 Contemporary Japan 1963: 155; Williams & Wallace 1989: 236–242).
4 In the (current) case of the Japanese BW experiments – characterized by
5 uncertainty about both the scientific value of many of the findings and the
6 existence of further data – I believe the “position of strict non-use” to be preferable
7 over the other two ethical stances on using unethically obtained data. Certainly,
8 any data which have not yet been made public by either the Japanese or the
9 American government should be made public immediately, so that it can be
0 incorporated into historical accounts of the Japanese BW units. Such a demand,
11 however, would lose its ethical force if it were not accompanied by a declaration
12 that – without exception – the data will not be used for scientific or practical
13 purposes. Leaving open the possibility to use the data would render the victims of
14 the experiments also victims of our decision to demand public disclosure of all the
15 information on the experiments. Unconditional non-use, on the other hand, would
16 have an invaluable symbolic meaning as a memorial to the victims. It would also
17 imply a symbolic punishment of the scientists of Unit 731, who were allowed to
18 pursue renowned careers after World War II, in many cases by exploiting the
19 experience and building on the research results obtained by killing Chinese and
20 Russian prisoners of war (Bärnighausen 2007). Finally, a decision to adhere to a
21 “position of strict non-use” rather than a “position of conditional use” would draw
22 a stark symbolic contrast to the pragmatic stance taken by the U.S. government
23 and military that led to the decision to grant freedom from prosecution to the
24 Japanese military scientists in exchange for unethically obtained data:
25
26 It is recognized that by informing Ishii and his associates that the information
27 to be obtained regarding BW will be retained in intelligence channels and will
28 not be employed as war crimes evidence, this government may at a later date
29 be seriously embarrassed. However, the Army Department and Air Force
30 Members strongly believe that this information, particularly that which will
31 finally be obtained from the Japanese with respect to the effect of BW on
32 humans, is of such importance to the security of this country that the risk of
33 subsequent embarrassment should be taken.
34 (Special Staff, United States Army Civilian Affairs Division 1947: 1)
35
36 Notes
37
1 In this chapter, the reader should note that many sources give the name of Japanese
38 with the surname last, such as Shiro Ishii. As in the rest of the book, however, Japanese
39 names are given in the text with the surname first, such as Ishii Shiro.
40 2 In contrast to his colleagues at the L’Institute Pasteur, Professor Nicolle, Professor
41 Trillat was convinced that biological warfare would be possible if certain conditions
42 were met simultaneously: “Pour qu’elle (la guerre bacteriologique) réussisse, il faut en
effet un ensemble de conditions qui ne se trouvent pas réunies en tous temps” (Sudre,
43 cited in Committee Imperial Defence 1938: 35).
44 3 While the case of the Japanese BW units offers an important example on which
45 to debate the use of unethically obtained data, many other cases of abuse of humans
 Data from BW experiments in China   101
1 in medical experiments exist, as described in several chapters in this book. It is
2 important to note that abuses of unwilling or unaware victims in medical experiments
were not confined to countries under fascist or para-fascist rule – even though some of
3
the worst crimes against humanity were committed in Nazi Germany and Imperial
4 Japan – but have occurred as well under communism and in democracies. Examples
5 include the poison tests on Gulag prisoners in the Soviet Union (Birstein 2004),
6 and the Tuskegee syphilis study (Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee 1996)
7 and human radiation experiments (Advisory Committee on Human Radiation
Experiments 1995) in the United States. The discussion of the Japanese case may thus
8
be relevant to other past abuses and likely – even if one dares to hope otherwise – to
9 future abuses.
0
11
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9 “Report on Dysentery, Information by Tomosada Masuda” 1947, in Summary Report on
0 BW Investigation, ed. E. Hill and J. Victor, December 12, RG 395, Entry 6909-C,
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13 Pain and Cold Sensation in Fingers Caused by Repeated Finger Cooling in a Cool
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19 the Plague Among the Residents of Lishui County”], Lishui wenshi ziliao [Historical
20 Sources Lishui County], 2, pp. 186–188.
21 Singer, E. 1980, “Ethics and Editors: Commentary”, Hastings Center Report, p. 24.
22 “Smallpox, Interview with Dr. Shiro Ishii” 1947, in Summary Report on BW Investigation,
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31 Spurr, G., Hutt, B. and Horvath, S. 1955, “The Effects of Age on Finger Temperature
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33 State–War–Navy Coordinating Subcommittee for the Far East (SWNCC Subcommittee)
34 1947, “Interrogation of Certain Japanese by Russian Prosecutor”, August 1, Appendix
35 A, 17/18/B, Box 628, Entry 468, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
36 Stille, W. 1992, “Bakterielle Krankheiten des ZNS”, in Lehrbuch der Inneren Medizin
37 [Textbook of Internal Medicine], ed. W. Siegenthaler, W. Kaufmann, H. Hornbostel
and H. Waller, Georg Thieme, Stuttgart, pp. 889–890.
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43 Tanaka, M. 1971a, “Experimental Studies on Human Reaction to Cold – Different Vascular
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45 University, 18, pp. 169–177.
 Data from BW experiments in China   105
1 Tanaka, M. 1971b, “Experimental Studies on Human Reaction to Cold – Differences
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7 “Tetanus, Interview with Shiro Ishii” 1947, in Summary Report on BW Investigation, ed.
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0 Thompson, A. 1946, “Report on Japanese Biological Warfare”, May 31, 57 4926 Cy 1,
11 Library of Congress, Science and Technical Reports Section, Washington, D.C.
12 Tsuneishi, K. 1986, “The Research Guarded by Military Secrecy – The Isolation of the
13 E. H. F. Virus in Japanese Biological Warfare Unit”, Historia Scientiarum, 30,
14 pp. 79–92.
15 “Tuberculosis, Interview with Dr. Hideo Futagi” 1947, in Summary Report on BW
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19 Suitland Reference Branch, Maryland, p. 54.
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21 Study Legacy Committee, May 20.
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24 Reference Branch, Maryland, p. 56.
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26 Menschen [Human Physiology], ed. R. Schmidt and G. Thews, Springer Verlag, Berlin,
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29 ziliao [Historical Materials of Baoji City], 3, pp. 39–41.
30 Wang, S. 1987, “  ‘Sunwure’ de jinxi: Riben qinlüezhe zui’ede renti shiyan” [“Past
31 and Present of “Sunwu Fever”: The Criminal Human Experiments of the
32 Japanese Invaders”], Sunwu wenshi ziliao [Historical Sources of Sunwu County], 2,
33 pp. 22–29.
34 Wang, Z. 1984, “Kangri zhanzheng shiqi Ningbo shuyi jishi” [“Report on the Plague during
35 the Resistance War against the Japanese”], Ningbo wenshi ziliao [Historical Materials
36 of Ningbo City], 2, pp. 181–195.
37 Watts, J. 2002, “Victims of Japan’s Notorious Unit 731 Sue”, The Lancet, 360, p. 628.
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40 Tokyo.
41 Williams, P. and Wallace, D. 1989, Unit 731: The Japanese Army’s Secret of Secrets, The
42 Free Press, New York.
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 106   Till Bärnighausen
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Cold. III. Effects of Diets on the Reactivity of Skin Vessels to Cold”, Japanese Journal
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6
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7 [Introduction to Hygiene and Epidemics], Ferdinand Enke Verlag, Stuttgart.
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9 skrankheiten [Microbiology, Detection and Combating Infectious Diseases], Ferdinand
0 Enke Verlag, Stuttgart.
11 Zinsser, H. and Bayne-Jones, S. 1939, A Textbook of Bacteriology, D. Appleton-Century
12 Company, London and New York.
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
1
2 5 Discovering traces of humanity
3
4 Taking individual responsibility
5
6
for medical atrocities
7
8 Nanyan Guo
9
0
11
12
13 Introduction
14
The medical atrocities committed by the Ishii network and the Medical School of
15
Kyushu Imperial University during the Second World War reflect a severe erosion
16
of morality and humanity. The death sentences meted out to thousands of
17
experimental victims for the sake of “medical research” violated the basic
18
principles of medicine, whose goals historically have been the relief of pain, the
19
saving of life, and the restoration of humanity.
20
The discourse of these medical atrocities incorporates a voluminous literature
21
of reminiscences and confessions detailing the ways in which the atrocities were
22
carried out. However, among them there are only a few examples of ethical
23
reflection by participants and consideration for the suffering and dignity of
24
victims, and even fewer cases where the perpetrators felt unwilling or unable to
25
continue their participation in the atrocities. This phenomenon leads us to consider
26
both their rare manifestations of humanity and the ready discarding of empathy as
27
a result of the careerism or nationalism that pervaded both the Japanese Army and
28
the medical establishment.
29
In order to understand how and why a tiny minority of people managed to keep
30
their humanity intact in such circumstances, this chapter will focus on examples
31
of individuals who rejected the atrocities they were involved in and who showed
32
remorse toward the victims. First, we will examine the ways in which the atrocities
33
in question were commonly justified and denied. Second, we will assess the
34
significance of what remained of morality in the minds of particular individuals.
35
Finally, we analyze the mechanisms by which an individual’s moral choices make
36
a decisive difference in such extreme situations. The major materials on which
37
my research is based include participants’ confessions, witness testimonies,
38
documentary writings, scholarly studies, and non-fiction novels and fictional
39
treatments have been published in Japan.
40
It is important to state at the outset that the materials discussed here all draw on
41
postwar accounts. Testimonials gathered after the war may fail to accurately reflect
42
what the participants actually thought in the process of committing their atrocities.
43
It is nevertheless important to analyze these reminiscences as they indicate what
44
some perpetrators may have thought at the time, or at least what they wished they
45
 108   Nanyan Guo
1 had thought. Such a “wish” is itself a sign of an awakened morality either because
2 of being forced to confess in Chinese prisons, or through the pressures of postwar
3 Japanese society, or self reflection. Nevertheless, this “wish” is the major focus of
4 this chapter.
5
6
An outline of the atrocities and the postwar trials
7
8 The “medical atrocities” carried out by Japan during the Second World War
9 include the development of biological and chemical weapons, the utilization
0 of biological warfare, and the use of human vivisection for medical and educational
11 purposes. Most of these atrocities were committed by the Ishii network which
12 consisted of Unit 731 (Harbin), Unit 100 (Changchun), Unit 516 (Qiqihar), Unit
13 1855 (Beijing), Unit 1644 (Nanjing), Unit 8604 (Guangzhou), the Preventive
14 Research Laboratory (Tokyo), and Unit 9420 (Singapore). There was vivisec­
15 tion which was carried out at Kyushu Imperial University Medical School before
16 the end of the Second World War.
17 Only a few of those who committed these atrocities were tried after the War. In
18 December 1949, following the Khabarovsk Trial 12 persons were sentenced to
19 terms of imprisonment ranging from 25 to two years. However, all were returned
20 to Japan by 1956, except for one man, Karasawa Tomio, who committed suicide
21 before their departure for Japan (Kondo 2002: 186–187). In August 1948, the
22 allied occupation force in Japan, GHQ, conducted the Yokohama Trials over
23 atrocities carried out at the Kyushu Imperial University Medical School in which
24 eight American airmen, survivors from a downed B-29 bomber, were vivisected
25 for “medical practice” between May and June 1945 (Sugamo homu iinkai 1981:
26 237–239). Five defendants were sentenced to death and three to life imprisonment.
27 However, all the sentences were commuted in 1950. In China, in 1956, military
28 tribunals in Shenyang tried a surgeon officer, Sakakibara Hideo, for his leadership
29 role in the Linkou Branch of Unit 731 in addition to other Japanese war criminals
30 (Guo 1995: 336, 346), but all were returned to Japan by 1964.
31 The U.S. Army Chemical Corps located in Camp Detrick in Frederick,
32 Maryland, was given permission by the U.S. government to grant Ishii Shiro and
33 his colleagues immunity from war crimes in exchange for their research data. The
34 U.S. did not know that human experiments had been conducted by the Japanese
35 until late 1946, when the Soviets revealed information gained from Japanese
36 prisoners held in the Soviet Union. The Soviets sought extradition of Ishii and his
37 colleagues in order to gain access to the research data already obtained by the U.S.
38 They also threatened that if the U.S. did not agree to this arrangement, they would
39 disclose the Japanese atrocities at the International Military Tribunal for the Far
40 East in Tokyo (1946–1948).
41 Although the U.S. authorities well understood that the immunity granted to
42 Ishii was at odds with the Nuremberg Trials where Nazi doctors had been prose-
43 cuted for inhuman experiments, the U.S. nevertheless granted him and his
44 colleagues immunity. According to the report by Edwin V. Hill, “Such information
45 could not be obtained in our own laboratories because of scruples attached to
 Taking responsibility for medical atrocities   109
1 human experimentation. These data were secured with a total outlay of ¥250,000
2 ($695) to date, a mere pittance by comparison with the actual cost of the studies”
3 (Hill 1947). Hill’s line of reasoning indicates that the U.S. shared the same logic
4 as the Japanese medical researchers who justified human experiments for “medical
5 research” purposes that overrode humane values. This rhetoric of “the end
6 justifying the means” suggests that both sides in the war had lost their moral
7 compass. Similar phonomena may be seen from comfort women issues, mass
8 slaughter of Chinese civilians, U.S. firebombing of Japanese cities and the use of
9 nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
0 With the protection of the U.S., and without coming under any further scrutiny,
11 most Japanese military doctors and researchers involved in human experimentation
12 survived – and, indeed, thrived – well into the postwar period. Some became
13 university presidents, faculty deans, prominent professors, heads of private
14 research institutes and medical associations, and so on. Others, however, adopted
15 low profiles to work in local clinics or public health institutes, perhaps in an
16 attempt to atone for what they had done during the War.
17
18
Denials and justifications
19
20 Denials and justifications of wartime medical atrocities are commonplace in
21 Japan. The most often repeated pretexts are “the national interest,” “the Emperor’s
22 command”, and the need for “scientific research.” These justifications all figure
23 in the statements made by five members of the Ishii network after the war:
24
25 1 “There is nothing shameful in what I did at Unit 731. . . . The Soviet Union
26 was also conducting research into germ weapons . . . I was doing this for
27 Japan, and I am not ashamed at all of what I did” (Hiyama 1980: 105).
28 2 “We fought for our country. What was wrong with using maruta [literally,
29 ‘logs’] as experimental material for the benefit of Japan? What do you people
30 know about this, if you didn’t go to the war?” (Morimura 1985, 2004: 50).
31 3 “We believed that the war was conducted in order to bring wealth to Japan,
32 which was a poor country in those days, and to bring peace to Asia . . . therefore
33 we believed that maruta were not human beings. They were even lower than
34 animals. . . . No one in Unit 731 ever had any sympathy for them. To all of us,
35 they deserved to die” (Morimura 1983, 1995a: 58).
36 4 “Because my older brother was killed by the Chinese, I did not have any
37 sympathy for maruta” (731 Research Society 1996: 79).
38 5 “Although I wielded the surgical knife for almost four years, I did not have
39 even the slightest sense of guilt. Everyone believed we were doing this for the
40 Emperor” (Nihon jido 1983, 2000: 26).
41
42 It is clear from these statements that these five individuals did not perceive any
43 humanity in their victims. The national interest was paramount, and their morality
44 was narrowed to a single focus: what would benefit Japan. In the first statement,
45 the speaker chooses to believe that it was perfectly right to carry out these
 110   Nanyan Guo
1 experiments because another country was doing the same. Choosing his words
2 carefully, he mentions only the Soviet Union and not the United States. He
3 emphasizes his pride in his work at Unit 731. It seems the “moral support” he
4 gained from national policy, feelings of racial superiority, and army orders was so
5 strong that he could comfortably set aside any individual morality. The following
6 four statements echo his value premises. Any possible doubt, hesitation, or
7 sympathy was completely eliminated. Their consciences remained numb. If a few
8 perpetrators ever felt at all sorry for their victims, it is only because the victims at
9 least resembled animals; as one female member of Unit 731 recalled, “Whenever
0 I saw the smoke coming from the chimney I always joined my hands to pray for
11 their souls, even though we called them ‘black-headed rats’ ” (Gunji 1982a: 154).
12 These statements all reveal the troubling fact that their wartime mentality remained
13 intact after the War, with the term maruta being repeatedly used. It seems that
14 these perpetrators lacked any self-reflection on the state of their consciences as
15 individuals and continued to ignore the human value and dignity of their victims.
16 In so doing, they set aside the opportunity to restore their own humanity which
17 had been grossly eroded during the War. Of course, some people’s public denials
18 might have been defensive reactions which do not necessarily reflect their deeper
19 feelings.
20 Another common rationale was the “development of medical science” for the
21 benefit of postwar society. The author of the documentary novel Nomi to Saikin
22 (Lice and Bombs), Yoshimura Akira, writes that most Japanese surgeons dreamed
23 of conducting human experiments, and three surgeons from Japanese national
24 universities made a special visit to a Kwantung Army Unit in Manchuria in order
25 to have the opportunity of examining human necks in cross-section immediately
26 after decapitation. Their academic “curiosity” and “enthusiasm” even impressed
27 the army chief (Yoshimura 1975: 30–31). One former military doctor stated: “I
28 must emphasize that the research results gained by military surgeons during the
29 war greatly contributed to medical developments in the post-war period” (Ishida
30 1982: 47). When the logic of “the end justifies the means” is applied, the atrocities
31 were easily excused for the tangible gains they seemingly accrued.
32 Generally speaking, both during and after the War, only a few perpetrators
33 publicly claimed an awakening of conscience as a result of reflection over war
34 atrocities they had committed. Among 2000 patients at the Konodai Army
35 Hospital, a research center for mental illness that operated from 1937 until 1945,
36 only two persons were reportedly affected by their memories of slaughtering
37 Chinese; both repeatedly saw the faces of their Chinese victims in their dreams
38 (Noda 1998: 342–343). According to new research, in the same hospital around 31
39 out of 374 patients had symptoms related to an abiding sense of guilt of killing
40 Chinese (Shimizu 2006, 2007: 229, 233). It seems that only a small minority
41 developed mental illness because of their consciousness of crimes. A few people
42 from Unit 731 disclosed the trauma they suffered. One member confessed that he
43 was traumatized by his experience of vivisecting a Chinese woman who suddenly
44 woke up owing to inadequate anesthesia. Another member said that two kinds of
45 sound had stuck in his ears all his life: one is the sound of the beating of a victim’s
 Taking responsibility for medical atrocities   111
1 heart which was just taken out and was measured by a table balance, and the other
2 is the sound of prisoners’ fetters (Nishino 2002: 221–222).
3
4
A residual belief in human values
5
6 Although it was very uncommon for military medical personnel to show any
7 respect for their victims’ humanity, some individuals did so. One Unit 731 member,
8 Chida Hideo, could not cope with the atrocities involved in human experimentation
9 and suffered a mental breakdown. He could not understand why so many Chinese
0 had to be sacrificed in such a gruesome way in order to “save Japanese soldiers’
11 lives.” He told his superior about his misgivings, and was fortunate enough to
12 be allowed to transfer to another department to avoid further distress where
13 he was not directly involved in human experiments (731 Research Society
14 1996: 104–108).
15 There were also individuals who remained unconvinced by what they were
16 ordered to do in Unit 731. A junior member of the unit, Tsuruta Kanetoshi, who
17 served in Nomonhan on the Russian–Manchurian border between May and
18 September 1939, the site of a Japanese–Russian clash, was ordered to pour typhoid
19 bacilli into a river in order to poison local residents. When later asked by Ishii
20 Shiro in person how he felt about the War, he replied unhesitatingly, “It’s better not
21 to go to war.” Because of telling the truth of his mind, Tsuruta was punished by
22 being made to feed lice on his own body for three days (731 Research Society
23 1996: 67–68).
24 A few brave individuals placed humanity above all other considerations in such
25 circumstances. One Unit 516 member recalled that his unit had a rare atmosphere
26 of freedom, and that when “technician lieutenant S.Y.,” a graduate of Osaka
27 University, was ordered to participate in a gas experiment on prisoners, S.Y.
28 “rejected the order by telling his boss, Captain N, that he was a Catholic, and
29 therefore could not participate in such inhuman experiments.” His disobedience
30 was overlooked by the captain (Morimura 1983, 1995b: 62–64). This example
31 suggests that the humane religious beliefs held by an individual, combined with a
32 relatively relaxed environment, could give someone the strength of will to reject
33 participation in atrocities. At the same time, we should not forget that, according
34 to its members’ testimonies, Unit 516 ruthlessly sacrificed many lives through gas
35 experiments (Morimura 1983, 1995b: 56–70).
36 This case resembles that of Doi Takeo, the author of Amae no Kozo (The
37 Anatomy of Dependence), who told his superior when he was conscripted, “I am a
38 Christian, therefore I will not kill anyone” (Endo 2000: 390). Neither S.Y. nor Doi
39 was persecuted for their religious beliefs and their rejection of acts involving
40 doing harm to others. These examples suggest that an individual with a firmly
41 established moral code has the potential to resist inhumanity and become a catalyst
42 for change. Sometimes, disobedience does win out.
43 Sometimes, such moral resistance was expressed in more private terms. Hayashi
44 Atsumi, a military surgeon and a Christian, wrote in his diary for December 28,
45 1942: “The essence of medicine must be a religious state of selflessness  .  .  . 
 112   Nanyan Guo
1 otherwise it can only degrade the medical practitioner.” After the war, Hayashi
2 criticized a colleague who conducted vivisection solely out of curiosity (Mizutani
3 1997: 67–69). These individuals managed to keep their morality intact by either
4 publicly stating or privately recording their opposition to medical atrocities. Their
5 resistance is a ray of light in the darkness.
6 Others protested internally, in their own minds, against the atrocities, if not to
7 their superiors. A member of Unit 1644 stated: “When I saw the blackened face of
8 the maruta after his blood had been completely drained, I wondered how someone
9 could do such a thing to him . . . What had the maruta done to deserve these
0 atrocities . . . I wanted to treat them like human beings” (Matsumoto 1996: 188–
11 190). A member of Unit 731 often gave prisoners cigarettes before they were
12 killed:
13
14 What did these Chinese people feel? I trembled when I imagined myself in
15 the same situation . . . I wanted to apologize to each one of them when I was
16 assisting with the injections that were forced upon them  .  .  .  I couldn’t
17 understand how Japanese could perform these experiments without a sense of
18 guilt. I couldn’t believe that our soldiers would be made safer by those deadly
19 experiments . . . I still can’t forget those Chinese faces after 40 years.
20 (Senda 1996: 104–109)
21
22 Their innate sense of morality helped these operatives refuse to “understand” the
23 atrocities they were involved in. What is the purpose of draining a person’s blood?
24 How can lethal experiments save lives? If we would reject such a cruel death for
25 ourselves, why do we inflict it on others? Why can’t the Chinese be treated like
26 human beings? These simple questions removed all justification for the medical
27 atrocities in the minds of these individuals.
28 Some participants might have felt uncomfortable at the beginning, but gradually
29 accustomed themselves to participation in the gruesome experiments. For instance,
30 one Unit 731 member recalled:
31
32 When I pulled the knife out of his body, blood dropped on my hand. I can
33 never forget that moment. I could not eat my dinner that day, and I had
34 nightmares for the whole week. Although I didn’t regard the Chinese as
35 human beings, I hated cutting them up like this. However I could not disobey
36 the order.
37 (Hoshi 2002: 187–188)
38
39 This individual’s perception of the low value to be placed on the lives of Chinese
40 made it possible for him to continue to obey orders, even if he was clearly aware
41 of the inhumanity of the experiments.
42 Although not brave enough to either criticize or disobey orders, some
43 perpetrators showed their sympathy for the victims. A number of reminiscences
44 reveal their inner voices. A former prison guard recalls his feelings toward two
45 female prisoners who were experimental subjects, along with a small child. “With
 Taking responsibility for medical atrocities   113
1 tears in their eyes, the grandmother and the mother both begged me to free the
2 little child, and said they were ready to die at any time through any experiment
3 (if only the child could be saved).” Their words resounded in his heart, as he had
4 recently lost his 2-year-old daughter to measles. The only comfort he could offer
5 was this reply: “OK, I’ll consult my boss” (Kamiya 1998: 82). Even though the
6 guard could offer no practical assistance, his expression of sympathy and
7 willingness to help must have given some hope to the women. To be given hope is
8 to be treated like a human being. Respecting people’s humanity requires the ability
9 to imagine their suffering. In this case, the guard’s pain at losing his daughter
0 enabled him to imagine the agony experienced by the women.
11 Some perpetrators even managed to experience empathy, feeling their victims’
12 suffering as if it were happening to themselves. One Unit 516 member witnessed
13 the death of a mother and her daughter being poisoned by gas. “The cruel thing is
14 that I was even holding a stopwatch to measure the time that it took them to
15 die. . . . After 37 years, I can still clearly see the mother’s soft hands covering the
16 child’s head to protect her from the prussic acid gas in the chamber” (Morimura
17 1983, 1995b: 70–71). His detailed description of the victims’ facial expressions
18 reveals his understanding of their fear and despair during the killing process, an
19 experience which had kept his conscience awake for four decades.
20 Similarly, a truck driver for Unit 731 recalled his feelings one day after he had
21 driven a group of prisoners to an open field for gas experiments; the victims
22 “happily and deeply breathed in the fresh air and bathed in the sunlight with
23 glittering eyes, not knowing they would die in just a few hours.” At that moment,
24 he could not help feeling that “they were human beings” too, and he could no
25 longer treat them as maruta (Koshi 1983: 51–52). His glimpse of their short-lived
26 enjoyment gave him an opportunity to understand their feelings and therefore to
27 “re-humanize” them. This reminds us of a famous war novel by Ooka Shohei
28 (1909–1988), Furyoki (Taken Captive), set in the Philippines and published in
29 1948. The main character cannot bring himself to shoot a young American soldier
30 who is approaching him unaware that he is hiding close by in the jungle. The
31 author analyzes the protagonist’s reasons for not pulling the trigger, stating that he
32 was touched by the soldier’s ruddy complexion and fresh, youthful looks, rather
33 than being motivated by love for human beings (Ooka 1994: 19–27). A glance at
34 the soldier’s face – part of his unique individuality – made a critical difference to
35 the protagonist’s fateful decision.
36 However, this compassionate inner voice is rarely heard in the postwar
37 reminiscence literature of the medical atrocities. The majority of the perpetrators
38 chose to turn a blind eye to the suffering faces of their victims. In pushing aside
39 their victims’ humanity, these “well-educated” professionals (professors, doctors,
40 researchers, technicians, medical assistants, and so on) were also forsaking their
41 own humanity and occupational ethics. This “double immorality” is a leading
42 characteristic of the wartime medical atrocities.
43 Nevertheless, after the war, the ability to regret one’s actions and to be
44 critical of the past was restored to some individuals. According to one Unit 731
45 operative:
 114   Nanyan Guo
1 Those military surgeons had a hunger for vivisection. . . . After most of the
2 internal organs had been removed, the body looked like a dark and empty
3 sack. Of course the heart was still beating. . . . The surgeon then looked just
4 like a demon. . . . Although I was someone who read a lot of literature and had
5 relatively liberal ideas at that time, I had no desire to stop the vivisection,
6 even though I felt a bit sorry for the maruta.
7 (Koshi 1983: 117–122)
8
9 One military surgeon, who worked in Shanxin, China, during the War and practiced
0 vivisection on at least 14 victims, was captured by the Chinese Army. In prison
11 camp, he was asked to read a letter from a woman whose son was killed by him
12 for medical purposes.
13
14 For the first time I felt an unspeakable sense of guilt . . . I had deprived her
15 of her son . . . I used to think that everything I did was for the war effort, but
16 now I believe that even the death penalty is not sufficient enough for
17 me.  .  .  .  How much pain the Chinese must have suffered. How sad their
18 families must have felt!
19 (Nishizato 2002: 160; Yoshikai and Yuasa 1981, 1996: 92, 253)
20
21 Such a sense of guilt meant that some perpetrators were unable to continue their
22 “medical research” after the War. Although Akimoto Sueo, the author of Yi no
23 rinri o tou [Questioning Medical Ethics], who joined the Ishii network in 1944,
24 did not participate directly in human experimentation, he later regretted being part
25 of the network and decided not to resume his post at the University of Tokyo as a
26 medical researcher after the War. Rather, he sought to atone for his actions by
27 working as a doctor in a local health center to help improve public health (Tsuneishi
28 1994: 19–20). Akimoto stated that he would regret his part in the atrocities until
29 his death (Williams and Wallace 1989, 2003: 271).
30 Others were so burdened by their guilt that the prospect of living a normal life
31 after the War was unbearable. One medical scientist, Okamoto Kei, from the
32 Epidemic Research Institute of Tokyo Imperial University, left a brief but revealing
33 suicide note: “I know my crime” (Ware wagatsumi o shiru) (Nishizato 2002: 175;
34 Shibata 1998: 212; Tsuneishi and Asano 1982). Another perpetrator, Karasawa
35 Tomio, who was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment at the Khabarovsk Trial,
36 hung himself in a laundry room shortly before he was due to be repatriated to
37 Japan in 1956 (Aoki 2005: 372).
38 This kind of regret and guilt, experienced at the individual level, may be seen as
39 genuinely redemptive because it does not originate from an order of the state or
40 the government, but rather in the individual’s soul. The people discussed above
41 eventually managed to escape from the collective mentality which surrounded
42 them, and began to think, feel, and act as individuals.
43 According to Ishii Harumi, the daughter of Ishii Shiro, shortly before his death
44 from cancer of the pharynx in 1959 Ishii was baptized by a Roman Catholic priest,
45 Hermann Heuvers, who was teaching at Sophia University in Tokyo, and received
 Taking responsibility for medical atrocities   115
1 a Christian name, “Joseph.” Although when she was interviewed Harumi failed to
2 explain why her father had decided to become a Christian, she continued to state
3 that her father seemed to be “relieved” following his baptism (Williams and
4 Wallace 1989, 2003: 279). Although Ishii’s baptism has never been confirmed by
5 any documentary evidence (Aoki 2005: 374), his desire for baptism suggests that
6 he felt guilty for his wartime medical atrocities and was searching for forgiveness.
7 It would be interesting to know how his sense of guilt came to be formed, if such
8 was indeed the case.
9
0
The necessity for human experimentation?
11
12 The “advancement of medical science” was repeatedly used as a justification for
13 experiments on living human subjects. As we have seen, one military surgeon
14 emphasized the medical gains to be made from human experimentation (Ishida
15 1982: 47). However, this justification has been questioned by other participants
16 and scholars.
17 One Unit 731 member did not believe that the experiments could be scientifically
18 justified. He said,
19
20 When I thought about what was being done in Unit 731, I realized there was
21 no research that had to be conducted through human experiments. All those
22 experiments could have been done on animal subjects. In fact, the sole purpose
23 served by the “experiments” carried out by Unit 731 was human slaughter.
24 (Gunji 1982b: 233)
25
26 Another Unit 731 operative stated:
27
28 Military doctors were using their prerogative to perform vivisection. They
29 lacked self-reflection. They were only motivated by curiosity. . . . In reality,
30 the structure of the body can be easily determined from medical textbooks
31 rather than by cutting open a living body. And the organs that were supposed
32 to be observed could be destroyed when making incisions.
33 (Akimoto 1983: 129–139, 146)
34
35 The futility of human vivisection and the real motivation behind it are reinforced
36 by further examples. In the northern part of Shanxi province, one military doctor
37 specializing in internal medicine ordered his subordinates to vivisect a Chinese
38 farmer “in order to determine the position and shape of his appendix.” When he
39 failed to locate it, he shot the farmer with his pistol (Hoshi 2002: 32). One medical
40 researcher criticized the Kyushu atrocities in similar terms: “The vivisection at
41 Kyushu Imperial University was done so poorly and carelessly that there was
42 nothing to be documented at all. No record remained. The vivisection was nothing
43 more than wholesale slaughter” (Kawakami 1965: 488).
44 Tsuneishi Keiichi, a distinguished scholar of the history of science and a
45 contributor to this volume, sees no merit in human experiments.
 116   Nanyan Guo
1 Superficially, there appeared to have been some progress made in research
2 because so much had been invested in military medicine. But in wartime, so
3 much was sacrificed and wasted. A comparable level of progress could have
4 been easily achieved in peacetime through reasonable resource allocation and
5 animal experiments.
6 (Tsuneishi 1998: 214)
7
8 Tsuneishi also points out that the Japanese program was marred by flaws in the
9 scientific methods adopted:
0
11 Scientifically, the experimental results only show the differences between
12 individual victims and lack statistical validity because the number of subjects
13 was limited. Their findings from various experiments produced only a rough
14 outline of the physical conditions experienced by individuals. The data
15 produced by the Ishii network lack scientific value.  .  .  .  Besides, their
16 experiments involving dry blood plasma for transfusion, water purifying
17 machines, penicillin, BCG vaccine, plague vaccine, typhus vaccine, cholera
18 vaccine and tetanus serum were redundant, as these products were already
19 being utilized overseas.
20 (Tsuneishi 1995: 179–180, 198)
21
22 Tsuneishi also states that the treatment for frostbite devised by Yoshimura Hisato
23 through human experimentation was already practiced by Russian doctors in the
24 nineteenth century (Tsuneishi 1994: 290). He further indicates that the pursuit of
25 “scientific” results in the absence of any human feeling produces only a sense of
26 “self-satisfaction” in scientific researchers which, if taken to an extreme, will end
27 up destroying the world (Tsuneishi 2002: 82).
28 Tsuneishi’s comments make it clear that these experiments served only to
29 enhance the reputations of some medical researchers by increasing their research
30 output and promoting them to the top echelons of the medical establishment.
31 However, we must be cautious about arguing whether the experiments were
32 “useful” or “necessary,” because if some results can be categorized in this way, the
33 door leading to the justification of inhuman experiments is open once again. The
34 vital point is that an unconditional value should be placed on human life, leaving
35 no room to condone any inhuman experimentation undertaken for any reason
36 whatsoever.
37
38
Individual responsibility
39
40 The medical atrocities conducted by the Ishii network certainly raise questions as
41 to who should bear responsibility and who should be punished. A Unit 731
42 member, who was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment at the Khabarovsk Trial,
43 told the court: “I hope that those who are guilty of preparing to conduct
44 bacteriological warfare and bear most responsibility for these preparations,
45 namely, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, Lieutenant General Ishii and Major
 Taking responsibility for medical atrocities   117
1 General Wakamatsu, will be severely punished” (Foreign Languages Publishing
2 House 1950: 519). However, those on the lower rungs of the military ladder, who
3 actually carried out the atrocities, must bear responsibility too, as they are the
4 people who perfected the “art” of slaughtering human beings with their medical
5 knowledge, abilities, curiosity, ambition, cruelty, eagerness, and creativity, often
6 going far beyond their leaders’ expectations. Without their efforts, no order could
7 have been executed. Thus, the sins of the Emperor and the failure of national
8 policy cannot be used to exonerate individual perpetrators from responsibility.
9 Noda Masaaki records that, after the war, one soldier realized while in a Chinese
0 prison that each individual must question his own responsibility for his actions
11 before blaming his superiors (Noda 1998: 164).
12 As the Japanese novelist Morimura Seiichi, author of Akuma no hoshoku
13 (Devils’ Gluttony) on Unit 731, poignantly asks:
14
15 Were those countless experiments really conducted as a result of a “collective
16 madness”? Didn’t we see the careful calculation of individuals and the spirit
17 of exploration exhibited by medical researchers at work in those experiments?
18 Were not those experiments actually performed for their own sake rather than
19 for the “nation”? These questions were answered by the fact that, after the
20 war, these experimental results were all used for the benefit of the researchers
21 involved. The atrocities were conducted by individuals under the cloak of the
22 “nation”. That explains why they did not want to confess anything that might
23 be disadvantageous to themselves, why they tried to hide or mitigate their
24 crimes, and showed absolutely no regret.
25 (Morimura 1985, 2004: 251–252)
26
27 Morimura rightly points out the culpability of each individual involved. The sad
28 reality is that so few of the perpetrators came to regret their crimes, continually
29 protecting themselves by recourse to one excuse after another – from the
30 “Emperor’s command,” “national policy,” and “orders from above” to “scientific
31 research”.
32 Although it was not easy for those involved to disobey orders, it was not
33 impossible to do so, as we have already seen. One participant in the Kyushu
34 Imperial University atrocities stated:
35
36 No matter what kind of situation we were faced with, as long as we insisted,
37 we could have prevented the atrocities from happening. . . . Compared with
38 those who were arrested by the police for their anti-war activities, it would
39 have been much easier for us to refuse to participate in the vivisection
40 experiments. We cannot say that we did not have a choice.
41 (Kamisaka 1979: 255)
42
43 Although such a voice is rare, it is witness to the real possibility of choice
44 possessed by each individual. It was not because the participants did not have a
45 choice, but rather because they did not try to make a choice. In the situation they
 118   Nanyan Guo
1 faced, it must have been much safer to obey orders – and much easier to cast aside
2 humanity and morality rather than reject unethical behavior.
3 It is an alarming fact that only a handful of perpetrators have ever expressed
4 their guilt. Of course, some regrets may have been very private and will never be
5 made public for fear of the embarrassment associated with disclosing a shameful
6 past. It is ironic that, in order to hear a perpetrator’s real voice, we have to turn to
7 fiction, and to two works in particular, The Sea and Poison and Song of Sadness,
8 by Japanese novelist Endo Shusaku (1923–1996), both of which are based on the
9 Kyushu Imperial University atrocities.
0 The protagonist of Umi to dokuyaku [The Sea and Poison] (Endo 1971), Suguro,
11 is given the option of declining his boss’s invitation to participate in the vivisection.
12 However, because he is tired of the war chaos, has no hope for peace, and has
13 become indifferent to most events around him, he passively accepts the offer
14 (pp. 122–124). Still, as the procedure is about to begin, he is desperate to get away,
15 but the loud laughter of the military officers present “sounded like a thick wall
16 and blocked his escape” (p. 130). He remains in the operating room, leaning
17 motionlessly against the wall for most of the time (pp. 137, 143). Although not an
18 active participant, he becomes the sole observer of the whole process of the
19 vivisection of two American soldiers. Hearing one of them groan, he suddenly
20 feels a sense of “powerlessness” and “humiliation.” Although telling himself, “I
21 did not do anything . . .”, Suguro still hears a rhythmic voice in his ears, repeating
22 the refrain “killed, killed, killed” (p. 147). Leaving the operating room, he
23 descends the stairs listening to the sound of his own steps. “Two hours ago, the
24 American soldiers also walked up these stairs without knowing what would befall
25 them,” he muses. “The good-natured face of the prisoner with chestnut hair will
26 probably soon vanish from the surgeons’ minds. But it can’t disappear from my
27 mind. I can’t forget” (pp. 147–148).
28 Suguro’s colleague Toda, who had actively participated in the vivisection, tells
29 him: “As a result of the deaths of these prisoners, we know how to treat thousands
30 of patients with tuberculosis. We did not kill him. We revived him. Conscience can
31 change depending on which perspective you take.” Toda continues: “I don’t think
32 those who are going to punish us would be any different if they were put in the
33 same situation.” Toda represents the attitudes of real perpetrators who try to justify
34 whatever atrocities they have committed, but Suguro is not convinced by Toda’s
35 arguments. By telling himself “I can’t forget,” he has already chosen a lasting
36 moral punishment for himself.
37 The Sea and Poison was adapted for the cinema in 1986 in a black-and-white
38 feature film with the same title by director Kumai Kei. It was awarded the top
39 prize for a Japanese film by film magazine Kinema Junpo and won the Silver Bear
40 award at the 37th Berlin International Film Festival in 1987. The director interprets
41 the “sea” in the novel as a “symbol” of the spirit and way of life of the Japanese
42 people who “are not looking for anything supremely meaningful, but are happy to
43 live in the world of the gods by following a conformist path” (Kumai 1987: 294).
44 Endo later states that he wrote the novel because he wanted to show the weakness
45 of human beings, since he himself probably would not have had the strength to
 Taking responsibility for medical atrocities   119
1 maintain his belief in justice either under such circumstances (Endo 1998: 138).
2 Nevertheless, he does not get bogged down in lamenting human weakness but
3 rather seeks to create a character who possesses the ability for self-reflection.
4 The same character appeared in a further novel, Kanashimi no uta (Song of
5 Sadness), twenty years later, in 1978. Following an abortion operation, Suguro
6 recalls what had happened 30 years early in another operating theatre. “That time,
7 the long corridor was deadly quiet, too, and the windows of the hospital corridor
8 were veiled in darkness when he left the operating room, just like today. Since that
9 evening, everything in his life has changed. Meanwhile, something that would
0 never change was being born inside him” (Endo 1981, 2003: 58). This immutable
11 “something” may be interpreted as his newly shaped sense of morality. In this
12 novel, Suguro is constantly criticized by the people surrounding him. The journalist
13 who relentlessly questions him, however, is described as a character who himself
14 is lacking in self-reflection. This narrative technique makes it hard for readers to
15 believe that the journalist would act any differently if placed in the same situation.
16 Tortured by his growing sense of guilt and social pressures, Suguro eventually
17 chooses to commit suicide. His death symbolizes the ultimate punishment – one
18 which he imposes on himself. These two novels reveal the depth of the protagonist’s
19 soul, which is full of regret, guilt, and self-loathing because of his attendence at
20 the vivisection.
21 Through the character of Suguro, Endo depicts a double movement of the
22 psyche – on the one hand describing an individual’s difficulty in maintaining a
23 consistent moral standard, and, on the other, depicting his newly regained sense of
24 morality through a constant recalling of the past and undergoing self-reflection.
25 Through these two novels, Endo sheds some light on Japan’s medical establish­
26 ment, which has still not recovered from a catastrophic loss of humanity.
27 Meanwhile, Endo also attempts to fill a gap in modern Japanese literature which,
28 he believes, has never made the effort to probe deeply into the human soul (Endo
29 2000: 54). This lack of personal introspection is unlikely to be a purely literary
30 phenomenon, but is a psychological reality in Japan and other countries. Although
31 Suguro is a fictional character, the process of his psychological development
32 reveals a possibility of redemption for individuals through self-reflection and
33 restoration of morality. This is a significant means by which an individual can take
34 responsibility for his or her actions.
35
36
Conclusion
37
38 According to Tsuneishi, “Ishii’s network was not something that happened in the
39 past, but rather it still exists in the present medical establishment in Japan. If we
40 fail to reveal the atrocities of the past, similar atrocities can be easily repeated”
41 (Tsuneishi 1994: 292). Moreover, I would add that the kind of “atrocity” Tsuneishi
42 has in mind is universal, not unique to a particular nation, a particular race, or a
43 particular time. When we study medical atrocities, we cannot be satisfied with
44 blaming the culprits and external causes. All people, including those from
45 victimized countries, need to examine the state of their own morality. “What would
 120   Nanyan Guo
1 I do if I were put in a similar situation?” “Would I refuse to participate in
2 such atrocities?” “Would I be brave enough to refuse to obey orders?” If our
3 answers are equivocal, then we know that the seeds of similar crimes lie in our
4 minds too.
5 It is important to realize that the cycle of collective violence can be broken by
6 the moral courage and humanity of individuals. If an individual can imagine and
7 identify with other people’s suffering, and sustain his or her moral beliefs in the
8 face of it, then it is possible that unethical instructions can be rejected or ignored,
9 or at least evaded. Numerous examples of individuals saving Jews from Nazi
0 orders for their destruction have already shown that the fundamental humanity
11 within each person can help prevent atrocities (Glover 2001: 381–393). That is
12 why we need to learn from the attitudes of those who regard a human life as the
13 most precious thing.
14
15
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Tsuneishi, Keiichi 常石敬一 1994, Organized Crimes by Medical Researchers: Unit 731
18
of the Kwantung Army 医学者たちの組織犯罪— 関東軍第七三一部隊, Tokyo:
19 Asahi shimbunsha.
20 Tsuneishi, Keiichi 常石敬一 1995, Unit 731: The Truth about Biological Weapons and
21 Crimes 七三一部隊　生物兵器犯罪の真実, Tokyo: Kodansha.
22 Tsuneishi, Keiichi 常石敬一 1998, “Medical Research and War: Questions to Medical
23 Establishment” 医学と戦争—いま、医学会に問われていること, in Saito Takao and
24 Koyama Arifumi, eds, Lectures on Bioethics 生命倫理学講義, Tokyo: Nihon
25 hyoronsha.
26 Tsuneishi, Keiichi 常石敬一 2002, Crossroads of Conspiracy: An Investigation into the
27 Imperial Bank Incident and Unit 731 謀略のクロスロード — — 帝銀事件捜査と731
部隊, Tokyo: Nihon hyoronsha.
28
Tsuneishi, Keiichi 常石敬一 and Asano, Tomizo 朝野富三 1982, Germ Warfare Troops
29
and Two Medical Researchers who Committed Suicide 細菌戦部隊と自決した二人,の
30 医学者, Tokyo: Shinchosha.
31 Williams, Peter and David Wallace, 1989/2003, Unit 731: The Japanese Army’s Secret of
32 Secrets, London: Hodder & Stoughton/Japanese version, Nishizato Fuyuko, trans 七
33 三一部隊の生物兵器とアメリカ — バイオテロの系譜, Kyoto: Kamogawa shuppan,
34 2003.
35 Yoshikai, Natsuko and Yuasa Ken 吉開那津子、湯浅謙 1981, 1996, The Memories
36 That Cannot be Erased: Records of Vivisections Performed by the Japanese Army 増
37 補新版　消せない記憶—日本軍の生体解剖の記録, first edition 1981, revised
38 edition 1996.
Yoshimura, Akira 吉村昭 1975, Fleas and Bombs 蚤と爆弾, Tokyo: Kodansha. Originally
39
published as Bacteria 細菌 in 1970.
40
41
42
43
44
45
1
2 6 On the altar of nationalism
3
4 and the nation-state
5
6 Japan’s wartime medical
7 atrocities, the American cover-up,
8
9 and postwar Chinese responses
0
11 Jing-Bao Nie
12
13 One of the most intrinsic and pervasive moral conflicts – universalism vs.
14 parochialism – is intimately bound up with the ascent of science and the rise of the
15 nation-state, two historical phenomena that have shaped the modern and
16 contemporary world as potently as the expansion of capitalism. Advances in
17 science and medicine are often propounded on the basis of a universalist
18 presupposition that they will serve the well-being of humankind. Too often it has
19 been said that science and medicine have no national boundaries – because
20 scientific truth advances beyond artificial geographical divisions and because
21 diseases, bacteria and viruses do not respect the borders of nation-states. At the
22 same time, the emergence of the nation-state and the development of nationalism
23 may be seen as modern forms of an age-old tribalism. While nationalist sentiment
24 has often stimulated the advance and positive social application of scientific and
25 medical knowledge, nationalism can also turn science and medicine, whether
26 voluntarily or involuntarily, into the handmaiden of the nation-state, including its
27 expansionist (internationally) and suppressive (domestically) aims.
28 Nationalist ideology can significantly increase human capacity to commit
29 extraordinary evils and decrease human capacity to resist and address inhumanity
30 when and after atrocities have occurred. Japan’s wartime medical atrocities
31 constitute a paradigmatic case of how human lives and fundamental values such
32 as morality, justice, medical ethics, and scientific integrity can be sacrificed on the
33 altar of nationalism and the nation-state. Although Japan’s ambitious military
34 schemes were defeated by joint international efforts and the Japanese biological
35 warfare empire collapsed as a result, justice has never been served with regard to
36 Japan’s medical war crimes. While this failure is an outcome of complex historical
37 and political factors in the postwar period, including the United States’ cover-up
38 of the physicians’ activities, Japanese denial, and the relative silence of successive
39 Chinese governments, are all among the unfortunate events involving different
40 nation-states that have all prioritized national interests over justice and morality.
41 In other words, a key issue has been and remains the spell of nationalism that
42 holds Japan, China, and the United States and other nations in its thrall.
43 This chapter constitutes both a historical and ethical inquiry. In the first part, it
44 presents the role of nationalist ideology in shaping Japan’s wartime medical
45 atrocities as well as in the postwar international failure to address those atrocities,
 124   Jing-Bao Nie
1 what I called elsewhere the “continuing triumph of inhumanity” (Nie 2004). In the
2 last two sections, it offers a normative account by calling up the Confucian moral
3 imperative, “medicine as the art of humanity,” and by stressing the necessity to
4 remain alert to the powerful danger of nationalism for science and medicine.
5
6
Nationalism: an ideological foundation for the
7
Japanese atrocities
8
9 I begin by examining the rationale for Japanese physicians and scientists to vivisect,
0 experiment upon, and torture thousands of people. In 1936 at the first meeting of
11 Unit 731, a motivational speech given by one of the group’s leaders (probably Ishii
12 Shiro, a specialist in bacteria-related fields and the driving engine of the Japanese
13 bacteriological warfare machine) defined the nature of their work as “a double
14 medical thrill.” The speaker knew well that “our God-given mission as doctors is to
15 challenge all varieties of disease-causing micro-organisms; to block all roads of
16 intrusion into the human body; to annihilate all foreign matter resident in our
17 bodies; and to devise the most expeditious treatment possible.” Nevertheless, he
18 bluntly admitted that the task they were about to take up involved “the complete
19 opposite of these principles.” The speaker warned his colleagues that this might
20 cause them “some anguish as doctors.” However, he assured them that their research
21 would provide “a double medical thrill” – “one, as a scientist to exert effort to
22 probing for the truth in natural science and research into, and discovery of, the
23 unknown world, and two, as a military person, to successfully build a powerful
24 military weapon against the enemy” (Williams and Wallace 1989: 37–38).
25 As the speaker himself realized, these two “thrills” or stimuli – the exhilaration
26 of advancing medical science to help humankind fight diseases and the excitement
27 felt in creating an effective biological weapon to help Japan win the war – clash.
28 The speaker’s point, however, is that whatever was necessary for Japan’s victory
29 was permissible. In the actual pursuit of this “double medical thrill,” the creation
30 of a powerful weapon took precedence over all else.
31 Mass atrocities are always the consequence of individual choices made in the
32 context of a complex mix of ideology and socio-political forces. The ideological
33 foundation which enabled Japanese doctors and scientists to create “factories
34 of death” and conduct numerous barbaric human experiments emerged as the
35 result of a complex process. Here I would like to highlight an all-too-familiar
36 socio-political factor making possible systematic medically sanctioned killing:
37 nationalism. Nationalism was the main ideological pathway to medical war crimes,
38 just as it provided the overarching ideological framework for Japan’s war of
39 aggression in the Asia-Pacific in general.
40 Ishii Shiro (1892–1959) was a fierce nationalist. From his youth, Ishii “openly
41 supported the ultranationalists, espousing their anticapitalist, antibourgeois,
42 antiliberal, and pronational socialist views” (Harris 2002, 18–19). Trained in
43 medicine, he made good use of his connections in the Ministry of Army to launch
44 and develop his career in BW. The Kwantung Army, the real controller of the
45 Japanese puppet state, provided Ishii with generous institutional support for his
 The U.S. cover-up and China’s responses   125
1 BW empire centered in Manchuria (Manchukuo) and extending throughout China
2 and beyond.
3 Nationalism has been closely entwined with Japan’s remarkable pursuit of
4 modernization and modernity including the development of science and technology
5 – what was once called “civilization and enlightenment” – since the Meiji period
6 (Gluck 1985; Shimazu 2006; Mizuno 2008). National consciousness, patriotism,
7 and cultural nationalism, combined with the state Shinto religion, became the core
8 of Japan’s newly developed compulsory public education system. As part of this
9 system, “ethics,” or moral discipline to be accurate, was a required course,
0 emphasizing loyalty and filial piety to the nation, the state, and the Emperor as the
11 individual’s highest civic duty. Militarism was an essential part of this mix. A high
12 nationalist wave arrived around the first Sino-Japanese war of 1894 to 1895 and
13 the 1904 to 1905 war with Russia. Japan’s twin victories in these wars further
14 augmented a growing nationalism. As embodied in the notion of kokutai (national
15 polity), nationalism reached its peak in the 1930s and 1940s. At home, nationalist
16 extremists carried out a series of terrorist acts, including assassinating prominent
17 politicians, businessmen, and court officials. Nationalism fueled the military
18 expansion that culminated in the invasion of China and other Asian countries and
19 the attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.
20 In the case of Japanese wartime medical atrocities, nationalism went hand in
21 hand with imperialism and racism. Manchukuo was itself a salient example of how
22 imperialism works together with nationalism in the creation of a modern “nation-
23 state” (Duara 2004). In the Khabarovsk Trial conducted by the Soviet Union in late
24 1949, one of the accused was Major General of Medical Services Dr. Kawashima
25 Kiyoshi, formerly Head of both the First Division (bacteriological research) and the
26 Fourth Division (mass production and storage of bacteria) of Unit 731. When
27 questioned by the state prosecutor about why preparations for bacteriological
28 warfare were conducted in Japanese-occupied Manchuria rather than in mainland
29 Japan, Kawashima replied that, in addition to the geographical advantages
30 that would make it “easier and more convenient to deploy the bacteriological
31 material from there,” there was another major reason, namely convenience of
32 experimentation (The Khabarovsk Trial 1950: 263). That is, “Manchuria was very
33 convenient because there was adequate experimental material there”; in other
34 words, human subjects were available for experimentation – maruta (logs of wood
35 or lumber) to use the perpetrators’ terminology for their victims.
36 The widespread image of Japan, often in contrast with Germany, as a country
37 without repentance for its war atrocities, is a stereotype because many Japanese do
38 take the past seriously. The large number of Japanese works on the wartime
39 medical crimes cited in various chapters and listed in the bibliography of this
40 volume clearly reflect the contributions of Japanese who have come to terms with
41 the past. However, Japan remains deeply divided on how to remember war,
42 colonialism, and atrocities. A critical point is that the Japanese government has
43 been largely unrepentant, has failed to engage in self-examination, and prefers to
44 celebrate its military heritage. This official denial is founded basically on a
45 nationalist ideology. The financial and political protection of successive postwar
 126   Jing-Bao Nie
1 governments allowed most of the individuals who were active in the biological
2 warfare program to lead comfortable lives after the war with many becoming
3 prominent leaders in the medical profession, research, and education. Eventually,
4 some former members of Unit 731 such as Shinozuka [Tamura] Yoshio publicly
5 expressed feelings of deep remorse. But others such as Mizobuchi Toshimi, who
6 participated in destroying all evidence of the Unit’s work at the end of the War, and
7 who witnessed the killing of all remaining prisoners with methane gas, have no
8 such regrets. Mizobuchi, who continues to convene the Unit’s annual reunion, told
9 ABC’s foreign correspondent in 2003: “I am proud of what we did. If I was
0 younger, I’d consider doing it again because it was an interesting unit.” Shimizu
11 Keihachiro, a professor at a respected Japanese university, told the same reporter
12 that all of Japan’s alleged wartime atrocities, including the Nanjing Massacre and
13 the biological warfare program, are “lies” perpetrated by the Chinese. For Shimizu,
14 “China is the one who did bad things. If Japan did not exist in Asia, China would
15 have been divided up by Western people like Africa was. China has survived
16 because of Japan.” He went further: “The Japanese race has never done bad
17 things. That is why we have become such a strong country now” (ABC Foreign
18 Correspondent 2003).
19
20
“In the national interest:” the American justification for the
21
cover-up
22
23 In the 1980s it became known that, immediately after the War, the U.S. authorities
24 secretly granted the Unit 731 perpetrators, including the prime culprit Ishii,
25 immunity from war crimes prosecution in exchange for scientific data gained from
26 vivisections and human experimentation (Powell 1981; Williams and Wallace
27 1989; Harris 2002). Even direct payoff was made to perpetrators (Reed 2006).
28 U.S. bioethicist Jonathan Moreno, a former member of President Clinton’s
29 advisory committee for handling U.S. government-sponsored human radiation
30 experiments conducted during the Cold War, has characterized the bargain struck
31 by the U.S. authorities with Ishii and his associates as a “deal with devils” (Moreno
32 2001, 87).
33 The postwar acts of the U.S. government, both those of commission and
34 omission, have made it an accomplice or accessory after the fact with respect to
35 Japanese wartime medical crimes (Nie 2005). Although American scientists and
36 officials had detailed knowledge about Japan’s biological warfare program,
37 including the “secret of secrets” (i.e. human experimentation), and although the
38 U.S. government was at the same time publicly and aggressively bringing many
39 Nazi physicians to justice in the German trials, the U.S. authorities withheld vital
40 information from the International Military Tribunal for the Far East so that
41 Japanese medical war crimes were never prosecuted in the U.S.-controlled Tokyo
42 trial. The American military even made cash payments to obtain the Japanese
43 documents (Tsuneishi 2005; Reed 2006). Moreover, the U.S. authorities publicly
44 poured scorn on irrefutable evidence of Japanese medical atrocities from other
45 sources, notably the Soviet Union’s Khabarovsk Trial.
 The U.S. cover-up and China’s responses   127
1 Those U.S. officials who were involved recognized the inconsistencies and
2 double standards in their different treatment of the Nazi and Japanese doctors.
3 For instance, the 1947 report of the subcommittee of the State–War–Navy
4 Coordinating Committee charged with directing information acquired into the
5 appropriate intelligence channels noted that:
6
7 Experiments on human beings similar to those conducted by the Ishii BW
8 group have been condemned as war crimes by the International Military
9 Tribunal for the trial of major Nazi war criminals in its decision handed down
0 at Nuremburg on 30 September 1946.  .  .  . This government is at present
11 prosecuting leading German scientists and medical doctors at Nuremberg for
12 offences which included experiments on human beings which resulted in the
13 suffering and death of those experimented on.
14 (Harris 2002, 301)
15
16 However, far from prosecuting the Unit 731 scientists, the U.S. granted them
17 immunity from prosecution in exchange for valuable scientific data. In his
18 summary report dated December 12, 1947, Dr. Edwin V. Hill, Chief, Basic
19 Sciences, Camp Detrick (headquarters of the U.S. BW program), explained:
20
21 Evidence gathered in this investigation . . . has been obtained by Japanese
22 scientists at the expenditure of many millions of dollars and years of work.
23 Information has accrued with respect of human susceptibility to those diseases
24 as indicated by specific infectious doses of bacteria. Such information could
25 not be obtained in our own laboratories because of scruples attached to human
26 experimentation. These data were secured with a total outlay of ¥ 250,000 to
27 date, a mere pittance by comparison with the actual cost of the studies.
28 (Harris 2002, 264)
29
30 The decision to grant immunity was not made without hesitation. U.S. officials
31 were aware of the possible risks, as Colonel R. M. Cheseldine, a member of
32 the State–War–Navy Coordinating Committee, remarked at a meeting held on
33 September 26, 1947: “This government may at a later date be seriously
34 embarrassed.” Still, Cheseldine concluded, “this information, particularly that
35 which will finally be obtained from the Japanese with respect to the effect of BW
36 on humans, is of such importance to the security of this country that the risk of
37 subsequent embarrassment should be taken” (ibid., 303).
38 The decision-making process by U.S. scientific, military, and government
39 authorities regarding Japanese BW war crimes was marked by a striking absence
40 of ethical or moral considerations. American historian Sheldon Harris (2002, 305)
41 poignantly summarized the issues at stake:
42
43 No one in 1948 was prepared to raise the issue of ethics, or morality, or
44 traditional Western or Judeo-Christian human values in confronting those
45 responsible for the Japanese BW negotiation. The questions of ethics and
 128   Jing-Bao Nie
1 morality as they affected scientists in Japan and in the United States never
2 once entered into a single discussion that is recorded in any of the minutes,
3 notes, records of meetings, and so on, from the initial Murray Sanders reports
4 of November 1945 to the Joint Chiefs of Staff cable to General MacArthur on
5 March 13, 1948. In all the considerable documentation that has survived over
6 the more than five decades since the events described, not one individual is
7 chronicled as having said BW human experiments were an abomination and
8 that their perpetrators should be prosecuted.
9
0 It was therefore for the sake of the national interest and national security that
11 the U.S. authorities released indictable war criminals. One of the many ironies to
12 emerge from the Japanese BW war crimes and their aftermath is that the intentions
13 of U.S. scientists and officials to extract useful information from the Japanese data
14 were probably never fulfilled.
15 The American postwar cover-up of Japan’s wartime medical atrocities for the
16 sake of the national interest – complicity after the fact, as clearly defined by the
17 common law tradition – not only trampled on morality and justice in general, but
18 has become a historical burden for the U.S. on the international stage. Such fall-
19 out will continue to haunt the U.S. government until it faces up to its actions and
20 takes meaningful steps to rectify them. These should include an official apology
21 by the U.S. government and/or Congress for its cover-up of Japan’s medical
22 atrocities and the provision of appropriate financial compensation to the families
23 of victims (Nie 2005).
24
25
An excursus: nationalist rhetoric in the Soviet Union’s
26
Khabarovsk Trial
27
28 From December 23–30, 1949, in Khabarovsk, the Soviet Union conducted an open
29 trial of 12 former Japanese servicemen (eight were physicians and scientists)
30 ranking from Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army, under which Unit 731
31 operated, to the heads of the Unit’s various divisions and as far down the scale of
32 responsibility as laboratory orderlies (see Chapter 3, this volume; also Nie 2004).
33 Despite many shortcomings such as the lack of international participation, the trial
34 proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Japanese Imperial Army had established
35 an extensive biological warfare program, that bacteriological weapons were
36 manufactured and employed, and that Japanese physicians and scientists conducted
37 barbaric experiments on living human beings. Moreover, the Soviet Union made
38 efforts to disseminate the facts verified at the Khabarovsk Trial through diplomatic
39 channels and the media, including the publication of the trial materials in English
40 and other languages. Unfortunately, until the early 1980s the West almost totally
41 dismissed the facts uncovered by this remarkable trial as mere “communist
42 propaganda” (Nie 2004).
43 The Khabarovsk Trial was the one bright spot in a series of disappointing
44 international responses to Japan’s wartime medical atrocities. However, a stridently
45 nationalist tone was evident throughout the trial. For instance, in his final speech,
 The U.S. cover-up and China’s responses   129
1 State Prosecutor Smirnov asserted that, prior to the 1930s, “Peace in the Soviet Far
2 East was maintained only as a result of the genius of Stalin’s policy, as a result of the
3 victorious consummation of the Stalin five-year plans, as a result of the vigilant
4 concern displayed by the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet Government for the
5 strengthening of the Soviet Armed Forces” (The Khabarovsk Trial 1950, 407).
6 Moreover, “It was only the crushing blow of the Soviet Armed Forces” that initially
7 “saved mankind from the horrors of bacteriological warfare into which the Hitlerite
8 miscreants were preparing to plunge the world” and that “again saved mankind from
9 the horror of bacteriological warfare” and “with a swift blow shattered the major
0 striking force of criminal Japanese imperialism – the Kwantung Army” (ibid., 411).
11 To a great extent, considerations of the national interest drove the Soviet
12 investigation. Perhaps for this reason, it never sought active international
13 participation in bringing Japanese war criminals to trial. Its conduct nevertheless
14 contrasts with the U.S. protection of the perpetrators of the biowar program and
15 buying their data.
16
17
China’s postwar responses
18
19 China’s postwar response – or lack of adequate response – to Japan’s wartime
20 medical atrocities is an intriguing story. The attitudes of successive Chinese
21 governments – both Nationalist and Communist – have perplexed analysts (Harris
22 2002, 314–317). No Chinese administration has ever rigorously pursued justice on
23 behalf of the Chinese victims. It seems that nationalism or a particular concept of
24 the national interest yet again provides a key to explaining China’s relative lack of
25 action over the Japanese BW crimes.
26 In the Tokyo Trial, only the Soviet representatives consistently pursue the
27 subject of redress for victims. The judge and representative from the Republic of
28 China and the Nationalist Party were basically silent on the subject from start to
29 finish. While the Nanjing Trial held by the Republic of China in 1946 and later
30 trials conducted by the People’s Republic of China, especially that in Fushun in
31 1956, investigated Japanese BW crimes, both the Nationalist and Communist
32 military tribunals failed to rigorously investigate these crimes. The sentences
33 handed down in these trials were even more lenient than those awarded in the
34 Khabarovsk Trial. In contrast to the Doctors’ Trial during the Nuremberg Tribunal
35 in which seven of the 23 Nazi physicians and medical administrators charged were
36 sentenced to death by hanging, no Japanese doctors were sentenced to death in any
37 of the Russian and Chinese trials (see Chapter 2, this volume).
38 How do we account for these discrepancies? This may be impossible to answer
39 in the absence of court and archival records. Some remarks by Mao Zedong
40 provide clues, though they fail to fully clarify the Communist government’s
41 standpoint on the subject. In interviews with delegations and individual visitors
42 from Japan between 1955 and 1961, Mao reflected on how China should deal with
43 the legacy of the war with Japan. In the context of the Cold War, he stressed
44 repeatedly that the majority of the Japanese people were China’s friends and that
45 American imperialism was the common enemy of the Chinese and Japanese
 130   Jing-Bao Nie
1 people. Thus Chinese and Japanese should unite to overcome American political
2 and military interference in Asia. In order to move forward, Mao promoted an
3 approach predicated on forgetting, rather than remembering. In his own words to
4 Japanese visitors: “Our ancestors once quarreled, fought with each other. All this
5 can be forgotten now! All this should be forgotten because it is unpleasant stuff.
6 What use is it to keep it in our minds?” Noting that many Japanese visitors referred
7 to the evils of Japan’s invasion of China and apologized for it, Mao insisted that it
8 was “not reasonable to demand a payment for past debt. You have apologized. You
9 cannot apologize every day, can you?” (Mao 1994: 226). “Japan is no longer in
0 debt to anyone. Rather, other countries owe Japan” (438). Mao went further,
11 stating that although Japan’s invasion into China was of course wrong, it also had
12 some beneficial effects so that in some sense the Chinese owed “thanks” to the
13 Japanese Imperial Army (226). In a meeting with a parliamentary representative
14 from the Japan Socialist Party, Mao explained:
15
16 It is the Japanese warlords who occupied more than half of China, a reality
17 which educated the Chinese people. Otherwise, the Chinese people would
18 still be not awakened, nor united; we would still be living in the mountains [as
19 guerrillas], and would never have come here to Beijing to see the Beijing
20 Opera. It is because of the Japanese Imperial Army, which occupied half of
21 China, that the Chinese people found themselves in a tight corner, woke up,
22 armed themselves to fight, and established many [Communist-led] bases
23 against the Japanese, thus creating the conditions necessary to win the “War
24 of Liberation” [the Communist war against the Nationalist Party]. So the
25 Japanese warlords and monopoly capitalists did us a good turn. If “thanks”
26 are due at all, I would rather thank the Japanese warlords.
27 (Mao 1994, 460–461; all translations of Mao’s words
28 cited here are by Nie)
29
30 Mao’s remarks, appealing to the Japanese people through his progressive visitors
31 to help break China’s isolation and establish China–Japan diplomatic relations,
32 acknowledged Japan’s inadvertent contribution to the eventual Communist Party
33 victory, first in the anti-Japanese resistance and subsequently in the civil war with
34 the Guomindang. They reveal Mao’s pragmatic strategy of combining realpolitik
35 with an appeal to the nation-state and nationalist sentiment.
36 Mao’s remarks in fact resonate with the thought-provoking thesis on the key
37 role of “peasant nationalism” in revolutionary China (Johnson 1962). This thesis
38 argues that Japanese invasion evoked a nationalist response which resulted not
39 only in Japan’s ultimate defeat but contributed to the rise of the Chinese Communist
40 Party. The success of Communist power lay not in the machinations of the
41 international Communist movement, nor its economic (land reform) policies, but
42 in effectively channeling mass nationalism to win support and legitimacy in the
43 face of a ruthless invader.
44 Indeed, the Communist Chinese state has been continuing to shape and utilize
45 nationalism to mobilize a vast nation and strengthen its claim to legitimacy. In the
 The U.S. cover-up and China’s responses   131
1 context of responding or not responding to Japan’s wartime medical atrocities, the
2 issue has long become a political tool either to increase nationalist ferment when it
3 is politically useful or to quash calls for justice when the state no longer wishes to
4 make use of mass nationalism to achieve its goals. Zhou Enlai, China’s Premier,
5 once disclosed the official reason for the lenient sentences given to the Japanese
6 war criminals and for returning them to Japan after re-education and trials – these
7 war criminals were themselves the victims of war. Moreover, they had the potential
8 to strengthen relations between Japan and China in the long run (again, see Chapter
9 2, this volume). In other words, leniency, in stark contrast with the ruthlessness of
0 Japan’s treatment of the Chinese people, was justified by the overall interests of the
11 Chinese and Japanese people, and even world peace. Zhou played the central role
12 in dealing with Japanese POWs who were re-educated and, in 1956, sent back to
13 Japan. Indeed, many of them subsequently spent a lifetime speaking about their
14 atrocities in China and participating in peace activism, often through the Association
15 of Returnees from China (Chugoku Kikansha Renrakukai, abbreviated as Chukiren).
16 The approach for which Zhou was primarily responsible may be viewed, as claimed
17 officially, to be a brilliant diplomatic and humanitarian success. Not only has
18 China’s clemency helped to open the way toward China–Japan reopening relations,
19 but the return of the soldiers proves highly advantageous in raising issues of war
20 atrocities in ways far more effective than, for example, Chinese criticism of Japan.
21 In addition, the Chinese authorities are right that the captured soldiers were not
22 those who bore the highest responsibilities; indeed, they too were victims, seeing
23 the issue of justice from another angle.
24 Nevertheless, what I would like to focus on here is the role of nationalist
25 sentiment and ideology. Nationalism, in the forms of state, intellectual or scholarly,
26 and mass nationalism, has overshadowed China’s official and popular postwar
27 responses to Japanese wartime medical atrocities. As manifested in standard
28 historical textbooks, academic studies and mass media (e.g., Nan 2005), the anti-
29 Japanese war in general, and Japan’s wartime medical atrocities in particular
30 occupy a salient part in the contemporary collective memory of China. This
31 collective memory is fundamentally nationalistic, defining Japanese perpetrators
32 of war crimes as “devils” and “enemies of Chinese people.” As a result, the
33 universal dimension of Japanese war crimes is rarely expressed in the nationalist
34 memory. The well-known Unit 731 Criminal Evidence Museum (Qinhua Rijun
35 Diqisanyi Budui Zhizhen Chenlieguan) in Harbin, like the Memorial of Nanjing
36 Massacre in Nanjing, is an important site of “patriotic education” (aiguo zhuyi
37 jiaoyu). The major reason for remembering Japan’s wartime medical atrocities is
38 to sustain and enhance patriotism in the service of realizing the collective Chinese
39 dream, to make the nation wealthy and strong (fuqiang).
40 While both the Nationalist and Communist governments, in part owing to the
41 rivalry between them, never actively pursued war reparations from Japan, in the
42 past decade some Chinese victims of Japanese biological warfare have begun
43 seeking justice and compensation in lower level Japanese courts, supported by
44 non-governmental organizations in China and Japanese lawyers and NGOs (see
45 Nan 2005). This is part of a wider effort to redress war crimes including forced
 132   Jing-Bao Nie
1 labor, sexual slavery (“comfort women”), and the Nanjing Massacre. However,
2 although tolerating them, the Chinese government has not encouraged these
3 efforts, perhaps because officials believe that activism of this kind might
4 undermine the relationship between the two countries and might also undermine
5 social stability within China.
6 Interestingly, the recent phenomenon of seeking justice and compensation on
7 behalf of the victims of Japanese war crimes reflects the expansion of Chinese
8 nationalism since the 1980s, and especially since the 1990s. In China, as in Japan
9 and the United States, nationalism pervades modern and contemporary life (Gries
0 2004; Sleeboom 2004; Zhao 2004; Hughes 2006; Shirk 2007). While Chinese may
11 disagree radically on concrete foreign policy issues, like in many other countries,
12 nationalist sentiment often constitutes a shared common ground. For instance, as
13 we have seen, state nationalism on the one hand and elite and mass nationalisms
14 on the other result in very different approaches to Japan’s wartime medical
15 atrocities – the former tending to let the issue rest and the latter seeking justice and
16 compensation. Yet, each of these responses appeals to nationalist sentiment.
17 Sociologically and ethically, Japanese wartime medical atrocities provide a
18 textbook case of collective and state violence. We may note that despite their very
19 different historical and political contexts, Japanese war crimes and the state and
20 popular violence associated with the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960s
21 and 1970s display certain uncanny similarities. Both campaigns were carried out
22 in the name of good and even holy causes; both sharply constrained freedom of
23 discussion and press; both involved the active participation of ordinary people in
24 extraordinary acts of collective violence, treating fellow human beings as non-
25 humans; and both were facilitated by the state (Nie 2005). It should also be pointed
26 out that, at the same time when they were mercifully treating Japanese war
27 criminals, the party and government of the People’s Republic were mercilessly
28 executing thousands of Chinese classified as “class enemies,” including landlords,
29 rich peasants, capitalists, and anti-revolutionaries in order to secure the newly
30 established Communist power. And earlier, during China’s civil war in which
31 millions of Chinese died, a series of war crimes were committed by Nationalists
32 as well as Communists. For instance, from June to October 1948, the People’s
33 Liberation Army besieged Changchun, a northeastern city where Japan’s other
34 infamous biological warfare unit (Unit 100) was located. At lease 160,000 civilians
35 died from famine directly resulting from the siege. A Chinese historian whose
36 book on the subject was banned immediately after its publication in 1989 has
37 compared Changchun with Hiroshima: the similar civilian casualties taking nine
38 seconds in one place and five months in another (Zhang 2002, ch. 31; for a
39 journalist report see Jacobs 2009).
40 It is beyond question that foreign aggression and exploitation, like Japan’s
41 brutal invasion, were among the major causes of China’s massive social suffering
42 throughout the long twentieth century. It is nevertheless seriously misleading to
43 single out imperialism, colonialism, and the depredations of foreign states and
44 nations as the most important cause, as the official Chinese ideology and
45 nationalist discourse often have. On the way to win power and during the course
 The U.S. cover-up and China’s responses   133
1 of governing, Chinese states – Nationalist and Communist – have imposed upon
2 Chinese people massive violence and social sufferings, more than those by foreign
3 states. Unfortunately, due partly to the spell of nationalism, the Chinese medical
4 professions and scientific communities are both victims and victimizers in the
5 power exercise of nation-states.
6
7
“Medicine as the art of humanity”: an old Confucian
8
moral imperative
9
0 It is strange that, as noted in the Introduction (see also Nie et al. 2009), international
11 as well as East Asian medical ethics has paid little attention to these atrocities in
12 more than half a century. Even in Japan and China, the subject has been treated as
13 having little relevance to contemporary science, medicine, and medical ethics.
14 Here I do not intend to explore this phenomenon. Rather, I will consider Japan’s
15 wartime atrocities in the light of Confucian and East Asian culture in general, and
16 its perspective on health care and morality in particular.
17 It has been suggested and often believed among contemporary Chinese and
18 Japanese that Japan’s wartime medical atrocities were intimately linked with East
19 Asian culture in which such values as collectivism and obedience to secular
20 authorities (such as parents and emperors) are strongly emphasized and even
21 institutionalized (e.g., Tsuchiya 2000). However, this wrongly implies that
22 Japanese war crimes are justifiable according to the dictates of East Asian culture
23 and morality, and that these acts are only wrong in the eyes of Western culture and
24 morality. However, “Japanese doctors’ human experimentation is not only an
25 offence against Western morality, against the common sense of humanity, but also
26 against Asian and Japanese moral principles and ethical ideals” (Nie 2001: 5,
27 emphasis in original). East Asian cultural and moral traditions should in no sense
28 be regarded as ethically responsible for the human experimentation carried out by
29 the Japanese doctors and the international failure of justice that followed it.
30 Japan’s wartime medical atrocities are an affront to fundamental East Asian
31 moral norms such as compassion (ci) in Buddhism, and humanity (ren) and
32 righteousness (yi) in Confucianism. They even transgress the basic moral concepts
33 of Japanese samurai traditions such as gi (justice, rectitude, or morality) and jin
34 (humanity, sympathy, virtue). Specifically, they violate a deep-rooted moral
35 principle in East Asian medical ethics traditions drawing on Confucianism,
36 especially Neo-Confucianism – that is, medicine as the art of humanity or
37 humaneness (yi nai renshu). One way to resist the increasing power of the
38 contemporary state and nationalism, and their threats to medical professionalism
39 and medical ethics, is to recall this Confucian vision of medical morality.
40 Partly to enhance the moral and social status of medicine in Confucian society,
41 ancient Chinese medical practitioners promoted the idea of “medicine as the art
42 of humanity.” As a core concept in Confucianism, ren has different shades of
43 meaning when applied to ethics and politics. It has been translated variously as
44 “humaneness,” “benevolence,” “perfect virtue,” “goodness,” “human-heartedness,”
45 “love,” “altruism,” and “humanity.” A widely quoted Chinese saying, which can
 134   Jing-Bao Nie
1 be traced to the eleventh century, avers that “He who lacks the opportunity to work
2 as a good prime minister may work as a good physician.” Koizumi Chikahiko, a
3 strong supporter of Ishii and at one time Japan’s minister of health, liked to quote a
4 Chinese proverb derived from this saying: “Great doctors tend the country, good
5 doctors tend the people, and lesser doctors heal illness” (Harris 2002: 21). As this
6 latter saying suggests, both medicine and the civil service serve the same Confucian
7 moral goals. Medicine as the art of humanity requires the physician not only to
8 master Confucian teachings but, more importantly, to follow Confucian morals in
9 medical practice. Ming Dynasty physician Gong Tingxian, in his famous “Ten
0 Maxims for Physicians,” explains that “physicians must adopt a disposition of
11 humaneness [renxin, a heart of humanity]. This is essential. They should make
12 special efforts to assist people of every walk of life so that their good deeds have
13 far-reaching influence” (Unschuld 1979; Nie 2009).
14 The notion of “medicine as the art of humanity” has been essential for medical
15 ethics in Japan as well. It has been practiced by Japanese doctors over many
16 centuries and is highly valued in Japan today. This is the ethical ideal of “complete
17 dedication to the patient and the art of medicine” articulated by Wada Tokaku, the
18 eighteenth-century Japanese physician and medical philosopher, whose ideals
19 were informed by Buddhism, Daoism-inspired Zen Buddhism in particular, and
20 the samurai code (Matsumoto et al. 2001). In stark contrast, in the eyes of the
21 perpetrators of wartime medical atrocities, the human subjects of their experiments
22 were not patients, not human beings, not even animals – but merely “logs of wood”
23 (maruta) or “experimental materials.”
24 The moral imperative of medicine as the art of humanity offers a counter-thesis
25 to the exaltation of nationalism in science. In general, the Confucian universalist
26 ideal of “all people under heaven” as brothers, an ancient Eastern version of
27 internationalism, runs counter to the sweeping tide of nationalism in the modern
28 world. In particular, the old Confucian designation of medicine as a great Dao
29 (Way), medicine as the art of humanity, defines the primary goal of medicine not
30 as glorifying any particular nation-state or group but as serving the general welfare
31 of humanity. In light of this, scientific research and the social application of
32 scientific knowledge must strive to adhere to moral norms. Science and medicine
33 should ultimately be life-affirming. Indeed, the influential but too often violated
34 Confucian political principle of ethical governance (renzheng) requires all social
35 policies, including those related to science and medicine, to put people as the
36 highest priority, the ruler as secondary, and the kingdom or nation as the least
37 weighty entity of the three.
38
39
Concluding remarks
40
41 Nationalism as an ideology has a very dark side with respect to medicine and
42 science. As Japan’s wartime medical atrocities and the international postwar
43 responses to them have demonstrated, not only did nationalism provide Japan with
44 an ideological path to medical butchery and thus turn the art of healing into a
45 vehicle for inhumanity, it also served the United States as a justification for
 The U.S. cover-up and China’s responses   135
1 exploiting the fruits of evil. Moreover, the failure of the primary victim, China, to
2 deal effectively with the “inhuman medicine” to which it was subjected and to
3 pursue justice for victims is itself directly linked with nationalism. On the altar of
4 the nation-state, all that is good and valuable may be sacrificed: not only human
5 lives, but also morality and justice, humanity and righteousness, to use some
6 potent Confucian terms.
7 Although the great majority of social thinkers in the nineteenth and the early
8 twentieth centuries anticipated the significance of scientific advances for human
9 life, few foresaw the massive expansion of nationalism and chauvinism or their
0 deadly consequences during this period (Berlin 1998). In fact, most major modern
11 social thinkers including Karl Marx anticipated the opposite: the decline and
12 gradual death of nation-states and the shrinking power of nationalist ideology.
13 Today, the study of nationalism has become a field with voluminous and continuing
14 contributions from scholars from across the humanities and social sciences. On
15 the one hand, it has been widely acknowledged that nations are socially and
16 historically constructed, that they are “imagined communities” (Anderson 1991
17 [1983]), and that the ideology of nationalism has led to the foundation of nations
18 and nation-states (Hobsbawm 1990) – rather than the other way around as is
19 commonly assumed. At the same time, the sweeping power of nationalism is a
20 contemporary reality that continues to develop and is increasingly felt in every
21 aspect of life, from sport and politics to science and medicine. The comparative
22 histories of England, France, Russia, Germany, the United States, and Japan
23 suggest that nationalism has been crucial to the rise of modernity and national
24 economic growth and represents the real spirit of capitalism (Greenfield 1992,
25 2001).
26 Surprisingly, while such disciplines as the history and sociology of science have
27 been institutionalized from the mid-twentieth century, the literature on the
28 interaction of nationalism and science remains fragmentary (Crawford 1992).
29 Surely, studies of such notorious subjects as Nazi medicine and Lysenkoism in the
30 Soviet Union should at least touch on the role of the nation-state and nationalism.
31 But the major focus of these investigations often lies elsewhere – e.g., on the
32 impact of racism, particularly anti-Semitism, and totalitarian attitudes to science
33 and medicine.
34 At the beginning of the twentieth century (1902), three decades before the
35 development of Japan’s bacteriological warfare program, William Osler, one of the
36 greatest physicians of modern times, delivered an address on “Chauvinism in
37 Medicine” to the Canadian Medical Association. Osler defined medicine in terms
38 of four essential features: its noble ancestry, its remarkable solidarity, its
39 progressive character, and its singular beneficence. Doctors’ aims are universal –
40 to treat and prevent disease. Chauvinism and nationalism are dangerous for
41 medicine, constituting “the great curse of humanity”: “In no other shape has the
42 Demon of Ignorance assumed more hideous proportions; to no other obsession do
43 we yield ourselves more readily” (Osler 2001: 234). Too often, human beings,
44 physicians included, have subordinated the human race to the nation, “forgetting
45 the higher claims of human brotherhood.” Osler believed in the beneficent power
 136   Jing-Bao Nie
1 of medicine, a power that could transcend national boundaries: “There seems to
2 be no limit to the possibilities of scientific medicine; philosophers see, as in some
3 far-off vision, a science from which may come in the prophetic words of the Son
4 of Sirach, ‘Peace over all the earth’  ” (232). For him, “While medicine is
5 everywhere tinctured with national characteristics, the wider aspects of the
6 profession . . . – our common lineage and the community of interests – should
7 always save us from the more vicious aspects of this sin, if it cannot prevent it
8 altogether” (235–236). We “may congratulate ourselves that the worst aspects of
9 nationalism in medicine are disappearing before the broader culture and the more
0 intimate knowledge brought by ever-increasing intercourse” (237). Osler (2001:
11 249) summed up optimistically:
12
13 The open mind, the free spirit of science  .  .  .  the liberal and friendly
14 relationship between different nations and different sections of the same
15 nation, the brotherly feeling which should characterize members of the oldest,
16 most beneficent and universal guild that the race has evolved in its upward
17 progress – these should neutralize the [Chauvinist and nationalist] tendencies
18 upon which I have so lightly touched.
19
20 In the aftermath of Nazi medicine and Japan’s wartime medical atrocities, as well
21 as numerous unethical examples of medical research and practice elsewhere, one
22 can no longer share the optimism of Osler and his contemporaries a century ago
23 regarding the universal and singular beneficence of medicine, and scientific
24 biomedicine in particular. There are many ethical lessons still to learn from Japan’s
25 wartime medical atrocities and the postwar responses to them. The Confucian ideal
26 of medicine as the art of humanity – rather than being merely a means of serving
27 nationalist interests and the political tool of the state – has renewed relevance for our
28 so-called “postmodern” world. Resisting the abuse of science and medicine by the
29 nation-state should be a priority, if not the priority, for contemporary medical ethics
30 and medical professionalism. In the modern world, science and medicine can no
31 longer develop – or even survive – without support from the state. However, if they
32 are totally subordinated to the interests and power of the nation-state, science and
33 medicine erode their own moral grounds for existence as autonomous professions.
34
35
Acknowledgments
36
37 I am grateful for the characteristically insightful comments and helpful suggestions
38 from Professors Arthur Kleinman and Mark Selden in writing and revising this
39 chapter.
40
41
References
42
43 ABC Foreign Correspondent. 2003. Unit 731. ABC TV, April 22.
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45 Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
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Reed, Christopher. 2006. The United States and the Japanese Mengele: Payoffs and Amnesty
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25 Tsuneishi, K. 2005. New Facts about US Payoff to Japan’s Biological Warfare Unit 731.
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Unschuld, Paul. 1979. Medical Ethics in Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California
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30 London: Hodder & Stoughton.
31 Zhang Zhengrong. 2002 [1989]. Xuebai Xuehong: Guogong Dongbei Dajuezhan
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35 Zhao, Suisheng. 2004. A Nation-state by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese
36 Nationalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
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1
2 Part III
3

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0 Parallel lessons from Germany and
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1
2 7 Bioethics and exceptionalism
3
4 A German example of learning
5
6
from “medical” atrocities
7
8 Ole Döring
9
0
11
12
13 Introduction: the current wave of exceptionalism in bioethics
14
This chapter offers an approach to ethical exceptionalism, which poses a challenge
15
to contemporary bioethics. It re-emphasizes a non-relativistic ethics by setting
16
out a concept of ethics that systematically combines theoretical philosophical
17
reflection with narrative material. The memorial at the former concentration camp
18
of Ravensbrück, with its atrocities in the name of medicine, exemplifies the purpose
19
and constructive meaning of moral learning from experiences of inhumanity. Thus
20
it connects the individual moral account with global community ethics.
21
The language of medical genomics is loaded with dramatic terminology and
22
metaphors of warfare. The hype surrounding the “Gene Wars,” associated with the
23
Human Genome Project, is well documented. It is well understood that premature
24
expectations and the race to secure advantages and opportunities can readily
25
culminate in strategic coalitions between researchers, policy makers, and industry.
26
Recently, this rhetoric seems to have gained new momentum. On the other hand, the
27
World Medical Association has made it very clear that medical ethics under
28
exceptional conditions, as in time of war, are subject to the same basic rules that
29
apply during peacetime, as set out in the Helsinki Declaration and other documents.
30
Recently, a flurry of activism in the aftermath of the terror attacks of
31
September 11, 2001 has reinvigorated the debate over questions of emergency and
32
triage in biomedical ethics. For example, Michael Gross has introduced a critical
33
framework for analyzing the application of medical ethics under conditions of
34
conflict. On balance, he seems to be leaving the question of whether conflict
35
situations require distinct types of ethics controversially open. Gross explains the
36
stakes clearly enough: “Wartime triage pushes further when casualties overwhelm
37
medical facilities. The question is not when a patient is treated, but who is treated”
38
(Gross 2006: 329).
39
Others have argued more pointedly for an ethical relativism based on a moral
40
framework that accepts the idea of exceptionalism. “The use of war or warlike
41
powers has to come from the right intentions, i.e. the argument that one wants to
42
protect the people must be serious. . . . War and warlike situations need to be the
43
means of last resort.” And, “Extreme situations require extreme, sometimes very
44
unpleasant and very extraordinary means” (Sass 2005: 164).
45
 142   Ole Döring
1 For the sake of conceptual clarity, we need to remind ourselves that,
2 notwithstanding the merits of such an axiomatic ethics, there is still no proven way
3 of measuring or otherwise positively accounting for “good” or “right” intentions
4 and of distinguishing mere rhetoric or the formal parroting of a moral platform
5 from action that proceeds from genuine moral determination. Thus, research that
6 aims at developing desperately needed social goods (such as medicines) cannot
7 substantially base the ethical justification of morally problematic methodologies on
8 promises or expectations of the resulting benefits – as is evident from the rejection
9 of the maxim that the means justify the ends. The recent direction of bioethical
0 debate calls us to reacquaint ourselves with the fundamentals of moral rationality.
11 No pragmatic, utilitarian, or otherwise consequential argument can override basic
12 ethical principles. The only rationale for admitting an exception is that particular
13 circumstances allow it exclusively to serve these same principles, albeit in a dif­
14 ferent manner than under normal circumstances. Obviously, the burden of proof,
15 and the responsibility for any adverse consequences of such an ethical judgment,
16 lies on those who claim the exception. And whether the claim of exceptional
17 circumstances can or cannot be justified in a particular case, it can never be argued
18 that the end justifies the means – and neither should the means contradict the spirit
19 of the end. Thus, from a philosophical perspective, the only justifiable instance of
20 positive exceptionalism turns out to be, on closer inspection, in no way a departure
21 from fundamental ethical imperatives, but rather the opposite – an endorsement of
22 the need to pay close attention to the real and actual requirements of a given
23 principle. It expresses an alert appreciation of the contingency of practice, which
24 occasionally happens to transgress the bounds of moral convention. Hence, in
25 biomedical ethics there can be no exception, for instance, from the inviolability of
26 human dignity, even when circumstances seem to indicate that conventional codes
27 of practice, as morally or legally prescribed, cannot apply. Only in this way can one
28 acknowledge exceptional situations while rejecting relativism.
29 Given the case in point, the question is clearly, as Gross puts it, whether, “[I]f
30 medicine serves the aims of war its duty to safeguard human life at all cost will
31 suffer?” (Gross 2006: 329). That is to say, whether we can accept the conditional
32 “if ” and still affirm the consequences in medical ethics terms. Is it possible, or
33 can it be ethically justified in the first place, for medicine to bind itself to any
34 external cause, such as the goals and necessities of war, or a particular scientific-
35 cum-political agenda?
36
37
Again: what medicine?
38
39 The narratives crafted for purposes of persuasion in the political arena have
40 created a myth that the biomedical sciences are locked into a permanent struggle
41 at the very frontiers of life and death – albeit figuratively in terms of the survival
42 of a national economy. The latest example of such hype is the fraud committed by
43 Hwang Yoo-Suk and his supporters in South Korea. Following his claims to
44 have achieved human cloning, researchers in the life sciences all over the world
45 did not hesitate to muster every sophisticated political tool at their disposal in
 Bioethics and exceptionalism: Germany   143
1 order to remove perceived obstacles to research in this area (Gottweis and
2 Triendl 2006).
3 This case shows how the perception of biomedicine as an exceptional shortcut
4 to health and prosperity can increase the pressure on bioethics to deliver rationales
5 for supporting such streamlined progress. The rhetoric of disaster management
6 claims high stakes (major medical breakthroughs, national pride, or economic
7 prudence) in order to shun moral qualms or conventional scientific virtues such as
8 patience. At the same time, it lowers the moral stakes of medicine by shifting the
9 conceptual emphasis from serving human dignity to engineering the physiological
0 aspects of human life. As a consequence, with moral meaning challenged and fear
11 and greed the driving forces behind the ethics “market,” bioethics could easily find
12 itself lending support to a vicious spiral of fear and despair rather than reason.
13 This socio-political backdrop reveals the murky lines of demarcation and
14 slippery slopes encouraging the bending of ethical values and standards in the name
15 of “exceptional opportunity,” or even an alleged duty to sacrifice some for the
16 benefit of the many. In other words, again borrowing from Gross, the principal
17 question raised by triage is: “When, exactly, is the patient to be treated?” – not
18 “Who is to be treated?” Clearly, such considerations relate to the implications of
19 the principle of justice in medical ethics.
20 This chapter is grounded in the assumption that bioethics should focus on
21 humanity and justice, and on the societal conditions that promote confidence in
22 medicine and medical research. It should be acknowledged that, by virtue of its
23 practical character, medicine has always included a focus on emergency and
24 disaster, elements that must be addressed in any consideration of an adequate
25 medical ethics – and in fact have always been understood as vital aspects of medical
26 ethics.
27 By acknowledging that medicine is destined to be practiced under conditions
28 that regularly require pragmatism, prudence and utilitarian calculations, and a
29 notable degree of uncertainty, we do not thereby admit that such contingencies
30 should define the duty of medicine. I believe that they rather define the challenging
31 situation in which medicine seeks ways to function with dignity. Thus it would be
32 inappropriate and unnecessary – almost disrespectful to the art of medicine – to
33 open up new lines of discussion about exceptional scenarios. It seems more relevant
34 to look for ways of meeting the related institutional, conceptual, and procedural
35 challenges from an ethical perspective. For example, it is more and more obvious
36 that medical need is overwhelming medical facilities in areas such as organ
37 procurement and the allocation of patients for transplantation surgery. Instead of
38 corrupting the ethical impulse by admitting the principle of exceptionalism,
39 medicine should rather inspire efforts to analyze and improve the situation that
40 creates injustice and double standards in the first place.
41 In a large-scale comparative international study, two historians of medicine
42 have recently made it dramatically evident that honest codes of science and
43 medical ethics are required to combat a “latent amorality that dictatorships [have]
44 found easy to nurture” (Sachse and Walker 2005: 5) among scientists and medical
45 professionals who, isolated within their institutional and administrative cultures,
 144   Ole Döring
1 are easily exploited by powerful political agendas. This observation obviously
2 pertains to non-dictatorial political systems as well.
3 At this structural level, the major contemporary threats to ethical integrity are
4 well described in the words of Sachse and Walker: “Modern science has
5 ‘demystified’ the world, a process that has led to . . . less inhibition when interacting
6 with nature” (2005: 9) – and less inhibition in viewing other human beings as
7 biological resources for medical purposes. Today, this process does not usually
8 take place under express wartime conditions. However, the rhetoric of warfare is
9 not uncommonly used to justify certain activities – activities which Sachse and
0 Walker have shown bear some resemblance to the successful collaboration between
11 unethical (indeed, criminal) German scientists and medical professionals and the
12 Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft, the forerunner of today’s Max Planck Society, during
13 the 1930s and the Second World War.
14 Such reflections have relevance for the self-understanding of the medical
15 profession and the meaning of medicine. These issues should be addressed within
16 a larger debate about a “healthy society,” pondering the different ways in which
17 abuses can become embedded within “normal” life and what they have to tell us
18 about the structures of inhumane practices that begin with “exceptions” and
19 slippery slopes that start off ever so gently. Such a discourse could provide us with
20 a keen historical sense of what matters in medical ethics. The related question of
21 how a “memory culture” might approach the challenge of “learning from the past”
22 so as to make it most meaningful for present-day discussions is also a timely one.
23 It serves to illustrate and reconfirm the struggle for humanity as a universal
24 principle and general virtue.
25
26
Making a case
27
28 The task of “making sense” of the unspeakable is just the first step in the even
29 larger challenge of making the incomprehensible meaningful for us in a practical
30 way. In this chapter, I would like to use a dual approach, combining theoretical and
31 methodological reflection to explore a concrete example of organized learning.
32 Theodor Adorno has struck the keynote of the theme of fundamental moral
33 reassertion. “Education after Auschwitz means making our innate inhumanity
34 aware of itself ” (der Kälte zum Bewuβtsein ihrer selbst zu verhelfen). It holds up
35 the mirror that reflects the way we do not want to be. To merely re-educate people
36 to “love thy neighbour” (Umerziehung zur Nächstenliebe) would be to found a
37 moral good on a moral falsehood (das Wahre im Falschen fundieren) (Adorno
38 1966, 2003). To be satisfied with merely blaming the perpetrators would create an
39 arbitrary distance between “us” and “them.” It would give us a temporary reprieve
40 from facing ourselves in the mirror that is the other. But we need more than
41 juridical and ethical judgment. Above all, we need to overcome the crude rationale
42 of “us and them,” an opposition that has become a key element of our strategies
43 of inhumanity. If we hope to learn anything from the worst offenders, we must
44 go through the route of their humanity so as to find our common patterns of
45 inhumanity.
 Bioethics and exceptionalism: Germany   145
1 In order to supplement Adorno’s primary focus on those who actively committed
2 or passively tolerated the atrocities of the Nazi era, it may be appropriate to
3 contextualize these events and to explore their meaning by highlighting the
4 perspective of the victims. Here I am not referring to those outstanding victims who
5 have become heroes or martyrs for their role in the resistance or by virtue of their
6 impressive deeds, beliefs, or character. My hypothesis is this: understanding “how
7 these things could happen” and attempting to “prevent something like this from
8 happening again” is intimately linked with sympathy for the “ordinary faces” of
9 people who were denied an “ordinary fate.”
0 In order to illustrate what I mean, I want now to refer to the Nazi concentration
11 camp at Ravensbrück. It was one of the sites where “medical” experiments were
12 carried out on prisoners, mainly women, children, and “unwanted” people. The
13 camp was located near the old spa of Fürstenberg, in a beautiful scenic landscape
14 70 km north of Berlin. Ravensbrück was Germany’s largest women’s concentration
15 camp. Between 1939 and 1945, approximately 132,000 women from 47 countries
16 were imprisoned there for reasons associated with their race, religion, ideology, or
17 social behavior. More than half were executed or died from malnutrition, sickness,
18 or exhaustion resulting from heavy labor, or from the effects of medical
19 experiments. The camp has been converted into a museum, a memorial site, and an
20 institution for education, research and debate with an international focus and
21 agenda.
22
23
Making the unspeakable speak
24
25 I would like to begin with a statement written in the form of a poem by one inmate
26 who survived the camp, thus paying my respects to someone with the authority
27 and resolve to speak to us across the years. Any further introduction would be
28 redundant since, for the purposes of this chapter, the text speaks for itself.
29
30 To Those Who Hesitate to Ask
31 Batsheva Dagan
32
Ask now
33
Since today
34
Is tomorrow’s yesterday.
35
36 Ask now
37 Since tomorrow,
38 You suddenly see,
39 It is already too late!
40
Ask now
41
For today
42
There are witnesses!
43
44 Ask now
45 For tomorrow
 146   Ole Döring
1 All will be expressed in words
2 Or opinions.
3
What we shall miss when tomorrow arrives
4
Is the meeting of eyes and response,
5
A reply to all questions
6
In tongues or in faces.
7
8 Ask again!
9 And continue to ask!
0 Now is the time!
11 Yesterday shall not return.
12
13
Reconstructing a historical context
14
15 Historical reconstruction is an attempt to reconstitute the subject matter of our
16 enquiries so that we can appropriate it for practical purposes in a contemporary
17 context. It sets out to re-create the physical circumstances of a given case as a kind
18 of simulacrum and thereby create a comparative base for reflecting on the meaning
19 of humanity in action.
20 In 1946, 23 doctors, SS (Schutzstaffel, or elite guard) officials, and bureaucrats
21 were tried before the American military court in Nuremberg for their participation
22 in medical experiments on human subjects in concentration camps and research
23 institutions, as well as in “euthanasia” killings. These trials represented merely
24 the tip of the iceberg. Alexander Mitscherlich, who studied the trials on behalf
25 of the West German Chambers of Medicine, was struck by the fact that, during the
26 proceedings, the names of high-ranking scientists and university professors were
27 constantly mentioned. They had taken advantage of their positions to
28 select victims who would serve their own research purposes and other uses. One
29 example of this indirect involvement in Nazi genocide was the case of the
30 renowned neuropathologist Professor Julius Hallervorden, who examined the
31 brains of 697 victims of so-called euthanasia, also euphemistically referred to as
32 “mercy killing,” at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research in Berlin’s
33 Buch district. Facing serious charges at Nuremberg, he attempted to reason
34 his way out of responsibility for his actions: “After all, where those brains
35 came from was none of my business” (Lifton 1986: 67–68; cf. Mitscherlich and
36 Mielke 1978).
37 Toxicologist Wolfgang Wirth helped the German Army develop chemical
38 weapons during his work at the Institute for Pharmacology and Military Toxicology
39 of the Military Medicine Academy in Berlin by evaluating lethal poisonous gas
40 experiments carried out on concentration camp prisoners. Mitscherlich pointed
41 out that, in the Third Reich, a doctor
42
43 was able to become a licensed killer and henchman in the public service
44 simply by combining two processes: the aggressiveness of his scientific
45 vocation and the ideology of the dictatorship. There is virtually no difference
 Bioethics and exceptionalism: Germany   147
1 between seeing a person as a “case” or as a number tattooed on the arm – the
2 double facelessness of a merciless epoch.
3 (Mitscherlich and Mielke 1978: Preface)
4
5 Mitscherlich’s book is an early account of the rationale behind such activities –
6 depriving victims of their humanity and addressing them as mere objects,
7 instruments, or impersonal numbers.
8
9
Approaching Ravensbrück
0
11 Basically, the Ravensbrück camp served as a rationally structured and efficiently
12 organized industrial complex and was designed for multiple purposes. Some
13 elements served the various branches of Germany’s conventional wartime
14 industries (involving companies such as IG Farben and Siemens), especially in the
15 areas of armaments and military clothing, while others were dedicated to research
16 (such as developing a scientific basis for improving postwar agriculture, for
17 example, through innovative fertilizers). Another related industry was the sys­
18 tematic killing of unwanted people. Within this context, different “businesses”
19 were developed, including experimentation on human subjects, for the benefit of
20 German medical science – or for other reasons, such as mere curiosity.
21 Today, Ravensbrück has become a memorial site where a very different kind of
22 research is undertaken, namely educational and historical studies, in order to
23 inform a variety of public education activities. (Similar sites are discussed in
24 Wegner 2000 and 2002.) Among the priorities is the organization of visits by
25 international students and a voluntary support network for the maintenance and
26 reconstruction of the site. The vast collection of evidence on display that the
27 contemporary visitor to the site will encounter can be broken down into numerous
28 macro- and micro-level elements which are nonetheless interrelated and mutually
29 supporting. Examples are:
30
31 • Facts about the structure of the camp; details of daily life (trivia) – how
32 industry worked here.
33 • Systemic rationales – what purposes they served.
34 • Economic patterns functioning in the camp.
35 • Political purposes served by the camp.
36 • The doctors: names, faces, biographies and activities – Who did what?
37 • Fragments from people’s lives – fragments of humanity, including pictures of
38 faces, clothing, intimate items, objects from daily life, poems, songs,
39 literature, music, arts and handicraft (culture) created by inmates under the
40 most unimaginable conditions. These remains tell intimate stories of humanity
41 under adverse circumstances.
42 • Documents: How did the system respond to internal deviant behavior? For
43 example, some staff members were prosecuted for the rape of German inmates
44 (condemned as “immoral and unmanly behavior”) as well as for intercourse
45 with “non-Arians” (seen as transgressing “racial” boundaries).
 148   Ole Döring
1 • Personal stories: What does it feel like to be deprived of humanity?
2 • Examples of “normal moral behavior” – what German citizens did, and what
3 they could and should have known and done as ordinary citizens to take a
4 stand against evil.
5 • Not least, every visitor will find her or his own personal story to take away.
6
7
Ravensbrück as a site for “medical” experiments
8
9 In addition to its role as a concentration camp and a site for the organized mass
0 murder of political and other expendable (mainly female) prisoners, physicians
11 performed biological and chemical research experiments on prisoners. These
12 experiments fell into two main categories: (1) developing the technology for
13 clandestine mass sterilization programs, and (2) experimental chemotherapy. In
14 what follows, I will discuss only one of these areas, as both betray a very similar
15 sense of inhumanity and random futility.
16 The chemotherapy experiments conducted at Ravensbrück should be seen
17 in a particular historical context. In June 1942, SS Chief Reinhard Heydrich (the
18 “Protector of the Eastern Empire”) died following a successful assassination
19 attempt from a wound infection. Prof. Dr. Karl Gebhardt, who was Director of an
20 SS medical clinic and attempted to treat Heydrich, initiated a series of “medical”
21 experiments on prisoners. As a surgeon, Gebhardt had been criticized for applying
22 “scientifically outdated medical methods” (traditional septic therapy or the
23 amputation of infected body parts). When Gebhardt requested the opportunity to
24 prove that these accusations were groundless, his old school-fellow and Head of
25 the SS, Heinrich Himmler, granted him permission to perform the requested
26 experiments and assigned personnel, resources, and prisoners for the task.
27 The purpose of this research was described as twofold. First, Gebhardt set
28 out to prove that the new chemotherapy (using sulphonamides) would not have
29 been able to save Heydrich and would thus absolve himself from the accusations
30 and possible sanctions he faced. Second, Gebhardt also hoped to prove that
31 sulphonamide-based or indeed other varieties of chemotherapy would not
32 constitute a promising avenue for research on new medical responses to the
33 increasingly serious problem of infectious wounds that were killing soldiers in
34 growing numbers during 1942 and 1943, especially those on the Eastern Front.
35 The “scientific” component of the research involved analyzing the development
36 of artificially induced wound infection; describing basic traumatic wound infection
37 (such as occurred under battlefield conditions), and the effects of traditional and
38 new medical therapies when combined; and comparing different methods and
39 degrees of wound infection in terms of the composition of the infection. The
40 following methods and procedures were applied in particular to inmates at
41 Ravensbrück:
42
43 • Prisoners’ lower legs were cut open (without their knowledge or consent).
44 • Implanting of bacteria, followed by wrapping of the affected limb, took
45 place.
 Bioethics and exceptionalism: Germany   149
1 • Experimental aseptic operations were performed, involving the cutting of
2 bone, muscle, and nervous tissue.
3 • Artificial bacterial infection was applied, using “realistic” fragments of wood,
4 metal, and dirt.
5 • Subjects were monitored.
6 (Sources: Strebel 2003: 256ff., and my own on-site research on
7 several occasions during the spring and summer of 2005)
8
9 To anyone exposed to the physical remains of this place and the atmosphere it
0 exudes, this particular case illustrates the banality of evil in terms of the chilling
11 character and utter pointlessness of the experiments carried out. The detailed and
12 routinized organization of inconceivable suffering without the slightest trace of
13 sympathy reduces the human being to an entirely instrumental role within a
14 pointless system of mechanical production, depriving individuals of their humanity
15 and converting them into disposable items on an industrial production line.
16 Tragically, it appears that where there is no expectation of humaneness there is no
17 room for sympathy. This case shows that banality as a form of evil (accompanying
18 more sophisticated and bizarre manifestations) has an intimate relation to the
19 double face of humanity (Bradshaw 1989). We seem to be able to live as caring
20 members of society while, at the same time, organizing ourselves into professional
21 structures capable of overseeing the systematic degradation of human beings.
22
23
The purpose and spirit of educational remembering
24
(“Gedenken”)
25
26 To remember is not simply to follow our duty not to forget. The act of remem­
27 brance inspires us to keep a vivid record of the history of humanity. It unravels a
28 thread which has been disturbingly present throughout recorded human activity
29 and which expresses itself most acutely in those areas that include a large
30 component of power and responsibility – such as medicine and medical ethics.
31 The starting point for creative remembering is to focus on our manifold patterns
32 of activity. Inasmuch as it aims to encourage practical learning, remembering
33 will include some fundamental and serious elements of moral commitment
34 (“Bekenntnis”) undertaken by individuals. Clearly, the kind of horror that we
35 have envisaged at Ravensbrück will continue to happen if we fail to muster our
36 moral resolve and take active precautions in light of our daily practice. We need to
37 stay constantly alert in our social and political lives. Since we cannot expect
38 to find easy solutions corresponding to some predetermined (e.g., “historical” or
39 “cultural”) understanding of evil, we are required to resort to the myriad patterns
40 of understanding that exist as parts of an explanatory moral patchwork. Such
41 horrors will continue to happen if we fail to take active precautions at the micro,
42 individual level, continually reviewing our daily practice. As a result, the notorious
43 exclamation “J’accuse!” no longer represents a mature attitude when dealing with
44 the past. The starting point for meaningful and morally valuable remembering is
45 found in individual moral commitment (“Bekenntnis”).
 150   Ole Döring
1 With a site such as Ravensbrück, the chief purpose of remembering (or
2 memorializing) is to make the experience real for us – that is, for those who were
3 not immediately involved. It should become more real for us than it was for those
4 who found ways of detaching Ravensbrück from the sphere of practical
5 commitment and thus could ignore it or pretend to “live with it.” Notably, in
6 Ravensbrück as in other places, we encounter a complementary feature of
7 humanity, revealed in moving examples of individual courage and moral
8 engagement – often in the small but conscious acts of humanity that we owe each
9 other as human beings. For example, the small acts of daily courage of Mrs. Paula
0 Schultz, a pharmacist in the town of Fürstenberg, who smuggled small items and
11 pieces of news in and out of the camp for the benefit of inmates, appear as morally
12 instructive as the better-known cases of Oskar Schindler (Pember 2005) or John
13 Rabe (Wickert 2008), when their respective resources are taken into account.
14 This moral remembering should be distinguished from attempts to make its
15 objects more realistic, as in the overhyped sounds and visuals we are exposed to
16 in many topical movies. The claim to objectivity and the rendering of history in a
17 four-dimensional framework associated with these productions is fundamentally
18 misleading, because it suggests that we can in fact understand something
19 substantial about what we are watching and that our sympathy with the actors will
20 translate into something meaningful for us. What we can gain in terms of practical
21 learning and understanding from such assumed simulations is of comparatively
22 little value. We cannot feel the agony, think the thoughts, sense the smell and the
23 cold or the taste of despair in any way that formed the subjective and thus real
24 meaning of the original events. We leave such movies with no more than an
25 intellectual or emotional impression of the events they depict, an impression which
26 fails to form a connection within the established and privileged spheres of our own
27 ordinary experience. Certainly, such movies can have an influence on us. However,
28 this does not depend on any sense of “realism,” but on our capacity to empathize.
29 We enjoy such entertainment precisely because we feel fundamentally safe – able
30 to keep an intrinsic distance that will not allow what we see to touch our hearts. As
31 a result, we forgo an opportunity to get the task of remembering right.
32 Remembering involves the attempt to overcome this distance by making the
33 situation as meaningful as possible for us, without pretending that it is meaningful
34 for us in any way that expresses or reflects the real suffering endured by the
35 original victims. It is the process involved, not what we make of it. This is
36 a humble claim that acknowledges the limits of even the most sincere effort
37 to understand what cannot be understood, since it is a priori impossible to
38 reappropriate the full, real, or true meaning of events. Remembering is an absurd
39 endeavor, in the manner of Camus’ Sisyphus (Camus 1955). It works through the
40 creation of opportunities for spontaneous moral responses by appealing to our
41 basic moral sense and moral intuition.
42 The search for such opportunities can be guided by the classical Chinese
43 (Confucian and Daoist) principle of “Wuwei,” which dissuades those in power from
44 dictating, propagating, or instilling moral practices, but rather encourages them to
45 create space in which such acts can unfold naturally. Hence, our political and
 Bioethics and exceptionalism: Germany   151
1 intellectual guardians should avoid interfering with the self-generation of basic
2 moral experience. This is an important principle because the historical fate of
3 Ravensbrück as a memorial is also an example of the political and ideological
4 abuse of remembering, whether as an instrument of “class struggle” during the
5 “Cold War” or to serve any other agenda. Theoretical support for this approach may
6 be found in the Book of Mengzi (Mencius), with its account of the reconstruction
7 of the sources of moral capability and its emphasis on the uninhibited, autonomic
8 character of moral learning from the grass roots (Roetz 1993). This approach to
9 remembering suggests keeping the incidents encountered as minor, simple,
0 surprising, and perhaps as trivial as possible, so as to allow us to feel and build
11 connections between our own reality and the reality of the past.
12 “We study and teach about it primarily for ethical reasons that are rooted in deep
13 longing for a safer and more humane world. . . . My thesis is that handle with care
14 is the most basic ethical implication of interdisciplinary Holocaust education”
15 (Roth 2007). Accordingly, remembering can be a method of fostering ethics that
16 goes well beyond the challenges of a merely prudent and pragmatic ethics debate,
17 reasserting the humane purposes of humanity and defending normative areas that
18 will not bow to relativism. The counter-strategy – creating the illusion of the
19 substance of experience – is to expose the observer to emptiness, pointlessness, and
20 vanity within our good and normal world. Hence, creating spaces to be filled by
21 each individual’s acts of sympathy and reflection constitutes a major balancing
22 mechanism to counter the overwhelming impressions that flood our awareness from
23 the worlds of information and interpretation. Thus, institutions for remembering
24 create space for study, self-inspection, silence, reflection on information and
25 emotion, and for tears. At Ravensbrück, a vast area of concrete and dirt is tied
26 together by ruins and trees, and is occasionally drawn into focus by huge portraits
27 of some of the people who lived there. This arrangement invites meditation.
28
29
Discussion: about the language of the unspeakable
30
31 The continuation of relevant historical research, new reports, and juridical trials
32 makes it clear that this is not a closed chapter in the history of medicine. As Ian
33 Buruma has shown, different countries, most notably Japan and Germany, have
34 established quite different policies and social practices in dealing with their history
35 of medical war crimes (Buruma 1994; Sachse and Walker 2005). Others, such as
36 the U.S., still find it difficult to develop responsible attitudes to their own
37 contributions to medical crimes and related cover-ups. The recent Chinese outrage
38 over the Japanese wartime atrocities in China, refueled by the school textbook
39 controversy of 2006, is another reminder of the overwhelming depth of humanity’s
40 pain, inflicted and re-created through ignorance. The trauma caused cannot be
41 ignored. To cite Dagan’s poem, we need tongues and faces to prevent the planting
42 and regrowth of systemic inhumanity. Dagan’s poem seems to contradict Adorno’s
43 verdict that “writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” (Adorno 1973: 362). He
44 argued that the aesthetic self-referential nature of poetry pays homage to a
45 cultural framework for humanity that failed to prevent the systematic atrocities
 152   Ole Döring
1 of the Holocaust. However, Adorno later revoked this statement, observing
2 that “Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as the tortured have to
3 scream. . . . Hence it may have been wrong to say that no poem could be written
4 after Auschwitz.”
5 Although intellectuals and academic work play an important role in fostering
6 this moral remembering, their contribution should not be overrated or glorified. In
7 Germany, ever since “Group 47” began discussing the validity of language, arts,
8 and culture “after the Holocaust,” much attention has been paid to abstract ideas
9 and the behavior of elites. Quite fundamentally, Auschwitz led Adorno to attack
0 what he termed the “Western legacy of positivity,” the innermost substance of
11 traditional philosophy. Western culture had essentially failed in that it did not offer
12 sufficient cultural and moral resistance to the Holocaust. Yet, what is the meaning
13 of “after”? Is it all over? Can we stop here, when we continue to learn about the
14 wrongs committed at the same time and in a similar fashion in other places, such
15 as in East Asia? Such events raise disturbing questions about humanity itself,
16 rather than just the inhabitants of particular regions and cultures. The prime task
17 of philosophy and intellectual leadership in general remains to reflect on its own
18 failure, its own complicity in these events.
19 Others have argued that the very absence of such moral commitment, caused by
20 hubris, coercion, and seduction, would explain how moral degradation on such a
21 scale was possible in the first place. In fact, the Constitution of postwar Germany
22 may be understood as an attempt to learn from the half-hearted moral commitment
23 that marked the founding of the Weimar Republic, by carving some of this
24 substance into stone – such as the inalienability of human dignity and clear
25 definitions of the limits of institutional power, including the power of the state, in
26 the name of humanity. The containment of power by checks and balances at all
27 levels, and the demarcation of a clearly defined area that is by definition
28 inaccessible to authorities of any kind, is a major achievement that leaves room for
29 citizens to engage with and raise the consciousness of individuals.
30 The establishment, and intellectuals in particular, have good reasons for being
31 humble and regarding themselves as just one element amidst a host of interrelated
32 social, economic, and cultural factors – that is, as humans among equals in the
33 subjective terms of morality and action. The strong rejection by Adorno and other
34 intellectuals of “positive” ethics and cultural norms indicates a turning away from
35 an exaggerated expectation of the significance of the political and historical
36 impact of academic philosophy and philosophical ideas (Weiss 1999).
37 Contemplating the faces and everyday lives of real people involved, as actors
38 and as victims, can adjust our perspective on framing questions and seeking
39 answers. This recontextualization of humanity serves to demythologize evil,
40 accounting for its “banality” and confronting us, each person, with the task of
41 doing things better, wherever we stand. In other words, we need a sophisticated
42 universal framework for medical ethics that is equipped to counter exceptionalism
43 in a constructive manner. At the same time, it should respect the fact that culture
44 matters and that culture is not reducible to intellectual activity – it is to a significant
45 extent a “normal” pursuit, which embraces the moral sensibilities of “ordinary”
 Bioethics and exceptionalism: Germany   153
1 people. It is not a sound ethical argument to invoke “exceptional” intellectual,
2 political, economic, or other powers in order to ride roughshod over the weak, as
3 a way of building an “exceptional” ethics.
4 In sum, our reflection on remembering and learning from the past leads us to
5 reject two forms of exceptionalism that amount to moral relativism and elitism. The
6 trouble with positive exceptionalism such as is found in triage, selective killing, and
7 human cloning is not that some people are confronted with dramatic or even tragic
8 conflicts which demand responsible decisions, but that these decisions should be
9 justified as ethical. Adorno’s verdict, on the other hand, expresses a negative
0 exceptionalism that is rooted in a frustrated sense of humanity in the face of the
11 gross moral violations of which humans are capable. However, it lacks any
12 confidence in the self-regenerating human capability for moral action, despite the
13 absurdities of our existence, thereby adding a much deeper existential sense of
14 vanity. In consequence, both forms of exceptionalism support each other, like
15 hostile siblings arguing over the right way to save a burning house instead of simply
16 going ahead and extinguishing the fire. I would encourage us all to trust the few
17 general signposts we have in ethics and follow them patiently, as best as we can.
18
19
20 References and further reading
21 Adorno, Theodor W., Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B Ashton, New York: Seabury Press,
22 1973, 362.
23 Adorno, Theodor W., “Education after Auschwitz”, in Helmut Schreier and Matthias Heyl
24 (eds), Never Again! The Holocaust’s Challenge for Educators, Hamburg: Krämer,
25 1997 (original 1966). Document taken from http://grace.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/
26 frankfurt/auschwitz/AdornoEducation.pdf (accessed June 3, 2007).
27 Adorno, Theodor W., Can One Live after Auschwitz? A Philosophical Reader, trans. Rodney
Livingstone, London: Stanford University Press, 2003.
28
Annas, G. and Grodin, M. (eds), The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human
29 Rights in Human Experimentation, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
30 Bradshaw, Lea, Acting and Thinking: The Political Thought of Hannah Arendt, Toronto:
31 University of Toronto Press, 1989.
32 Buruma, Ian, The Wages of Guilt, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1994.
33 Camus, Albert, The Myth of Sisyphus, New York: Vintage, 1955.
34 Döring, Ole, “Comments on Inhumanity in the Name of Medicine: Old Cases and New
35 Voices for Responsible Medical Ethics from Japan and China,” Eubios Journal of
36 Asian and International Bioethics 11 (2), March 2001: 44–47.
37 Döring, Ole, “Moral Development and Education in Medical Ethics. An Attempt at a
38 Confucian Aspiration,” in Ole Döring and Renbiao Chen (eds), Advances in Chinese
Medical Ethics. Chinese and International Perspectives, Hamburg (Mitteilungen des
39
Instituts für Asienkunde No. 355), 2002: 178–194.
40 Döring, Ole, “Ethics Education in Medicine and Moral Preaching. Reflections on a
41 Triangular Relationship and its Human Core,” in Ole Döring (ed.), Ethics in Medical
42 Education in China. Distinguishing Education of Ethics from Moral Preaching,
43 Hamburg (Mitteilungen des Instituts für Asienkunde No. 358), 2002: 75–85.
44 Gottweis, Herbert and Triendl, Robert, “South Korean Policy Failure and the Hwang
45 Debacle,” Nature Biotechnology 24(2), February 2006: 141–143.
 154   Ole Döring
1 Gross, Michael L. Bioethics and Armed Conflict. Moral Dilemmas of Medicine and War,
2 Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press, 2006.
3 LaCapra, Dominick, “Trauma, Absence, Loss,” in Dominick La Capra (ed.), Writing
4 History, Writing Trauma, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
Levi, Primo, Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity, trans. Stuart Woolf,
5
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
6
Lifton, Robert Jay, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide,
7 New York: Basic Books, 1986.
8 Mitscherlich, A. and Mielke, F. (eds), Medizin ohne Menschlichkeit, Frankfurt: Fischer
9 Taschenbuch Verlag, 1978.
0 Morrisson, Jack G., Ravensbrück. Das Leben in einem Konzentrationslager für Frauen,
11 Zürich and Munich: Pendo Verlag, 2005.
12 Muller-Hill, B., Murderous Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
13 Pember, Mieczyslaw (Mietek), Der rettende Weg, Schindlers Liste – die wahre Geschichte
14 (2nd edn), Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2005.
15 Pross, C., “Schweigen bedeutet Komplizenschaft,” Deutsches Ärzteblatt 1990, 41: A3104–
3108.
16
Pross, C., “Nazi Doctors, German Medicine and Historical Truth,” in G.J. Annas and M.A.
17
Grodin (eds), The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code – Human Rights in Human
18 Experimentation, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
19 Roetz, Heiner, Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age, New York: SUNY Press, 1993.
20 Roth, John K., “Handle with Care: Some Ethical Implications of Interdisciplinary Holocaust
21 Education.” Document downloaded from http://www1.yadvashem.org/education/
22 conference2004/roth.pdf (accessed June 2, 2007).
23 Sachse, Carola and Walker, Mark (eds), “Politics and Science in Wartime. Comparative
24 International Perspectives on the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute,” Osiris 20, 2005.
25 Saidel, Rochelle G., The Jewish Women of Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp, Madison:
26 Terrace Books, 2004.
Sass, Hans-Martin, “Emergency Management in Public Health Ethics: Triage, Epidemics,
27
Biomedical Terror and Warfare,” Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics
28
15, September 2005: 161–166.
29 Seidelman, W., “Mengele Medicus: Medicine’s Nazi Heritage,” Milbank Quarterly 66,
30 1988: 221–239.
31 Strebel, Bernhard, Das Konzentrationslager Ravensbrueck, Paderborn: Geschichte eines
32 Lagerkomplexes, 2003.
33 Wegner, Gregory, “The Power of Selective Tradition: Buchenwald Concentration Camp and
34 Holocaust Education for Youth in the New Germany,” in Laura Hein and Mark Selden
35 (eds), Censoring History. Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany and the United
36 States, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000.
37 Wegner, Gregory, Anti-Semitism and Schooling Under the Third Reich, New York:
RoutledgeFalmer, 2002.
38
Weiss, Sheila F., “Prelude to the Maelstrom: German Physicians as Custodians of the
39
Nation’s Health, 1870–1933 – A Cautionary Tale for Contemporary China?,” in Ole
40 Döring (ed.), Chinese Scientists and Responsibility, Mitteilungen des Instituts für
41 Asienkunde, No. 314, Hamburg, 1999.
42 Wickert, Erwin, John Rabe. Der gute Deutsche von Nanking, Munich: Pantheon Verlag
43 2008.
44
45
1
2 8 Racial hygienist Otmar von
3
4 Verschuer, the Confessing
5
6
Church, and comparative
7 reflections on postwar
8
9 rehabilitation
0
11 Peter Degen
12
13
14 Introduction
15 It is commonly believed that the Nazi medical personnel were punished at
16 Nuremberg, but the Japanese escaped prosecution. Here I provide an example of a
17 German medical researcher who remained intact after the war despite his
18 involvement in Nazi experimentation. His name is Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer.
19 This scientist was involved in medical atrocities in Auschwitz through his assistant
20 and collaborator Dr. Josef Mengele, but he was neither charged nor sentenced like
21 other Nazi physicians who went on trial in Nuremberg nor sought as a criminal
22 like Mengele. Instead, he rose again to scientific and social prominence after the
23 war. One major factor that facilitated his rehabilitation was his membership
24 in the Confessing Church, a Christian group opposed to Hitler’s efforts to dominate
25 the German Protestant Church. In this chapter, I offer a few glimpses of
26 Verschuer’s relationship with the Confessing Church, particularly through his
27 relationship with pastors Otto Fricke and Herbert Mochalsky. Second, I discuss
28 how these relationships helped his postwar efforts at rehabilitation. Finally, I briefly
29 compare Verschuer’s postwar career to those of the Japanese physicians of
30 Unit 731.
31
32
33 Who was Otmar von Verschuer?
34 The German racial hygienist Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer (1896–1967) was a
35 medical doctor, eugenicist, and anti-Semite. According to various sources, he was
36 also a religious person with a Protestant background (Müller-Hill 1988, 116ff.).
37 Verschuer’s family was one of two “Patronatsfamilien” who owned the church
38 building and church grounds of Solz in Northern Hesse that dated back to before
39 the Reformation. It was not until 1969 that both were turned over to congregational
40 ownership.
41 Verschuer was born in Northern Hesse in 1896. He began studying medicine in
42 1919. In 1922, he worked as an anthropological intern with Prof. Eugen Fischer, a
43 famous eugenicist who patronized Verschuer. The textbook Menschliche Erblehre
44 und Rassenhygiene [Human Heredity and Racial Hygiene], written by Erwin
45 Bauer, Eugen Fischer, and Fritz Lenz, was published in the same year. This
 156   Peter Degen
1 book not only provided Verschuer with an “exceptional spiritual experience,” but
2 also became his scientific “Bible” (Verschuer 2003, 152).
3 In 1922, Verschuer completed his medical studies, and in the following year he
4 wrote his doctoral thesis. From 1923 to 1927 he collaborated at the medical
5 polyclinic in Tübingen with Prof. Wilhelm Weitz, who encouraged him to under­
6 take systematic research on human twins – a field in which Verschuer was to
7 become a pioneer. In 1927, he gained the Habilitation in human genetics. Later
8 that same year, following the establishment of the new Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of
9 Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin, Verschuer was appointed
0 Head of the Department of Human Heredity by Eugen Fischer, the founding
11 director of the Institute. In 1934 Verschuer was called to the University of Frankfurt
12 to head the newly founded University Institute of Racial Hygiene
13 and Genetic Biology. He worked there until 1942, when he returned to the
14 Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin as one of its two directors. He stayed on at the
15 Institute until the end of the Second World War in 1945 (Zirlewagen 2006,
16 1437ff.).
17 Among Verschuer’s students in Frankfurt was Josef Mengele, who earned
18 his medical doctorate under his supervision. Mengele became very close to the
19 Verschuer family and was known as “Uncle Josef.” After joining Hitler’s
20 “Schutzstaffel” (SS), Mengele stayed on as Verschuer’s assistant, an appointment
21 that coincided with his tenure as doctor at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
22 Mengele’s human experiments in Auschwitz were supported by the Deutsche
23 Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG): the application for the research grant for his
24 work was submitted by Verschuer (Hammerstein 1999, 423, 430–431).
25 One of Verschuer’s most notable “achievements” as a scientist was to provide a
26 scientific foundation for Nazi racial theory and to support its implementation
27 through the practice of “racial hygiene.” In many ways he helped turn the Nazi
28 racial laws and policies into reality. His collaboration with Mengele involved him
29 deeply in the medical atrocities committed during the War. Mengele frequently
30 sent Verschuer blood specimens, eye samples, organs, and body parts taken from
31 concentration camp inmates in Auschwitz after they had been killed (Weingart
32 et al. 1988, 572ff.).
33
34
Verschuer’s multiple personality
35
36 After the War, Verschuer was issued with an official “Berufsverbot” (job ban) that
37 prohibited him from working as an academic teacher and scientific researcher.
38 However, after undergoing a “denazification trial” and receiving a “whitewash”
39 (Persilschein) from Nobel Laureate Prof. Adolph Butenandt in 1951, Verschuer
40 was invited to take up a position at the University of Muenster as Professor of
41 Human Genetics. At Muenster he established one of the largest institutes of human
42 genetics in West Germany.
43 Verschuer, the teacher and scientific mentor of Mengele, claimed over and over
44 again that his membership of the Confessing Church had precluded him from
45 participating in any criminal or even unethical scientific activities during the Nazi
 Verschuer’s relation with the Confessing Church   157
1 era (Verschuer 1965, 9). This astonishing claim prompted me to look into his
2 activities more closely.
3 According to various witnesses, Verschuer was a very “religious” man (see
4 Müller-Hill 1988, 116), not in a dogmatic but rather in a general sense. During his
5 first period in Berlin as Head of the Department of Human Heredity at the Kaiser
6 Wilhelm Institute, Verschuer became a member of the village church in Dahlem,
7 St. Anne’s Church, where he met Pastor Martin Niemöller, a former U-Boot
8 captain and a leader of the Confessing Church during the Nazi era. In 1933
9 Verschuer signed a public declaration promulgated by the “Jungreformatorische
0 Bewegung” [Young Reformers’ Movement] (Scharf 1977, 47–50), from which the
11 Confessing Church emerged during the early 1930s. Its goal was to maintain Jesus
12 Christ as its spiritual “Führer,” and hence did not accept the leadership of a
13 “superior Germanic race.” According to one story, when Verschuer was preparing
14 to move to Frankfurt, Niemöller suggested that he contact Pastor Otto Fricke, a
15 member of the Confessing Church. Verschuer followed his advice (Verschuer,
16 “Erbe-Umwelt-Führung,” May 19, 1945, 4). During his time in Frankfurt (1934–
17 1942), he was a regular member of Fricke’s congregation (Fricke 1990, 124).
18 Verschuer often had to make excuses to allow his son Helmuth to skip the Sunday
19 morning gatherings of the “Jungvolk” [Young Folk], a junior branch of the Hitler
20 Youth, in order to attend church with his father.
21 Verschuer and Fricke became lifelong friends. According to another account
22 Verschuer joined Fricke’s congregation because Verschuer’s local pastor was a
23 member of the “Deutsche Christen” [German Christians], who accepted the notion
24 that the religion of the Germanic race should be the goal of the Protestant Church.
25 As a member of the Confessing Church, Verschuer believed that the church should
26 have only one leader, Jesus Christ, yet Hitler was to be accepted as leader of the
27 government. Verschuer’s son Helmuth remembers his father quoting Christ in the
28 Gospels: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things
29 which are God’s.” He characterized his father’s attitudes as steeped “in the Prussian-
30 Protestant tradition of loyalty to authority” (Müller-Hill 1988, 117).
31 In 1936, Pastor Fricke was denounced and arrested as a result of a false
32 report by a Gestapo agent. Verschuer invited Fricke’s family to stay in his own
33 home until Fricke was released from prison when the charges against him could
34 not be substantiated. Following this event, the two families became closer and
35 met weekly (Fricke 1990, 3). Fricke was a member of the governing board of
36 the Confessing Church, the “Reichsbruderrat” [Brethren Council], and also
37 of the provisional board of the provincial Hessian Church (Fricke 1990,
38 124). Fricke had once invited Verschuer to speak to his congregation on
39 socio-ethical issues of eugenics because Fricke had taken an interest in this
40 “scientific” field.
41 After returning to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin-Dahlem in 1942,
42 Verschuer rejoined Niemöller’s congregation at St. Anne’s Church in Dahlem.
43 However, by this time Niemöller was being held in a concentration camp as a
44 “personal prisoner” of Adolf Hitler, having stated that he was a “better” national-
45 socialist than the Nazis. Niemöller had voted for Hitler’s party since 1924, when
 158   Peter Degen
1 he first made this claim. In Dahlem now the pastor in charge was the young
2 Herbert Mochalsky, also a member of the Confessing Church.
3 Pastor Fricke was conscripted into the army and based in Potsdam near Berlin.
4 He often spent his leave breaks and holidays in Verschuer’s villa in Dahlem and
5 administered the rite of confirmation to Verschuer’s daughter Sigrid on March 23,
6 1943. Fricke’s closeness to Verschuer is also reflected in the fact that he had his
7 own permanent room in Verschuer’s Dahlem villa (Verschuer, May 19, 1945, 7).
8
9
Differences between the German Christians and the
0
Confessing Church
11
12 After 1933, the clergy and laity of the Protestant Church in Germany felt the need
13 to bring the church in line with the new ideology of national socialism. Intending
14 to create a church devoted to a religion of the Germanic race, they called
15 themselves “German Christians.” On the other hand, a minority of pastors and
16 Church members insisted on the ideological and institutional independence of the
17 Protestant Church under the slogan “freies Bekenntnis” [free confession]. They
18 argued that priority should be given unconditionally to the sole confession to Jesus
19 Christ. In order to maintain this principle, the Church’s independence had to be
20 preserved and defended.
21 The chief bone of contention between these two groups lay in the “Aryan
22 paragraph” inserted in 1935 into the church law entitled “Law for the Protection
23 of German Blood and German Honour” that required dismissal of any pastor or
24 church official who was non-Aryan by ethnic origin. Although the Confessing
25 Church rejected the application of the law, few of its members had questioned the
26 legislation when the Nazi state introduced it.
27 One member of the Confessing Church deserves a closer look at this point.
28 Born into a family of pastors and professors, Dietrich Bonhoeffer became a
29 seminal Protestant theologian and later took part in the July 20 plot to assassinate
30 Hitler in 1944. The attempt failed, and Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis
31 along with the others involved in the conspiracy. Bonhoeffer’s unambiguous
32 position stood in stark contrast to Verschuer’s “multiple personality” – a man who
33 could be a member of the Confessing Church while leading a professional life as
34 a scientist supporting Nazi principles of eugenics and racial hygiene. As a matter
35 of fact, Verschuer’s nephew Adam von Trott zu Solz was involved in the
36 assassination attempt of 1944 and was subsequently executed. As Verschuer’s son
37 points out, his father “did not show any understanding of this attitude” of
38 resistance, due to his traditional Prussian-Protestant loyalty to authority (Müller-
39 Hill 1988, 117).
40 After the War the mainstream German Christians in the Protestant Church fell
41 into disrepute as a result of their support for Nazi ideology during the Third Reich.
42 The German Protestant Church was re-established along the lines of the Confessing
43 Church which was judged to have been in resistance during the Nazi era and
44 therefore seen as morally intact and suitable to take up a responsible position in
45 postwar democratic society. During the Nazi period, not only had Verschuer taken
 Verschuer’s relation with the Confessing Church   159
1 an active part in his congregation, but he was also involved with the “classes for
2 pastors” of the “Evangelical Johannes Foundation” in Berlin-Spandau, where he
3 lectured on the compatibility of racial hygiene and Christian ethics. Furthermore,
4 he was a member of the “Centralausschuβ der Inneren Mission” [steering committee
5 for home missions], which was in charge of the social work and outreach of the
6 Protestant Church (Schleiermacher 1998, 29–30; Verschuer 2003, 16). In particular,
7 he became the mentor of Dr. Hans Harmsen, who was also a member of the
8 Centralausschuβ and was responsible for “public health.” It was under Harmsen’s
9 leadership that the direction of the “Innere Mission” was changed from national-
0 conservative to a “völkische” [community] orientation on questions of racial
11 hygiene. The main impetus for this change was the advent of the new Nazi
12 government in 1933. For Verschuer, this transformation was to demonstrate that
13 national-socialist racial hygiene was compatible with Christian ethics (Verschuer
14 2003, 165). Hence the “Innere Mission” adopted the Nazi position on voluntary
15 sterilization for people with serious genetic defects. However, whereas the Nazis
16 argued that “voluntary sterilization” was to be regarded as a sacrifice for the
17 “völkische Gemeinschaft” (German people’s community), the “Innere Mission”
18 argued that voluntary sterilization was a sacrifice to be carried out according to the
19 Christian commandment of “love for neighbor” (Schleiermacher 1998, 180–276;
20 Verschuer 2003, 165). Prior to 1933, Verschuer had already advocated such a policy
21 at a church conference on eugenics in Treysa organized by the “Innere Mission.” He
22 clearly valued the ideology of the “völkisch” German community more than the
23 rights of individuals. In 1931, the “Innere Mission” called for “eugenic laws,”
24 which were introduced by the Nazis after 1933 (Schleiermacher 1998, 180–276).
25 During the Nazi era Verschuer remained loyal to both his science – eugenics
26 and racial hygiene – and to the Confessing Church. Reconciling these twin
27 loyalties, science and church, was a basic tenet of “liberal-cultural Protestantism,”
28 which claimed, in contrast to Catholicism, compatibility with modern science. In
29 fact, Protestant modernity meant the compatibility of science and Christian ethics.
30 Clearly Verschuer had no problem with his synthesis of religion and science.
31 However, Verschuer was unwilling to acknowledge the point at which he became
32 personally involved in unethical and inhuman acts of scientific and medical
33 research that culminated in his close collaboration with Mengele in Auschwitz
34 (Winnacker 2000). Verschuer’s scientific career is an excellent example of the
35 “slippery slope” – the progressive process of “delimiting” science which
36 culminated in Mengele’s experiments and activities in Auschwitz (Markl 2001b;
37 Sachse and Walker 2005: see the chapter “Science Without Moral Boundaries”;
38 Weingart et al. 1988, 572–581).
39
40
Verschuer’s exemption from conviction
41
42 Before the war came to an end, Verschuer transferred most of the collections and
43 specimens housed in his Kaiser Wilhelm Institute to his residence at Solz, Northern
44 Hesse. He intended to eventually bring all these materials to Frankfurt in order to
45 use them as “Verhandlungsmasse” [negotiating material] to encourage the
 160   Peter Degen
1 University of Frankfurt to restore his former job or to re-establish the Kaiser
2 Wilhelm Institute in Frankfurt.
3 After the War, Verschuer’s plans encountered obstacles, and his prospects were
4 not improved by an article in the Frankfurter Neue Presse that accused him of
5 improper conduct during the Nazi era. The article was written by Prof. Robert
6 Havemann, provisional president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, who was
7 conducting an official investigation into Verschuer’s activities during the Nazi
8 period. Havemann came to the conclusion that Verschuer had acted contrary to
9 “human and scientific ethics” and had made “concessions to the national socialist
0 racial madness that went far beyond what was ethically and scientifically
11 acceptable.” Verschuer’s collaboration with Mengele was the major factor in
12 reaching this conclusion (Hammerstein 1989, 657–661).
13 In the end, however, Havemann’s findings did not lead to prosecution (Weingart
14 et al. 1988, 572ff.), but only to the imposition of a “Berufsverbot” (job ban).
15 Verschuer was prohibited from working as a scientist or researcher, and therefore
16 his chances of finding a job in Frankfurt evaporated. In this volatile situation, still
17 facing official charges and at the urging of a friend, Verschuer decided to undergo
18 a formal “denazification trial.” The trial took place on November 7, 1946 in
19 Frankfurt (Sachse 2004, 300). In an earlier note to Otto Hahn – President of the
20 former Kaiser Wilhelm Society, now the Max Planck Society – Verschuer had
21 admitted to what he considered to be the basic facts of his collaboration with
22 Mengele in Auschwitz (Verschuer to Hahn, May 23, 1946). At the trial several
23 factors played a decisive role in acquitting Verschuer, including a character
24 reference by Pastor Fricke, who vouched for Verschuer’s moral character and the
25 integrity of his scientific work (Fricke 1946). He was fined 600 Reichsmarks and
26 cleared of more serious charges, “although the connection of Verschuer with
27 Mengele in Auschwitz was by now officially and publicly known in all of its
28 gruesome details” (Hammerstein 1989, 658).
29 Verschuer’s status as a “desk-murderer” may be compared to the case of
30 Prof. Dr. Gerhard Rose, who was charged at the Nuremberg Trials and sentenced
31 to life imprisonment, later commuted to 15 years. Rose was considered to be
32 a “desk-murderer” as he did not personally commit any atrocities – they were
33 carried out by an assistant or collaborator. Another view of Verschuer’s exemption
34 from conviction was suggested by Dr. Leo Alexander, who was in charge of
35 Verschuer’s case. Alexander noted that solid evidence proving Verschuer’s
36 collaboration with Mengele could not be established at the Nuremberg Trials
37 (Alexander 1946).
38 On September 19, 1949, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society called for a final review of
39 Verschuer’s status. As we have seen, Prof. Adolph Butenandt’s investigation
40 vouched for Verschuer’s integrity as a scientific teacher and researcher and
41 testified to his “internal adversarial attitude,” meaning that he had opposed Nazism
42 based on his religious-ethical disposition. The references by Pastors Fricke and
43 Mochalsky again helped to rescue Verschuer from accusations of being a Nazi
44 racist. Both men certified his “anti-nationalsozialistische Haltung” [anti-national-
45 socialist attitude] based on his membership of the Confessing Church (Denkschrift
 Verschuer’s relation with the Confessing Church   161
1 1949, 2–3). Verschuer was cleared of all charges and became employable again,
2 although not in Frankfurt.
3 It seems that Verschuer’s denazification trial downplayed or ignored his
4 Auschwitz connections as did the review conducted by Butenandt – no doubt in
5 order to preserve his own reputation as well as that of the former Kaiser Wilhelm
6 Society (now renamed the Max Planck Society). An additional question is whether
7 the references by Pastors Fricke and Mochalsky were intended to preserve not
8 only Verschuer’s reputation but that of the Confessing Church. Fricke in particular
9 went out of his way to prevent Verschuer from being charged with personal and
0 scientific responsibility for committing unethical and criminal acts.
11 In 1951, Verschuer was appointed Professor of Human Genetics at the University
12 of Münster in Northern Germany. His former superior at the Kaiser Wilhelm
13 Institute, Eugen Fischer, helped him gain this position. In Münster, Verschuer
14 established one of the largest institutes of human genetics of the German postwar
15 era. Until the end of his life, Verschuer asserted repeatedly that his membership of
16 the Confessing Church had precluded his involvement in Nazi medical atrocities
17 (Kröner 1998, 236ff.; Verschuer 1965, 9).
18
19
Verschuer’s self-defense in comparison with Japanese
20
doctors of Unit 731
21
22 Why is it useful to compare Verschuer’s case with the Japanese doctors of
23 Unit 731 and its network? It seems to me that not just a few Far Eastern ethicists
24 and historians of medicine seem to believe and applaud the fact that in the West
25 because of their medical atrocities the Nazi doctors have been correctly treated by
26 putting them on trial in Nuremberg and sentencing them. By contrast they deplore
27 the fact that the Japanese doctors of Unit 731 and those of its network were not put
28 on trial and even those who were sentenced got off sooner or later again. Neither
29 had they even to confront a “Berufsverbot” [job ban] of any kind.
30 It seems to me that Verschuer who was not a minor among the Nazi doctors
31 did not get charged in Nuremberg. Thus the picture of the Nazi doctors is more
32 complicated. Furthermore, he managed to survive his denazification trial and a
33 job ban based on an evaluation by Prof. Havemann, then President of the Kaiser
34 Wilhelm Society and, though he was neither able to return to his former job at the
35 Kaiser Wilhelm Society – shortly after the War converted into the Max Planck
36 Society – nor to another former job at the University of Frankfurt/Main, he landed
37 an appointment at the University of Münster with the help of the positive verdict
38 of the Butenandt Commission, a second commission of the Kaiser Wilhelm
39 (now the Max Planck) Society that examined Verschuer’s case. The judgment of
40 the members of the Commission in part relying on the character references of
41 two pastors of the Confessing Church helped Verschuer to see his moral integrity
42 as a researcher and teacher restored. This opened the road to his appointment
43 in Münster. It seems that both Butenandt as a representative of the former
44 Kaiser Wilhelm Society and pastors Fricke and Michalsky as representatives of
45 the Confessing Church were interested in maintaining the reputation of their
 162   Peter Degen
1 respective organizations which seemed to have remained unblemished during
2 the Nazi era. Butenandt had a personal vested interest in a positive verdict
3 because one of his collaborators was part of Verschuer’s Auschwitz connection.
4 The Kaiser Wilhelm Society and the University of Frankfurt/Main severed their
5 relationship with Verschuer, but the Confessing Church never called Verschuer’s
6 membership of the Protestant Church into doubt. All concerned knew the
7 basic facts about Verschuer, Mengele, and Auschwitz and firmly closed their eyes
8 for obvious reasons, namely maintaining personal and organizational moral
9 integrity.
0 While accusations continued to surface, Verschuer had little difficulty in putting
11 them to rest by referring to his “denazification trial,” the positive verdict of the
12 Butenandt commission as well as his membership in the Confessing Church,
13 which was widely regarded as having resisted the Nazis. He often used the image
14 of a “deep trench” that separated him as a member of the Confessing Church from
15 the real Nazi-racist scientists (Verschuer 1965, 9).
16 Meanwhile, Verschuer continued to be active in the Protestant Church as a
17 lecturer to Protestant student congregations and as an advisor to the Home
18 Mission. His major socio-ethical concern was the compatibility of what was now
19 called “human genetics” – as opposed to “eugenics and racial hygiene” – with
20 Christian ethics, and “bringing together the functions of physician (as human
21 geneticist) and pastoral counselor” (Verschuer 1965, 10).
22 After retiring as a researcher and teacher in 1965, Verschuer continued to carry
23 on his defense based on his membership of the Confessing Church, while
24 remaining silent about his earlier activities as an advisor to the “Home Mission”
25 and his peculiar blending of racial hygiene and Christian ethics. Nor did he ever
26 express any remorse over his links with Mengele in Auschwitz. He evaded any
27 concrete responsibility by simply admitting his complicity in “demonic times,”
28 mildly regretting his failure to a greater degree of resistance. In 1967, Verschuer
29 was killed in a car accident.
30 First of all, we have seen that Verschuer’s career is very similar to those of the
31 Japanese doctors in that he averted legal consequences of his involvement with
32 medical atrocities, though for different reasons. Verschuer escaped legal
33 punishment for reasons we still cannot reconstruct. The worst he had to face was
34 a temporary job ban, whereas the Japanese doctors went free owing to a deal
35 between the U.S. and Japanese government to conceal the atrocities from the
36 public and for exchange of the Japanese “scientific results.”
37 Second, his postwar career, especially his postwar academic and social
38 advancement, is very similar to that of many members of Unit 731 who rose to top
39 positions in Japan’s scientific, business, and academic circles in the postwar
40 period, but again for different reasons. Whereas the Japanse doctors could without
41 any serious interruption pursue their postwar careers, Verschuer could do so only
42 after his job ban had been lifted after scientific colleagues and Protestant Church
43 officials had helped whitewash him. Verschuer attained a senior position in the
44 scientific and university establishment of the new Federal Republic, and he held a
45 key position in the field of human genetics because many of his students would
 Verschuer’s relation with the Confessing Church   163
1 later occupy university chairs all over Germany. His membership in the new
2 Protestant Church in postwar Germany was never contested.
3 Third, as in the case of the Japanese doctors, it took a long time for researchers
4 to re-examine Verschuer’s case. When German geneticist Benno Müller-Hill criti­
5 cally examined Verschuer in 1984 (see Müller-Hill 1984), it was Müller-Hill who
6 faced legal challenges from the Max Planck Society, until his critique was finally
7 accepted. Then in 1990 Verschuer’s professional conduct during the Nazi era was
8 officially investigated following pressures on the Max Planck Society to apologize
9 to the surviving victims of scientists employed by the former Kaiser Wilhelm
0 Society.
11 Even today it does not seem that the hierarchy of the Protestant Church
12 of Germany sees any need to address this issue. Likewise, the provincial church of
13 Hesse and Nassau does not take any related action. The careers of Pastors
14 Niemöller, Fricke, and Mochalsky are still in need of further scrutiny with respect
15 to their relations with Verschuer. His case demonstrates clearly that not all of those
16 who were responsible for criminal human experimentation and medical atrocities
17 during the Nazi era were indicted at the Nuremberg Tribunal. Verschuer was by no
18 means a minor figure. The issue of the legal persecution of Nazi doctors is
19 obviously more complicated.
20 Fourth, Verschuer’s case is unique in the East as well as in the West with regard
21 to the religious justification he deployed to distance himself from any professional
22 misconduct. No Japanese doctor ever had to put up such a defense. Interestingly
23 enough, as Nanyan Guo points out, at least two Japanese doctors are known who,
24 owing to their Christian beliefs, refused to become involved in medical atrocities,
25 though they knew of them and were part of the Unit 731 network. Interestingly
26 enough, the daughter of Ishii Shiro spread the story that shortly before his death
27 her father had been baptized and adopted the Christian name Joseph. So far no
28 documentary evidence exists for her claim. It is the very symbolism of “being
29 Christian,” or for that matter, belonging to a group of faith, that stands to question,
30 inasmuch as it builds upon claims of purity even under “evil” conditions. These
31 cases make it clear that the degree of connectedness and mutual dependence
32 between “harmless,” opportunistic, and straightforward criminal members of a
33 country’s avant-garde can be as complex as the demarcations between good and
34 bad can be blurred. We can never take such credit for granted.
35
36
Conclusion
37
38 During the Nazi era, Verschuer embraced twin loyalties: one to his vision of
39 science (eugenics and racial hygiene), and one to Protestant religion and the
40 Protestant Church, especially the Confessing Church. He was probably more
41 motivated by anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism than by Nazi convictions. Verschuer
42 was also a skillful opportunist who well knew how to avoid indictment at the
43 Nuremberg Trials, survive a denazification trial, escape his “Berufsverbot” [job
44 ban] with the help of pastors and scientists whom he had known, land a permanent
45 significant academic position, and escape any serious legal challenge. He died
 164   Peter Degen
1 with his reputation intact as a highly respected scientist in postwar Germany. To
2 cover up his unethical and criminal behavior, and after the ideology was no longer
3 an opportunistic asset, Verschuer conveniently separated science from national
4 socialism and the national socialists as well as from an era characterized by
5 “demonism.” This strategy allowed him to blur his personal responsibility and
6 accountability (Weingart et al. 1988, 575f.). He found peace of mind by accepting
7 a generalized admission of guilt or complicity, a result, he insisted repeatedly, of
8 his failure to engage in more active resistance. This was more a philosophical
9 expression of the famous Lutheran dictum “simul iustus et peccator” [human
0 beings are sinners before God and at the same time are saved only by God’s grace
11 through Jesus Christ]. Indeed, his membership of the Confessing Church served
12 Verschuer well, helping him to free himself from his “Berufsverbot” and take up
13 yet another academic position at the University of Münster where he again received
14 research grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), which
15 supported his earlier collaboration with Mengele in Auschwitz.
16 Verschuer’s case demonstrates clearly how religion and networks of the faithful
17 may be used to protect a perpetrator from being exposed and charged, and even
18 from coming to terms with the evil nature of his deeds. Instead of awakening a
19 genuine sense of remorse, it provided Verschuer with a comfortable conscience.
20 His case is an example of the dark side of humankind, which is not bound to any
21 particular nationality, culture, or time. It offers a profound lesson demonstrating
22 the massive human cost involved when humanity and respect for all individuals
23 are no longer the core concerns of religion, but rather religion or religious
24 affiliation is used as a means of concealment and obfuscation. Under conditions
25 where bioethics tends to install abstract forms and instruments of governance it is
26 not so easy but it is just as crucial to be aware of indicators of the patterns of
27 “demonic times.” This should be a topic in a cross-cultural dialogue between East
28 Asia and the West.
29
30
31 References
32 Alexander, Leo, 1946 “Letter to his wife,” cited in Paul Julian Weindling, Nazi Medicine
33 and the Nuremberg Trials. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 245–246.
34 “Denkschrift betreffend Herrn Prof. Dr. med. Frhr. Von Verschuer,” September 1949,”
35 III/86a/31, Archiv für die Geschichte der Max Planck Gesellschaft, Berlin.
36 Fricke, Otto, 1946, “Kirchliches Urteil über die Persönlichkeit und die wissenschaftliche
37 Arbeit von Herr Professor Dr. Freiherr von Verschuer,” III/86A/26, Archiv für die
38 Geschichte der Max Planck Gesellschaft, Berlin.
Fricke, Otto, 1990, Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, Vol. II: p. 124.
39
Hammerstein, Notker, 1989, Die Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main.
40 Neuwied/Frankfurt: Alfred Metzner Verlag.
41 Hammerstein, Notker, 1999, Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in der Weimarer
42 Republik und im Dritten Reich. Munich: Beck.
43 Kröner, Hans-Peter, 1998, Von der Rassenhygiene zur Humangenetik. Das Kaiser Wilhelm-
44 Institut für Anthropologie, menschliche Erblehre und Eugenik nach dem Krieg.
45 Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer.
 Verschuer’s relation with the Confessing Church   165
1 Markl, Hubert, 2001a, “Symposium in Berlin: Biomedical Sciences and Human
2 Experimentation at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes – The Auschwitz Connection,” Max
3 Planck Research Supplement 3.
4 Markl, Hubert, 2001b, “Entgrenzte Wissenschaft: Der Irrweg von Evolutionsbiologie
und Genetik zu Rassimus und Mord.” www.mpg.de/pdf/redenPraesidenten/
5
011031emblMarkl.pdf.
6
Müller-Hill, Benno, 1984, Tödliche Wissenschaft. Reinbek, Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag.
7 Müller-Hill, Benno, 1988, Murderous Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
8 Sachse, Carola, 2004, “Adolf von Butenandt und Otmar von Verschuer,” in Adolf Butenandt
9 und die Kaiser-Wilhem Gesellschaft, ed. Wolfgang Schieder und Achim Trunk.
0 Göttingen: Wallstein.
11 Sachse, Carola and Walker, Mark, 2005, Politics and Science in Wartime. Comparative
12 International Perspectives on the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Osiris No. 20.
13 Scharf, Kurt, 1977, Brücken und Breschen. Berlin: Furche.
14 Schleiermacher, Sabine, 1998, Sozialethik im Spannungsfeld von Sozial-und Rassenhygiene.
15 Husum: Mathiessen.
Verschuer, Otmar, 1945, “Erbe-Umwelt-Führung” III/86A/3–1 (1–4), (May 19th), Archiv
16
für die Geschichte der Max Planck Gesellschaft, Berlin.
17
Verschuer, Otmar, 1965, “Probleme der Eugenik-Aufgaben und Gefahren,” III/86A/83,
18 Archiv für die Geschichte der Max Planck Gesellschaft, Berlin.
19 Verschuer, Otmar, 2003, “Mein wissenschaftlicher Weg,” in Archivgespräche No. 9,
20 ed. Archiv zur Geschichte der Max Planck Gesellschaft, Berlin.
21 Verschuer to Hahn, 1946, II, 1A, PA Verschuer, No. 5, (May 23), Archiv für die Geschichte
22 der Max Planck Gesellschaft, Berlin.
23 Weingart, Peter, Kroll, Jürgen and Bayertz, Kurt, 1988, Rasse, Blut und Gene. Frankfurt:
24 Suhrkamp Verlag.
25 Winnacker, Ernste-Ludwig, 2000, “Rede von DFG-Präsident Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker
26 anlässlich der Einweihung des Mahnmals zur Erinnerung an die Opfer
nationalsozialistischer Euthanasieverbrechen in Berlin-Buch,” October 14. http://
27
www.dfg.de/aktuelles_presse/reden_stellungnahmen/2000/redstell/berlin_buch.html.
28
Zirlewagen, Marc, 2006, “Verschuer, Otmar,” Biographisch-Bibliographisches
29 Kirchenlexikon, Vol. XXVII: 1437–1447.
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
1
2 9 America’s memory problems
3
4 Diaspora groups, civil society and
5
6
the perils of “chosen amnesia”
7
8 David B. MacDonald
9
0
11
12
13 Introduction
14
This chapter contextualizes America’s decision to suppress knowledge of Japanese
15
war crimes within a larger framework of atrocity denial in American history. This
16
includes the government’s denial of its own medical and other atrocities against
17
indigenous peoples and African-Americans and others. Its base has traditionally
18
been a strong adherence to the principles of realpolitik, but also the belief that as
19
most countries are founded on blood, a certain amount of “chosen amnesia” is
20
necessary in assessing the formation of the modern nation state. In this view,
21
dwelling too heavily on past crimes is unproductive for all concerned, especially
22
when perpe­trators are allies. However, times are changing. The end of the Cold
23
War, the rise of identity politics, and the growing voices of minorities have led to
24
renewed calls for America to recognize its own historic atrocities and those of its
25
allies. This has been the case in commemoration of the Holocaust, the Armenian
26
genocide, and the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans, where promotion
27
of memory has come from diaspora organizations within the United States. More
28
vocal and confident Chinese-American and Korean-American communities have
29
made it possible for American civil society and government at times to raise
30
questions about Japanese war responsibility. Comfort women, who are not a focus
31
of this chapter, is the clearest instance.
32
In 1822, Ernest Renan famously observed that “the essential element of a nation
33
is that all its individuals must have many things in common but it must also have
34
forgotten many things” (Buckley-Zistel 2006, 132). More recently, Stanley Cohen
35
has noted how societies deliberately forget uncomfortable knowledge, which
36
then becomes a series of “open secrets” known by everyone but not discussed.
37
This becomes “social amnesia”: “a mode of forgetting by which a whole society
38
separates itself from its discreditable past record.” Alternatively, one can see this
39
as a practice of “chosen amnesia,” when societies deliberately exclude unwanted
40
or unsavory aspects of their national past (Buckley-Zistel 2006, 133–4).
41
Jing-Bao Nie makes an impressive case for America to acknowledge and
42
compensate those whom it wronged by supporting Japanese medical experiments,
43
by suppressing this information from the public, and by refusing to prosecute
44
known war criminals, members of Units 731, 100, and others. Nie suggests that
45
 The U.S.’s memory problems   167
1 America was an “accessory after the fact,” aiding and abetting Japan’s criminal
2 activities by not bringing perpetrators to justice (Nie 2006, 24). Further, it is
3 clear from a moral perspective that “This treatment of Japanese doctors by the
4 USA can never be justified by the standards of moral traditions in any culture. Any
5 government that supports and exploits such atrocities should apologise and
6 compensate” (Nie 2002, S5).
7 Yet, America treads a fine line. It will not antagonize allies like Japan if
8 the benefits (in terms of enhancing its international reputation) are perceived
9 to be minimal. Reflecting a political science perspective I argue that the extent to
0 which US policy will be “captured” by issue areas will depend on the strength of
11 the support the electorate has for these issues. As Hansen and King argue
12 persuasively:
13
14 ideas are more likely to be translated into policy under three conditions: when
15 there is a synergy between ideas and interests, when the actors possess the
16 requisite enthusiasm and institutional position, and when timing contributes
17 to a broad constellation of preferences that reinforce these ideas, rather than
18 detracting from them.
19 (Hansen and King 2001, 239)
20
21 America’s larger and more influential diaspora groups operate at a time when
22 identity politics has increasing salience. While ethnic groups in the United States
23 are not able to dictate US policy per se, they can mold certain issue areas through
24 organized and repeated pressure. Ironically, Chinese-Americans may gain an
25 apology from the US if the crimes are presented in a way that scripts them as
26 relatively unimportant in US history, but in a way that promotes the image of the
27 US as a country committed to justice. This is perhaps not the argument other
28 contributors to this volume will be making, but it is worth exploring further.
29 The US is wont to ignore or suppress memories of the past when they are too
30 painful – when their legacies might threaten to unravel the exceptionalist myths
31 many Americans like to tell about their forefathers. Thus there have been no
32 official apologies for the destruction of American indigenous peoples, nor for
33 African-American slavery. Nor has any compensation for slavery been mooted
34 publicly (Corlett 2001, 239; Howard-Hassmann 2004, 831). At the same time, in
35 cases where there have been obvious injustices, but the injustices were not a
36 central part of US narratives of the nation, the government has been willing to
37 both acknowledge and compensate. The Reagan administration’s apology for the
38 internment of Japanese-Americans is an obvious example. President Reagan
39 apologized to the 110,000 Japanese-Americans interned during World War II. In
40 1988 he followed a formal apology with US$20,000 for each person who was
41 interned (Biondi 2003, 8).
42 In cases where the US has not been responsible for past atrocities like the Jewish
43 Holocaust, efforts to commemorate, and secure apologies and compensation, are
44 sometimes forthcoming. For example, the Holocaust has been enshrined as a key
45 trope in American national identity. If American elites have rejected demands for
 168   David B. MacDonald
1 compensation to the descendants of American slaves, they have certainly worked
2 to secure reparations for Nazi-era slave laborers, Jews and others alike. The
3 Clinton administration in particular helped pressure the German government to
4 secure reparations, in part because it has promoted a feeling of the US promoting
5 justice. America as a large and relatively fragmented democratic system also
6 allows ethnic constituencies to promote their interests if they can deliver a block
7 of votes or influence the general public.
8 I begin this chapter with a brief overview of Japanese atrocities, follow this
9 with details of the cover-up, then offer some relevant context concerning America’s
0 own crimes. I then argue that Chinese-Americans may have a chance
11 to gain acknowledgment of their suffering at an official level. They could even
12 gain a Congressional Bill condemning Japanese denialism, and might even gain
13 an apology for the American cover-up, amnesty for, and payment to ranking
14 members of Unit 731. Whether this is a crucial issue around which Chinese-
15 Americans will congregate is another matter, since there seems to be a stronger
16 interest in mobilizing around the Nanjing massacre, as I have argued elsewhere
17 (MacDonald 2005). In any case, acknowledgment of America’s role in denying
18 Japanese atrocities, and any potential compensation resulting from that denial,
19 are unlikely to be forthcoming. This is doubly so in the current international
20 climate. Contemporary ethical dilemmas like torture and permanent detention
21 at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and the killing of civilians in US bombing in
22 Iraq and Afghanistan, have drawn public attention in the US and globally.
23
24
Japanese atrocities and the US cover-up
25
26 Japan’s biological experimentation was centered around Unit 731, a biological
27 weapons program founded by Lieutenant General Ishii Shiro. Beginning with a
28 biological experimental unit at the Tokyo Medical School, Ishii branched out into
29 Japanese-controlled Manchukuo in 1932, establishing facilities in the city of
30 Harbin, the town of Beiyinhe, followed by a larger facility at Pingfan in 1939. This
31 sprawling facility of 70 buildings was soon known as “the secret of secrets” (Gold
32 2000, 29, 33, 39; Hicks 1998, 53–5).
33 America’s collusion with the Japanese to cover up their medical crimes came
34 soon after the Japanese surrender. Key members of Unit 731, like Ishii’s second in
35 command in Tokyo, Naito Ryoichi, approached American officials with
36 information about the scientific achievements of the Unit. This was followed by a
37 series of backroom deals, approved by President Truman and Supreme Allied
38 Commander General MacArthur. In return for exclusive access to the experimental
39 data, members of the Unit, from Ishii down, were granted immunity from
40 prosecution. In so doing, America expeditiously gained 20 years’-worth of
41 information at minimal financial cost (Gold 2000, 94–109).
42 Ishii died in 1959. Many former members went on to achieve high office in
43 scientific and medical posts. Three of the most notorious members (involved in
44 vivisections, frost-bite, and bacteriological research) founded the Green Cross, a
45 Japan-based blood bank. Others became professors and deans of Japanese medical
 The U.S.’s memory problems   169
1 schools in Kyoto, Kinki, and Osaka. Many others remained in key positions within
2 the health care sector (Gold 2000, 140–3).
3 The Tokyo Trials (convened from May 1946 to November 1948) enabled further
4 denial, by excluding many Japanese crimes. Americans largely controlled the trials
5 and their outcome, disproportionately punishing crimes against the United States
6 (like Pearl Harbor) while down-playing other atrocities including Japanese
7 medical crimes (Awaya 1998, 222–4; Eykholt 2000, 19; Finn 1992, 150; Hicks
8 1998, 7–8). Asian victims of sexual assault were also marginalized. While local
9 B and C class trials investigated the sexual assault of Dutchwomen during
0 the war, the “enslavement of Asian and Pacific Island women” was ignored
11 (Yoneyama 1999, 11–12, 16). Further, Emperor Hirohito was neither charged nor
12 called as a witness. His continuation as Emperor further buttressed official and
13 popular denial (Nish 2000, 86).
14 In 1949, during the Soviet-led Khabarovsk Trial, many of the facts of Units 731
15 and 100 came to light. America’s GHQ in Japan, on advice from the US State
16 Department, denied that they had any information about Japanese medical
17 experiments and accused the Soviets of propaganda (Hicks 1998, 51; Williams
18 and Wallace 1989, 220–1).
19
20
Denial and America’s ambiguous legacy in Japan
21
22 At an ideological level, America turned a blind eye to denialism, as Japan was
23 rapidly converted from enemy to ally. Japan was on the front line of the Cold War,
24 as it was on the front line of the Korean War and China’s civil war. Denialism was
25 promoted by the Japanese political and intellectual establishment, with American
26 support. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party included many “die-hard nationalists”
27 who traditionally viewed the Pacific war as a legitimate defense against
28 communism’s “Red Peril” and Western colonialism’s “White Peril” in Asia (Dower
29 2002, 218–19).
30 Concerning Japanese crimes, a tacit understanding seems to have evolved. In
31 return for maintaining Hirohito on the throne, and protecting many ranking
32 military and government officials, the firebombing of Japanese cities in a strategy
33 designed by General Curtis LeMay would be suppressed as an issue (Powers
34 1995). Lest we forget, over two million Japanese soldiers and sailors died in the
35 War, alongside one million civilians. All major cities with the exception of
36 Kyoto were razed, some 66 in total (Godemont 1997, 141). As Dower recalls:
37 “It became commonplace to speak of the war dead themselves – and, indeed,
38 of virtually all ordinary Japanese – as being ‘victims’ and ‘sacrifices’ ” (Dower
39 2002, 218, 228). Orr similarly notes a “mythologizing of war victimhood” in the
40 post-War peace movements “manifested in a tendency to privilege the facts of
41 Japanese victimhood over considerations of what occasioned that victimhood”
42 (Orr 2001, 3).
43 Japan also had a species of trump card – the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
44 Atomic devastation produced “victim consciousness” (higaisha ishiki) or “atomic
45 victim exceptionalism” (Orr 2001, 7; Dower 1996, 123). As Dower describes the
 170   David B. MacDonald
1 instrumental use of a bomb victim mentality: “Hiroshima and Nagasaki became
2 icons of Japanese suffering . . . blotting out recollection of the Japanese victim­
3 ization of others” (Dower 1996, 123). Certainly Japanese crimes were reasonably
4 well known in Asia, but the atomic bomb was known throughout the world. These
5 systematic bombings of civilians, in both the firebombing and atomic bombing of
6 cities, constitute important atrocities. (Cohn 2006).
7
8
American crimes
9
0 As Barber has argued, myths of American “innocence” have functioned as a key
11 binding force in US domestic and foreign policy. The belief that the US is both a
12 good and unblemished actor in world politics is an important part of US
13 exceptionalist narratives (Barber 1996, 49). However, the history of American
14 expansion across the continent and beyond, and the history of slavery in the United
15 States make such views difficult to sustain. America’s indigenous peoples, for
16 example, were subject to horrific treatment, making any founding myths of
17 innocence highly contested in the present. Indeed, ethnocide, including widespread
18 massacre, was a major part of early US expansionist policy (Hitchcock and Twedt
19 1997, 380). Between 1789 and 1898 there were an estimated 1,243 skirmishes
20 between US troops and Indians, not to mention “hundreds of fights between bands
21 of Indians and state troopers, posses, and Texas Rangers” (Hollon 1974, 133).
22 The use of disease as a primitive biological weapon is evident in many historic
23 accounts. The “King Philip’s War” (1675–76) appears to be the first case of
24 conflict between indigenous peoples (the Wampanoag) and settlers prompted by a
25 belief that colonists had deliberately spread disease among them (Stiffarm and
26 Lane 1992, 32; Friedberg 2000, 339). Through a mixture of massacre, land theft,
27 disease, forced marches, policies of starvation, a general declining birthrate, and
28 a trail of broken treaties, the indigenous population of America had dropped from
29 several million in the seventeenth century to just under 250,000 by 1920 (Stiffarm
30 and Lane 1992, 37).
31 Further crimes were evident in the 14-year Philippines–American war and
32 pacification. This conflict, which lasted from 1899 to 1913, saw conceptualizations
33 of superior and inferior races and civilizations figuring prominently (Kramer
34 2006). Of a base population of seven million, between 600,000 and 900,000
35 Filipinos were killed, the great majority of them civilians. As Davis has observed,
36 the main ports were closed during a major drought to deliberately starve the
37 population into submission. Existing rice stores were destroyed, alongside cattle
38 and other local food supplies. Such tactics presaged similar strategies in Vietnam
39 (Davis 2001, 198–200).
40
41
American medical experimentation and the Cold War
42
43 The principles of the Nuremberg Code were first applied to medical research by
44 four American judges during the Doctors’ Trials at Nuremberg in 1946. Here,
45 some 20 Nazi doctors were convicted on charges of war crimes and crimes against
 The U.S.’s memory problems   171
1 humanity, for conducting human experimentation at Auschwitz among other
2 abuses (Childress 2000, 347; see also Katz 1992, 231–4). The resulting 10-point
3 code enshrined such principles as informed consent, ensuring that research was
4 socially important, using animal tests before human trials, and the right of human
5 participants to end their involvement at any time. However, the code was a guide,
6 and was conveniently set aside as the needs of governments required. As Childress
7 argues: “For many years the Nuremberg Code played virtually no role in ethical
8 discussions, public policies, and legal decisions in the United States” (Childress
9 2000, 350).
0 Indeed, during World War II and after, the United States, like many other
11 countries including the Soviet Union, engaged in its own biological and chemical
12 weapons research. In 1943, a BW research center was created at Camp Detrick
13 (later Fort Detrick) near Frederick, Maryland, “[r]ivalled only by the Manhattan
14 atom bomb project in secrecy” (Williams and Wallace 1989, 95). After 1945,
15 research was expanded and it continues to the present. Williams and Wallace
16 document the fact that the US continued the research of Unit 731 in post-War
17 Japan, forming the “Tokyo Nutrition Research Centre” (code-named J2C 406)
18 with the active involvement of Ishii Shiro. Animals and insects were bred en masse
19 for medical experiments (Williams and Wallace 1989, 273–5).
20 In the 1950s, a $90 million biological mass production facility was constructed
21 at Pine Bluff, Arkansas (Williams and Wallace 1989, 281–2). Camp Detrick was
22 upgraded and BW research went into high gear. Special laboratories were built to
23 breed Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, a vector for yellow fever. Scientists created
24 facilities able to breed some 130 million mosquitoes per month, and “by the end
25 of the decade [1950s] its laboratories were reported to contain mosquitoes infected
26 with yellow and dengue fevers and malaria, as well as plague fleas, ticks
27 contaminated with tularaemia and flies carrying cholera, anthrax and dysentery”
28 (Williams and Wallace 1989, 283–4).
29 Consider another chapter in American history. As Welsome has documented in
30 The Plutonium Files, and as Wang further documents in this volume (Chapter 2),
31 thousands of Americans were subject to radiation experiments as the US
32 created and tested atomic weaponry. As Welsome argues of the Atomic Energy
33 Commission: “Thousands of human radiation experiments, many of them unethical
34 and without therapeutic benefit, were funded by the AEC over the next three
35 decades of the Cold War” (quoted in Markowitz 2000, 603). In the well-known case
36 of the Vanderbilt University prenatal clinic, between 830 and 850 pregnant women
37 were fed doses of radioactive iron to determine its rate of absorption into the body.
38 The experiments were conducted between 1945 and 1949. A later follow-up study
39 in 1969 was designed to “determine morbidity and mortality experiences in the
40 children and mothers fed radioactive iron” (Rothman 2003, 28, 32).
41 Such experimentation was deliberately concealed, both to prevent lawsuits from
42 victims and their families and to assure the availability of the subjects. Further, the
43 AEC feared that too much public knowledge of nuclear radiation and its effects
44 could dampen support for the Bomb (Markowitz 2000, 604–5). Despite guidelines
45 and codes, the US government and medical establishment seem to have
 172   David B. MacDonald
1 subordinated ethical considerations in the quest to best the Soviet Union. Despite
2 the availability of large-scale data on the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the
3 government sponsored detailed studies on humans charting the effects of radiation
4 on body processes and its effects on the environment (Brandt and Freidenfelds
5 1996, 240).
6 To this we can add a number of Department of Defense and CIA-sponsored
7 projects, performed at over 30 university campuses. A variety of experiments
8 using hallucinogenic drugs and other controlled substances took place at Harvard
9 and around the country. Prescott has documented the testing of potential “truth
0 drugs” and a variety of other drugs which were used as mind-altering devices. This
11 includes Wendt’s Project CHATTER, based in the psychology department of the
12 University of Rochester. Wendt was contracted by the Navy to study “the effects
13 of a variety of drugs, including barbiturates, amphetamines, alcohol, and heroin.”
14 A wide variety of other studies followed, including the infamous project
15 MKULTRA at the University of Minnesota and Missouri Institute of Psychiatry
16 (Prescott 2002, 33–4; McCoy 2006).
17 As Moreno and Lederer reveal, there was little ethical oversight of human
18 experimentation. Rather the reverse seems to have been true:
19
20 [P]reviously classified transcripts of many of the Pentagon advisory bodies,
21 such as the Committee on Medical Sciences, show that in 1951 and 1952
22 most members were definitely not in favor of devising new, rigorous
23 protections for human research subjects. Not only did many members assert
24 the necessity of human experiments for some of the work that needed to be
25 done, some expressed grave doubts about the wisdom of creating any formal
26 review mechanism at all.
27 (Moreno and Lederer 1996, 231)
28
29 All of this tells us something about the climate of medical ethics in America
30 during the Cold War, a climate in which individual human rights were sacrificed
31 in order to defend the country against the Soviet Union. At base was the belief that
32 the Soviets were a highly unscrupulous enemy who would stop at nothing to
33 achieve world domination. This belief animated the desire to push science to its
34 limits, where necessary with disregard for individual rights.
35
36
American medical experimentation and racism
37
38 The United States implemented extensive eugenic policies in the early twentieth
39 century (Hansen and King 2001, 237–9). Eugenic and racial theories were popular
40 among American elites, who disparaged not only African-Americans, Latinos, and
41 indigenous peoples, but many immigrant groups as well. Women and the lower
42 classes were also perceived to be biologically inferior. Modern birth control and
43 family planning initiatives were premised largely on the higher reproduction rates
44 among immigrants, versus the lower rates among white Americans. “Racial
45 suicide” was commonly feared (Leonard 2003, 690–6).
 The U.S.’s memory problems   173
1 Many indigenous women were subject to forced sterilizations during the
2 twentieth century. While the Indian Health Service greatly improved medical care
3 on reservations and dramatically lowered rates of tuberculosis and other diseases,
4 it actively promoted “family planning” policies to counter the high indigenous
5 birthrate (Lawrence 2000, 411). A report published in 1979 revealed that
6 60 percent of hospitals surveyed had “routinely sterilized women under the age of
7 twenty-one,” in violation of official guidelines established by the federal govern­
8 ment (Udel 2001, 46). Ralstin-Lewis (2005, 71–2) reveals:
9
0 Native women seeking treatment in Indian Health Service (IHS) hospitals and
11 with IHS-contracted physicians were allowed neither the basic right of
12 informed consent prior to sterilization nor the right to refuse the
13 operation. . . . From 1970 to 1980, the birthrate for Indian women fell at a rate
14 seven times greater than that of white women.
15
16 The situation continued until Congress passed the Indian Health Care Improvement
17 Act in 1976, restoring tribal control over medical services. The levels of abuse
18 dropped significantly thereafter (Lawrence 2000, 415).
19 Better known were the Tuskeegee experiments involving African-Americans.
20 The US Public Health Service in tandem with several other organizations
21 embarked on a lengthy study of the effects of untreated syphilis among uneducated
22 black males. Patients were neither told they had the condition, nor informed of the
23 methods available to treat it. The experiments were carried out in Macon County,
24 Alabama, from the 1930s to the 1970s. Some 400 African-Americans were
25 involved, and questions of informed consent were completely ignored. Residual
26 effects remain, and African-Americans are still deeply distrustful of the medical
27 profession, which many deem to be structurally racist (Harter et al. 2000, 21).
28 My point in presenting this partial catalogue of ethically questionable activities
29 is to demonstrate that far from merely condoning and then covering up Japanese
30 medical experiments, the United States continued Japan’s biological research, and
31 used its own citizens as human-guinea pigs on numerous now well-known
32 occasions. This takes Nie’s accusations a step further, effectively blurring the lines
33 between perpetrator and accessory.
34
35
Change in the air
36
37 The end of the Cold War profoundly changed mainstream thinking about what
38 lengths one needed to go to in order to tame the Soviet threat. What Nytagodien
39 and Neal term “the age of apologies” (Nytagodien and Neal 2005, 465) or what
40 Torpey calls “reparations politics” began in many Western countries in the wake
41 of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Governments, churches, and private firms
42 were increasingly held to account for past actions against indigenous peoples and
43 other disadvantaged groups (Torpey 2001, 334). Olick’s analysis of the “memory
44 boom” which emerged following the Cold War is little different. Here too, national
45 groups became caught up with “new versions of the past rather than the future”
 174   David B. MacDonald
1 (Olick 1998, 380). Marginalized groups asserted themselves, and more
2 significantly, states were actually willing to listen.
3 With a conscientious objector from the Vietnam War in the White House, left-
4 leaning Labor governments in Australia and Britain, and the decimation of
5 Conservative rule in Canada, many Western societies now seemed more open to
6 debating and discussing the past. Bill Clinton, Paul Keating, and Tony Blair all
7 engaged in forms of “self-examination,” apologizing to various wronged groups
8 (native Hawaiians and Panamanians, Australian Aborigines, the Irish, and First
9 Nation people) for the “gross historical crimes” committed in their own countries
0 and against others (Olick and Coughlin 2003, 37). The Canadian government also
11 apologized to First Nations, in 1998, although Prime Minister Chretien did not
12 give an official apology (Nobles 2008, 74–5). In this climate, we see the rise of
13 memory politics and activism on behalf of disadvantaged groups. Activism
14 succeeds if it can tell a story about America that is palatable to the mainstream and
15 that allows admission of some guilt without undermining the core national
16 identity.
17 Ethnic groups certainly have the capacity to help shape foreign and domestic
18 policy. First, if the majority is uninterested, apathetic, or generally ignorant about
19 the specific issue, the group may exert a great deal of influence, especially if it can
20 deliver blocks of votes in important constituencies or help fundraise for
21 sympathetic candidates (Saideman 2002, 94). It is no accident that America’s most
22 vocal diasporas have proven to be the most successful. Armenian-Americans
23 (nearly one million), Japanese-Americans (1.2 million), and Jewish-Americans
24 (six million) have been successful in promoting several signature issues in
25 Congress: recognition of the Armenian genocide, the incarceration of Japanese-
26 Americans, and support for Israel. Indeed, during the 1990s, Armenia and Israel
27 received the largest amount of US foreign aid per capita (Shain 2002, 116).
28 Armenian-Americans, in addition to pressing Turkey on the genocide question,
29 were able to use their power during Armenia’s war with Azerbaijan, and its
30 annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh (which contained an Armenian majority). Due
31 to Armenian-American pressure, Section 907 was added to the Freedom Support
32 Act of 1992, which specifically prohibited American assistance to Azerbaijan.
33 This effectively meant US rubber-stamping the invasion and annexation of part of
34 another country (Saideman 2002, 99). Japanese-Americans won an apology and
35 compensation from the Reagan administration for their imprisonment. Israeli
36 lobby groups have secured long-term American support for the State of Israel and
37 its policies, including the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the Israel nuclear
38 weapons program, and the Gaza War. America has contributed more than $140
39 billion since 1948, roughly $3 billion annually in direct assistance (Mearsheimer
40 and Walt 2006).
41 Other examples of diaspora success include Greek-American lobbying to have
42 America only recognize the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia (now independent)
43 as the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (FYROM). Further, diaspora
44 pressure prompted the US to look the other way as Greece launched an economic
45 blockade of FYROM, seriously weakening its economy (Saideman 2002, 98–9).
 The U.S.’s memory problems   175
1 Continued US sanctions policy against Cuba further demonstrates the power of a
2 small ethnic community to influence foreign policy at a national level (Moore
3 2002, 84).
4
5
Recognizing past atrocities: checks and balances
6
7 However, Congress, the Presidency, and other branches of government often
8 perform a balancing role, acquiescing to some minority demands while refusing
9 others that conflict with major US interests. Thus in the Armenian case, the
0 diaspora has pressured Congress for decades to officially recognize the Armenian
11 genocide, without success. Turkey as a key NATO ally continues to lobby
12 successfully to prevent US official recognition of the genocide. When a non-
13 binding Congressional resolution recognizing the genocide went before the House
14 of Representatives in 2000, Turkey threatened to stop all American military flights
15 from its Incirlik airbase, from where it was enforcing Iraq’s no-fly zone (Shain
16 2002, 132). It also threatened to pull out of NATO. Clinton personally intervened
17 to block the resolution (Auron 2003, 111–15). What is clear is that geopolitical
18 exigencies have made America unable to recognize the facts of the genocide,
19 although they submit to Armenian diaspora pressure in other ways.
20 America’s indigenous peoples have lacked sufficient domestic political power
21 to garner official recognition of the crimes committed against them, let alone
22 apology or compensation. In 2000, the Department of Indian Affairs did accept
23 “moral responsibility” for waging “war on Indian people . . . by threat, deceit and
24 force,” committing “acts so terrible that they infect, diminish and destroy the lives
25 of Indian people decades later, generations later” (Kiernan 2002, 165). However,
26 this stark admission failed to reflect official government or administration policy,
27 and was consistent with the general thrust of American policies, which show a
28 profound lack of remorse (Corlett 2001, 239).
29 The only prominent genocide that has achieved official recognition is the
30 Holocaust. This is in part owing to the lobbying efforts of Jewish Americans to
31 secure its recognition and continued US support for Israel. Integral to this effort is
32 the fact that the Holocaust came into its own as a world-historical event during the
33 1960s and 1970s, especially after the Vietnam War (Ball 2000, 4). In a speech
34 in 1978, President Carter recognized the central importance of the Holocaust in
35 American life with powerful lessons to teach. Americans had helped liberate the
36 camps, then functioned as a haven for many of the oppressed. Large numbers of
37 survivors were granted asylum. Moreover, the Holocaust was presented as the
38 embodiment of all that a democratic, pluralist, freedom-loving America was not.
39 The Holocaust had other important moral lessons of another type to convey. As a
40 bystander nation which did little to prevent the Holocaust, it was now America’s
41 special mission to spread democracy and freedom in the name of other victims of
42 totalitarian systems (Young 1999, 73).
43 Many Jewish-American groups have responded by bringing the Holocaust
44 directly into American life. In 1993, the United States Holocaust Memorial
45 Museum opened its doors in central Washington, DC. The Museum Council
 176   David B. MacDonald
1 made clear that “America is the enemy of racism and its ultimate expression,
2 genocide. . . . in act and word the Nazis denied the deepest tenets of the American
3 people” (Young 1999, 73). Another aspect of Holocaust Americanization was the
4 campaign to compensate Jewish survivors and their families for slave labor they
5 were forced to perform during the War. Another campaign focused on retrieving
6 Holocaust-era assets from Swiss banks. In both cases, the US government
7 pressured the German, Austrian, and Swiss governments, as well as banks and
8 corporations within these countries, to compensate victims and their families
9 (Barkan 2001, xv, 21).
0
11
Chinese diaspora politics in America
12
13 The US is now home to over one-third of overseas Chinese living outside of
14 Asia. Approximately 70 percent of these are foreign born, the majority having
15 immigrated since 1980. California and New York contain the largest numbers of
16 Chinese-Americans, with 40 percent residing in California alone (Fan 2003,
17 261–2, 269–71). The New York Times has identified a “cottage industry” of
18 remembrance, with “dozens of groups working the Internet to publicize it, as well
19 as recent documentaries, novels and exhibits” (Marino 1998). While long divided
20 between support for Taiwan and the People’s Republic, in the 1990s, the diaspora
21 began to speak with a more unified voice, joining together a “multiplicity of
22 voices” (Maier 2000, 3).
23 A number of prominent Jewish-Americans have been active in promoting
24 memory of Nanking and other Japanese crimes, especially in making common
25 cause with Chinese scholars combating Japanese denialism (Shermer and Grobman
26 2000, 237). For example, Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal
27 Center, has argued that “In terms of cold, calculated cruelty, the people who
28 operated Unit 731 would have been right at home with Josef Mengele and his
29 associates” (quoted in Dobbs 2000, A1). Unlike the Armenian lobby’s battles with
30 the Turkish lobby, each promoting diametrically opposed positions, the situation
31 vis-à-vis the crimes of Unit 731 is more nuanced.
32 The Japanese situation is different, for the simple reason that debate continues
33 within Japan both at the societal and official levels about the atrocities. While the
34 long-ruling LDP rejected compensation and was ambivalent about apology, as
35 Jeans has noted, a number of “peace”-oriented museums, locally or privately
36 operated, have been reviewing in quite a stark fashion the history of Japanese
37 aggression in Asia, and a substantial scholarly literature has documented
38 Japanese war atrocities. The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum is a particularly
39 fine example of a museum which has incorporated a section on Japan’s
40 expansionism accompanying the commemoration of atomic victims. Other
41 progressive museums include the Osaka International Peace Center and the Kyoto
42 Museum for World Peace. Of course, traditional “war” museums continue to
43 promote denial, such as the Yasukuni Shrine War Museum, the Showa Hall, and
44 the Chiran Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots (Jeans 2005, 151–82). In short, the
45 issues of war crimes and atrocities remain deeply contested in Japan.
 The U.S.’s memory problems   177
1 Further, Japanese courts have admitted that the crimes occurred, making any
2 future American apology less dramatic. In 2002, 180 plaintiffs concluded a five-
3 year-long civil case against the Japanese government for the crimes of Unit 731.
4 The plaintiffs demanded US$83,500 each for the deaths of some 2,100 victims of
5 medical experimentation. While the Tokyo court refused to award damages
6 (claiming they have been settled by the Japanese government at the international
7 level), they did admit that the crimes occurred, and that the Japanese army
8 conducted experiments on civilians and used BW weaponry. The presiding judges
9 described the crimes of Unit 731 as “inhumane,” having caused “truly horrible and
0 enormous” harm to their Chinese victims. Further, the judges upheld that both the
11 Geneva and Hague Conventions had been broken by Japan during the war (Watts
12 2002, 857).
13 A further positive sign is the relative unity of Asian Americans as a lobbying
14 force. The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, chaired by Mike Honda,
15 is bipartisan and claims to represent the interests of 11 million Asian Pacific
16 Americans (APA). Honda describes the APA as a “community,” which together
17 has certain common interests, such as the elimination of racism in American
18 society (Honda 2006). Prominent Congressional leaders like Norman Mineta,
19 Patsy Mink, Robert A. Underwood, and David Wu have also had an important role
20 to play. As a state congressman in California, Honda successfully passed AJR 27
21 through the California State Assembly, calling on Japan to apologize and pay
22 compensation for its wartime atrocities (Chu Lin 2001). He has linked apologies
23 and reparations for both groups as a “basic human rights issue. It took us 12 years
24 to get our government to apologize to us. We are supporting these [Chinese-
25 American] efforts because it is the right thing to do” (Dobbs 2000, A1). Yet we
26 should be clear. While Congress might pass a resolution pushing for Japan to
27 apologize, and might apologize for its own suppression of Japanese crimes,
28 America will most likely not admit to further BW research in Japan or many of the
29 details of its collusion with Ishii and his colleagues. Further, the road to
30 compensation will be an extremely long one. This is doubly so since Japanese
31 courts have already admitted guilt, thus in some respects absolving America as an
32 accessory. As we have seen during the Clinton administration, apologies were
33 heartfelt but often failed to go far enough to mollify victims of American-
34 supported crimes.
35 Certainly Clinton did make numerous apologies for everything from the
36 annexation of Hawaii to American support of right-wing Guatemalan military
37 forces. Unfortunately many of these apologies never told the whole story. Clinton
38 may have apologized for US support but did not apologize for any active
39 involvement in Guatemala, for example. While Clinton acknowledged the evils of
40 slavery during his state visit to Africa in 1998, he did not formally admit the US
41 role or formally apologize. Monetary reparations were also off the agenda
42 (Howard-Hassmann 2004, 831). For Gibney and Roxtrom, it was clear at the end
43 of the Clinton years that most of these apologies were largely vacuous. They note
44 rightly: “The biggest problem with state apologies is that the apologizing state
45 wants it both ways: it wants credit for recognizing and acknowledging a wrong
 178   David B. MacDonald
1 against others, but it also wants the world to remain exactly as it had been before
2 the apology was issued” (Gibney and Roxtrom 2001, 936). Apologies had a strong
3 feel-good factor, but when America was at fault, full and frank admissions that
4 might imply costs for the American taxpayer were starkly limited.
5
6
Conclusions
7
8 Chinese-Americans might expect a limited apology, but the ideal of gaining
9 compensation for atrocities the Japanese carried out on Chinese soil, while
0 America was at war with Japan, is unlikely to transpire. What American history
11 demonstrates time and again is that the government will champion the cause of
12 justice (or appear to do so) when its own self-image is not threatened. However, as
13 the American-Indian case demonstrates, the government is much less likely to do
14 so when revelations about its past might cast doubt on US claims to an exceptional
15 heritage. In addition, apologies require a president amenable to public displays
16 of mea culpa. Bill Clinton was a master at such posturing; George W. Bush was
17 not. It remains to be seen how President Obama will tackle such divisive and
18 complicated issues.
19 In both Japan and the United States, recognition, apology, and just compensation
20 to victims of atrocities will be difficult to achieve. The Japanese case is complicated
21 by the persistence of the association of the Emperor and the former empire with
22 purity. The American case is made difficult by its long-standing myths of
23 exceptionalism, as well as its self-professed role in promoting global peace and
24 stability, while championing democracy. In both countries there are social and
25 political forces which, under appropriate conditions, can be mobilized to accept
26 responsibility for past injustices. In both cases, social actors may help to pave the
27 way for more harmonious future relations as the Reagan administration’s apology
28 and compensation for Japanese-Americans demonstrates. But this path is difficult.
29 In the US, it is clear that society has changed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist
30 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet while the Obama administration
31 marks a departure from the past, it is yet too early to tell how far either Congress or
32 the executive will be willing to reconceptualize America’s past.
33
34
References and further reading
35
36 Auron, Y. (2003) The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide, New York:
37 Transaction Publishers.
38 Awaya, K. (1998) “Controversies Surrounding the Asia-Pacific War: The Tokyo War Crimes
39 Trial”, in P. West, S. Levine, and J. Hiltz (eds) America’s Wars in Asia: A Cultural
Approach to History and Memory, London: M.E. Sharpe.
40
Ball, K. (2000) “Introduction: Trauma and its Institutional Destinies”, Cultural Critique 46.
41 Barber, B. R. (1996) Jihad vs. McWorld. New York: Ballantine Books.
42 Barenblatt, D. (2004) A Plague Upon Humanity: The Secret Genocide of Axis Japan’s Germ
43 Warfare Operation, London: HarperCollins.
44 Barkan, E. (2001) The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices,
45 Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
 The U.S.’s memory problems   179
1 Biondi, M. (2003) “The Rise of the Reparations Movement”, Radical History Review 87:
2 5–18.
3 Brandt, A. and L. Freidenfelds (1996), “Commentary: Research Ethics after World War II: The
4 Insular Culture of Biomedicine”, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 6(3): 239–43.
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Cairns, A. (2003) “Coming to Terms with the Past”, in J. Torpey (ed.) Politics and the Past:
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0 Chu Lin, S. (2001) “Congressman Mike Honda To Visit China”, Asia Week, August 3–9,
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12 Cohn, M. (2006) “War Crimes: Goose and Gander”, truthout, 13 March. Available at http://
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15 Collective Wrongdoing: A Reader, Oxford: Blackwell.
Davis, M. (2001) Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third
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World, London: Verso.
17
Dobbs, M. (2000) “Lawyers Target Japanese Abuses: WWII Compensation Effort Shifts
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19 Dower, J. (1996) “The Bombed: Hiroshimas and Nagasakis in Japanese Memory”, in
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22 —— (2002) “ ‘An Aptitude for Being Unloved’: War and Memory in Japan”, in O. Bartov,
23 A. Grossmann, and M. Nolan (eds) Crimes of War: Guilt and Denial in the Twentieth
24 Century, New York: The New Press.
25 Eykholt, M. (2000) “Aggression, Victimization, and Chinese Historiography of the Nanjing
26 Massacre”, in J. Fogel (ed.) The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography,
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34 Friedberg, L. (2000) “Dare to Compare: Americanizing the Holocaust”, American Indian
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Godemont, F. (1997) The New Asian Renaissance: From Colonialism to the Post-Cold War,
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London: Routledge.
39
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41 Immigration and Sterilization Policy in Britain and the U.S.”, World Politics 53(2):
42 237–63.
43 Harter, L., R. Stephens and P. Japp (2000) “President Clinton’s Apology for the Tuskegee
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45 The Howard Journal of Communications 11: 19–34.
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1 Hicks, G. (1998) Japan’s War Memories: Amnesia or Concealment? London: Ashgate.
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6
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7 Howard-Hassmann, R. (2004) “Getting to Reparations: Japanese Americans and African
8 Americans”, Social Forces 83(2): 823–40.
9 Jeans, R. (2005) “Victims or Victimizers? Museums, Textbooks, and the War Debate in
0 Contemporary Japan”, The Journal of Military History 69(1): 149–95.
11 Johnston, A. (2003) “Is China a Status Quo Power?”, International Security 27(4): 5–56.
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15 Kiernan, B. (2002) “Cover-up and Denial of Genocide: Australia, the USA, East Timor, and
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18 Kramer, P. (2006) “Race-making and Colonial Violence in the U.S. Empire: The Philippine–
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20 http://japanfocus.org/-Paul_A_–Kramer/1745.
21 Lawrence, J. (2000) “The Indian Health Service and the Sterilization of Native American
22 Women”, The American Indian Quarterly 24(3): 400–19.
23 Leonard, T. (2003) “ ‘More Merciful and Not Less Effective’: Eugenics and American
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25 Lombardo, P. and G. Dorr (2006) “Eugenics, Medical Education, and the Public Health
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27
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29 McCoy, A.W. (2006) A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the
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11
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1
2 10 Japanese and American war
3
4 atrocities, historical memory,
5
6
and reconciliation
7
8
The Asia-Pacific War to today
9
0 Mark Selden
11
12
13 War crimes, atrocities, and state terrorism
14
The controversies that continue to swirl around the Nanjing Massacre, the military
15
comfort women, Unit 731, and other Japanese military atrocities rooted in
16
colonialism and the Asia-Pacific War are critical not only to understanding the
17
dynamics of war, peace, and terror in the long twentieth century. They are also
18
vital for understanding war memory and denial, with implications for peace and
19
regional accommodation across the Asia-Pacific region and the US–Japan
20
relationship.1
21
This chapter offers a comparative framework for understanding war atrocities
22
and the ways in which they are remembered, forgotten, and memorialized. It
23
examines a number of high-profile atrocities in an effort to understand their
24
character and the reasons why recognizing and accepting responsibility for them
25
has been so difficult. Neither committing atrocities nor suppressing their memories
26
is the exclusive property of a single nation. The issues addressed here originated
27
with atrocities committed by Japan and the United States during the Asia-Pacific
28
War, but many continue in new forms to the present.
29
What explains the fact that Japanese denial and refusal to provide compensation
30
to victims has long been the subject of sharp domestic and international contention,
31
while there has been relatively little analysis of U.S. atrocities, less criticism or
32
recrimination for that nation’s commission and denial of atrocities, and still less
33
demand for reparations? What are the consequences of this difference for the two
34
nations and the contemporary international relations of the Asia-Pacific?
35
Among the major war crimes and atrocities committed in World War II, the
36
Nanjing Massacre . . . or Rape of Nanjing, or Nankin Daigyakusatsu, or Nankin
37
Jiken (Japanese) or Nanjing Datusha (Chinese) . . . remains the most controversial.
38
These different names signal alternative Japanese, Chinese, and international
39
perceptions of the event: as “incident,” as “massacre,” as “rape,” as “massive
40
butchery,” or even, as Iris Chang styled it, “the forgotten Holocaust.”
41
The Nanjing Massacre is controversial not because the most basic facts are in
42
doubt, although historians continue to contest the number of deaths and the
43
interpretation of certain events. Rather it is controversial owing to the shocking
44
scale of the killing of Chinese civilians and prisoners of war in a single locale,
45
 184   Mark Selden
1 because of the politics of denial relentlessly pursued by Japanese neonationalists,
2 and because the relationship between the massacre and the character of the wider
3 war remains little understood despite the outstanding research of Japanese and
4 international scholars and journalists.2
5 It is not only that Japanese neonationalists deny the very existence of a massacre,
6 but that they have sometimes been joined by post-Occupation Japanese
7 governments in refusing to accept formal responsibility for either the massacre or
8 the wider war of aggression in which between 10 and 30 million Chinese died.
9 This explains why these issues remain contested and controversial among Japanese
0 and across the Asia-Pacific. To understand why the Japanese government continues
11 to fight this and other war memory battles in ways that have repeatedly poisoned
12 its relations not only with its Asian neighbors but also with the United States and
13 European nations requires reconsideration not only of contemporary Japanese
14 nationalism, but of the international power structure that the U.S. set in place
15 during the occupation and subsequently maintained.
16 The U.S. insulated Japan from war responsibility, first, by maintaining Hirohito
17 on the throne and shielding him from war crimes charges; second, by protecting
18 the Japanese state from war reparations claims from victims of colonialism,
19 invasion, and atrocities, and finally by using its troops and bases to guarantee
20 Japan’s defense so as to assure its subordination within the orbit of U.S. power, and
21 to isolate it from China, the Soviet Union, and other U.S. rivals.
22 As the authors of this volume reiterate, attempts to gauge war atrocities and to
23 understand the ways in which they are remembered and suppressed require the
24 application of universal standards as articulated during the Nuremberg and Tokyo
25 Trials. In an age of nationalism, it is particularly important to apply such standards
26 to the conduct of one’s own nation. The German case, to which I return below, is
27 particularly instructive. Germany, like Japan, was defeated by a U.S.-led coalition,
28 and the U.S. played a key role in shaping institutions, war memories, and responses
29 to war atrocities in both Germany and Japan.3 Nevertheless, the outcomes in the
30 two nations in the form of historical memory and reconciliation in the wake of war
31 atrocities have differed sharply.
32 It is not the familiar terrain of the Japan–German comparison that I wish to
33 emphasize here, however. To unravel the most contentious memory wars in the
34 Asia-Pacific, I begin by offering a comparative framework for assessing Japanese
35 and American war atrocities. Particular attention is paid to Japan’s Nanjing
36 Massacre and the American firebombing and atomic bombing of Japanese cities
37 during World War II as each nation’s signature atrocities. In each instance, I cast
38 the issues in relation to the wider conduct of the War, and in the American case
39 consider the legacy of the bombing for subsequent wars down to the present. At
40 the center of the analysis is the assessment of these examples in light of principles
41 of international law developed over many decades from the late nineteenth century,
42 notably those enshrined in the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials and the Geneva
43 Convention of 1949, that identify as acts of terrorism and crimes against humanity
44 the slaughter of civilians and non-combatants by states and their militaries.4 It is
45 only by considering crimes committed by the victors as well as the vanquished in
 The Asia-Pacific War to today   185
1 the Asia-Pacific War and other wars that it is possible to lay to rest the ghosts of
2 suppressed memories in order to build foundations for a peaceful cooperative
3 order in the Asia-Pacific.
4 But first, Nanjing.
5
6
The Nanjing Massacre and structures of violence in the
7
Sino-Japanese War
8
9 Substantial portions of the Nanjing Massacre literature in English and Chinese –
0 both the scholarship and the public debate – treat the event as emblematic of the
11 wartime conduct of the Japanese, thereby essentializing the massacre as the
12 embodiment not only of the Japanese way of war in the years 1931 to 1945, but of
13 the Japanese character. In the discussion that follows, I seek both to locate the
14 unique and conjunctural features of the massacre and to understand its relationship
15 to the character of Japan’s protracted China war and the wider Asia-Pacific War.
16 Just as a small staged event by Japanese officers in 1931 provided the pretext
17 for Japan’s seizure of China’s northeast and creation of the dependent state of
18 Manchukuo, the minor clash between Japanese and Chinese troops at the Marco
19 Polo Bridge on July 7, 1937 paved the way for full-scale invasion of China south
20 of the Great Wall. By July 27, Japanese reinforcements from Korea and Manchuria
21 as well as Naval Air Force units had joined the fight. The Army High Command
22 dispatched three divisions from Japan and called up 209,000 men. With Japan’s
23 seizure of Beiping and Tianjin the next day followed by an attack on Shanghai in
24 August, the (undeclared) war began in earnest. In October, a Shanghai
25 Expeditionary Army (SEA) under Gen. Matsui Iwane with six divisions was
26 ordered to destroy enemy forces in and around Shanghai. The Tenth Army
27 commanded by Gen. Yanagawa Heisuke with four divisions soon joined in.
28 Anticipating rapid surrender by Chiang Kai-shek’s National Government, the
29 Japanese military encountered stiff resistance: 9185 Japanese were killed and
30 31,125 wounded at Shanghai. However, after landing at Hangzhou Bay, Japanese
31 forces quickly gained control of Shanghai. By November 7, the two Japanese
32 armies combined to form a Central China Area Army (CCAA) with an estimated
33 160,000 to 200,000 men.5
34 With Chinese forces in flight, Matsui’s CCAA, having received no orders from
35 Tokyo, set out to capture the Chinese capital Nanjing. Each unit competed for the
36 honor of being the first to enter the capital. Historians such as Fujiwara Akira and
37 Yoshida Yutaka sensibly date the start of the Nanjing Massacre to the atrocities
38 committed against civilians en route to Nanjing. “Thus began,” Fujiwara wrote,
39 “the most enormous, expensive, and deadly war in modern Japanese history – one
40 waged without just cause or cogent reason.” And one that paved the way to the
41 Asia-Pacific War that followed.
42 Japan’s behavior at Nanjing departed dramatically from that in the capture of
43 cities in earlier Japanese military engagements from the Russo-Japanese War of
44 1905 forward as well as from subsequent campaigns. One reason for the barbarity
45 at Nanjing and subsequently was that, counting on the “shock and awe” of the
 186   Mark Selden
1 November attack on Shanghai to produce surrender, Japanese troops were
2 unprepared for the fierce resistance and heavy casualties that they encountered,
3 prompting a desire for revenge. Indeed, throughout the war, like the Americans in
4 Vietnam decades later, the Japanese displayed a profound inability to grasp the
5 roots and strength of the nationalist resistance in the face of invading forces who
6 enjoyed overwhelming weapons and logistical superiority. A second reason for the
7 atrocities was that, as the two armies raced to capture Nanjing, the high command
8 lost control, resulting in a volatile and violent situation.
9 The contempt felt by the Japanese military for Chinese military forces and the
0 Chinese people set in motion a dynamic that led to the massacre. In the absence of
11 a declaration of war, as Utsumi Aiko documents, the Japanese high command held
12 that it was under no obligation to treat captured Chinese soldiers as POWs or
13 observe other international protocols of warfare that Japan had scrupulously
14 adhered to in the 1904 to 1905 Russo-Japanese War, such as the protection of the
15 rights of civilians. Later, Japan would recognize captured U.S. and Allied forces
16 as POWs, although they too were treated badly.6
17 As Yoshida Yutaka notes, Japanese soldiers were subjected to extreme physical
18 and mental abuse by their superiors. Regularly sent on forced marches carrying 30
19 to 60 kilograms of equipment, they also faced ruthless military discipline. Perhaps
20 most important for understanding the pattern of atrocities that emerged in 1937,
21 in the absence of food provisions, as the troops raced toward Nanjing, they
22 plundered villages and slaughtered their inhabitants in order to feed themselves.7
23 Chinese forces were belatedly ordered to retreat from Nanjing on the evening
24 of December 12, but Japanese troops had already surrounded the city and many
25 were captured. Other Chinese troops discarded weapons and uniforms, and sought
26 to blend in with the civilian population or surrender. Using diaries, battle reports,
27 press accounts, and interviews, Fujiwara Akira documents the slaughter of tens
28 of thousands of POWs, including 14,777 by the Yamada Detachment of the
29 13th Division. Daqing Yang points out that Gen. Yamada had his troops execute
30 the prisoners after twice being told by Shanghai Expeditionary Army headquarters
31 to “kill them all.”8
32 Major Gen. Sasaki Toichi confided to his diary on December 13:
33
34 our detachment alone must have taken care of over 20,000. Later, the enemy
35 surrendered in the thousands. Frenzied troops – rebuffing efforts by superiors
36 to restrain them – finished off these POWs one after another . . . men would
37 yell, “Kill the whole damn lot!” after recalling the past ten days of bloody
38 fighting in which so many buddies had shed so much blood.
39
40 The killing at Nanjing was not limited to captured Chinese soldiers. Large numbers
41 of civilians were raped and/or killed. Lt. Gen. Okamura Yasuji, who in 1938
42 became commander of the Tenth Army, recalled “that tens of thousands of acts of
43 violence, such as looting and rape, took place against civilians during the assault
44 on Nanjing. Second, front-line troops indulged in the evil practice of executing
45 POWs on the pretext of [lacking] rations.”
 The Asia-Pacific War to today   187
1 Chinese and foreigners in Nanjing comprehensively documented the crimes
2 committed in the immediate aftermath of Japanese capture of the city. Nevertheless,
3 the most important and telling evidence of the massacre is that provided by
4 Japanese troops who participated in the capture of the city. What should have been
5 a fatal blow to “Nanjing denial” occurred when the Kaikosha, a fraternal order of
6 former military officers and neonationalist revisionists, issued a call to soldiers
7 who had fought in Nanjing to describe their experience. Publishing the responses
8 in a March 1985 “Summing Up,” editor Katogawa Kotaro cited reports by
9 Unemoto Masami that he saw 3 to 6000 victims, and by Itakura Masaaki, 13,000
0 deaths. Katogawa concluded: “No matter what the conditions of battle were, and
11 no matter how that affected the hearts of men, such large-scale illegal killings
12 cannot be justified. As someone affiliated with the former Japanese army, I can
13 only apologize deeply to the Chinese people.”
14 A fatal blow . . . except that incontrovertible evidence provided by unimpeach­
15 able sources has never stayed the hands of incorrigible deniers. I have highlighted
16 the direct testimony of Japanese generals and enlisted men who documented the
17 range and scale of atrocities committed during the Nanjing Massacre in order to
18 show how difficult it is, even in the face of such compelling evidence, to overcome
19 denial.
20 Two other points emerge clearly from this discussion. The first is that the
21 atrocities at Nanjing – just as with the comfort women and Unit 731 – have been
22 the subject of fierce public controversy. This controversy has erupted again and
23 again over the textbook content and the statements of leaders ever since Japan’s
24 surrender, and particularly since the 1990s. The second is that, unlike their leaders,
25 many Japanese citizens have consistently recognized and deeply regretted Japanese
26 atrocities. Many have also supported reparations for victims.
27 The massacre had consequences far beyond Nanjing. The Japanese high
28 command, up to Emperor Hirohito, the commander-in-chief, while closely
29 monitoring events at Nanjing, issued no reprimand and meted out no punishment
30 to the officers and men who perpetrated these crimes. Instead, the leadership and
31 the press celebrated the victory at the Chinese capital in ways that invite comparison
32 with the elation of an American president as U.S. forces seized Baghdad within
33 weeks of the 2003 invasion.9 In both cases, the “victory” initiated what proved to
34 be the beginning and not the end of a war that could neither be won nor terminated
35 for years to come, and which would soon be extended to new territories and new
36 enemies. In both instances, we will show, it was followed by atrocities that
37 intensified and were extended from the capital to the entire country.
38 Following the Nanjing Massacre, the Japanese high command did move
39 determinedly to rein in troops to prevent further anarchic violence, particularly
40 violence played out in front of the Chinese and international press. Leaders feared
41 that such wanton acts could undermine efforts to win over, or at least neutralize,
42 the Chinese population and lead to Japan’s international isolation.
43 A measure of the success of the leadership’s response to the Nanjing Massacre
44 is that no incident of comparable proportions occurred during the capture of a
45 major Chinese city over the next eight years of war. Japan succeeded in capturing
 188   Mark Selden
1 and pacifying major Chinese cities, not least by winning the accommodation of
2 significant elites in Manchukuo and in the Nanjing government of Wang Jingwei,
3 as well as in cities directly ruled by Japanese forces and administrators.10
4 This was not, however, the end of the slaughter of Chinese civilians and
5 captives. Far from it. Throughout the War, Japan continued to rain destruction
6 from the air on Chongqing, Chiang Kai-shek’s wartime capital, and in the final
7 years of the war, as the authors of this volume document, it deployed chemical and
8 biological bombs against Ningbo and throughout Zhejiang and Hunan
9 provinces.11
0 Above all, the systematic slaughter of civilians that characterized the Nanjing
11 Massacre was subsequently enacted throughout the rural areas where resistance
12 stalemated Japanese forces in the course of eight years of war. This is illustrated
13 by the sanko sakusen or three-all policies implemented throughout rural North
14 China by Japanese forces seeking to crush both the communist-led resistance in
15 guerrilla base areas behind Japanese lines and in areas dominated by Guomindang
16 and warlord troops.12 Other measures implemented at Nanjing would exact a
17 heavy toll on the countryside: military units regularly relied on plunder to secure
18 provisions, conducted systematic slaughter of villagers in contested areas, and
19 denied POW status to Chinese captives, often killing all prisoners. Above all,
20 where Japanese forces encountered resistance, they adopted scorched-earth
21 policies that deprived villagers of subsistence.
22 One leadership response to the adverse public relations effects of the Nanjing
23 Massacre was the establishment of the comfort women system. This represented
24 an effort to control and channel the sexual energies of Japanese soldiers, curb
25 venereal disease, and prevent rape that could stoke anti-Japanese sentiment.13
26 Imperial armies everywhere, then and now, are accompanied by prostitution
27 systems serving their forces. Still, the comfort women system offers a compelling
28 example of the institutionalized character of atrocities associated with Japan’s
29 China invasion and subsequently with the Asia-Pacific War.
30 In short, the anarchic violence displayed at Nanjing paved the way for more
31 systematic policies of slaughter carried out by the Japanese military throughout
32 the countryside. The comfort women system, the testing practices of biowarfare
33 Unit 731, and the three-all policies reveal some of the diverse ways in which
34 systematic oppression was orchestrated by the military high command in Tokyo
35 and applied throughout the war.
36 Nanjing then is less a typical atrocity than a seminal event that shaped the
37 everyday structure of Japanese war making over eight years of war. The Nanjing
38 Massacre was a signature atrocity of twentieth-century warfare. But war atrocities
39 were hardly unique to Japan.
40
41
American war atrocities: civilian bombing, state terror,
42
and international law
43
44 Throughout the long twentieth century, and particularly since World War II, the
45 inexorable advance of weapons technology has gone hand-in-hand with
 The Asia-Pacific War to today   189
1 international efforts to place limits on killing and the barbarism associated with
2 war, notably indiscriminate bombing raids and other attacks directed against
3 civilians. Advances in international law have provided important points of
4 reference for establishing international governance norms, and for inspiring and
5 guiding social movements seeking to control the ravages of war and advance the
6 cause of world peace.
7 In the following sections I consider the conduct of U.S. warfare from the
8 perspective of the emerging norms. In light of these norms, international criticism
9 has long centered on German and Japanese atrocities, notably the Holocaust and
0 specific atrocities including the Nanjing Massacre, the comfort women and the
11 biowarfare conducted by Unit 731. U.S. military actions, notably the atomic
12 bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and its conduct of the Korean, Indochina, and
13 subsequent wars, have repeatedly prompted international controversy and
14 criticism.14 However, the U.S. has been largely free of formal sanction by
15 international authorities, and above all, in striking contrast with Japan and Germany,
16 it has never been required to change the fundamental character of the succession of
17 wars it has waged since 1939, to engage in self-criticism at the level of state or
18 people, or to pay reparations to other nations or victims of war atrocities.
19 While the strategic impact and ethical implications of the nuclear bombing of
20 Hiroshima and Nagasaki have generated a vast contentious literature, U.S. air war
21 leading to the destruction of more than 60 Japanese cities prior to Hiroshima has
22 until recently been slighted both in the scholarly literatures in English and
23 Japanese, and in popular consciousness in Japan, the U.S., and globally.15
24 Germany, England, and Japan led the way in what is euphemistically known as
25 “area bombing,” the targeting for destruction of entire cities with conventional
26 weapons. From 1932 to the early years of World War II, the United States
27 repeatedly criticized the bombing of cities. President Franklin Roosevelt appealed
28 to the warring nations in 1939 on the first day of World War II, “under no
29 circumstances [to] undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations
30 or of unfortified cities.”16 After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. continued to claim the
31 moral high ground by abjuring civilian bombing. This stance was consistent with
32 the prevailing Air Force doctrine that the most efficient bombing strategies were
33 those that pinpointed destruction of enemy forces and strategic installations, not
34 those designed to terrorize or kill non-combatants.
35 Nevertheless, the U.S. collaborated with Britain in indiscriminate bombing at
36 Casablanca in 1943. While the British sought to destroy entire cities, the Americans
37 continued to target military and industrial sites. On February 13–14, 1945, British
38 bombers followed by U.S. planes destroyed Dresden, a historic cultural center with
39 no significant military industry or bases. By conservative estimate, 35,000 people
40 were incinerated in that raid.17
41 But it was in Japan, in the final six months of the war, that the U.S. deployed air
42 power in a campaign to burn whole cities to the ground and terrorize, incapacitate,
43 and kill their largely defenseless residents, in order to force surrender. In those
44 months the American way of war, with the bombing of cities at its center, was set
45 in place.
 190   Mark Selden
1 Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, appointed Commander of the 21st Bomber Command
2 in the Pacific on January 20, 1945, became the primary architect, a strategic
3 innovator, and most quotable spokesman for the U.S. policy of putting enemy
4 cities to the torch. The full fury of firebombing was first unleashed on the night of
5 March 9–10, 1945, when LeMay sent 334 B-29s low over Tokyo, unloading
6 496,000 incendiaries in that single raid. Their mission was to reduce the city to
7 rubble, kill its citizens, and instill terror in the survivors. The attack on an area that
8 the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey estimated to be 84.7 percent residential
9 succeeded beyond the planners’ wildest dreams. Whipped up by fierce winds,
0 flames detonated by the bombs leaped across a 15-square-mile area of Tokyo,
11 generating immense firestorms.
12 How many people died on the night of March 9–10, in what Flight Commander
13 Gen. Thomas Power termed “the greatest single disaster incurred by any enemy in
14 military history”? The figure of roughly 100,000 deaths and one million homes
15 destroyed, provided by Japanese and American authorities, may understate the
16 destruction, given the population density, wind conditions, and survivors’
17 accounts.18 An estimated 1.5 million people lived in the burned-out areas. Given a
18 near total inability to fight fires of the magnitude and speed produced by the
19 bombs, casualties could have been several times higher than these estimates. The
20 figure of 100,000 deaths in Tokyo may be compared with total U.S. casualties in
21 the four years of the Pacific War – 103,000 – and Japanese war casualties of more
22 than three million.
23 Following the Tokyo raid of March 9–10, the U.S. extended firebombing
24 nationwide. In the ten-day period beginning on March 9, 9373 tons of bombs
25 destroyed 31 square miles of Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe. Overall, bombing
26 strikes pulverized 40 percent of the 66 Japanese cities targeted.19
27 Many more (primarily civilians) died in the firebombing of Japanese cities than
28 in Hiroshima (140,000 by the end of 1945) and Nagasaki (70,000), although
29 deaths and suffering from injury and radiation from the atomic bombing would
30 continue over the years and decades to come. The bombing was driven not only by
31 a belief that it could end the War but also, as Max Hastings shows, by the attempt
32 by the Air Force to claim credit for the U.S. victory, and to redeem the enormous
33 costs of developing and producing thousands of B-29s and the $2 billion cost of
34 the atomic bomb. It was also intended to send a powerful signal to potential
35 enemies, notably the Soviet Union, of the invincibility of American power.20
36 The single most important way in which World War II shaped the moral cli­
37 mate  and the tenor of mass destruction was the erosion of the stigma associ-
38 ated with the targeting of civilian populations from the air. If area bombing
39 remained controversial throughout much of World War II, something to be
40 concealed or denied by its practitioners, by the end of the war, with the enormous
41 increase in the destructive power of bombing, it had become the centerpiece of US
42 war making, and therefore the international norm.21 This approach to the
43 destruction of cities, which was perfected in 1944 to 1945, melded technologi-
44 cal predominance with minimization of U.S. casualties to produce overwhelming
45 “kill ratios.”
 The Asia-Pacific War to today   191
1 The USAAF offered this ecstatic assessment of LeMay’s missions, claiming
2 that the firebombing and atomic bombing secured U.S. victory and averted a
3 costly land battle:
4
5 In its climactic five months of jellied fire attacks, the vaunted Twentieth killed
6 outright 310,000 Japanese, injured 412,000 more, and rendered 9,200,000
7 homeless. . . . Never in the history of war had such colossal devastation been
8 visited on an enemy at so slight a cost to the conqueror. . . . The 1945 applica-
9 tion of American Power, so destructive and concentrated as to cremate 65
0 Japanese cities in five months, forced an enemy’s surrender without land
11 invasion for the first time in military history. . . . Very long range air power
12 gained victory, decisive and complete.22
13
14 This triumphalist (and flawed) account, which exaggerated the efficacy of air
15 power and ignored the critical importance of sea power, the Soviet attack on Japan,
16 and U.S. softening of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration to guarantee the
17 security of Hirohito, all crucial to the Japanese decision to surrender, would not
18 only deeply inflect American remembrance of victory in the Pacific War, it would
19 profoundly shape the conduct of all subsequent American wars.
20 How should we compare the Nanjing Massacre and U.S. bombing of cities? The
21 Nanjing Massacre involved face-to-face slaughter of civilians and captured
22 soldiers. By contrast, in U.S. (likewise Japanese) bombing of cities, technological
23 annihilation from the air distanced victim from assailant.23 Yet it is worth reflecting
24 on the common elements, most notably mass slaughter of civilians in violation of
25 international law and humanitarian ethics.
26 Why have only the atrocities of Japan at Nanjing and elsewhere drawn consistent
27 international condemnation and vigorous debate, despite the fact that the U.S.
28 likewise engaged – and continues to engage – in mass slaughter of civilians in
29 violation both of international law and ethics?
30
31
American war crimes and the problem of impunity
32
33 Victory in World War II propelled the U.S. to a hegemonic position globally,
34 allowing it to substantially shape the parameters and dominate the structures of
35 central institutions of the international order: notably the United Nations, the
36 International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. It also gave it, together with
37 its allies, authority to define and punish war crimes committed by vanquished
38 nations. This privileged position was and remains a major obstacle to a thorough­
39 going reassessment of the American and Allied conduct of World War II and
40 subsequent wars.
41 The logical starting point for such an investigation is a re-examination of the
42 systematic bombing of civilians in Japanese cities. Only by engaging the issues
43 raised by such a re-examination – from which Americans were explicitly shielded
44 by judges during the Tokyo Tribunals – is it possible to begin to approach the
45 Nuremberg ideal, which holds victors as well as vanquished to the same standard
 192   Mark Selden
1 with respect to crimes against humanity, or the yardstick of the 1949 Geneva
2 Accord, which mandates the protection of all civilians in time of war. This is the
3 principle of universality proclaimed at Nuremberg and systematically violated in
4 practice by the U.S. ever since. The centrality of air power to target civilians runs
5 like a red line from the U.S. bombings of Germany and Japan in 1944 to 1945
6 through the Korean and Indochinese wars to the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and
7 Iraq wars.24
8 In the course of three years, U.S./U.N. forces in Korea flew 1,040,708 sorties
9 and dropped 386,037 tons of bombs and 32,357 tons of napalm. Counting all types
0 of airborne ordnance, including rockets and machine-gun ammunition, the total
11 comes to 698,000 tons. Using U.N. data, Marilyn Young estimates the death-toll in
12 Korea, mostly non-combatants, at two to four million.25
13 Three examples from the Indochina War illustrate the nature of U.S. bombing of
14 civilians. In a burst of anger on December 9, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon
15 railed at what he saw as the Air Force’s lackluster bombing campaign in Cambodia.
16 “I want them to hit everything. I want them to use the big planes, the small planes,
17 everything they can that will help out there, and let’s start giving them a little
18 shock.” Kissinger relayed the order: “A massive bombing campaign in Cambodia.
19 Anything that flies on anything that moves.”26 In the course of the Vietnam War, the
20 U.S. also embraced cluster bombs and chemical and biological weapons of mass
21 destruction as integral parts of its arsenal.
22 An important U.S. strategic development of the Indochina War was the extension
23 of the arc of civilian bombing from cities to the countryside. In addition to
24 firebombs and cluster bombs, the U.S. introduced Agent Orange (dioxin), a
25 chemical defoliant, which not only eliminated the forest cover, but also exacted a
26 heavy long-term toll on the local population including large-scale intergenerational
27 damage in the form of birth defects. Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. sprayed
28 20 million gallons of the herbicide across wide areas of Vietnam. Vietnam’s
29 Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates that 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to
30 the poison gas, resulting in death or injury to 400,000 and producing 500,000 birth
31 defects.27
32 In Iraq, the U.S. military, while continuing to pursue massive bombing of
33 neighborhoods in Fallujah, Baghdad, and elsewhere, has thrown a cloak of silence
34 over the air war. While the media has averted its eyes and cameras, air power
35 remains among the major causes of death, destruction, dislocation, and division in
36 contemporary Iraq.28 The war had taken approximately 655,000 lives by the
37 summer of 2006 and close to twice that number by the fall of 2007, according to
38 the most authoritative study to date, that of the Lancet. Air war has also played a
39 major part in creating the world’s most acute refugee problem. By early 2006, the
40 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 1.7 million Iraqis
41 had fled the country while approximately the same number were internal refugees,
42 with the total number of refugees rising to well over four million by 2009.29 Nearly
43 all of the dead and displaced are civilians.
44 Both the plight of refugees and the intensification of aerial bombing of 2007 to
45 2009 have been largely invisible in the U.S. mainstream press. This is the central
 The Asia-Pacific War to today   193
1 reality of American state terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, despite
2 America’s unchallenged air supremacy in Iraq since 1991, despite the creation of
3 an array of military bases to permanently occupy Iraq and anchor American power
4 in the Middle East’s second largest oil supplier, with the war in its sixth year, there
5 is no end in sight, and indeed, with the shift in priority to the war in Afghanistan
6 and Pakistan, war now rages throughout the region.30 Indeed, with the U.S. high
7 command actively debating the dispatch of 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan,
8 there is little prospect of exit from the region. It is of course a region in which the
9 geopolitical stakes far exceed those in either Korea or Vietnam.
0
11
Historical memory and the future of the Asia-Pacific
12
13 I began by considering the Nanjing Massacre’s relationship to structural and
14 ideological foundations of Japanese colonialism and war making, to U.S. bombing
15 of Japanese civilians in the Pacific War in 1945, and subsequently to U.S.
16 bombing of Korean, Indochinese, and Iraqi civilians. In each instance the primary
17 focus has not been the headlined atrocity – Nanjing, Unit 731, Hiroshima, Nogunri,
18 Mylai, Abu Ghraib – but the foundational practices that systematically violate
19 international law provisions designed to protect civilians.
20 In both the Japanese and U.S. cases, nationalism and national pride in the
21 service of war and empire have eased the path for war crimes perpetrated against
22 civilian populations. In both countries, nationalism has obfuscated, even eradicated,
23 memories of the war crimes and atrocities committed by one’s own nation, while
24 privileging memories of the atrocities committed by adversaries. Consider, for
25 example, American memories of the killing of 2800 mainly Americans on
26 September 11, 2001 compared with more than one million Iraqi deaths, millions
27 more injured, and more than four million refugees. Heroic virtue reigns supreme
28 in official memory and in representations such as museums, monuments, and
29 textbooks, and often, but not always, in popular memory.
30 Striking differences distinguish Japanese and U.S. responses to their respective
31 war atrocities and war crimes. Occupied Japan looked back at the War from the
32 midst of bombed-out cities and an economy in ruins, grieving the loss of three
33 million compatriots but also, buoyed by postwar hopes for recovery and democracy,
34 significant numbers of Japanese reflected on and criticized imperial Japan’s war
35 crimes. Reflecting on the disastrous war that Japan had embarked on, many
36 Japanese embraced and continue to embrace the peace provision of the
37 Constitution, which renounced war-making capacity for Japan. If the Japanese
38 state under Liberal Democratic Party rule between 1955 and September 2009
39 failed to come to terms with Japan’s war atrocities, we should not minimize the
40 significance of the fact that a Japan that was perpetually at war between 1895 and
41 1945 has not gone to war for more than six decades. It is fair to attribute this
42 transformation in part to the widespread aversion to war and embracement of the
43 principles enshrined in Article 9 of the peace constitution, though it is equally
44 necessary to factor in Japan’s financial and logistical support for every U.S. war
45 since Korea and Japan’s subordinate position to American power.
 194   Mark Selden
1 In the decades since 1945, the issues of war have remained alive and contentious
2 in public memory and in the actions of the Japanese state. After the formal
3 independence promulgated by the 1951 San Francisco Treaty, with Hirohito still
4 on the throne, Japanese governments reaffirmed the aims of colonialism and war
5 of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere of the 1931 to 1945 era. They
6 released from prison and restored the reputations of former war criminals, making
7 possible the election of Kishi Nobusuke as Prime Minister (and subsequently his
8 grandson Abe Shinzo). In 1955, when the Liberal Democratic Party inaugurated
9 its nearly 40-year grip on power, the Ministry of Education pressed authors of
0 textbooks to downplay or omit altogether reference to the Nanjing Massacre, the
11 comfort women, Unit 731, and military-coerced suicides of Okinawan citizens
12 during the Battle of Okinawa. Yet these official efforts, then and since, have never
13 gone unchallenged by the victims, by historians, or by peace activists.
14 From the early 1980s, in the wake of the Ienaga Saburo legal challenge to
15 Ministry of Education textbook censorship, memory controversies over textbook
16 treatments of colonialism and war precipitated international disputes with China
17 and Korea, as well as domestic disputes over the Battle of Okinawa. In Japan,
18 conservative governments backed by neonationalist groups clashed with citizens
19 and scholars who embraced criticism of Japan’s war crimes and supported the
20 peace constitution.31
21 In contrast to this half-century debate both within Japan and between Japan and
22 victims of colonialism and war, notably China and Korea, not only the U.S.
23 government but also most Americans remain oblivious to the war atrocities
24 committed by U.S. forces as outlined above. The exceptions are important.
25 Investigative reporting revealing atrocities such as the massacres at Nogunri in
26 Korea and My Lai in Vietnam, and torture at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq and
27 Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have convinced most Americans that these events took
28 place. Yet, precisely as presented in the official story and reiterated in the press,
29 most see these as aberrant crimes committed by a handful of low-ranking officers
30 and enlisted men. In each case, prosecution and sentencing burnished the image
31 of American justice: meting out punishment to low-ranking military personnel
32 while the responsible authorities – the generals, the Secretary of Defense, and the
33 President – remain free to go about their business while making cosmetic changes
34 in laws and regulations. The embedded structure of violence, the strategic thinking
35 that lay behind the specific incidents, and the responsibility for the atrocities
36 committed up the chain of command, were silenced or ignored. As in wartime
37 Japan, so in wartime America from the Asia-Pacific War to the present. . . .
38 Apologies are difficult for the leaders and people of any nation regardless of
39 political system. Two exceptions to the lack of reflection and resistance to apology
40 provide perspective on American complacency about its conduct of wars.
41 President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which offered
42 apologies and $20,000 in compensation to survivors among the 110,000 Japanese
43 and Japanese Americans who had been interned by the U.S. government in the
44 years 1942 to 1945. Then, in 1993 on the 100th anniversary of the U.S. overthrow
45 of the Hawaiian monarchy, President Bill Clinton offered an apology (but no
 The Asia-Pacific War to today   195
1 recompense) to native Hawaiians. In both cases, the crucial fact is that the victims’
2 descendants are American citizens and not foreign nationals.32
3 One additional quasi-apology bears mention. In March 1999, Clinton, speaking
4 in Guatemala City of the U.S. role in the killing of 200,000 Guatemalans over
5 previous decades, made this statement: “For the United States, it is important that
6 I state clearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged
7 in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not
8 repeat that mistake.” The remarks had a certain political significance at the time,
9 yet they had more of the weight of a feather than of Mt. Tai. No word of apology
0 was included. No remuneration was made to victims. Above all, the United States
11 did not act to end its violent interventions in scores of countries in Latin America,
12 Asia, or elsewhere.33
13 There have of course been no apologies or reparations for U.S. firebombing or
14 atomic bombing of Japan, or for killing millions and creating vast numbers of
15 refugees in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, nor for U.S. interventions in
16 scores of other ongoing conflicts in the Americas and Asia. Such is the prerogative
17 of impunity of the world’s most powerful nation.34
18 However, there has been one important act of recognition of the systemic
19 character of American atrocities in Vietnam, and subsequently in Iraq and
20 Afghanistan. Just as Japanese troops provided the most compelling testimony on
21 Japanese wartime atrocities, it is American veterans whose testimony most
22 effectively unmasked the deep structure of the American way of war in Vietnam
23 and Iraq.
24 In the Winter Soldier investigation in Detroit on January 31 to February 2, 1971,
25 Vietnam Veterans Against the War organized testimony by 109 discharged veterans
26 and 16 civilians. John Kerry, later a U.S. Senator and presidential candidate, testified
27 two months afterward in hearings at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as
28 representative of the Winter Soldier event. Kerry summed up the testimony:
29
30 They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from port-
31 able telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs,
32 blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion remi-
33 niscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks,
34 and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.35
35
36 Kerry continued: “We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. . . . We
37 learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we
38 watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.”
39 On March 13–16, 2008 a second Winter Soldier gathering took place in
40 Washington, D.C., with hundreds of Iraq War veterans providing testimony,
41 photographs, and videos documenting brutality, torture, and murder in cases such
42 as the Haditha Massacre and the Abu Ghraib torture.36 As in the first Winter
43 Soldier, the mainstream media ignored the event organized by Iraq Veterans
44 Against War. Again, however, the voices of these veterans have reached out to
45 some through films and new electronic and broadcast media such as YouTube.
 196   Mark Selden
1 The importance of apology and reparations lies in the fact that through processes
2 of recognition of wrongdoing and efforts to make amends (however belated or
3 inadequate) to victims, where such apologies are enshrined in the textbooks,
4 monuments, and official stories of the nation’s past, the poisonous legacies of war
5 and colonialism may be alleviated or overcome and foundations laid for a
6 harmonious future. In Germany, this involved renunciation of Nazism, the
7 formation of a new government distinctive from and critical of the former
8 government; consensus expressed in the nation’s textbooks and curricula critical
9 of Nazi genocide and aggression; monuments and museums commemorating the
0 victims; and payment of substantial reparations to individual victims (albeit under
11 U.S. pressure). These actions paved the way for Germany’s re-emergence at the
12 center of the European Union, and contributed to a healing process among
13 opposing sides in World War II.
14 In contrast to their German counterparts, Japanese and American leaders have
15 strongly resisted meaningful and lasting apology and reparations. While many
16 Japanese people have reflected deeply on their nation’s war atrocities, Japan’s
17 long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party leaders, sheltered from Asia by the U.S.–
18 Japan security relationship, had little incentive to reflect deeply on the nation’s
19 wartime record in China, Korea, or elsewhere. Americans, for their part, have felt
20 little pressure (either domestic or international) to recognize, apologize, or provide
21 reparations to victims from other nations.
22 It has been widely recognized that a major obstacle to the emergence of a
23 harmonious order in the Asia-Pacific is the politics of denial of atrocities associated
24 with war and empire. China, Korea, and other former victims of Japanese invasion
25 and colonization have repeatedly criticized Japan. Largely ignored in debates over
26 the future of the Asia-Pacific has been the responsibility of the U.S. to recognize
27 and provide reparations for its own numerous war atrocities as detailed above,
28 notably in the bombing of Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Iraqi civilians.
29 Ultimately, what is important is that citizens of perpetrator nations, in this instance
30 Japan and the United States, recognize the acts committed by their compatriots
31 and seek to make amends in the interest of a common future.
32 Perhaps in the end it is the United States that holds the key to outcomes
33 larger than itself. Responsible actions by the world’s most powerful nation would
34 make it possible to bring closure to unresolved war issues both for the many
35 individual victims of U.S. bombing and other atrocities, and the continued
36 hostilities between states, above all the U.S.–North Korea conflict and the division
37 of the two Koreas. It would also pave the way for a Japan which remains within
38 the American embrace to acknowledge and recompense victims of its own war
39 crimes. Might it not also help pave the way for an end to U.S. wars across the Asia-
40 Pacific and beyond?
41
42
Acknowledgments
43
44 I am indebted to Herbert Bix, Richard Falk, and especially Laura Hein for criti-
45 cism and suggestions on earlier drafts of this chapter. This is a revised and
 The Asia-Pacific War to today   197
1 expanded version of a talk delivered on December 15, 2007 at the Tokyo
2 International Symposium to Commemorate the Seventieth Anniversary of the
3 Nanjing Massacre.
4
5 Notes
6
7 1 Most discussion of historical memory issues has centered on the Japan–China and
the Japan–Korea relationships. However, the controversy that erupted in 2007 over
8 the U.S. congressional resolution calling on Japan to formally apologize to and pro-
9 vide compensation for the former comfort women illustrates the ways in which
0 the U.S.–Japan relationship is also at stake. Kinue Tokudome, “Passage of H.Res. 121
11 on ‘Comfort Women’, the US Congress and Historical Memory in Japan,” The
12 Asia-Pacific Journal, http://japanfocus.org/-Kinue-TOKUDOME/2510. Tessa Morris-
Suzuki, “Japan’s ‘Comfort Women’: It’s Time for The Truth (in the Ordinary, Everyday
13 Sense of the Word),” The Asia-Pacific Journal, http://japanfocus.org/-Tessa-Morris_
14 Suzuki/237.
15 2 Fierce debate continues among historians, activists, and nations over the number of
16 victims during the Nanjing Massacre. The issue involves differences over both the
17 temporal and spatial definition of the massacre. The official Chinese claim inscribed
on the Nanjing Massacre Memorial is that 300,000 were killed. The most careful
18 attempts to record the numbers by Japanese historians, which include deaths of civilians
19 and soldiers during the march from Shanghai to Nanjing as well as deaths following the
20 capture of the capital, suggest numbers in the 80,000 to 200,000 range. In recent years,
21 the first serious Chinese research examining the massacre, built on 55 volumes of
22 documents, has begun to appear. See Kasahara Tokushi, Nankin Jiken Ronsoshi.
Nihonjin wa shijitsu o do ninshiki shite kita ka? [The Nanjing Incident Debate. How
23 Have Japanese Understood the Historical Evidence?] (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2007) for
24 the changing contours of the Japanese debate over the decades. Kasahara Tokushi and
25 Daqing Yang explore “The Nanjing Incident in World History” [Sekaishi no naka no
26 Nankin Jiken] in a discussion in Ronza, January 2008, 184–195, ranging widely across
27 international and joint research and the importance of new documentation from the
1970s to the present.
28 3 I first addressed these issues in Laura Hein and Mark Selden, eds, Censoring History:
29 Citizenship and Memory in Japan, China and the United States (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe,
30 2000).
31 4 For discussion of the international legal issues and definition of state terrorism see
32 the Introduction and Chapter 2 of Mark Selden and Alvin So, eds, War and State
Terrorism: The United States, Japan and the Asia-Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century
33 (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), pp. 1–40. See also Richard Falk’s chapter in
34 that volume, “State Terror versus Humanitarian Law,” pp. 41–62.
35 5 The following discussion of the Nanjing Massacre and its antecedents draws heavily on
36 the diverse contributions to Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, ed., The Nanking Atrocity
37 1937–38: Complicating the Picture (New York and London: Berghahn Books, 2007)
and particularly the chapter by the late Fujiwara Akira, “The Nanking Atrocity: An
38 Interpretive Overview,” available in a revised version at The Asia-Pacific Journal,
39 http://japanfocus.org/-Fujiwara-Akira/2553. Chapters in the Wakabayashi volume
40 closely examine and refute the exaggerated claims not only of official Chinese
41 historiography and Japanese deniers, but also of progressive critics of the massacre.
42 While recognizing legitimate points in the arguments of all of these, the work is
devastating toward the deniers who hew to their mantra in the face of overwhelming
43 evidence (see, e.g., p. 143).
44 6 Utsumi Aiko, “Japanese Racism, War, and the POW Experience,” in Mark Selden and
45 Alvin So, eds, War and State Terrorism, pp. 119–142.
 198   Mark Selden
1   7 Presentation at the Tokyo International Symposium to Commemorate the Seventieth
2 Anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, December 15, 2007.
  8 Daqing Yang, “Atrocities in Nanjing: Searching for Explanations,” in Diana Lary and
3
Stephen MacKinnon, eds, Scars of War. The Impact of Warfare on Modern China
4 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2001), pp. 76–97.
5   9 The signature statement was that of George W. Bush on March 19, 2003:
6
7 My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages
of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from
8
grave danger . . . the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. . . . We
9 will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.
0
11 10 Timothy Brook, Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China
12 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2005).
11 Tsuneishi Keiichi, “Unit 731 and the Japanese Imperial Army’s Biological Warfare
13
Program,” trans. John Junkerman, The Asia-Pacific Journal, http://japanfocus.org/-
14 Tsuneishi-Keiichi/2194.
15 12 Mark Selden, China in Revolution: The Yenan Way Revisited (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe,
16 1995); Chen Yung-fa, Making Revolution: The Chinese Communist Revolution in
17 Eastern and Central China, 1937–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1986); Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz and Mark Selden, Chinese Village,
18
Socialist State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991); Chalmers Johnson, Peasant
19 Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China (Stanford:
20 Stanford University Press, 1962). In carrying out a reign of terror in resistance base
21 areas, Japanese forces anticipated many of the strategic approaches that the U.S. and its
22 Korean allies would later apply in Vietnam. For example, Japanese forces pioneered in
constructing “strategic hamlets” involving relocation of rural people, torching of entire
23
resistance villages, terrorizing the local population, and imposing heavy taxation and
24 labor burdens. Equally important is the direct line from the biowar activities of Japan
25 in China to the massive U.S. application of the defoliant dioxin (Agent Orange) to
26 denude the forests and kill and injure villagers in Vietnam. This legacy continues to
27 take a toll on Vietnamese more than three decades after the end of the war. As James
Dao observed in a New York Times story of October 12, 2009, the Pentagon is
28
investigating extending benefits to U.S. soldiers who may have been affected by Agent
29 Orange: “Door Opens to Health Claims Tied to Agent Orange.” The United States has
30 never formally accepted responsibility, apologized for, or provided compensation to,
31 Vietnamese victims for this, the most flagrant use of biological warfare undertaken
32 anywhere in the course of modern warfare.
13 Yuki Tanaka, Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World
33
War II and the US Occupation (London: Routledge, 2002). This systematic atrocity
34 against women has haunted Japan since the 1980s when the first former comfort
35 women broke silence and began public testimony. The Japanese government eventually
36 responded to international protest by recognizing the atrocities committed under the
37 comfort women system, while denying official and military responsibility. It established
a government-supported but ostensibly private Asian Women’s Fund to apologize and
38
pay reparations to former comfort women, many of whom rejected the terms of a
39 private settlement. See Alexis Dudden and Kozo Yamaguchi, “Abe’s Violent Denial:
40 Japan’s Prime Minister and the ‘Comfort Women,’ ” The Asia-Pacific Journal, http://
41 japanfocus.org/-Alexis-Dudden/2368. See Wada Haruki for a defense of the fund for
42 Japanese and English discussion and documents archived at the website: “The Comfort
Women, the Asian Women’s Fund and the Digital Museum,” The Asia-Pacific Journal,
43
http://japanfocus.org/-Wada-Haruki/2653.
44 14 Peter J. Kuznick, “The Decision to Risk the Future: Harry Truman, the Atomic Bomb
45 and the Apocalyptic Narrative,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, http://japanfocus.org/
 The Asia-Pacific War to today   199
1 -Peter_J_–Kuznick/2479. The International War Crimes Tribunal, organized by Bertrand
2 Russell and representatives from 18 countries, subjected the U.S.-Indochina War to
scrutiny in 1966 and 1967. J. Duffett, ed., Against The Crime of Silence: Proceedings of
3
The Russell International War Crimes Tribunal (New York: O’Hare Books, 1968).
4 See “The Russell Tribunal,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal for discussion
5 of the controversy.
6 15 Early works that drew attention to U.S. war atrocities, often centered on the torture,
7 killing, and desecration of the remains of captured Japanese soldiers are Peter
Schrijvers, The GI War Against Japan. American Soldiers in Asia and the Pacific
8
During World War II (New York: New York University Press, 2002) and John W.
9 Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon,
0 1986); see also The Wartime Journals of Charles Lindbergh (New York: Harcourt Brace
11 Jovanovich, 1970). A growing literature has begun to examine U.S. bombing policies.
12 A. C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities, provides a thorough assessment of U.S. and
British strategic bombing (including atomic bombing) through the lenses
13
of ethics and international law. Grayling concludes that the U.S. and British killing
14 of non-combatants “did in fact involve the commission of wrongs” on a very large
15 scale (pp. 5–6; 276–277). See Herbert P. Bix, “War Crimes Law and American Wars in
16 20th Century Asia,” Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies, 33, 1 (July 2001),
17 pp. 119–132.
16 Quoted in Sven Lindqvist, A History of Bombing (New York: New Press, 2000), p. 81.
18
The U.S. debate over the bombing of cities is detailed in Michael Sherry, The Rise of
19 American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven: Yale University Press,
20 1987), pp. 23–28, pp. 57–59; Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgment: American Bombing
21 in World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 20–30, 108–109; and
22 Sahr Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage, Americans, Noncombatant Immunity, and
Atrocity After World War II (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 10. See Mark Selden, “A
23
Forgotten Holocaust: US Bombing Strategy, the Destruction of Japanese Cities and the
24 American Way of War from the Pacific War to Iraq,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, http://
25 japanfocus.org/-Mark-Selden/2414.
26 17 Sherry, Air Power, p. 260. With much U.S. bombing already relying on radar, the
27 distinction between tactical and strategic bombing had long been violated in practice.
The top brass, from George Marshall to Air Force Chief Henry Arnold to Dwight
28
Eisenhower, had all earlier given tacit approval for area bombing, yet no orders from
29 on high spelled out a new bombing strategy.
30 18 The Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic
31 bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical
32 and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombing (New York: Basic Books, 1991),
pp. 420–421; Cf. U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Field Report Covering Air Raid
33
Protection and Allied Subjects Tokyo (n.p. 1946), pp. 3, 79; The U.S. Strategic Bombing
34 Survey Study of Effects of Air Attack on Urban Complex Tokyo-Kawasaki-Yokohama
35 (n.p. 1947). In contrast to the vast survivor testimony on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in
36 addition to poems, short stories, novels, manga, anime, and film documenting the
37 atomic bombing, the testimony for the firebombing of Tokyo and other cities is sparse.
Max Hastings provides valuable first-person accounts of the Tokyo bombing based on
38
survivor recollection in Retribution. The Battle for Japan 1944–45 (New York: Knopf,
39 2008), pp. 297–306.
40 19 All but five cities of any size were destroyed. Of these cities, four were designated
41 atomic bomb targets, while Kyoto was spared. John W. Dower, “Sensational Rumors,
42 Seditious Graffiti, and the Nightmares of the Thought Police,” in Japan in War and
Peace (New York: The New Press, 1993), p. 117; United States Strategic Bombing
43
Survey, Summary Report, Vol I, pp. 16–20.
44 20 Retribution, pp. 296–297. Hastings (p. 318) makes a compelling case that the Japanese
45 surrender owed most to the naval blockade which isolated Japan and denied it access
 200   Mark Selden
1 to the oil, steel, and much more in severing the links to the empire. Gar Alperovitz,
2 Atomic Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965 [1985])) is the classic study
linking the atomic decision to the origins of the Soviet–American conflict to follow.
3
See also Mark Selden, “Introduction,” The Atomic Bomb: Voices From Hiroshima and
4 Nagasaki (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1989), pp. xi–xxxvi.
5 21 The horror felt around the world at the German bombing at Guernica, the Japanese
6 bombing of Shanghai and Chongqing, and the British bombing of Dresden would not
7 be felt so intensely and universally ever again, regardless of the scale of bombing and
the deaths of victims at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq . . . with
8
the possible exception of the outpouring of sympathy for the 2800 victims of the 9/11
9 bombing of the New York World Trade Center when the term “terror bombing” would
0 come into vogue, not, of course, to be applied to the United States.
11 22 “Postwar Narrative,” quoted in Hastings, Retribution, p. 317.
12 23 There were, of course, important differences in the character of the wars fought by
Japan and the U.S. Japan’s invasion of China involved very different dynamics from the
13
U.S.–Japan conflict between two expansionist powers. This chapter does not explore
14 this issue.
15 24 In practice. Sahr Conway-Lanz provides the definitive study of the “collateral damage”
16 argument that has been repeatedly used to deny the deliberate killing of civilians in
17 U.S. bombing: Collateral Damage, Americans, Noncombatant Immunity, and Atrocity
After World War II.
18
25 Marilyn Young, “Total War,” in Marilyn Young and Yuki Tanaka, eds, Bombing
19 Civilians. (New York: The New Press, 2009).
20 26 Elizabeth Becker, “Kissinger Tapes Describe Crises, War and Stark Photos of Abuse,”
21 New York Times, May 27, 2004.
22 27 Seymour Hersh, Chemical and Biological Warfare (New York: Anchor Books,1969),
pp. 131–133. Hersh notes that the $60 million worth of defoliants and herbicides in the
23
1967 Pentagon budget would have been sufficient to defoliate 3.6 million acres if all
24 were used optimally. Agent Orange was introduced first in Korea, but it was in Vietnam
25 that it was used on a vast scale. “Agent Orange,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/
26 wiki/Agent_Orange.
27 28 In contrast to the Vietnam War in particular, in which critical journalism in major
media eventually played a powerful role in fueling and reinforcing the anti-war
28
movement, the major print and broadcasting media in the Iraq War have dutifully
29 averted their eyes from the air war in deference to the Bush administration’s wishes. On
30 the air war, see, for example, Seymour Hersh, “Up in the Air. Where is the Iraq War
31 Headed Next?,” The New Yorker, December 5, 2005; Dahr Jamail, “Living Under the
32 Bombs,” TomDispatch, February 2, 2005; Michael Schwartz, “A Formula for Slaughter.
The American Rules of Engagement from the Air,” TomDispatch, January 14, 2005;
33
Nick Turse, “America’s Secret Air War in Iraq,” TomDispatch, February 7, 2007; Tom
34 Engelhardt, “9 Propositions on the U.S. Air War for Terror,” TomDispatch, April 8,
35 2008. The invisibility of the air war is nicely revealed in conducting a Google search
36 for “Iraq War” and “Air War in Iraq.” The former produces numerous references to the
37 New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, Wikipedia, and a wide range of powerful
media. The latter produces references almost exclusively to blogs and critical sources
38
such as those cited in this note.
39 29 Sabrina Tavernese, “For Iraqis, Exodus to Syria, Jordan Continues,” New York Times,
40 June 14, 2006; Michael Schwartz, “Iraq’s Tidal Wave of Misery. The First History of
41 the Planet’s Worst Refugee Crisis,” TomDispatch, February 10, 2008. The U.N.
42 estimates that there are 1.25 million Iraqi refugees in Syria and 500,000 in Jordan,
200,000 throughout the Gulf states, and 100,000 more in Europe. The United States
43
accepted 463 refugees between the start of the war in 2003 and mid-2007. The
44 International Organization for Migration estimated the displacement rate throughout
45 2006 to 2007 at 60,000 per month, and with the American “surge” accelerating
 The Asia-Pacific War to today   201
1 displacement, already more than one in seven Iraqis in a nation of 28 million people
2 have been displaced.
30 Anthony Arnove, “Four Years Later . . . And Counting. Billboarding the Iraqi Disaster,”
3
TomDispatch, March 18, 2007; Seymour Hersh, “The Redirection. Is the Administration’s
4 New Policy Benefiting our Enemies in the War on Terrorism?,” The New Yorker,
5 March 3, 2007; Michael Schwartz, “Baghdad Surges into Hell. First Results from the
6 President’s Offensive,” TomDispatch, February 12, 2007; Tom Engelhardt, “Will Today’s
7 U.S.-armed Ally Be Tomorrow’s Enemy?,” TomDispatch, October 18, 2009.
31 Mark Selden, “Nationalism, Historical Memory and Contemporary Conflicts in the Asia
8
Pacific: The Yasukuni Phenomenon, Japan, and the United States,” The Asia-Pacific
9 Journal, http://japanfocus.org/-Mark-Selden/2204; Yoshiko Nozaki and Mark Selden,
0 “Historical Memory, International Conflict and Japanese Textbook Controversies in Three
11 Epochs,” The Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society, I, 1; Takashi Yoshida,
12 “Revising the Past, Complicating the Future: The Yushukan War Museum in Modern
Japanese History,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, http://japanfocus.org/-Takashi-YOSHIDA/
13
2594; Laura Hein and Akiko Takenaka, “Exhibiting World War II in Japan and the United
14 States,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, http://japanfocus.org/-Laura-Hein/2477; Aniya
15 Masaaki, “Compulsory Mass Suicide, the Battle of Okinawa, and Japan’s Textbook
16 Controversy,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, http://japanfocus.org/-Aniya-Masaaki/2629.
17 32 Thanks to Laura Hein for suggesting the framing of this issue. On the Reagan decision,
reparations, and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, see Mitchell T. Maki, Harry H. Kitano,
18
and S. Megan Berthold, Achieving the Impossible Dream: How Japanese Americans
19 Obtained Redress (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1999); http://en.wikipedia.
20 org/wiki/Civil_Liberties_Act_of_1988. Clinton’s apology to Hawaiians took the form
21 of Public Law 103–150, http://www.hawaii-nation.org/publawsum.html. The formal
22 apology recognized the devastating effects of subsequent social changes for the
Hawaiian people and looked to reconciliation, but offered no reparations or other
23
specific measures to alleviate the sufferings caused by U.S. actions.
24 33 Emily Rosenberg drew my attention to the Guatemala quasi-apology. Clinton’s remarks
25 were prompted by the February 1999 publication of the findings of the independent
26 Historical Clarification Commission which concluded that the U.S. was responsible for
27 most of the human rights abuses committed during the 36-year war in which 200,000
died. See Martin Kettle and Jeremy Lennard, “Clinton Apology to Guatemala,”
28
Guardian, March 12, 1999, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/mar/12/
29 jeremylennard.martinkettle; Mark Weisbrot, “Clinton’s Apology to Guatemala is a
30 Necessary First Step,” March 15, 1999, Knight-Ridder/Tribune Media Services, http://
31 www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-columns/op-eds-columns/clinton-s-apology-to-
32 guatemala-is-a-necessary-first-step/. Clinton was perhaps the most apologetic of
presidents, making several apologies during his tenure. None carried the weight of an
33
official government apology, and none was accompanied by compensation to victims.
34 These included apologies to the survivors of the Tuskegee syphilis study (http://www.
35 cdc.gov/tuskegee/clintonp.htm), and another apology to interned Japanese-Americans
36 (http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/clinton.html).
37 34 How are we to define power? If no nation remotely rivals American military power,
particularly in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union, if the United States military
38
budget in 2008 and 2009 is larger than that of all other nations combined – before
39 counting the special appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – the striking
40 fact is that the U.S. has fought to stalemate or defeat in each of the major wars it has
41 entered since World War II.
42 35 Kerry’s testimony, ignored by the mass media but made available through film and
other media, is available at http://www.c-span.org/vote2004/jkerrytestimony.asp.
43
36 See the testimony and the historical record at http://www.zcommunications.org/
44 zvideo/25776 and at http://www.zcommunications.org/zvideo/2577.
45
1
2 Part IV
3

Annotated bibliography
4
5
6
7
8
and appendices
9
0
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
1
2 11 Annotated bibliography
3
4 Primary sources and secondary
5
6
liaturature in Japanese, Chinese,
7 and English
8
9
0
Nanyan Guo and Jing-Bao Nie
11
12
13 Introduction
14
A great deal of literature – both primary materials and secondary studies – has
15
been produced on Japan’s wartime medical atrocities and their aftermath. This
16
bibliography consists of works published in Japanese, Chinese, and English on the
17
subject – essential, original, significant, and representative – with some entries
18
annotated. It indicates the areas that have so far been covered by scholars and
19
journalists as well as what remains to be done from an intellectual and political
20
perspective.
21
The bibliography is arranged in alphabetical order of names of authors. Where
22
appropriate, entries are given in the original Japanese and Chinese.
23
For some related Russian and German works on the subject see the lists of
24
references at the end of chapters 3, 4, 7 and 8 (this volume).
25
This bibliography excludes original publications by Japanese medical
26
researchers that are evidently based on human experimentation, or suspected of
27
being so. Nevertheless, Chapter 4 discusses some of these studies and lists them
28
as references.
29
However, we have not excluded works which express doubt or skepticism about
30
the activities of Unit 731 and other war crimes laid at the feet of Japan (see Hata
31
1998; Nakagawa 2002; Nakata 1983; Yoshimura 1970).
32
For the convenience of readers, in the discussion below we have grouped entries
33
according to subject, under the authors’ surnames. However, many works cover
34
more than one subject and grouping them into a single category may be misleading
35
to some extent.
36
The primary sources listed include archival material, court records, reports of
37
investigators, accounts by victims, participants’ confessions, eye-witness reports,
38
and interviews with victims, perpetrators, and witnesses. See Asaeda, Awaya &
39
Yoshimi, Cheng, Fell, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Fu, Han 1985, Han
40
and Xin, Hill, Hong, Inaba, Jiang, JJCA, Kiku no bokyu iinkai, King, Kitajima,
41
Kobayashi and Kojima, Kondo, Liaoningsheng danganguan, Liu, H., Matsumura
42
1985, Matsumura and Kanehira, Miyatake, Mori et al., Nikkan kankei o kirokusuru
43
kai, Pollitzer, Quzhoushi weishengzhi bangongshi, Rikugun Guni gakko boekigaku
44
kyoshitu, Rong, Sanders, Takahashi, M., Tan, X., Tanaka and Matsumura,
45
 206   Annotated bibliography
1 Thompson, Wang, G., Wang, S., Wang, Z., Xinhua shishi congkanshe, Xu, W., Yang
2 et al., Yoshimi and Matsuno, Zhongguo Heilongjiangshen danganguan, Zhongguo
3 Jilinshen danganguan, Zhongyang danganguan et al.
4 A number of perpetrators and accessory witnesses have produced confessions
5 of their activities. See Akiyama et al., Chugoku kikansha renrakukai, Chugoku
6 kikansha renrakukai kanko iinkai, Endo, S., Gold, Gunji 1982a, 1982b, Han and
7 Jin, Hoshi, Ishida, Kochi shimbunsha henshukyoku shakaibu, Koga, Koshi,
8 Mitomo, Mizutani 1995, Morimura 1990, Nanasanichi kenkyukai, Nihon chugoku
9 yuko kyokai and Chugoku kikansha renrakukai, Shinozuka and Takayanagi,
0 Takana, Takasugi, I., Takehana, Takidani, Tamura, Wada, Yoshifusa, Yoshikai,
11 Zhongyang Danganguan et al.
12 One major focus of research is Unit 731 and the activities of the Ishii network.
13 See Aki 1984, Aoki, Asano and Tsuneishi, Chaen, Ban, Dongbei renmin zhengfu
14 weishengbu, Han 1993, Harris, Hatakeyama, Honda, Fujii, Han and Yin, Hata
15 1990, 1993, Ienaga, Inoue and Hiroshima, Kasukawa, Kinoshita, Kyokasho kentei
16 sosho o shiensuru zenkoku renrakukai 1991, 1997, Matsumura 1991, 1996a,
17 1996b, 1996c, 1997a, 1997b, 1997c, 1998, 2001a, 2001b, 2002, Matsumura and
18 Yano, Mima, Minamoto, Mineo, Mizutani 1997, Monma, Mori 1990, 1998, Nezu,
19 Nihon no senso sekinin siryo senta, Nishino, Nishizato 1996b, Oga, Omata,
20 Osanai, Saito, Seki, Shimamura, Shimozato, Takasugi 1984, Tanaka and Eda,
21 Tsuneishi 1981, 1984a, 1985, 1994a, 1995, 2002b, Williams and Wallace 1985,
22 1989, Watanabe, Xu, J., Zhang and Zhao, Yoshinaga 1976a, 1976b, 1982, 2001.
23 A large number of historical studies and journalistic investigations have been
24 published on Japan’s biological warfare program. See Bao, Barenblatt, Behr, Bu,
25 Bu and Gao, Bu et al., Cao, Chen, X., Chu, Gao, Gao and Zhao, Guo and Liao,
26 Han 2003, Harris and Paxman, Honda and Naganuma, Huang, Huang and Wu,
27 Huang et al., Hunan wenli xueyuan xijunzhan zuixing yanjiusuo, Ivanov and
28 Bogachi, Kyodo tsushinsha shakaibu, Ji, Li, Lishi buneng wangji chongshu
29 bianweihui, Liu, Q., Liu, Y. and Gong, Matsumura 1994a, 1994b, 1996a, 1996b,
30 1996v. 1997a, 1997b, 1997c, 1998, 2001a, 2001b, 2002, Matsumura and Xie,
31 Matsuno, Minguo dangan, Mori 1995, Mori and Kasukawa, Nanasanichi butai
32 kokusai symposium jikko iinkai, Nanasanichi butai shinso chosa zenkoku renraku
33 kyogikai, Nanasanichi saikinsen saiban kyanpein iinkai, Newman, Nie, L. 2006a,
34 2006b, Nihongun ni yoru saikinsen no rekishi jijitsu o akirakani suru kai, Niki,
35 Ozaki, Qinhua rijun xijun 731 budui zuizheng chenlieguan, Qiu, Ran, Renmin
36 ribao, Seki et al., Sha, Sun and Ni, Takasugi 1982b, Tan, Y., Takeda, Tanaka, T.,
37 Tanaka, Y., Tatsumi, Tong, Tsuneishi 2005b, Wu, Wu and Xie, Xie et al., Xing and
38 Chen, Yang and Xin, Yoshimi and Iko, Zhang, L.
39 A few studies are devoted to the wartime vivisections at Kyushu Imperial
40 University: see Hirako, Kamisaka, Senba, Tono.
41 Some studies have focused on the exemption from prosecution of Japanese war
42 criminals and on compensation for victims: Arai, A. et al., Awaya, Awaya et al.,
43 Brackman, Chugokujin senso higai baisho seikyu jiken bengodan, Daya wenhua,
44 East Asia, Iwakawa, Koshida, Nishizato 1996a, 1996c, 2002, Ota 1999, 2001,
45 Powell, Torii, Zhang, S.
 Annotated bibliography   207
1 Some literary representations – documentary novels – have appeared as well:
2 Biokai, Hiraoka, Hiyama, Jin, Kindai senshi kenkyukai, Morimura 1981, 1982a,
3 1982b, 1983, 1984, Nakazono, Tsuneishi and Asano, Ura, Yamada 1973, 1974.
4 A series of crimes and scandals in postwar Japan have been linked with Unit
5 731 and Japan’s other wartime medical atrocities. For the connection between the
6 Ishii network and the Imperial Bank incident in which 12 people were poisoned to
7 death on January 26, 1948, see Endo, M., Morikawa, Tsuneishi 2002a, Utsumi.
8 For the connection between the Ishii network and the former Military Medical
9 College, see Guni gakko atochi de hakkensareta jinkotsu mondai o kyumeisuru
0 kai, Tsuneishi 1992. On the connection between the Ishii network and the Green
11 Cross scandal, see Hirokiawa 1992, Matsushita 1996.
12 For more than half a century, some attention has been paid to these atrocities by
13 specialists in either international or East Asian medical ethics. With the outstanding
14 exception of a handful of Japanese scholars, the subject has been treated as if it had
15 minimal relevance to contemporary science, medicine, and medical ethics, even in
16 Japan and China. For relevant ethical studies, see Aki 1994, Akimoto, Azami,
17 Baader et al., Chen, R., Dickinson, Doering, Kanagawa daigaku hyoronshu senmon
18 iinkai, Kenmochi, LaFleur et al., Leavitt 2002, 2003a, 2003b, Morioka, Nie, J.
19 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, Nie et al. 2008, Nie et al. 2003, Nishiyama,
20 Noda, Sass, Shen, Shibata 1997, 1998, Takahashi, Takasugi 1973, 1974, 1982a,
21 Thomas 2003a, 2003b, Tsuchiya, T. 2001, 2003a, 2003b, 2008, Tsuneishi 1990,
22 1994b, 1998, 2007, Yamaguchi. For an overview, see Nie et al. 2008.
23 This bibliography is largely indebted to the bibliography compiled by Kondo
24 Shoji which was added to his translation of Harris’ Factories of Death (1994)
25 published in 1999 in Tokyo.
26
27 Annotated bibliography
28
29 Aki, Motoo 安芸基雄 1984, Education about Infectious Diseases and the Kwantung
30 Army’s Unit for Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply 伝染病補備教育と関東軍防
疫給水部, in Aki’s Those Who Make Peace 平和を作る人たち. Tokyo: Misuzu shobo,
31
pp. 65–75.
32 —— 1994, Working as a Clinical Doctor: Questioning Medical Treatment in Modern Japan
33 一臨床医として生きて： 現代日本の医療を問う, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten.
34 Akimoto, Sueo 秋元寿恵夫 1983, Questioning Medical Ethics: My Experiences with Unit
35 731 医の倫理を問う： 第七三一部隊での体験から, Tokyo: Keiso shobo.
36 Akiyama, Hiroshi 秋山浩 (pseudonym) 1956, Special Army Unit 731 特殊 部隊七三一,
37 Kyoto: Sanichi shobo.
38 [With the exception of those indicted at the Khabarovsk Trial, this book is the first full
39 confessional account of the atrocities carried out at Unit 731 by a member of the
40 Unit.]
41 Aoki, Fukiko 青木富貴子 2005 (reprint 2008), 731, Tokyo: Shinchosha.
[Based on a notebook by Ishii Shiro recording his daily life after the war, other documents,
42
and visits to places associated with Ishii, the author paints a detailed picture of Ishii’s
43 life and his role in Unit 731, as well as American efforts to gain Japanese experimental
44 data and exempt the Ishii network from criminal charges.]
45
 208   Annotated bibliography
1 Arai, Akira 新井章 et al. (eds) 1997, Seeking the Truth from History, the Media and
2 the Courts「事実」 をつかむ—歴史 ・ 報道 ・ 裁判の場から考える, Tokyo: Kochi
3 shobo.
4 [Analyzes the reasons behind the Japanese Court’s ruling against Ienaga Saburo, a historian
5 who took out several lawsuits against the Japanese Education Ministry which ordered
him to erase reference to Unit 731 in his school textbook, despite overwhelming
6
evidence of the activities of Unit 731.]
7
Arai, Toshio and Fujiwara, Akira 新井利男, 藤原彰 1999, Testimonies of Invasion: Written
8 by Japanese Prisoners of War in China 侵略の証言： 中国における日本人戦犯自筆
9 供述書, Iwanami shoten.
0 Asaeda, Shigeharu 朝枝繁春 1997, Reminiscences of 52 Years Ago 追憶五二年以前,
11 published by the author, pp. 11–16.
12 [The author was a staff officer in the Kwantung Army who ordered the destruction of all
13 evidence of the work of Unit 731 as the Soviet Army advanced.]
14 Asano, Tomizo and Tsuneishi, Keiichi 浅野富三, 常石敬一1985, A Mysterious Disease:
15 Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever 奇病流行性出血熱, Tokyo: Shinchosha.
16 Awaya, Kentaro 粟屋憲太郎 1994, Unresolved Issues of War Responsibility 未決の戦争
責任, Tokyo: Kashiwa shobo.
17
[Includes chapters on legal exemption from responsibility for biological and poison gas
18
warfare.]
19 Awaya, Kentaro and Yoshimi, Yoshiaki 粟屋憲太郎, 吉見義明 (eds) 1989, Documents on
20 Poison Gas Warfare 毒ガス戦関係資料, Tokyo: Fuji shuppan.
21 Awaya, Kentaro 粟屋憲太郎 et al. 1994, War Responsibility, Post-war Responsibility: How
22 Japan Differs from Germany 戦争責任 ・ 戦後責任 日本とドイツとどう違うか, Tokyo:
23 Asahi shimbunsha.
24 Azami, Shozo 莇昭三 2000, War and Medical Treatment: The Doctors’ 15-Year War 戦争
25 と医療： 医師たちの十五年戦争, Kyoto: Kamogawa shuppan.
26 Baader, G., Lederer, S.E., Low, M., Schmaltz, F., and Von. Schwerin, A. 2005, Pathways to
27 Human Experimentation, 1933–1945: Germany, Japan, and the United States. Osiris,
20: 205–231.
28
Ban, Shigeo 伴繁雄 2001, The Truth about the Army’s Noborito Research Institute 陸軍登
29
戸研究所の真実, Tokyo: Fuyo shobo shuppan.
30 [Reflects the author’s experiences of participation in human experiments in Nanjing.]
31 Bao, Xiaofeng 包晓峰 2005, A Review of Research on the Japanese Army’s Bacteriological
32 Warfare Crimes in Zhejiang Province 日军对浙江实施细菌战的罪行综述, Dangshi
33 yanjiu yu jiaoxue, 4.
34 Barenblatt, Daniel 2004, A Plague upon Humanity: The Secret Genocide of Axis Japan’s
35 Germ Warfare Operation, New York: Harper Collins.
36 Behr, Edward 1989, Hirohito: Behind the Myth, New York: Villard Books.
37 [A Japanese version was translated by the editorial department at Chubunkan Shoten, 裕仁
38 天皇： 神話に包まれて (上), Okayama: Chubunkan, 1992.]
Biokai 美鴨会, ed. 1972, Ah, Burma! A Record of the 26th Division of the Open Field
39
Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Unit あゝビルマ： 第二六野戦防疫給水
40
部記録, Kyoto: Mitsumura suiko shoin.
41 Brackman, Arnold C. 1987, The Other Nuremberg: The Untold Story of the
42 Tokyo War Crimes Trials, New York: Morrow. Translated into Japanese by Y.
43 Higurashi, 東京裁判： もう一つのニュルンベルク, Tokyo: Jijitsushinsha, 1995,
44 pp. 211–222.
45
 Annotated bibliography   209
1 Bu, Ping 歩平 1995, trans. Y. Yamabe and K. Miyazaki, Japan’s Invasion of China and
2 Poison Gas Warfare 日本の中国侵略と毒ガス兵器, Tokyo: Akashi shoten,
3 pp. 146–147, 165–182, 260–263.
4 Bu, Ping and Gao, Xiaoyan 步平, 高晓燕 1999, Crimes Revealed: Documents
5 from Japanese Army’s Biological Warfare Programme 阳光下的罪恶—
侵华日軍毒气战实录, Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe.
6
[Details the kinds of poison gas used by Japanese forces in various regions of China.]
7
Bu, Ping, Gao, Xiaoyan and Da, Zhigang 步平, 高晓燕, 笪志刚 2004, The Chemical War
8 Waged by Japan during its Invasion of China 日本侵华时期的化学战, Beijing:
9 Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe.
0 Cao, Yuan 草原 1951, The Crime of Japanese Bacteriological Warfare 日寇細菌戰暴行,
11 Shanghai: Tonglian shudian.
12 Chaen, Yoshio 茶園義男 1985, The Personnel of the Kwantung Army’s Epidemic Prevention
13 and Water Supply Unit 関東軍防疫給水部の人びと, in Shikoku during the Wars of
14 the Showa Period 昭和戦史の四国, Tokushima: Kyoiku shuppan senta, pp. 79–88.
15 Chen, Rongxia 2002, Why Bring up the Past Tragedy Again? Eubios Journal of Asian and
16 International Bioethics, 11: 107.
Chen, Xianchu 陈先初 2004, The Overturn of Humanity: A Study of Japanese Atrocities
17
in Hunan 人道的颠覆： 日军侵湘暴行研究, Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian
18
chubanshe.
19 [Chapter 3 describes bacteriological warfare carried out by the Japanese Army in Changde,
20 Hunan Province.]
21 Cheng, Jisi 程吉思 1986, The Hailin Branch of Unit 731 of the Japanese Army in China
22 侵华日军第七三一部队 ・ 海林支队, in Zhengxie Heilongjiangshen weiyuanhui
23 政协黑龙江省委员会, ed. Historical Documents of Heilongjiang, Volume 22, 黒龙江
24 文史资料第二十二辑, Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe.
25 Chu, Hua 儲華, ed. 1951, The Crimes of the Japanese Army, Including its Inhumane
26 Bacteriological Warfare Campaign 日寇的滔天罪行 慘無人道的細菌戰爭, Shanghai:
27 Dadong shudianju chupan.
Chugoku kikansha renrakukai (Association of Returned Prisoners of War from China) 中
28
国帰還者連絡会 1998, Chukiren 中帰連, December.
29
[This journal issue comprises a series of papers on Unit 731, its impact, and suggestions for
30 accepting responsibility and the need for reconciliation.]
31 Chugoku kikansha renrakukai kanko iinkai 中国帰還者連絡会刊行委員会 2000, A
32 Journey in Acknowledgement of Crime: Unit 731 and the Records of Mio Yutaka 認罪
33 の旅:７３１部隊と三尾豊の記録, Tokyo: the author.
34 Chugokujin senso higai baisho seikyu jiken bengodan (Defense for Demanding for
35 Compensation for Chinese War Victims)中国人戦争被害賠償請求事件弁
36 護団, ed. 2005, Barriers of Sand: Ten Years of Litigating Compensation for
37 Chinese Victims 砂上の障壁： 中国人戦後補償裁判10年の軌跡, Tokyo: Nihon
38 hyoronsha.
Daya wenhua 大雅文化, ed., 2005, Litigation in Search of Justice 正义之诉, Shijiazhuang:
39
Huashan wenyi chubansha.
40
Dickinson, Frederick R. 2007, Biohazard: Unit 731 in Postwar Japanese Politics of National
41 “Forgetfulness”, in William R. LaFleur, et al., eds, Dark Medicine: Rationalizing
42 Unethical Medical Research, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
43 Döring, Ole 2001, Comments on Inhumanity in the Name of Medicine: Old Cases and New
44 Voices for Responsible Medical Ethics from Japan and China. Eubios Journal of Asian
45 and International Bioethics, 11: 44–47.
 210   Annotated bibliography
1 Dongbei renmin zhengfu weishengbu (Department of Public Health, Northeast People’s
2 Goverment) 東北人民政府衛生部 1952, A Report on the Criminal Activities of
3 Biological Warfare Unit 731 and Unit 100 関於調査七三一和一〇〇細菌部隊罪悪
4 活動的報告.
[The first systematic Chinese report on Unit 731 and Unit 100, with 34 photos. Translated
5
and included in Kojima 1995. Also available in Liaoningshen danganguan 1995.]
6
East Asia: An International Quarterly 2000, 2001, A special issue on Japanese wartime
7 atrocities and questions of reparation, Parts I and II.
8 Endo, Makoto 遠藤誠 1986, New Evidence from America アメリカからやって来た新証拠,
9 in The Mystery of the Imperial Bank Incident Trial: From the GHQ’s Secret Archives
0 帝銀事件裁判の謎—GHQ 秘密公文書は語る, Tokyo: Aoyamakan.
11 [Describes the American cover-up of the real criminal behind the Incident owing to its links
12 with Unit 731 (pp. 3–14). A new edition was published in 1990 by Gendai shokan
13 (Tokyo).]
14 Endo, Saburo 遠藤三郎 1974, My Part in the Fifteen-year War between Japan and China:
15 Branded a Traitor and “Red General” 日中十五年戦争と私： 国賊 ・ 赤の将軍と人
はいう, Tokyo: Nicchu shorin, pp. 162–164, 442–443.
16
[A former army general describes Ishii’s experiments and biological warfare.]
17
Fell, H. Norbert 1947, “Report by Norbert H. Fell”. Available in Kondo 2003.
18 [The first report from the U.S. to document the human experiments conducted by
19 Unit 731.]
20 Fu, Yang 佛洋 ed. 1997, The Khabarovsk Trials: Confessions of 12 Japanese Biological
21 Warfare Criminals 伯力审判—12名前日本细菌战犯自供词, Changchun: Jilin
22 renmin chubanshe.
23 [A reprint of the Chinese version of Foreign Languages Publishing House 1950, with a
24 Preface by the editor.]
25 Fujii, Shizue 藤井志津枝 1997, Unit 731: Horrors of the Japanese Biological Warfare
26 Campaign 七三一部隊：日本魔鬼生化戦的恐怖, Taipei: Wenyingtang.
Gao, Fanfu and Zhao Deqin 高凡夫, 赵徳芹 2005, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito and Biological
27
Warfare 日本天皇裕仁与細菌戦, Hunan wenli xueyuan xuebao (shehui kexue
28
ban), 2.
29 Gao, Xiaoyan 高暁燕 1996, trans. Y. Yamabe and K. Miyazaki, Poison Gas Weapons
30 Discarded by the Japanese Army 日本軍遺棄毒ガス兵器, Tokyo: Akashi shoten.
31 Gold, Hal 1996, Unit 731: Testimony, Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle.
32 [An outline of the activities of Unit 731 followed by a series of confessions by participants
33 from the Ishii Network. The Japanese version was translated by Hamada T.
34 証言・731部隊の真相:生体実験の全貌と戦後謀略の軌跡 (Tokyo: Kosaido shuppan,
35 1997) and reprinted in 2002.]
36 Guni gakko atochi de hakkensareta jinkotsu mondai o kyumeisuru kai (Association of
37 Investigation of Military Medical School Site) 軍医学校跡地で発見された人骨問題
を究明する会 ed. 1991–1999, Kyumeisuru kai News.
38
[These newsletters focus on tracing the origins of the human bones found in the ruins of the
39
former Military Medical School, and their links with Unit 731.]
40 Gunji, Yoko 郡司陽子 1982a, My Testimony on Unit 731: Revelations of a Female
41 Member 証言　七三一石井部隊：今、 初めて明かす女子隊員の記録, Tokyo: Tokuma
42 shoten.
43 —— ed. 1982b, The Truth about Ishii’s Germ Troops: Testimonies from Participants in Top-
44 secret Tasks 真相石井細菌戦部隊： 極秘任務を遂行した隊員たちの証言, Tokyo:
45 Tokuma shoten.
 Annotated bibliography   211
1 Guo, Chengzhou and Liao, Yingchang 郭成周, 廖应昌, 1997, The Hidden Story of the
2 Japanese Army’s Biological Warfare Campaign 侵华日军细菌战纪实—历史上被隐
3 藏的篇章, Beijing: Yanshan chubanshe.
4 [A major historical study in Chinese which includes the extensive use of primary
5 materials.]
Han, Xiao 韩晓 1986, Collection of the Fascist Atrocities of Unit 731 of the Japanese Army
6
日军七三一部队法西斯暴行辑录, in Zhengxie Heilongjiangshen weiyuanhui, ed.,
7
Historical Documents of Heilongjiang, Volume 19: The History We Must Not Forget
8 黒龙江文史资料第十九辑： 不能忘记的历史, Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin
9 chubanshe.
0 —— 1993, trans. Y. Yamabe, The Crimes of Unit 731 七三一部隊の犯罪, Tokyo: Sanichi
11 shobo.
12 [A collection of research papers published in China, based on testimony by laborers,
13 victims’ relatives, and members of Unit 731, as well as on documents relating to Unit
14 731 in local public security bureaus in Northeastern China and the Central Archives
15 Bureau.]
16 —— 2003, Research into Japanese Biological Warfare in China 关于侵华日軍细菌战罪
行的研究, Changde shifan xueyuan xuebao (shehui kexue ban), 3.
17
Han, Xiao and Jin, Chengmin 韩晓，金成民, 1997, trans. M. Nakano, Telling the Truth
18
before Dying: Testimonies from Chinese on the Crimes of Unit 731 of the Japanese
19 Army 死ぬまえに真実を——侵略日本軍七三一部隊の犯罪中国人の証言, two
20 vols. Chofu, Tokyo: Seinen shuppansha.
21 [Volume 1 comprises testimonies by Chinese, and Volume 2 those by Japanese
22 participants.]
23 Han, Xiao and Xin, Peilin 韩晓，辛培林, 1991, Historical Documents of Heilongjiang,
24 Volume 31, A History of the Crimes of Unit 731 of the Japanese Army 黒龙江文
25 史资料第三十一辑： 日军七三一部队罪恶史, Harbin: Heilongjian renmin
26 chubanshe.
27 Han, Xiao and Yin, Qingfang 韩晓，尹庆芳, 1986, The Use of Chinese Labour in Unit 731
of the Japanese Army 侵华日军第七三一部队里的劳工, Heilongjiangsheng
28
weiyuanhui wenshiziliao yanjiuweiyuanhui, ed. Historical Documents of
29
Heilongjiang, Volume 22, 黒龙江文史资料第二十二辑, Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin
30 chubanshe.
31 Harris, Robert and Paxman, Jeremy 1982, A Higher Form of Killing: the Secret Story of
32 Gas and Germ Warfare, London: Chatto & Windus. Translated into Japanese by
33 Oshima K., and published as 化学兵器:その恐怖と悲劇, Tokyo: Kinda bungeisha,
34 pp. 108–116, 194–195, 209–211. Translated into Chinese by Lu Mingjun and published
35 by Qunzhong chubanshe (Beijing) in 1988.
36 Harris, Sheldon H. 2002 (revised edn; 1st edn 1994), Factories of Death: Japanese
37 Biological Warfare 1932–1945 and the American Cover-up, New York: Routledge. The
38 1994 edition was translated into Japanese by Kondo S. as 死の工場—隠蔽された七
三一部隊, and published in 1999 by Kashiwa shobo (Tokyo).
39
[Kondo added a comprehensive bibliography of publications on the Ishii network. The
40
1994 edition was also translated into Chinese by X. Wang et al. as 死亡工厂： 美国掩
41 盖的日本细菌战犯罪 and published in 2000 by Shanghai renmin chubanshe
42 (Shanghai).]
43 Hata, Ikuhiko 秦郁彦 1990, In Search of the Secrets of the Showa Period: Japanese
44 Biological Warfare, Unit 731 and Ishii Shiro 昭和史の謎を追う—日本の細菌戦—七
45 三一部隊と石井四郎—, Part 1, Part 2, Seiron, March, April.
 212   Annotated bibliography
1 —— 1993, Japan’s Biological Warfare Programme 日本の細菌戦, In Search of the Secrets
2 of the Showa Period, Vol. 1 昭和史の謎を追う （上）, Tokyo: Bungei shunju,
3 pp. 316–395.
4 —— 1998, “Linking the Comfort Women with Unit 731”「慰安婦と七三一部隊」合体の
5 仕掛人, in Controversial Issues in Modern History 現代史の争点, revised version
2001, Tokyo: Bungei shunju, pp. 55–73.
6
Hatakeyama, Kiyoyuki 畠山清行 1966, The Army’s Nakano School 陸軍中野学校, Tokyo:
7
Sankei shimbun shuppansha, pp. 90–91, 100–101, 115, 195–202. Reprinted in 1972
8 by Bancho shobo (Tokyo).
9 Hill, Edwin V. and Victor, Joseph 1947, Summary Report on BW Investigation,
0 December 12.
11 [This was the second report to document human experimentation in Unit 731. Available in
12 Kondo 2003. This report is also included in Matsumura 1994a.]
13 Hirako, Goichi 平光吾一 1957, Military Medicine in the Dirt: The Story behind the
14 Vivisection Incident 戦争医学の汚辱にふれて――生体解剖事件始末記, Bungei
15 shunju, December: 204–214.
16 [An account By one of the participants in the vivisection of eight American pilots at Kyushu
Imperial University.]
17
Hiraoka, Masaaki 平岡正明 1972, Rabbit-catching and Chinese Monkeys: The Double
18
Face of Ishii Unit うさぎ狩りとチャイナモンキー　石井部隊の二つの顔; Unit
19 731 of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria 関東軍満州七三一部隊, in What the
20 Japanese Did in China: A Record of Holocaust 日本人は中国で何をした
21 か： 中国人大虐殺の記録, Tokyo: Shio shuppansha. Reprinted in 1985 by Shio
22 shuppansha.
23 Hiyama, Yoshiaki 檜山良昭 1980, Chasing the Doctors of the Germ Troops 細菌部隊の
24 医師を追え, Tokyo: Kodansha.
25 Honda, Katsuichi 本多勝一 1972, Human Experiments Involving Bacteria and Vivisection
26 人間の細菌実験と生体解剖, in Honda’s A Journey to China 中国の旅, Tokyo: Asahi
27 Shimbunsha.
[Based on the earlier studies published in Japan and China. The book was reprinted
28
in 1981.]
29
Honda, Katsuichi and Naganuma Setsuo 本多勝一, 長沼節夫 1991, The Emperor’s Army
30 天皇の軍隊, Tokyo: Asahi shimbunsha.
31 Hong, Guiji 洪桂己 ed. 1985, A Record of Japanese Atrocities in China: 1928–1945
32 日本在華暴行録: 民國十七年至三十四年 1928–1945, Taipei: Guoshiguan.
33 Hoshi, Toru 星徹 2002 (revised edn 2006), What We Did in China: Testimonies from the
34 Association of Returned Prisoners of War from China 私たちが中国でしたこと：中国
35 帰還者連絡会の人びと Tokyo: Ryokufu shuppan.
36 [Among the former POWs interviewed by the author, Watanabe Nobuichi, Mio Yutaka,
37 Shinotsuka (Tamura) Yoshio, and Yuasa Ken detail their involvement in medical
38 atrocities.]
Huang, Jialai 黄加来 2005, Revealing the Secrets of the Japanese Army’s Bacteriological
39
Warfare Campaign in Changde 日军常徳细菌战掲秘. Dangan shikong, 3.
40
Huang, Ketai and Wu, Yuanzhang 黄可泰, 吴元章 eds 1994, The Unimaginable Cruelty of
41 Bacteriological Warfare: Historical Facts about the 1940 Plague in Ningbo 惨绝人寰
42 的细菌战一九四〇年宁波鼠疫史实, Nanjing: Dongnan daxue chubanshe.
43 Huang, Ketai, Qiu, Huashi and Xia, Suqin 黄可泰， 邱華士，夏素琴 eds 1999, The Plague
44 in Ningbo: Proof of the Japanese Army’s Biological Warfare Campaign 宁波鼠疫史
45 实——侵华日军细菌战罪证, Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chubanshe.
 Annotated bibliography   213
1 Hunan wenli xueyuan xijunzhan zuixing yanjiusuo (Research Institute of Biological
2 Warfare Crimes, Hunan University of Arts and Science) 湖南文理学院细菌战罪行
3 研究所 ed. 2003, Revealing the Darkest Secret: Collected Papers from an International
4 Conference on Biological Warfare Held in Changde, China, in 2002 掲开黒幕：二
〇〇二中国常徳细菌战罪行国际学术研讨会论文集, Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi
5
chubanshe.
6
Ienaga, Saburo 家永三郎 1968, The Pacific War 太平洋戦争, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
7 pp. 216–217.
8 [Translated into English and published by Pantheon Books (New York) in 1978. It includes
9 material on the activities of Unit 731 and describes the vivisection carried out at
0 Kyushu Imperial University on captured American airmen (pp.188–190). A second
11 edition was published in 1986; see pp. 233–235, 369–371.]
12 Inaba, Masao 稲葉正夫 ed. 1970, Appendix: Ishii’s Top-secret Institute 付録： 石井極秘機
13 関, in Inaba’s Materials Relating to General Okamura Yasuji, Volume 1, Reminiscences of
14 the Battlefield 岡村寧次大将資料 （上） 戦場回想編, Tokyo: Hara shobo, pp. 387–390.
15 Inoue Kiyoshi and Hiroshima, Tadashi 井上清, 廣島正 1994, What Did the Japanese Army
Do in China? 日本軍は中国で何をしたのか, Kumamoto: Kumamoto shuppan bunka
16
kaikan.
17
[Includes a chapter on poison gas warfare and Ishii’s germ troops (pp. 273–303).]
18 Ishida, Shinsaku 石田新作 1982, Dedicated to Evil – The Japanese Military Doctors 悪魔
19 の日本軍医, Tokyo: Yamate shobo.
20 [The author, a former military surgeon in the Japanese Army, describes medical atrocities
21 committed both inside and outside the Ishii network.]
22 Ivanov, N. and Bogachi, V. 1991, trans K. Nakanishi O р у ж и е в н е з а к о н а, The
23 Horrors of Biological Warfare: Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army on Trial 恐怖の細菌
24 戦—裁かれた関東軍第七三一部隊, Tokyo: Kobunsha.
25 Iwakawa, Takashi 岩川隆 1995, “The Soviet Trial” ソ連裁判, Like the Soil of a Remote
26 Island: The Trial of B and C-Class War Criminals 孤島の土となるとも： BC 級戦犯
裁判, Tokyo: Kodansha, pp. 617–646.
27
Jiang, Li 姜力 ed. 2005, 1949: The Khabarovsk Trial 1949: 伯利大审判—侵华日军使用
28
细菌武器案庭审实录, Beijing: Jiefangjun wenxue chubanshe.
29 [A reprint of the 1950 Chinese edition.]
30 Ji, Xueren 紀学仁 1996, trans. T. Murata, Chemical Warfare Waged by the Japanese Army:
31 Poison Gas Operations in China 日本軍の化学戦 ： 中国戦場における毒ガス作戦,
32 Tokyo: Otsuki shoten.
33 Jin, He 金河 1998, Devils’ Nest: Germ Troops of Unit 731 of the Japanese Army in Pingfang
34 平房魔窟 ： 侵华日军 731 细菌部队, Shijiazhuang: Huashan chubanshe.
35 JJCA CHINA REPORT 1945, Subject: Japanese Use of BW at CHANGTEH, Hunan
36 Province, from J. R. Giddes to Harold Pride, June 28, Kunming, R-731-CH-45, Secret,
37 copy 4 of 5, Public Record Office (London).
[This report is based on an investigation in Changde conducted by J. R. Giddes, who
38
confirmed the possibility of Japan’s use of plague bacteria in Changde. Available in
39
Kondo 2003; see also Matsumura 1997a.]
40 Kamisaka, Fuyuko 上坂冬子 1979, Vivisection: The Incident at Kyushu University’s
41 Medical School 生体解剖　九州大学医学部事件, Tokyo: Mainichi shimbunsha.
42 [This documentary novel has been frequently reprinted since 1979.]
43 Kanagawa daigaku hyoronshu senmon iinkai 神奈川大学評論編集専門委員会 ed. 1994,
44 Medical Science and War: Japan and Germany 医学と戦争 ： 日本とドイツ, Tokyo:
45 Ochanomizu shobo.
 214   Annotated bibliography
1 Kasukawa, Yoshiya 糟川良谷 1986 (revised edn 1995), Horrific Vivisection and
2 Bacteriological Experiment 悪魔の生体 ・ 細菌実験, in Masataka Mori, ed., China
3 Will Not Forget: The Untold Story of [Japan’s] War of Aggression 中国の大地は忘
4 れない ： 侵略 ・ 語られなかった戦争, Tokyo: Shakai hyoronsha, pp. 73–112,
5 177–194.
Kenmochi, Kazumi 剣持一巳 1970, Exposing War Crimes 戦争犯罪の告発, in Kenmochi’s
6
Bearing Death for Humanity – Crimes of Modern Science 現代科学の犯罪 ： 人間を
7
死に追いやるもの Tokyo: Shinsensha, pp. 255–290.
8 The Khabarovsk Trial 1950, Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese
9 Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Biological Weapons, Moscow:
0 Foreign Language Publishing House.
11 [This is the primary publication by the Soviet Union on the trial conducted in Khabarovsk
12 in 1949. It was originally translated and published in Russian, Chinese, English, and
13 Japanese in 1950. The Japanese version was reprinted in 1982 by Fuji shuppan (Tokyo)
14 and kaien shobo (Tokyo). The Chinese version was reprinted in Xinhua shishi
15 congkanshe 1950, Fu 1997 and Jiang 2005.]
16 Kiku no bokyu iinkai「菊の防給」委員会 ed. 1980, The Imperial Epidemic Prevention and
Water Supply Unit: The Development of the 11th Division of the Epidemic Prevention
17
and Water Supply Unit 菊の防給 ： 第十一防給のあゆみ, Tokyo: Kyusuikai.
18
Kindai senshi kenkyukai 近代戦史研究会 ed. 1966, Women’s War Records, No.11, The
19 Horrors of Human Experimentation: Memoirs of a Female Civilian Employee of the
20 Kwantung Army, by Yoshinaga Reiko 女の戦記　第 11、 人体実験の恐怖——ある関
21 東軍女子軍属の手記 （吉永玲子） , Tokyo: Naniwa shobo.
22 [A semi-fictional account of a woman who worked at Unit 731. Reprinted in 1970.]
23 King, P. Z. 金宝善 1942, Japanese Attempt at Biological Warfare in China, March 31,
24 1942, Public Record Office (London), WO 188/680.
25 [The first report which documents the spreading of plague bacteria by Japanese aircraft
26 over Quxian, Ningbo, and Jinhua in Zhejiang Province in October and November
27 1940, and Changde in Hunan Province in November 1941. Available in Kondo
2003.]
28
Kinoshita, Kenzo 木下健蔵 1994, Removing all Traces of the Research Institute
29
for Clandestine Warfare 消された秘密戦研究所, Nagano: Shinao Mainichi
30 shimbun sha.
31 [Contains chapters on balloon bombs, biochemical weapons, and the Army’s Noborito
32 Research Institute.]
33 Kitajima, Kikuro 北島規矩朗 ed. 1936, Fifty Years of the Military College 陸軍軍医学校
34 五十年史, Tokyo: Military College. pp.187–192, 364–367.
35 [Deals with the research conducted by the Ishii network from 1933 to 1934. Reprinted in
36 1988 by Fuji shuppansha (Tokyo).]
37 Kobayashi, Hideo 小林英夫 and Kojima Toshiro 児嶋俊郎 eds 1995, Germ Troops Unit
38 731: New Material from China 七三一細菌戦部隊 ・ 中国新資料, Tokyo: Fuji
shuppan.
39
[A translation by M. Hayashi of historical documents held by the Liaoning Province
40
Archival Bureau. See also Liaoningsheng danganguan 1995.]
41 Kochi shimbunsha henshukyoku shakaibu 高知新聞社編集局社会部 ed. 1998, The Ever-
42 changing State: Who Will Make Reparation for the Crime? 流転 ：その罪だれが償うか,
43 Kochi: Kochi shimbunsha.
44 [Records conversations between journalist Amano Hiromiki and a former Unit 731 member
45 who has been tormented by memories of the atrocities.]
 Annotated bibliography   215
1 Koga, Katsuhiko 古賀勝彦 1992, The Truth about Unit 731 七三一部隊の真実, in The
2 Battlefield Journal of a Secret Service Member: A Memoir of My Years Devoted to
3 “Special Projects” in China 諜報機関員の戦場 ：中国大陸で特殊任務に明け暮れ
4 た青春の回想録, Musashino, Tokyo: Reika chugokugo kaiwa kyoshitsu,
5 pp. 89–181.
Kondo, Shoji 近藤昭二 ed. 2003, Unit 731 and Biological Warfare – A CD-ROM Collection
6
<CD-ROM 版＞七三一部隊 ・ 細菌戦資料集成, Tokyo: Kashiwa shobo.
7
[These eight CD-ROMs contain original English-language documents relating to the
8 attempts by Naito Ryoichi to obtain virulent strains of the yellow fever virus; the
9 plague epidemic incidents in Changde; postwar investigations of Japan’s biological
0 warfare program and human experimentation by the Soviet Union and the U.S.; the
11 exemption from prosecution granted to the Ishii network by the U.S. at the Tokyo
12 Trials; research reports by members of the Ishii network; and investigations into
13 bacteriological warfare during the Korean War.]
14 Koshi, Sadao 越定男 1983, The Japanese Flag is Soaked in Red Tears: A Confession by a
15 Member of Unit 731 日の丸は紅い泪に ： 第七三一部隊員告白記, Tokyo: Kyoiku
16 shiryo shuppankai.
[As a driver in Unit 731, the author witnessed the mass killing of prisoners at the end of the
17
War, and transported human ashes for deposition in Songhua River. He recalls Ishii’s
18
order which required all members to keep the secrets, and mentions that important
19 data were taken to Kanazawa City and later concealed.]
20 Koshida, Takashi 越田稜 1998, The War Responsibiliy of Unit 731 七三一部隊の戦争責
21 任, in Ajia ni taisuru Nihon no senso sekinin o tou minshu hotei junbikai アジアに対
22 する日本の戦争責任を問う民衆法廷準備, ed., War Responsibility: From the Past to
23 the Future 戦争責任 ： 過去から未来へ, Tokyo: Ryokufu shuppan, pp. 330–350.
24 Kyodo tsushinsha shakaibu 共同通信社社会部 ed. 1996, The Emperor’s Army: Erasing the
25 Evidence, Human Experimentation, and the anger of Tojo Hideki 天皇の軍隊 遠泳
26 に証拠を隠滅せよ／生体実験／東条英機の怒り, in Silent Documents 沈黙のファイ
27 ル, Tokyo: Kyodo tsushinsha, pp. 119–138. Reprinted in 1999 by Shinchosha
(Tokyo).
28
Kyokasho kentei sosho o shiensuru zenkoku renrakukai (National Network for Supporting
29
Textbook Trials) 教科書検定訴訟を支援する全国連絡会 ed. 1991, The Ienaga
30 Textbook Trials: The 3rd Lawsuit at District Court, No. 4, regarding Nanjing Massacre
31 and Unit 731 家永 ・ 教科書裁判　第3次訴訟　地裁編4　南京大虐殺・七三一部
32 隊, Tokyo: Rongu shuppan. Reprinted in 1995.
33 —— ed. 1997, The Ienaga Textbook Trials: The 3rd Lawsuit at the High Court, No. 2,
34 regarding Nanjing Massacre, Korean Resistance and Unit 731 家永 ・ 教科書裁判　
35 第3 次訴訟　高裁編 2　南京大虐殺 ・ 朝鮮人民の抵抗 ・ 731部隊, Tokyo:
36 Minshusha, pp. 219–325, 338–343, 345, 362–368.
37 Lafleur, William R., Böhme, Gernot, and Shimozono, Susumu eds 2007, Dark Medicine:
38 Rationalizing Unethical Medical Research, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Leavitt, Frank 2002, Is Asian Bioethics at Fault? Commentary on Tsuchiya, Morioka, and
39
Nie. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 11: 7–8.
40
Leavitt, Frank J. 2003a, Let’s Stop Bashing Japan: Commentary on Tsuchiya, Sass,
41 Thomas, Nie & Tsuneishi. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 13:
42 134–135.
43 Leavitt, Frank J. 2003b, Commentary: Bash Evil in Every Generation, But Don’t Bash
44 Innocent Children and Grandchildren. Eubios Journal of Asian and International
45 Bioethics, 13: 168.
 216   Annotated bibliography
1 Li, Xiaofang 李晓方 ed. 2005, Blood-sweeping Indictment: Records of Anthrax Victims 泣
2 血控诉—侵华日军细菌战炭疽、鼻疽受害者幸存者实录, Beijing: Zhongyang
3 wenxian chubanshe.
4 Liaoningsheng danganguan (Liaoning Prefecture Archive) 辽宁省档案馆 ed. 1995, Corps
5 of Evil: Units 731 and 100 罪恶的「七三一」 「一〇〇」, Shenyang: Liaoning minzu
chubanshe.
6
[Includes documents (dated 1945) and reports from the early 1950s from the northeastern
7
region of China outlining the activities of the Ishii network and their impact on Chinese
8 victims.]
9 Lishi buneng wangji chongshu bianweihui (Editing Board for Series of Unforgettable
0 History) 历史不能忘记丛书编委会 ed. 1999, Crimes of Japan’s Biological Warfare
11 Troops 日本细菌战部队罪行录, Beijing: Zhongguo minzhu fazhi chubanshe.
12 Liu, Haitao 劉海涛 1936, Report on the Situation in Manchuria (満州の情況に
13 関する報告).
14 [Reports the escape of Chinese prisoners from the “Epidemic Prevention Unit” in Beiyinhe.
15 Available in Central Archives et al. 1991.]
16 Liu, Qi-an 刘启安 2005, Calling Back the Spirits of the Dead: Exposing the Secrets of
Biological Warfare Carried out by the Japanese Army in Changde 叫魂—侵华日军常
17
德细菌战首次独家揭秘, Nanchang: Ershiyi shiji chubanshe.
18
Liu, Yaling and Gong, Jigang 刘雅玲, 龚积刚 2004, Litigation by Victims of Biological
19 Warfare 细菌战受害大诉讼, Changsha: Hunan renmin chuban.
20 [Discusses Japanese biological warfare and the progress of lawsuits taken by Chinese
21 victims.]
22 Matsumura, Takao 松村高夫 1985, “Two Reports of Experiments from Unit 731”「七三一
23 部隊」 の実験報告書, Rekishigaku kenkyu. 538, February.
24 [Quotes two newly discovered reports on Unit 731’s experiments with poison gas
25 bombs and tetanus inoculation「きい弾射撃ニ因ル皮膚傷害並一般臨床的症状観
26 察」 「 破 傷 風 毒 素 並 芽 胞 接 種 時 ニ 於 ケル 筋『 クロナキシ ー 』ニ 就 テ 」,
27 pp. 56–64.]
—— 1991, The Meaning of Proof in the Historical Sciences: Considering Unit 731 歴史学
28
における実証とは何か ： 七三一部隊を考える. Rodoshi kenkyu, 5『労働史研究』論
29
創社、 ５号、 1991年。
30 —— ed. 1994a, The Debate on Unit 731 ＜論争＞七三一部隊, Tokyo: Banseisha.
31 [A collection of testimonials given during the “Ienaga Textbook Lawsuit” filed in 1984 by
32 Ienaga Saburo 家永三郎 following the order by the Japanese Ministry of Education
33 in 1983 to erase the references to Unit 731 from his textbook. Matsumura’s book was
34 revised, with new information on Japanese biological warfare in Changde in 1941, and
35 republished in 1997 as「[増補版]＜論争＞七三一部隊」. Matsumura acted as a
36 witness for Ienaga, and Hata Ikuhiko was a witness for the Ministry. Matsumura’s
37 research on Unit 731 confirmed the accuracy of Ienaga’s textbook.]
38 —— 1994b, Unit 731 and the Third Textbook Lawsuit 七三一部隊と第三次教科書訴訟.
Rekishi hyoron, 528, April.
39
——  1996a, Unit 731 is not a Thing of the Past 七三一部隊は過去のできごとか.
40
Sanshokuki, April, 577.
41 [Gives a complete picture of Unit 731’s activities and the suffering of victims’ families.]
42 —— 1996b, Unit 731 and the Prison Camp in Fengtian 七三一部隊と奉天俘虜収容所.
43 Senso sekinin kenkyu, 13: 74–76.
44 ——  1996c, Unit 731 and Human Experimentation 七三一部隊と人体実験, in ICJ
45 Kokusai Seminar Tokyo Iinkai 国際セミナー東京委員会 ed., Japan under
 Annotated bibliography   217
1 Judgement: The Japanese Army’s Comfort Women and Forced Labour
2 裁かれるニッポン：日本軍「慰安婦」 ・強制労働をめぐって, Tokyo: Nihon
3 hyoronsha.
4 ——  1997a, Unit 731 七三一部隊, in Tokushi Kasahara 笠原十九司 et al., eds, How
to Identify and Teach Historical Facts: Unit 731, Nanjing Massacre and
5
Military Comfort Women 歴史の事実をどう認定しどう教えるか――検証731部隊 ・
6
南京虐殺事件 ・「従軍慰安婦」 , Tokyo: Kyoiku shiryo shuppankai.
7 —— 1997b, Biological Warfare in Changde, Hunan Prefecture, in 1941, 1941 年湖南常徳
8 的細菌作戦. Zhejiang Xuekan, April.
9 —— 1997c, The Devil’s Gluttony: The Black Marks Left by Unit 731「悪魔の飽食　七
0 三一部隊の黒い爪痕」 . Shukan kinyobi, September 5, 189: 28–31.
11 [A record of a round-table discussion with John W. Powell and Shimozato Masaki.]
12 ——  1998, Unit 731 and Biological Warfare: A Black Spot on Japan’s Modern
13 History 七三一部隊と細菌戦—日本現代史の汚点. Mita gakkai zasshi, 91,
14 2, July.
15 [This is the author’s “Verification Report” presented to the Tokyo District Court for the
lawsuit pursued from 1995 by families of victims of Unit 731.]
16
—— 2001a, Understanding Unit 731 through Documents from Japan, the US, China and
17
the Soviet Union 日・ 米 ・ 中 ・ソの資料による七三一部隊の解明, in Nanasanichi
18 Saikinsen saiban campaign iinkai et al. 七三一 ・ 細菌戦裁判キャンペーン委員会 他
19 eds, Biological Warfare under Judgment: Series No. 6 裁かれる細菌戦—資料シリー
20 ズ No.6, pp.11–124.
21 [This is the author’s “Verification Report” presented to the Tokyo District Court for
22 the lawsuit pursued from 1997 by 180 relatives of victims of Japanese biological
23 warfare.]
24 —— 2001b, The 20th Century as the Century of War: Unit 731 and Biological Warfare 戦
25 争の世紀としての二〇世紀—七三一部隊と細菌戦, in Yokohama, Kawasaki heiwa
26 no tame no sensoten jikko iinkai, 横浜 ・ 川崎平和のための戦争展実行委員会, ed.
The Universities and the Military during the Asia-Pacific War アジア太平洋戦争の大
27
学と軍隊.
28
—— 2002, Research on Unit 731 in Japan 日本における七三一部隊の解明, Akira Tanaka
29 田中明, ed., Reconsidering Modern Japan–China Relations 近代日中関係史再考,
30 Tokyo: Nihon keizai hyoronsha.
31 Matsumura, Takao and Kanehira, Shigenori 松村高夫, 金平茂紀 1991, The Hill Report:
32 an Investigative Report from America on the Human Experiments Carried out by Unit
33 731, No. 1 ヒル・レポート——七三一部隊の人体実験に関するアメリカ側調査報告
34 （上） . Mita gakkai zasshi, 84 2, July.
35 Matsumura, Takao and Xie, Xueshi 松村高夫, 謝学詩 et al. 1997, Unit 731 – Herald of War
36 and Plague 戦争と疫病—七三一部隊のもたらしたもの, Tokyo: Honnotomo sha.
37 [A study of Unit 731 with materials from China, the U.K., the U.S., and Japan. It includes
bacteriological bombing operations in Zhejiang and Jingxi provinces, and Xinjing
38
(today’s Changchun). Translated into Chinese as 战争与恶疫——七三一部队罪
39
行考, and published by Renmin chubanshe (Beijing) in 1998.]
40 Matsumura, Takao and Yano, Hisashi 松村高夫, 矢野久 eds 2007, Justice and the
41 Historical Sciences: Unit 731 as Seen from the Courtroom 裁判と歴史学——
42 七三一細菌戦部隊を法廷からみる, Tokyo: Gendai shokan.
43 [Examines Matsumura’s quest for the historical facts of Unit 731’s activities and
44 the Japanese biological warfare program in order to support Ienaga Saburo’s
45 lawsuit against the Ministry of Education, which had instructed Ienaga to delete
 218   Annotated bibliography
1 references to Unit 731 in his history textbook. As a result of efforts by Matsumura and
2 others, Ienaga eventually won his lawsuit in 1997 and the Ministry’s ruling was
3 rescinded.]
4 Matsuno, Seiya 松野誠也 2005, The Japanese Army’s Poison Gas Weapons 日本軍の毒ガ
ス兵器, Tokyo: Gaifusha.
5
Matsushita, Kazunari 松下一成 1996, The Green Cross and Unit 731 ミドリ十字と 731
6
部隊, Tokyo: Sanichi shobo.
7 Mima, Satoaki 美馬聡昭 1998, Prevention of Tuberculosis Established by Vivisection
8 生体解剖による結核予防法の確立. Senso sekinin kenkyu, 20: 76–85.
9 Minamoto, Shokyu 源昌久 2002, Unit 731 and the Study of Military Geography in Japan:
0 a Bibliographical Survey 石井 （第七三一） 部隊と兵要地誌に関する一考察 ： 書誌
11 学的研究, Bulletin of the College of Sociology, Shukutoku University, 36: 1–17.
12 Mineo, Kyudai 三根生久大 1992, A Roughneck in the General Staff Office: Army Staff
13 Officer Asaeda Shigeharu 参謀本部の暴れ者 ： 陸軍参謀朝枝繁春, Tokyo: Bungei
14 shunju, pp. 313–339.
15 Minguo dangan 民国檔案 1995, Archival Records of the Investigation into the Japanese
Army’s Biological Warfare Campaign in China 有関調査侵華日軍細菌戦部隊的檔
16
案資料. Minguo dangan, 3.
17
Mitomo, Kazuo 三友一男 1987, The Crime of Biological Warfare: My Days in the Officers’
18 Prison at Ivanovo 細菌戦の罪：イワノボ将官収容所虜囚記, Tokyo: Tairyusha.
19 [The author, who was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment at the Khabarovsk Trial,
20 describes his time in prison and his experiences with Unit 100.]
21 Miyatake, Go 宮武剛 1986, Chilling Footprints 戦慄の足跡, in A General’s Will:
22 Endo Saburo’s Diary 将軍の遺言 ： 遠藤三郎日記, Tokyo: Mainichi shimbunsha,
23 pp. 75–91.
24 Mizutani, Naoko 水谷尚子 1995, Testimony of a Former Member of Unit 1644: Army
25 Illustrator Ishida Jintaro 元一六四四部隊員の証言 : 軍画兵、石田 甚太郎の体験か
26 ら Senso sekinin kenkyu, 10: 56–65.
—— 1997, The Organization and Activities of Unit 1644, 一六四四部隊の組織と活動 (1)
27
and (2), Senso sekinin kenkyu, 15: 50–59, and 16: 66–71.
28
Monma, Takashi 門間貴志 1995, The Japanese in Hong Kong Cinema: Unit 731 and Army
29 Comfort Women 香港映画の日本人　七三一部隊と従軍慰安婦, The Portrayal of
30 Japan in Asian Film, Vol. 1, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan アジア映画にみる日本1 (中
31 国 ・ 香港 ・ 台湾編), Tokyo: Shakai hyoronsha, pp. 148–154.
32 Mori, Masataka 森正孝 1990, War Crimes of the Germ Troops: Unit 1644 in Nanjing 細菌
33 戦部隊　南京「栄」一六四四部隊の戦争犯罪, in Ajia minshu hotei junbikai, ed.,
34 The Unforgivable War Guilt Carried by the Emperor and Japan 時効なき戦争責任
35 裁かれる天皇と日本, Tokyo: Ryokufu shuppan, pp. 217–254.
36 —— 1995, Victims of Biological Warfare 細菌戦被害の人々, in Haboho kenkyukai, ed.,
37 Fifty Years of War Responsibility 50 年目の戦争責任, Tokyo: Seiunsha, pp. 77–93.
—— 1998, The Truth about Biological Warfare Must Be Revealed Now いま伝えたい,
38
細菌戦のはなし： 隠された歴史を照らす, Tokyo: Akashi shoten.
39
Mori, Masataka 森正孝 et al. eds 1991, Materials from China: The Japanese Invasion of
40 China 中国側資料　日本の中国侵略, Tokyo: Akashi shoten.
41 [Contains documents about Unit 1644 which conducted human experiments in Nanjing,
42 and attacks on Ningbo and Changde using biological bombs.]
43 Mori, Masataka and Kasukawa Yoshiya 森正孝, 糟川良谷 eds 1995, Materials
44 from China: The Invasion of China and Unit 731’s Biological Warfare Campaign –
45 What Japanese Army’s Biological Weaponry Inflicted on the Chinese People 中国側史
 Annotated bibliography   219
1 料　中国侵略と七三一部隊の細菌戦 —— 日本軍の細菌攻撃は中国人民に何をも
2 たらしたか Tokyo: Akashi shoten.
3 [Based on investigations carried out by Mori and others from 1991 to determine the facts
4 about biological warfare in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces.]
5 Morikawa, Tetsuro 森川哲郎 1978, The Imperial Bank Incident and Unit 731, in Unsolved
6 Mysteries of Japan 日本迷宮入事件, Tokyo: Sanichi shobo, pp. 120–171.
7 Morimura, Seiichi 森村誠一 1981, The Devil’s Gluttony: A Complete Picture of
the Horrors of the Germ Warfare Troops of the Kwantung Army, Volume One 悪魔の
8
飽食 ：「関東軍細菌戦部隊」 恐怖の全貌！ 第１部, Tokyo: Kobunsha.
9 [This book makes Unit 731 widely known in Japan. It is based on Morimura and Shimozato’s
0 interviews with more than 30 former members of Unit 731, research reports written
11 by Unit 731 members, and the Khabarovsk Trial documents. A new edition was
12 published in 1983 by Kadokawa shoten (Tokyo). This was translated into Chinese by
13 B. Zu and Y. Tang as 食人魔窟 : 日本关东军细菌战部队的恐怖内幕, and was
14 published by Qunzhong chubanshe (Beijing) in 1982. A second Chinese translation
15 was made by C. Guan and M. Xu as 魔鬼的乐园 ： 关东军细菌战部队恐怖的真相,
16 and was published by Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe (Harbin) in 1983.]
17 —— 1982a, Notes on The Devil’s Gluttony 悪魔の飽食ノート, Tokyo: Banseisha.
18 [Translates major sections of Powell 1981.]
—— 1982b, The Devil’s Gluttony, Part 2: The Riddle of Kwantung Army’s Germ Warfare
19
Troops 続悪魔の飽食 ：「関東軍細菌戦部隊」謎の戦後史, Tokyo: Kobunsha.
20 [A revised edition 新版続悪魔の飽食 ： 第七三一部隊の戦慄の全貌 was published
21 in 1983 by Kadokawa shoten (Tokyo), and a further revision in pocketbook form in
22 1991. This was translated into Chinese by C. Guan and M. Xu as 魔鬼的乐园 ： 续篇
23 关东军细菌战部队战后秘史, and was published by Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe
24 (Harbin) in 1984.]
25 —— 1983, The Devil’s Gluttony, Part 3 悪魔の飽食　第三部, Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten.
26 [Based on the author’s investigations of Unit 731’s locations at Harbin, Pingfang, and
27 Changchun. The three volumes provide perspectives from Japan, the U.S. and
28 China on Unit 731, and fill a gap in modern Japanese history. All were printed in
29 pocketbook form in 1985. Translated into Chinese by W. Luo and N. Chen as 恶
魔的饱食 ： 日本细菌战部队揭秘, and published by Xueyuan chubanshe (Beijing)
30
in 2003.]
31 —— 1984, Enough of The Devil’s Gluttony ノーモア＜悪魔の飽食＞, Tokyo: Banseisha.
32 ——  ed. 1990 (new edn 1995), Unit 731 on Trial 裁かれた七三一部隊, Tokyo:
33 Banseisha.
34 [A collection of testimonials prepared for the “Ienaga Textbook Trials” in 1987.]
35 Morioka, Masahiro 2001, Commentary on Tsuchiya. Eubios Journal of Asian and
36 International Bioethics, 10: 280–281.
37 Nakagawa, Yatsuhiro 中川八洋 2002, The Devil’s Gluttony is Propaganda by the Former
38 Soviet Union「悪魔の飽食」 は旧ソ連のプロパガンダだった, Seiron, November, 363:
39 276–287.
40 Nakata, Takeo 中田建夫 1983, Assessing the Fake Photographs in Part 2 of The Devil’s
Gluttony: Who is the Glutton?「続 ・ 悪魔の飽食」 ニセ写真事件を考える“飽食”した
41
のは誰だ, Bungei shunjiu, February, 61, 2: 362–386.
42 Nakazono, Eisuke 中薗英助 1968, An Incubator in the Night 夜の培養者, Tokyo: Yomiuri
43 shimbunsha.
44 [Reprinted in 1972 by Kodansha (Tokyo), in 1981 by Tokuma shoten (Tokyo), and in 1996
45 by Shakai shisosha (Tokyo).]
 220   Annotated bibliography
1 Nanasanichi butai kokusai symposium jikko iinkai (Committee for International Symposium
2 on Unit 731) 七三一部隊国際シンポジウム実行委員会 ed. 1996, The Japanese
3 Army’s Biological Warfare and Poison Gas Campaigns: Japan’s Invasion of China and
4 Japanese War Crimes 日本軍の細菌戦 ・ 毒ガス戦 ：日本の中国侵略と戦争犯罪,
Tokyo: Akashi shoten.
5
[A collection of papers presented at the 731 International Symposium in August 1995 in
6
Harbin, attended by Chinese and Japanese researchers.]
7 Nanasanichi butai shinso chosa zenkoku renraku kyogikai (National Network for
8 Investigation of Unit 731) 部隊真相調査全国連絡協議会 ed. 1997, Unit 731 and
9 Discarded Poison Gas Weapons: Investigation and Testimonies 731 部隊 ・ 遺棄毒ガ
0 ス問題—検証と証言—, Tokyo: privately published.
11 Nanasanichi kenkyukai (Society of Research on 731) 七三一研究会 ed. 1996, The Germ
12 Troops 細菌戦部隊, Tokyo: Banseisha.
13 [A collection of testimonies by 24 former members of Unit 731, Unit 100, Unit 1855, Unit
14 1644, Unit 8604, Unit 9420, and units from other regions of China. A bibliography of
15 works related to Unit 731, prepared by Kondo Shoji, is included.]
Nanasanichi saikinsen saiban campaign iinkai 七三一 ・ 細菌戦裁判キャンペーン委員会
16
et al. ed. 2001–2002, Biological Warfare under Judgement: Collected Documents 裁か
17
れる細菌戦—資料シリーズ, Vol. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Urawa: the editor.
18 Newman, Barclay 1944, Japan’s Secret Weapon, ed. Peter Greenleaf, New York: Current
19 Publishing.
20 Nezu, Masashi ねず ・ まさし 1993, The Formation of Germ Troops was Ordered by
21 the Emperor 天皇細菌部隊の設置を命ず, in A Cross-section of Modern History:
22 The Invasion of China 現代史の断面 ・ 中国侵略, Tokyo: Azekura shobo,
23 pp. 85–114.
24 Nie, Jing-Bao 2001, Challenges of Japanese Doctors’ Human Experimentation in China for
25 East-Asian and Chinese Bioethics. Eubios Journal of Asian and International
26 Bioethics, 11: 3–7.
——  2002, Japanese Doctors’ Experimentation in Wartime China. The Lancet,
27
360: s5–s6.
28
—— 2003, Let’s Never Stop Bashing Inhumanity: A Reply to Frank Leavitt and a Call for
29 Further Ethical Studies on Japanese Doctors’ Wartime Experimentation. Eubios
30 Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 13: 106–107.
31 —— 2004, The West’s Dismissal of the Khabarovsk Trial as “Communist Propaganda”:
32 Ideology, Evidence and International Bioethics. Journal of Bioethics Inquiry, 1,
33 1: 32–42.
34 ——  2005, State Violence in Twentieth-century China: Some Shared Features of the
35 Japanese Army’s Atrocities and the Cultural Revolution’s Terror, in Ludger Kühnhardt
36 and Mamoru Takayama, eds, Menchenrechte, Kulturen und Gewalt: Ansaetze einer
37 Interkulturellen Ethik [Human Rights, Cultures, and Violence: Perspectives of
Intercultural Ethics], Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 161–176, with a Commentary by
38
Ole Döring, pp. 177–181.
39
—— 2006, The United States Cover-up of Japanese Wartime Medical Atrocities: Complicity
40 Committed in the National Interest and Two Proposals for Contemporary Action.
41 American Journal of Bioethics, 6, 3: W21–W33.
42 Nie, Jing-Bao, Tsuchiya, Takashi, and Li, Lun 2009, Japanese Doctors’ Experimentation in
43 China, 1932–1945, and Medical Ethics, in Robert B. Baker and Laurence B.
44 McCullough, eds, The Cambridge World History of Medical Ethics, Cambridge:
45 Cambridge University Press, pp. 589–594. A modified Chinese version, trans. J. Li
 Annotated bibliography   221
1 and X. Chen, was published as 侵华日军的人体实验及其对当代医学伦理的挑战,
2 Yixue yu zhexue, 25, 6: 35–38.
3 Nie, Jing-Bao, Tsuchiya, Takashi, Sass, Hans-Martin, and Tsuneishi, Keiichi 2003, A Call
4 for Further Studies on the Ethical Lessons of Japanese Doctors’ Experimentation in
Wartime China for Asian and International Bioethics Today. Eubios Journal of Asian
5
and International Bioethics, 13: 106–107.
6
Nie, Lili (Jo, Riri) 聶莉莉 2006a, Chinese People’s Memory of War: The Scars Left by
7 Japanese Army’s Biological Warfare Campaign 中国民衆の戦争記憶—日本軍の細
8 菌戦による傷跡, Tokyo: Akashi shoten.
9 [Details the damage done to Changde by biological warfare.]
0 ——  2006b, An Anthropological Study of Victims’ Memories of Japanese Army’s
11 Biological Warfare Campaign in Changde 日軍細菌戦常特徳民衆受害記憶的文化
12 人類学研究, Hunan wenli xueyuan xuebao (shehui kexue ban), 6.
13 Nihon chugoku yuko kyokai (Japan–China Friendship Association) and Chugoku kikansha
14 renrakukai 日本中国友好協会, 中国帰還者連絡会 eds 1970, My Experience of
15 Aggressive Warfare: Soldiers’ Testimonies 私の戦争体験記　侵略： 従軍兵士の証
言, Tokyo: Nihon seinen shuppansha.
16
[Includes three soldiers’ confessions: “Learning from Vivisection,” “Participating in Poison
17
Gas Operations,” and “Against Humanity: The Horror of Germ Bombs.” Revised and
18 reprinted in 1975 and 1982 by Nicchu shuppan (Tokyo).]
19 Nihon no senso sekinin siryo center (Centre for Research and Documentation on Japan’s
20 War Responsibilities) 日本の戦争責任資料センター 1993, Senso sekinin kenkyu
21 [Research on Japan’s War Responsibility], No. 2. “Special Edition, The Truth behind
22 Unit 731: The Shocking Germ Troops who Spread out across Asia 特集　731部隊の
23 実相に迫る： 全アジアに展開された戦慄の細菌戦部隊”.
24 Nihongun ni yoru saikinsen no rekishi jijitsu o akirakani suru kai (Association
25 of Investigation of Japanese Army’s Biological Warfare) 日本軍による細菌戦の歴史
26 事実を明らかにする会 ed. 1998, Ningbo, 1940: Biological Warfare in China’s Back
Yard 細菌戦が中国人民にもたらしたもの―1940年の寧波—, Tokyo: Akashi
27
shoten.
28
[Provides rich sources on biological warfare in Ningbo.]
29 Niki, Fumiko 仁木ふみ子 1995, Regarding Unit 731, in The Holocaust that Created a
30 No-man’s Land beside the Great Wall: The Tragedy of Xinglong Province 無人区長城
31 のホロコースト：興隆の悲劇, Tokyo: Aoki shoten, pp. 167–226.
32 Nikkan kankei o kirokusuru kai (Association of Documentation on Japan–Korean Relations)
33 日韓関係を記録する会 ed. 1979, Materials of Biological Warfare 資料細菌戦,
34 Tokyo: Banseisha.
35 Nishino, Rumiko 西野留美子 1995, A Study of Unit 1855 in Beijing 北京甲 一
36 八五五部隊の検証, Senso sekinin kenkyu [Report on Japan’s War Responsibility], 9:
37 46–53.
Nishiyama, Akira 西山明 1984, Documenting Vivisection: Patients’ Human Rights and
38
Medical Ethics ドキュメント生体実験： 患者の人権と医の倫理, Tokyo: Hihyosha,
39
pp. 208, 253–275, 378–379.
40 Nishizato, Fuyuko 西里扶甬子 1996a, The Still Unpunished Ishii Unit, Part 1: The Twin
41 Character of the Japanese–American Deal 裁かれなかった石井部隊 Part 1：日米取
42 引の二重構造, Senso sekinin kenkyu, 11: 80–87.
43 —— 1996b, The Still Unpunished Ishii Unit, Part 2: How Prisoners of the Allied Forces
44 Were Turned into Maruta 裁かれなかった石井部隊 Part 2: マルタにされた連合軍捕
45 虜, Senso sekinin kenkyu, 12: 80–87.
 222   Annotated bibliography
1 —— 1996c, The Testimony of Ishii Shiro, No.1: Ishii’s Eldest Daughter, Ishii Harumi 証言
2 石井四郎　その (1) 長女石井ハルミ, Akirakani suru kai, Tsushin.
3 —— 2002, Biological Army Unit 731: The Japanese Army’s War Crimes Exempted from
4 Prosecution by the United States 生物戦部隊七三一—— アメリカが免罪した日本軍
の戦争犯罪, Tokyo: Kusanone shuppan.
5
Noda, Masaaki 野田正彰 1998, War, Crime and Responsibility 戦争と罪責, Tokyo:
6
Iwanami shoten.
7 [Examines the unwillingness of Japanese to bear responsibility for crimes committed
8 during the Second World War. The author analyzes the process by which Yuasa Ken 湯
9 浅謙, a member of the Ishii network, gradually acquired a sense of guilt.]
0 Oga, Kazuo 大賀和男 1989, Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army (Germ Troops) 関東軍第七
11 三一（細菌戦） 部隊, in What Did the Japanese Army Do in China? 日本軍は中国で
12 何をしたのか, Fukuoka: Ashi shobo, pp. 56–71.
13 Omata, Waichiro 小俣和一郎 2003, Investigating Human Experimentation: Unit 731 and
14 Nazi Medical Science 検証　人体実験——731 部隊・ ナチ医学, Tokyo: Daisan
15 bunmeisha.
[A comparative study of atrocities committed by Unit 731 and Nazi medical researchers.]
16
Osanai, Hiroshi 小山内宏 1975, The Department of Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply
17
of the Kwantung Army – The Mystery behind the Name “関東軍防疫給水部”のナゾ,
18 in An Introduction to the Army’s Nakano School 陸軍中野学校入門, Tokyo: Nihon
19 bungeisha, pp. 93–100.
20 Ota, Masakatsu 太田昌克 1999, Exempting Unit 731 from Prosecution: Germ Troops
21 and Secret Files 731 免責の系譜： 細菌戦部隊と秘蔵のファイル, Tokyo: Nihon
22 hyoron sha.
23 —— 2001, Unit 731 and the Mystery behind its Exemption from Prosecution for War
24 Crimes 七三一部隊 “戦犯免責” の謎, Rekishi tokuhon, January 733: 158–163.
25 Ozaki, Kimiko 尾崎祈美子 1997, Nightmare Heritage: Consequences of Biological
26 Warfare in Hiroshima, Taiwan and China 悪夢の遺産,——毒ガス戦の果てに～ヒロ
シマ～台湾～中国 Tokyo: Gakuyo shobon.
27
Pollitzer, R. 1941, A report dated December 30 by Austrian Doctor R., an epidemiologist
28
with the National Health Administration, containing a detailed investigation of the
29 outbreak of plague in Changde, Hunan Province. Available in Kondo 2003.
30 Powell, John W. 1981, Japan’s Biological Weapons: 1930–1945, A Hidden Chapter in
31 History. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 37, 8: 44–52.
32 [This article, based on declassified top secret reports, reveals that the United States
33 guaranteed Ishii and his colleagues immunity from war crime prosecution in order to
34 obtain their research results.]
35 Qinhua rijun 731 budui zuizheng chenlieguan (Museum of Unit 731 Evidence) 侵华日军
36 七三一部队罪证陈列馆 ed. 2005, Unit 731: A Japanese Biological Warfare Unit in
37 China 侵华日军关东军七三一细菌部队, Beijing: Wuzhou chuanbo chubanshe.
[A bilingual (Chinese and English) publication including a large number of
38
photo-graphs.]
39
Qiu, Mingxuan 邱明轩 1999, Proof of Crime: Japanese Army’s Biological Warfare
40 Campaign in Quzhou 罪证： 侵华日军衢州细菌战史实, Beijing: Zhongguo sanxia
41 chubanshe.
42 Quzhoushi weishengzhi bangongshi 衢州市卫生志办公室 1991, The Plague Epidemic
43 and Prevention Efforts 衢州鼠疫流行状況和防治工作, in Zhengxie Zhejiang
44 Quzhoushi weiyuanhui 政协浙江衢州市委员会, ed., Historical Documents of
45 Quzhou No. 9 衢州文史资料 第九辑.
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1 Ran, Weijun 冉炜君 2005, The Devil’s Tank: Investigating Victims of Japanese Biological
2 Warfare in Inner Mongolia 魔鬼的战车——内蒙古侵华日军细菌战受害者调查,
3 Beijing: Kunlun chubanshe.
4 Renmin ribao (People’s Daily) 人民日報 1950 年, Huade Hospital Chief of Changde,
5 Hunan, Witnessed Japanese Spreading Plague by Airplane which Caused Many
Deaths’ 湖南常徳華徳医院院長證明　日冦曽用飛機散布鼠疫 常 徳地区很多同
6
胞因此死亡, February 5.
7
Rikugun Guni gakko boekigaku kyoshitu (Department of Epidemics Prevention, Military
8 Medical School) 陸軍軍医学校防疫学教室 ed. 1939–1941, Research Reports of the
9 Military Medical School 陸軍軍医学校防疫研究報告, Vols 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, in
0 Top-secret Documents from the 15-year War 十 五 年 戦 争 極 秘
11 資料集, Tokyo: Fuji shuppan, Vol. 23, Nos 1–8, 2004–2005.
12 [These reports document the research work conducted by the Ishii network.]
13 Rong, Qirong 容啓栄 1942, Report on the Prevention of Plague in West Hunan Province
14 (防治湘西鼠疫経過報告書).
15 [Estimates the number of victims in Changde in Hunan Province affected by the Japanese
16 spreading of plague bacteria. Available in Matsumura 1997a.]
Saito, Mitsunori 斉藤充功 1987, A Secret War: Documenting the Army’s Noborito Research
17
Institute 謀略戦—ドキュメント陸軍登戸研究所, Tokyo: Jiji tsushinsha, pp. 125,
18
154–155, 215–219, 227. Revised edn published in 2001 by Gakushu kenkyusha
19 (Tokyo).
20 Sanders, Murray 1945, Report by Murray Sanders, November 1.
21 [Details the postwar investigation of Unit 731 by the U.S. Available in Kondo 2003.]
22 Sass, Hans-Martin 2003, Ambiguities in Judging Cruel Human Experimentation: Arbitrary
23 American Responses to German and Japanese Experiments. Eubios Journal of Asian
24 and International Bioethics, 13: 102–104.
25 Seki, Ryo 関亮1988 (new edn 1998), The Department of Epidemic Prevention and Water
26 Supply 防疫給水部, Cholera and the Expeditionary Force to Shanghai 上海派遣軍と
27 コレラ, Balloon Bombs and Bacteria Bombs 風船爆弾と細菌弾, in Stories of Medical
Surgeons 軍医サンよもやま物語, Tokyo: Kojinsha.
28
Seki, Seiwa 関成和 et al. eds 2000, The Village Destroyed by Unit 731: A Social History of
29
Pingfang 七三一部隊がやってきた村—平房の社会史, Tokyo: Kochi shobo.
30 [A historical and anthropological study of the impact of Unit 731 on Pingfang.]
31 Senba, Yoshikiyo 仙波嘉清 1963, The Vivisection Incident 生体解剖事件, Tokyo: Kongo
32 shuppan.
33 [Describes the vivisection conducted at Kyushu University, including the participants’
34 belief that the American pilots had been sentenced to death.]
35 Sha, Dongxun 沙东迅 1995, Exposing Unit 8604: The Biological Warfare
36 Campaign Carried out in Guangdong Province by the Japanese Army in China
37 揭开“8 6 0 4” 之谜： 侵华日军在粤秘密进行细菌战大暴光, Guangzhou: Huacheng
38 chubanshe.
Shen, Mingxian 沈铭贤 2005, Retrospection on Unit 731 after More than Half a Century
39
731 部队—半个多世紀后的反思. Yixue yu zhexue, pp. 32–34.
40
Shibata, Shingo 芝田進午 1997, People Associated with Unit 731 Prohibited from Entering
41 the US: The Hidden Reason「七三一」関係者入国禁止： その隠された真の意味.
42 Ronza, 27: 76–81.
43 —— 1998, Ethics and Responsibilities of Medical Personnel: Unresolved Medical War
44 Crimes 医学者の倫理と責任： 「医学者」の戦争犯罪の未決済と戦後被害, in
45 Kenichiro Yamaguchi 山口研一郎, ed., Managing Life and Death: From the Beginning
 224   Annotated bibliography
1 of Life to the End 操られる生と死： 生命の誕生から終焉まで, Tokyo: Shogakukan,
2 pp. 205–242.
3 [Reveals how some key members of Unit 731 took up important positions after the war
4 including senior posts in Japanese medical schools and the National Preventative
5 Hygiene Research Institute.]
Shimamura, Kyo 島村喬 1967 (revised edn 1981), Human Experiments Carried out on
6
Three Thousand People: The Secret Biological Weapon Research Institute of the
7
Kwantung Army 三千人の生体実験： 関東軍謎の細菌秘密兵器研究所, Tokyo:
8 Hara shobo.
9 Shimozato, Masaki 下里正樹 1985, Between Evil and Humanity: Interviews with Former
0 Members of Unit 731 悪魔と人の間：「七三一部隊」取材紀行, Osaka: Nihon
11 kikanshi shuppan senta.
12 Shinozuka, Yoshio and Takayanagi, Michiko 篠塚良雄, 高柳美知子, 2004, There Was Also
13 a War in Japan: Confessions of a Former Junior Member of Unit 731 日本にも戦争が
14 あった：七三一部隊元少年隊員の告白, Tokyo: Shinnihon shuppansha.
15 Sun, Jinshi and Ni, Weixiong 孫金鉐, 倪維熊, 1963, The Outbreak and Spread of Plague
16 in Ningbo 寧波鼠疫的発生和経過. Reprinted in Ningbo Historical Record 寧波文
史資料, 2, October 1984.
17
Takahashi, Masae 高橋正衛 ed. 1982, Documents Relating to Ishii’s Unit 731 石井部隊
18
（第七三一部隊）関係文書, Modern Historical Documents, Supplementary Series
19 (No. 6): The Military Police 続 ・ 現代史資料 (6) 軍事警察, Tokyo: Misuzu shobo,
20 pp. lii–lx, 627–636. Reprinted in 1996 and 2004.
21 Takahashi, Taketomo 高橋武智 1997, Acknowledging the Crimes of Unit 731 in Post-war
22 Japan 七三一部隊の犯罪は戦後日本でどのように認識されるようになったか, Nihon
23 shakai bungaku 日本社会文学, ed., Modern Japan and Manchuria 近代日本と 「偽満
24 州国」 , Tokyo: Fuji shuppan, pp. 161–165.
25 Takana, Tomi 高名トミ 1982, The Devil’s Gluttony – A Nurse’s Testimony「悪魔の飽食」
26 看護婦の証言, Fujin koron, February.
27 [Records how 40 members of Unit 731 infected with disease were killed with potassium
cyanide during the Unit’s withdrawal from Manchuria.]
28
Takasugi, Ichiro 高杉一郎 1996, Unit 731 and the Wolves 七三一部隊と 狼！狼！狼, in
29
Memories of Returned Soldiers 征きて還りし兵の記憶, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
30 pp. 286–293. Reprinted in 2002.
31 Takasugi, Shingo 高杉晋吾 1973, How Science Turned to Slaughter「科学」 を「虐殺」 にみ
32 ちびくもの, in Japan’s Human Experiment: Concept and Organization 日本の人体実
33 験： その思想と構造, Tokyo: Mikasa shobo, pp. 192–194, 201, 205, 272–273,
34 305, 309.
35 —— 1974, The War Responsibility of Medical Personnel 医者の戦争責任, in The State
36 and the Will to Slaughter: the Time of State Security and Mass Killing 国家と殺意
37 保安処分＝管理と虐殺の時代, Tokyo: Tabata shoten, pp. 282–292.
38 ——  1982a, Pursuing the Doctors of Unit 731: the Continuing Horror of Human
Experimentation 七三一部隊細菌戦の医師を追え——今も続く恐怖の人体実験,
39
Tokyo: Tokuma shoten.
40
—— 1982b, Unit 731: Survivors’ Testimonies to the Three Great Outbreaks of Biological
41 Warfare 七三一部隊　三大細菌戦の生き証人, Shio, 284: 258–280.
42 —— 1984, Investigating the Japanese Auschwitz 日本のアウシュウィッツを追って, Tokyo:
43 Kyoiku shiryo shuppankai.
44 Takeda, Eiko 武田英子 1987, Human Experimentation Using Poison Gas 毒ガスの生体
45 実験, The Island that Disappeared from the Map: Okuno Island as a Poison Gas
 Annotated bibliography   225
1 Factory 地図から消された島：大久野島　毒ガス工場, Tokyo: Domesu shuppan,
2 pp. 105–112.
3 Takehana, Kyoitsu 竹花香逸 1991, A Young Man’s Record of Army Life among Fleas, Rats
4 and Pest Bacteria ノミと鼠とペスト菌を見てきた話：ある若者の従軍記, Hamamatsu:
5 the author.
[Describes the author’s experiences of breeding lice and rats at Unit 9420 in Singapore.]
6
Takidani Jiro 滝谷二郎 1989, Confessions by Biological Warfare Troops from the
7
Factory of Death: Unit 731 殺戮工廠 ・ 七三一部隊　発見された細菌部隊兵士の
8 告白調書, Tokyo: Niimori shobo.
9 [A collection of confessions by members of the Ishii Network which have been widely
0 quoted.]
11 Tamura, Yoshio 田村良雄 1982, Biological Warfare: Atrocities of Unit 731 細菌戦： 七三
12 一部隊の蛮行, ed. Chugoku kikansha renrakukai, new edn, The Three-All Policy,
13 Volume 1: What the Japanese Did in China 新編三光　第１集　中国で日本人は何
14 をしたか, Tokyo: Kobunsha, pp. 27–48.
15 [The author’s testimony has been widely quoted. Reprinted in 1985 under the new title
16 完全版　三光.]
Tan, Xuehua 譚学華 1942, Discovering the Plague in Changde, Hunan: A Summary of
17
Dr. Tan Xuehua’s Letter 湖南常徳発見鼠疫経過（譚学華医師来函摘要）, Xiangya
18
yixueyuan yuankan, March.
19 Tan, Yuanheng 谭元享 2005, Japanese Army’s Biological Warfare Campaign: The Black
20 Unit 8604 日军细菌战： 黒色 “波字8604,” Guangzhou: Nanfang ribao chubanshe.
21 [Deals with the death of over 100,000 people as a result of biological warfare in
22 Guangzhou.]
23 Tanaka, Akira and Eda, Izumi 田中明, 江田いづみ 1989, Current Research on Unit 731 by
24 Chinese Scholars「七三一」部隊の研究における中国人研究者の動向について.
25 Mita gakkai zasshi, October, 83, 3.
26 Tanaka, Akira and Matsumura, Takao 田中明, 松村高夫 eds 1991, Documents from Unit
27 731 七三一部隊作成資料, Tokyo: Fuji shuppan.
[A collection of studies by medical scientists from Unit 731 on human experimentation.]
28
Tanaka, Toshiyuki 1988, The Story Japan Would Like to Forget: Japan’s Secret Poison Gas
29
Complex. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 44, 8: 10–19.
30 Tanaka, Yuki 1996, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II, Boulder, CO:
31 Westview Press.
32 Tatsumi, Tomoji 辰巳知司 1993, Okuno Island and Unit 731 大久野島と七三一部隊, in
33 Evidence from the Secret Island of Poison Gas in Hiroshima Prefecture 隠され
34 てきた 「ヒロシマ」 毒ガス島からの告発, Tokyo: Nihon hyoronsha, pp. 102–107.
35 Thomas, Michael 2003a, Ethical Lessons of the Failure to Bring the Japanese Doctors to
36 Justice. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 13: 104–106.
37 —— 2003b, Let’s Deal with the Issue: Commentary on Leavitt. Eubios Journal of Asian
38 and International Bioethics, 13: 166–167.
Thompson, Arvo, 1945, Report by Arvo Thompson, May 31.
39
[Describes postwar investigation of Unit 731 by the U.S. Available in Kondo 2003.]
40
Tong, Zhenyu 佟振宇 1998, The Japanese Invasion of China and Japan’s Crimes of
41 Biological Warfare 日本侵华与细菌战罪行录, Harbin: Harbin chubanshe.
42 Tono, Toshio 東野利夫 1979, Disgrace: The Truth behind the Vivisection at Kyushu
43 University 汚名「九大生体解剖事件」 の真相, Tokyo: Bungei shunju.
44 [A participant of the vivisection of eight American pilots describes the incident and the
45 trial.]
 226   Annotated bibliography
1 Torii, Yasushi 鳥居靖 1999, Thoughts on the Ruling on the Lawsuit regarding Unit 731,
2 Nanjing Massacre and Indiscriminate Bombing 七三一部隊 ・ 南京虐殺 ・ 無差別
3 空爆事件訴訟の判決に思う, Senso sekinin, November, 2, 3: 60–71.
4 Tsuchiya, Takashi 2000, Why Japanese Doctors Performed Human Experiments in China
5 1933–1945. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 10: 179–280.
—— 2003a, In the Shadow of the Past Atrocities: Research Ethics with Human Subjects
6
in Contemporary Japan. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 13:
7
100–102.
8 —— 2003b, A Reply to Leavitt’s Commentary. Eubios Journal of Asian and International
9 Bioethics, 13: 167–168.
0 —— 2008, The Imperial Japanese Experiments in China. Ezekiel Emanuel, et al. eds. The
11 Oxford Textbook of Clinical Research Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12 pp. 31–45.
13 Tsuneishi, Keiichi 常石敬一 1981, The Germ Warfare Troops that Vanished: Unit 731 of
14 the Kwantung Army 消えた細菌戦部隊： 関東軍第七三一部隊, Tokyo: Kaimeisha.
15 [This pioneering historical study documents the development of Unit 731, and is based on
16 primary sources and court documents as well as on studies by medical researchers
from the Ishii network. A new edition was published in 1989 and reprinted in 1993 by
17
Chikuma shobo (Tokyo).]
18
—— 1984, Targeting Ishii: Unit 731 and the American Army’s Intelligence Service 標的 ・
19 イシイ： 七三一部隊と米軍諜報活動, Tokyo: Otsuki shoten.
20 [A translation of reports by American researchers on Unit 731, including the Sanders
21 report, the Thompson report, and secret documents held by the U.S. Army’s GHQ and
22 the Department of Army.]
23 —— 1985, Scientists and War: Is Clandestine Research Efficient? 科学者と戦争 ： 秘密
24 研究は効率的か. Sekai, September, 479: 93–102.
25 —— 1990, Japanese Medical Scholarship and Unit 731 日本医学アカデミズムと七三一
26 部隊, Tokyo: Guni gakko atochi de hakkensareta jinkotsu mondai o kyumeisuru kai.
27 Reprinted in 1993 by Kinohana sha (Tokyo).
—— 1992, The Dead Bones Speak: Reading Sakura’s Report 骨は告発する ： 佐倉鑑
28
定を読む, Tokyo: Guni gakko atochi de hakken sareta jinkotsu mondai o
29
kyumeisuru kai.
30 —— 1994a, Organized Crimes by Medical Researchers: Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army
31 医学者たちの組織犯罪： 関東軍第七三一部隊, Tokyo: Asahi shimbunsha.
32 [Based on historical documents and four reports compiled by American military scientists,
33 this book presents a detailed picture of Unit 731. Underlines the lack of self-reflection
34 by the Japanese medical establishment, and the futility of their experiments.]
35 ——  1994b, The Researchers of Unit 731 第七三一部隊を利用した研究者たち,
36 Shigeru Nakayama 中山茂 and Yoshioka Hitoshi 吉岡斉, eds, A Social History of
37 Post-War Science and Technology 戦後科学技術の社会史, Tokyo: Asahi shimbunsha,
38 pp. 36–39.
—— 1995, Unit 731: The Truth about Biological Weapons and Crimes 七三一部隊： 生物
39
兵器犯罪の真実, Tokyo: Kodansha.
40
[17th reprint, 2005. Describes the experiments performed by Unit 731 and the use of the
41 biochemical bombs and recording the voices of victims’ families.]
42 —— 1998, Medical Research and War: Questions to Medical Establishment 医学と戦争
43 いま、医学界に問われていること, in Saito Takao 斉藤孝雄 and Koyama Arifumi
44 神山有史, eds, Lectures on Bioethics 生命倫理学講義, Tokyo: Nihon hyoronsha,
45 pp. 189–216.
 Annotated bibliography   227
1 [Describes the mentality of military doctors during the war as background to the medical
2 atrocities of the Ishii network.]
3 —— 2002a, Crossroads of Conspiracy: An Investigation into the Imperial Bank Incident and
4 Unit 731 謀略のクロスロード—帝銀事件捜査と731部隊, Tokyo: Nihon hyoronsha.
[An analysis of the investigation documents (“Kai Notes”) on the Imperial Bank incident. The
5
author confirms that in 1948 the Japanese police already knew about human experiments
6
performed by the Ishii network and its exemption from prosecution by the U.S.]
7 —— 2002b, Biological Weapons and Unit 731 of Japanese Army 細菌兵器と日本軍七三
8 一部隊, in Hata Ikuhiko, Sase Masamori and Tsuneishi, Keiichi 秦郁彦, 佐瀬昌盛,
9 常石敬一, eds, Encyclopedia of War Crimes in Modern History 世界戦争犯罪事典,
0 Tokyo: Bungei shunju, pp. 93–106.
11 —— 2005a, Epidemiology of the Battlefield 戦場の疫学, Tokyo: Kaimeisha.
12 [Examines the outbreak of plague in Shinkyo (today’s Changchun) and Unit 731’s role.
13 Also describes the U.S.’s exemption of the Ishii network from prosecution in exchange
14 for experimental data. The author discovers that while information about victims was
15 not recorded, details were kept about Japanese who died following medical treatment
and were later dissected.]
16
—— 2005b, New Facts about US Payoff to Japan’s Biological Warfare Unit 731. Japan
17
Focus. The Asian Pacific Journal, August 15.
18 —— 2007, Unit 731 and the Human Skulls Discovered in 1989: Physicians Carrying Out
19 Organized Crimes, in William R. LaFleur et al., eds, Dark Medicine: Rationalizing
20 Unethical Medical Research, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
21 Tsuneishi, Keiichi and Asano, Tomizo 常石敬一, 朝野富三 1982, Germ Warfare Troops
22 and Two Medical Researchers who Committed Suicide 細菌戦部隊と自決した二人の
23 医学者, Tokyo: Shinchosha.
24 [A documentary novel of a former lieutenant general and an associate professor from Tokyo
25 Imperial University who committed suicide because of their consciousness of the
26 atrocities.]
Ura, Naoto 浦直人1981, The Enemy is in the Bush: The War Record of the Special Water
27
Supply Unit テキは薮の中に在り—特殊部隊「給水班」 モテモテ奮戦記, Tokyo:
28
Sairyusha.
29 Utsumi, Aiko 内海愛子 et al. eds 1992, Questions about the Human Bones Discovered at
30 the Site of the Military Medical College 軍医学校跡地で発見された人骨問題, in
31 Handbook of Post-war Reparations ハンドブック戦後補償, Tokyo: Nashi no ki sha,
32 pp. 108–113.
33 Wada, Juro 和田十郎 1995, The First and Last Veterans of the Japanese Army, from the
34 Soviet Invasion to Demobilization: A Record of Unit 731 日本陸軍最初と最後の
35 復員　ソ連軍侵攻から復員まで： 七三一部隊の記録, Toyoura, Yamaguchi
36 prefecture: self-published.
37 [Wada shows that the demobilization of Unit 731 was given top priority. Members and their
families were the first to return to Japan in the closing stages of the war.]
38
Wang, Guodong 王国栋 ed. 2005, Japan’s Biological Warfare Criminals: Documents of the
39
Khabarovsk Trials 日本细菌战战犯 伯力审判实录, Changsha: Hunan renmin
40 chubanshe. A reprint of the Chinese version of the Khabarovsk Trial 1950.
41 Wang, Shiheng 王詩恒 1942, Report on the Plague in Changte and Measures for its
42 Control, July 20. Available in Kondo 2003.
43 Wang, Zhengyu 汪正宇, 1942, Inspection of Goods Dropped by Enemy Airplanes 敵機於常
44 徳首次投擲物品検験経過, in Chongqing yiyao jishu zhuanke xuexiao Yiji tongxun
45 重慶医薬技術専科学校 「医技通訊」 , December. Available in Matsumura 1997a.
 228   Annotated bibliography
1 Watanabe, Toshihiko 渡辺利彦 1993, Unit 731 and Nagata Tetsuzan 七三一部隊と永田
2 鉄山, in Chuo daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyusho 中央大學人文科學研究所, The
3 Japan-Chinese War 日中戦争, Tokyo: Chuo daigaku shuppanbu, pp. 275–302.
4 Williams, Peter and Wallace, David 1985, Unit 731: Did the Emperor Know?, London:
5 Television South.
[This television documentary examines the work of Unit 731, includes interviews with
6
former prisoners who were used in experiments, and investigates why the perpetrators
7
remained unprosecuted after the war.]
8 ——  1989, Unit 731: The Japanese Army’s Secret of Secrets, London: Hodder &
9 Stoughton.
0 [Mostly based on research by Tsuneishi Keiichi and Asano Tomizo and materials from the
11 U.S., Britain, Japan, and the Soviet Union. It documents biological weapons developed
12 by the Allied forces and the postwar deals struck between Japan and the U.S.
13 The many interviews include one with Ishii Shiro’s daughter. Translated into Japanese
14 by F. Nishizato and published as 七三一部隊の生物兵器とアメリカ—バイオテロの系
15 譜 in 2003 by Kamogawa shuppan (Kyoto). Also translated into Chinese by T. Wu as
16 七三一部隊 and published by Guoshiguan (Taipei) in 1992. The American edition,
published by Free Press in 1989, omitted Chapter 17 on the Korean War which alleged
17
that American forces had used biological weapons.]
18
Wu, Tianwei, Hu, Hualing, and Sun, Yingzhe 吳天威, 胡華玲, 孫英哲 1995, Special
19 Issue: Unit 731: Japan’s Biological Warfare Campaign Against China 侵華日軍七三
20 一細菌部隊專集. Journal for the Study of Japanese Aggression against China 日本
21 侵華研究, 21 and 22.
22 [Includes primary sources and secondary studies in both Chinese and English.]
23 Wu, Yongming 吴永明 2005, Crimes under Hinomaru: Exposing Japanese Army’s
24 Bacteriological Warfare Campaign in Shangrao 太阳旗下的罪恶： 侵华日军上饶细
25 菌战揭密, Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe.
26 Xie, Zhonghou, Zhang, Ruizhi, and Tian, Susu 谢忠厚, 张瑞智, 田苏苏 ed. 2005, Archival
27 Materials on Crimes Carried out by the Japanese Army in China, No. 5 – Germ
Warfare 日本侵略华北罪行档案 5, 细菌战, Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe.
28
Xinhua shishi congkanshe 新華時事叢刊社 ed. 1950, Justice on Trial: Japanese Biological
29
War Crimes before the Soviet Courts 正義的審訊： 蘇聯審訊日本細菌戰犯案經過,
30 Shanghai: Xinhua shudian.
31 [Selected documents from the Khabarovsk Trial.]
32 Xing, Qi and Chen, Daya 邢祁, 陳大雅 eds 1995, 1941, Calamity: The Bacteriological War
33 in Changde 辛巳劫難：一九四一年常徳細菌戦紀実, Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang
34 dangxiao chubanshe.
35 Xu, Jielin 許介鱗 1984, The Japanese Biochemical Unit in China 在中国的日本化学細菌
36 戦部隊, in Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo 中央研究院近代史研究所,
37 ed., A Symposium on Nation-building during the First Ten Years of the Anti-Japanese
38 War, Vol. 2 抗日前十年国家建設史研討会論文集 (下), Taipei: Zhongyang
yanjiuyuan jindashi yanjiusuo.
39
Xu, Wenfang 徐文芳 1986, The Linkou Branch of Unit 731 of the Japanese Army in China
40
侵華日軍第七三一部隊 ・ 林口支隊, in Zhengxie Heilongjiangsheng weiyuanhui 政
41 協黒竜江省委員会, ed., Historical Documents of Heilongjiang, Volume 22 黒龍江文
42 史資料第二十二辑, Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe.
43 Yamada, Seizaburo 山田清三郎 1973, The Final Statement 最終陳述, in A Record
44 of Internment in the Soviet Union ソビエト抑留紀行, Tokyo: Toho suppansha,
45 pp. 169 – 210.
 Annotated bibliography   229
1 [An account of a Japanese prisoner held in Khabarovsk who confessed to involvement in
2 human experiments.]
3 —— 1974, Documentary Novel: Bacteriological Warfare on Trial 記録小説　細菌戦軍
4 事裁判, Tokyo: Toho shuppansha, 1974.
[Based on Khabarovsk Trial documents and the author’s experience as editor for the
5
magazine Nihon shimbun, published for the Japanese interned in the Soviet Union
6
after the war.]
7 Yamaguchi, Kenichiro 山口研一郎 1995, Medical Crimes in History: Unit 731 and Nazi
8 Medical Science 医療の歴史的犯罪　七三一部隊とナチスの医学, in A Waste of Life
9 – The Destructive Side of Modern Medicine 生命をもてあそぶ現代の医療, Tokyo:
0 Shakai hyoronsha, pp.178–211.
11 [Describes the crimes of Unit 731 and shows its mentality remained a part of the medical
12 society after the War.]
13 Yang, Yulin and Xin, Peilin 杨玉林, 辛培林 eds. 2002, Biological Warfare 细菌战, Harbin:
14 Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe.
15 [Includes studies from China and Japan and testimonies of how the biological warfare was
conducted in China.]
16
Yang, Yulin, Xin, Peilin, and Diao, Naili 杨玉林, 辛培林, 刁乃莉 2004, Tracking Down the
17
“Special Transportation” used by the Kwantung Army: An Investigation of Human
18 Experimentation in Japanese Bacteriological Warfare 日本关东宪兵队” 特别输送”
19 追踪 ：日军细菌战人体试验罪证调查, Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe.
20 Yoshifusa, Torao 吉房虎雄 1957, “Special Transportation”: Experiments with Biological
21 Weapons 特移扱 ： 細菌実験, in Kanki Haruo 神吉晴夫, ed., The Three-All Policy:
22 Confessions of Japanese War Criminals in China 三光　日本人の中国における戦争
23 犯罪の告白, Tokyo: Kobunsha, pp. 27–37.
24 [Revised and reprinted in 1958, 1982, and 1984 by Shindokushosha (Tokyo) with a new
25 title 侵略—中国における日本戦犯の告白.]
26 Yoshikai, Natsuko 吉開那津子 1981 (reprinted 1993, 1996), Memories that Cannot be
Erased: A Record of Vivisection by Military Doctor Yuasa 消せない記憶 ： 湯浅軍医
27
生体解剖の記録, Tokyo: Nicchu shuppan.
28
Yoshimi, Yoshiaki and Iko, Toshiya 吉見義明, 伊香俊哉 1995, Links between Unit 731, the
29 Emperor and the Army Command 七三一部隊と天皇 ・ 陸軍中央 , Tokyo: Iwanami
30 shoten.
31 [Based on diaries kept by army chiefs, this booklet reveals that the use of poison gas and
32 biological weapons by Unit 731 would not have been possible without the assent of
33 Emperor Hirohito.]
34 Yoshimi, Yoshiaki and Matsuno, Seiya 吉見義明, 松野誠也 1997, Documents on Poison
35 Gas Warfare Vol. 2, 毒ガス戦関係資料 II, Tokyo: Fuji shuppan.
36 Yoshimura, Akira 吉村昭 1970, Bacteria 細菌, Tokyo: Kodansha.
37 [A documentary novel of Japanese biological warfare and human experimentation by Unit
731. It was retitled Fleas and Bombs 蚤と爆弾 and reprinted in 1975 by Kodansha and
38
in 1989 by Bungei shunju (Tokyo).]
39
Yoshinaga, Haruko 吉永春子 1976a, Ishii’s Germ Troops: Thirty Years after the War 石井
40 細菌戦部隊の戦後三〇年. Shokun, September 8, 9.
41 ——  1976b, The Bruise – The Terror of Unit 731 ある傷痕 ・ 魔の七三一部隊. A
42 documentary programme screened on November 2, 1976 and June 29, 1982 by the
43 Tokyo Broadcasting System.
44 [Based on her interviews with former Unit 731 members and other relevant individuals in
45 Japan and the U.S.]
 230   Annotated bibliography
1 ——  1982, Experiments on Human Subjects – Testimonies from Ishii’s Germ Troops
2 「石井細菌戦部隊」 被験者の証言. Shokun, 14, 9.
3 [The author describes her interviews with Ishii network members and American
4 investigators.]
—— 2001, Tracking Down the Leaders of Unit 731 七三一追撃 ・ そのとき幹部達は,
5
Tokyo: Chikuma shobo.
6
[Presents interviews with participants in the medical atrocities and also tells the process of
7 making the 1976 documentary.]
8 Yoshimura, Hisato 吉村寿人 1984, A Retrospection of his 77 Years 喜寿回顧, privately
9 published.
0 [The author is well known for his frostbite experiments on human subjects. He writes: “The
11 experiments I did were not so cruel,” although “Ishii’s unit was like hell to me, and I
12 was tormented there.”]
13 Zhang, Limei 张丽梅 2006, Research during the Past Decade on Japanese Army’s
14 Biological Warfare Campaign in China 近 10 年侵华日军细菌战研究综述. Beihua
15 daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban), 4.
Zhang, Shixin 張世欣 ed. 1999, The Japanese Army’s Bacteriological Warfare Crimes
16
in Chongshan Village of Zhejiang Province: Demanding Compensation as Victims’
17
Rights 浙江省崇山村侵华日军细菌战罪行史实—受害索赔，崇山人的正当权利,
18 Hangzhou: Zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe.
19 Zhang, Zhiqiang and Zhao, Yujie 张志强，赵玉洁 2003, Research on “Special
20 Transportation”: Sourcing Unit 731’s Human Subjects “特別移送” 研究 ： 侵华日军
21 七三一部队人体实验材料之源, Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe.
22 Zhongguo Heilongjiangshen danganguan (Heilongjiang Prefecture Archive) 中国黑龙江
23 省档案馆 et al. eds 2001, Irrefutable Evidence on Unit 731: Archival Documents
24 Regarding the “Special Transportation” used by Gendarmerie of the Kwantung Army
25 “七三一”部队罪行铁证——关东宪兵队“特殊输送” 档案, Harbin: Heilongjiang
26 renmin chubanshe.
[Includes two volumes, the first in Chinese and the second in Japanese.]
27
Zhongguo Jilinshen danganguan (Jilin Prefecture Archive) 中国吉林省档案馆 et al. eds
28
2003, Irrefutable Evidence on Unit 731: Selected Archival Documents on “Special
29 Transportation and Epidemic Prevention” “七三一” 部队罪行铁证–特别移送. 防疫
30 档案选编, Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe.
31 Zhongyang danganguan (China Central Archive) 中央档案馆 et al. eds 1989, Selected
32 Archival Documents on the Invasion of China by the Japanese Imperialists:
33 Bacteriological and Poison Gas Warfare 日本帝国主义侵华档案资料选编：细菌战
34 与毒气战, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
35 [This major Chinese publication based on archival documents has been translated into
36 Japanese by K. Eda et al, and published in 1991 to 1992 by Dobunkan (Tokyo).
37 Witness to Vivisection: War Crimes of the Former Japanese Army 証言生体解剖 ：
旧日本軍の戦争犯罪; Witness to Human Experiments: Unit 731 and its Wider
38
Network 証言人体実験 ： 七三一部隊とその周辺; Witness to Biological Warfare: The
39
Origins of Biochemical Weapons 証言細菌作戦 ：BC 兵器の原点.]
40
41
42
43
44
45
1
2 Appendixes
3
4
5
Compiled by Suzy Wang
6
7
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9
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11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
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22
23
24
25
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31
32
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34
35
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37
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43
44
45
A  The experiments conducted under the Third Reich and Imperial Japan1 and postwar use of such data
WARTIME / TOTALITARIAN WARTIME / TOTALITARIAN
REGIME (FASCISM) REGIME (MILITARISM)

NAZI GERMANY (and conquered territories) IMPERIAL JAPAN (and conquered territories) 1932–1945

A. Medico-military September 1939– Lost (mustard) gas experiments, A. Medico-military Infectious disease experiments – First at Unit 731,
research April 1945 (various Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler, research then also at the various subunits that were created as
times between dates) and other concentration camps Japan conquered more lands and was faced with
more tropical diseases. The subjects were then
vivisected and the organs conditions recorded.:
December 1941– Spotted fever/Typhus
February 1945 (Fleckfieber) experiments,
Buchenwald, Natzweiler and
other concentration camps
February 1942– Malaria experiments, Dachau Botulism, Brucellosis, Cholera, Dysentry, Gas
April 1945 concentration camp gangrene, Glanders, Influenza, Meningococcus,
Salmonella, Smallpox, Tetanus, Tick encephalitis,
Tuberculosis, Tularemia, Typhoid epidemic,
Hemorrhagic fever, Tsutsugamushi fever, Plague,
Anthrax, Streptococcus bacteria (Navy
experiments)
March 1942– High-altitude experiments,
August 1942 Dachau concentration camp
July 1942– Sulfanilamide experiments, Freezing experiments
September 1943 Ravensbrueck
concentration camp
August 1942– Freezing experiments, High-altitude experiments
May 1943 Dachau concentration camp
September 1942– Bone, muscle, and nerve Poison experiments
December 1943 regeneration and bone
transplantation experiments,
Ravensbrueck concentration camp
 June 1943– Epidemic jaundice experiments, Fugu (blowfish) toxin, snake poison
January 1945 Sachsenhausen and Natzweiler Artificial blood substitutes
concentration camps
July 1944– Sea-water experiments, Diary entries: Experiments using tourniquets (Navy
September 1944 Dachau concentration camp experiments)
Dates unclear Tuberculosis experiments, 30 January 1943 Field tests – Most were conducted on civilians in
Bullenhauser Dam Shanghai, Ninpo, Nanking, Kantong, Hunan,
Zhejiang but preliminary testing was conducted at
Unit 100 on prisoners tied to a stake to test bomb
wounds.
Dates unclear Phosgene gas experiments, 23 February 1943
Fort Ney, Strassburg, France
Robert Peaty (senior officer at Muken Camp)
“Everyone received a 5 cc Typhoid-paratyphoid A
inoculation.”
“Funeral service for 142 dead. 186 have died in 5
days, all Americans.”
B. Miscellaneous, November 1943– Incendiary bomb experiments, C. Medical Sterilization of lepers
ad hoc experiments January 1944 Buchenwald concentration camp Institutions
December 1943– Experiments with poison, Vivisections – for training newly employed army
October 1944 Buchenwald concentration camp surgeons in the various Army hospitals in China
to teach them how to treat wounded soldiers in the
field (appendectomies, tracheotomies, bullet
extraction, amputation, etc.).
C. Racially March 1941– Sterilization experriments,
motivated January 1945 Auschwitz, Ravensbrueck, and
other concentration camps
experiments
Dates unclear Artificial insemination
experiments, Auschwitz,
Block 10
Dates unclear Twin experiments, Auschwitz
1943 Jewish skeleton collection,
Natzweiller-Struhof concentration
camp → Strassburg University
(Continued)
A  The experiments conducted under the Third Reich and Imperial Japan and postwar use of such data (Continued)
WARTIME / TOTALITARIAN WARTIME / TOTALITARIAN
REGIME (FASCISM) REGIME (MILITARISM)

NAZI GERMANY (and conquered territories) IMPERIAL JAPAN (and conquered territories) 1932–1945

             United States

Dates Material used Material used by Results
Use of Nazi/ Immediate Unit 731 data collected as a result of U.S. Military (it is believed that information Immunity from
Japan’s BW Data postwar 14 years of human experimentation gathered was utilized during the Korean War) prosecution offered to the
doctors/researchers
1980s Alexander Report on the hypothermia Dr. Robert Pozos, Director of Hypothermia Publication denied by the
experiments at Dachau Laboratory at the University of Minnesota of New England Journal of
Medicine at Duluth Medicine
1986 Collection at the Vogt Institute of the Dr. Berhard Bogerts presented findings of Warning to Bogerts, 2
Brain Research in Dusseldorf schizophrenic brains at the meeting of the questionable specimens to
(collected between 1928 and 1953). American College of be excluded in research.
Neuropsychopharmacology.
0
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

45
44
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29
28
27
26
25
24
23
22
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
B The experiments conducted under the U.S. government2
Dates Experiments Award in exchange Subjects/facility Experimentation conducted by
conducted for experiments

Prison 1906 Plague Tobacco Prisoners who were condemned Dr. Richard P. Strong. Director of the
experiments to death, Bilibid prison in Manila, Biological Laboratory of the Philippine
(Pre-WWII) The Philippines (13 deaths) Bureau of Science, later Professor of
Tropical Medicine at Harvard University
1910 Beriberi Tobacco Prisoners who were condemned Dr. Richard P. Strong. Director of the
to death, Bilibid prison in Manila, Biological Laboratory of the Philippine
The Philippines (number of deaths) Bureau of Science, later Professor of
Tropical Medicine at Harvard University
1914 Pellagra “Accordingly White male convicts at the Dr. Goldberger and Wheeler of the U.S.
rewarded”/promise Rankin Prison Farm, Public Health Service
of Governor’s Mississippi. Many begged
pardon – pardoned to be released from experiment,
plus free medical but were not allowed
care until recovery
(rejected)
1919–1922 Tetiscular Unclear 500 of San Quentin’s inmates, Dr. L. L. Stanley
transplants California
(some with
animal glands)
1934 Tuberculosis Governor’s pardon Carl Erickson/Mike Schmidt – Doctors at Denver’s National Jewish
2 Colorado prisoners selected to Hospital
participate in Denver’s National
Jewish Hospital experiment
on TB
(WWII) Appeal 1942 Blood (beef) Unclear 64 inmates at a state prison in U.S. Navy and Dr. Edward J. Cohn, a
to patriotism and substitute Norfolk, Massachusetts distinguished Harvard biochemist
altruism (20 became ill, 1 death)

(Continued)
B The experiments conducted under the U.S. government (Continued )
Dates Experiments Award in exchange Subjects/facility Experimentation conducted by
conducted for experiments

during WWII Malaria, blood Certificates of merit New Jersey Prison U.S. Army (test of diseases found in the
plasma (parole consideration) field)
substitutes,
Dengue fever,
1941–1945 Sand-fly fever,
($25 million) Sleeping
sickness
during WWII Atabrine and Unclear Sing Sing Prison inmates, U.S. Army (to determine whether, under the
other drugs New York drug’s influence, soldiers could carry full
workloads)
1945 ($700,000) during WWII Various $100.00, certificate of Federal Correctional Institution Unclear
merit, and reduction at Seageville, Texas
of sentence
during WWII Malaria/8 new $100.00 and certificate 130 inmates at the U.S. The National Research Council, Division of
untested drugs, of merit Penitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia Medical Sciences, and the Committee on
Atabrine, Medical Research of the Office of Scientific
Quinine, and Research and Development
Plasmochon
September Malaria Reduction in sentence 432 inmates4 at the Stateville University of Chicago and U.S. Army
1944–1946 (317 were granted Penitentiary, Illinois
commutations of
sentence or parole)
(POST
NUREMBERG
CODE)
~1955 1951–1972 Various Payments varied Inmates in the Holmesburg Dr. Albert M. Kligman, Director of Ivy
($36 million) experiments from $3.00 to $1500 Prison in Pennsylvania. Most Research Laboratories, Inc., Clover
(shampoo-in- per test per man were in prison waiting for a Laboratories, Inc., and Betro
eye, poison ivy, hearing and couldn’t afford to Laboratories, Inc.
thumb nail post bail or hire an attorney
 extraction, Johnson and Johnson Company; Merck;
various creams Sharp and Dohme; Smith, Kline & French
and ointments, Laboratories; Wyeth Laboratories
dioxin, Retin-A,
radioactive U.S. Army
isotope,
LSD, etc.)/
1950 Viral hepatitis Unclear 200 female inmates at Clinton U.S. Army, Dr. Joseph Stokes, Jr., of
Farms, New Jersey Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the
University of Pennsylvania
Professor Juko Katsura of Niigata
University, funded by U.S. Army
November Rickettsia Unclear 118 inmates of a psychiatric National Heart Institute
1952 – January Tsutsugamushi hospital (8 died, 1 committed
1956 suicide)
1953 Relationship Unclear 20,000 inmates at Leavenworth,
between Atlanta, and Terre Haute
chemicals in
blood and
development of
heart disease
Unclear
1953 Amoebic Unclear 175 inmates at Seagoville, Texas
dysentery
Communicable Disease Center
1953 Athlete’s foot Unclear U.S. Penitentiary at Atlanta,
Georgia
Microbiology Institute
1953 Common cold Unclear The Federal Reformatory in
Chillicothe, Ohio

(Continued)
B The experiments conducted under the U.S. government (Continued )
Dates Experiments Award in exchange Subjects/facility Experimentation conducted by
conducted for experiments

mid-1950s Cancer Unpaid with “no about 170 inmates from Drs. Chester M. Southam5 and Alice E.
expectation or hope Ohio prisons Moore of Manhattan’s Sloan
of altering their time Kettering Institute for Cancer Research and
of discharge” Dr. Charles A. Doan, director of medical
research at Ohio State University

Central Intelligence Agency

1950s Mind-control Unclear 142 inmates at Iona State
experiments Hospital in Michigan
U.S. Army and Ohio State University
Research Foundation
? ~ 1957 Tularemia Army certificates 31 inmates from Ohio prisons –
of achievement treated with streptomycin
early 1960s – Radiation Unclear More than 130 inmates in Oregon Atomic Energy Commission, scientists
early 1970s and Washington prisons – at the National Aeronautics and Space
10-year-long study, estimated Administration
1
/2 died as a result of
experimentation
? ~ 1961 Infectious Unclear Between 137 and 200 inmates at Dr. Joseph D. Boggs, Director of
hepatitis the Illinois State Penitentiary at Laboratories at Children’s Memorial
Joliet – 5-year-long study Hospital in Chicago and Associate Professor
of Pathology at the Northwestern University
School of Medicine
1962 Antibiotic Unclear 50 (either juvenile delinquents Unclear
designed to or mental defectives)
treat acne
vulgaris
0
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

45
44
43
42
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30
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28
27
26
25
24
23
22
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
1970
($1.5 billion
to 11,000 grants,
1/3 required
human
experimentation)3
July 1963 Injection of None – no informed 22 chronically ill and debilitated Dr. Southam and two other doctors.
live cancer cells consent patients at the Jewish Chronic Research funded by United States Public
Disease Hospital of Brooklyn, Health Service and the American Cancer
New York Society
1968 Drug that None. Prisoners were Violence-prone inmates at Unclear
causes told to associate Vacaville, California
temporary agony with State Prison
paralyses – misbehavior
led to
suffocation
1971–1973 Malaria Additional food, ice 107 inmates of the Jackson Unclear
cream, fruit juice, County Jail in Kansas
improved quarters City, Missouri
and $50.00
honorarium
June 1975 Only 12 state prisons systems left hosting medi-
cal experiments
March 1, 1976 End of medical research on federal prisoners in
the U.S.
 240   Appendix B
1 Notes
2 1 Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of experimentations that took place during the periods
3 indicated. Sources compiled for the table may be found in: Trials of War Criminals before the
4 Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10. Nuremberg, October 1946 –
April 1949. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1953; Baruch C. Cohen The
5 Ethics of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments. Jewish Law. http://jlaw.com/Articles/
6 NaziMedEx.html (accessed May 18, 2005); Erhard Geissler and John Ellis von Courtland Moon
7 (eds). Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to
1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; 20 July 1945. “Japanese Biological Warfare.”
8 Intelligence Research Project #2263 of Military Intelligence Service, WDGS. Located in the
9 National Archives: NND857146; 裁かれる細菌戦 ： 資料集シリーズ。 東京：7 3 1 部隊細菌戦被
0 害国家賠償請求訴訟弁護団, 1999; Peter Williams and David Wallace. Unit 731: Japan’s Secret
Biological Warfare in World War II. New York: Free Press, 1989; David Guyatt. “Unit 731: Human
11 Logs Light Military Research Fires.” 1997. http://www.copi.com/articles/guyatt/unit_731.html
12 (accessed May 23, 2005).
13 2 Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of experimentations that took place during the periods
indicated. Sources compiled for the table may be found in: Baruch C. Cohen. The Ethics of Using
14 Medical Data From Nazi Experiments. Jewish Law. http://jlaw.com/Articles/NaziMedEx.html
15 (accessed May 18, 2005); Andrew C. Ivy. The History and Ethics of the Use of Human Subjects in
16 Medical Experiments. Science, New Series, Vol. 108, No. 2792 (July 2, 1948); [Testimony presented
by Sydney M. Wolfe, M.D. of the Health Research Group in Washington D.C. before the Senate Sub-
17 Committee on Health, Hearings on Human Experimentation, March 7, 1973] and [U.S. Congress
18 Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. Hearings before Sub-Committee on Health, 92nd
19 Congress, 1st Session, 1973 (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.) 1973, pp. 803–
813, 1125] in Alvis V. Adair. Human Experimentation: An Ancient Notion in a Modern Technology
20 Occasional Paper. Institute for Urban Affairs and Research, Vol. 1, No. 3; Len Doyal and Jeffrey S.
21 Tobias (eds). Informed Consent in Medical Research. London: BMJ Books, 2001; and the following
22 in Allen M. Hornblum. Acres of Skin: Human Experimentations at Holmesburg Prison. London:
Routledge, 1998.
23      [David J. Rothman, Strangers at the Bedside. New York: Basic Books, 1991]; 1953 experiment
24 information taken from [“Federal Prisons Year End Review,” 1953, p. 31–33]; [“Women Prisoners
25 Aid Jaundice Test,” New York Times, September 4, 1950]; [Nicholas Horrock, “Records Show CIA
Tested LSD on Sex-psychopaths,” New York Times, August 5, 1977, p. A10], p. 95; [“Prison
26 Volunteers Test Vaccine for Tularemia,” Science News Letter, June 22, 1957: 386], p. 95; [Walter
27 Sullivan, “Scientist Reports Isolating 2 Strains of Hepatitis,” New York Times, June 29, 1961] and
28 [“Vaccination Reported for Infectious Hepatitis,” New York Times, May 5, 1961] pp. 100–101;
[Gary Lee, “The Lifelong Harm to Radiation’s Human Guinea Pigs,” Washington Post, National
29 Weekly Edition, November 28, 1994, p.33] pp. 107–108; [“Government to Ban Medical Research
30 on Federal Inmates,” New York Times, March 2, 1976], p. 113.]
31 3 Numbers taken from [David J. Rothman, Strangers at the Bedside. New York: Basic Books, 1991,
p. 53] in Allen M. Hornblum. Acres of Skin: Human Experimentations at Holmesburg Prison.
32 London: Routledge, 1998. p. 85–86.
33 4 Consent form /waiver form signed by inmates of the Stateville Penitentiary for the malaria
34 experiment:
35 I  .  .  .  hereby declare that I have read and clearly understood the above notice, as testified by
36 my signature hereon, and I hereby apply to the University of Chicago, which is at present engaged
on malarial research at the orders of the Government, for participation in the investigations
37 of the life-cycle of the malarial parasite. I hereby accept all risks connected with the experiment
38 and on behalf of my heirs and my personal and legal representatives I hereby absolve from such
39 liability the University of Chicago and all the technicians and assistants taking part in the
above mentioned investigations. I similarly absolve the Government of the State of Illinois, the
40 Director of the Department of Public Security of the State of Illinois, the warden of the State
41 Penitentiary at Joliet-Stateville and all employees of the above institutions and Departments, from
42 all responsibility, as well as from all claims and proceedings or Equity pleas, for any injury or
malady, fatal or otherwise, which may ensue from these experiments. I hereby certify that this offer
43 is made voluntarily and without compulsion. I have been instructed that if my offer is accepted I
44 shall be entitled to remuneration amounting to [xx] dollars, payable as provided in the above
45 Notice.
 Appendix B   241
1    [M. H. Pappworth, Human Guinea Pigs. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967, p. 62] quoted in Allen M.
Hornblum. Acres of Skin: Human Experimentations at Holmesburg Prison. London: Routledge,
2 1998, p. 82.
3 5 When asked in a 1996 interview by Allen M. Hornblum if Dr. Chester M. Southam of Manhattan’s
4 Sloan-Kettering Institute was abiding by the Nuremberg Code when conducting experiments on
inmates in Ohio, he responded that he was “unaware of the Nuremberg Code and its code of con-
5 duct.” He also added that “Most of the publicity on the [prison] experiments was favorable during
6 the 1950s.” quoted in Allen M. Hornblum. Acres of Skin: Human Experimentations at Holmesburg
7 Prison. London: Routledge, 1998. p. 95.
8
9
0
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15
16
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21
22
23
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25
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27
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33
34
35
36
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40
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42
43
44
45
1
2 Index
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0
11
12
13 Note: Page numbers followed by “n” refer to notes and page numbers followed by “t”
14 refer to tables.
15
“abandonment of the right to claim” 23–4, 26–9; Nazi 146–7; Nomonhan
16 defense 47–8, 49 Incident 26–7, 111; strategic
17 Abe Shinzo 49, 194 misinformation tactics in use of 28; US
18 Abu Ghraib prison 194, 195 research on 171; Zhejiang campaign
19 Adorno, T. 144, 151–2, 153 28–9, 35, 47, 85–6t
20 Agent Orange 192 bombing campaigns: British Second World
Akimoto Sueo 114, 115 War 189; US 189–91
21 Alexander, L. 160 bombs, bacterial 5, 29, 30, 66, 68, 72, 73
22 Alibek, K. 61 Bonhoeffer, D. 158
23 American indigenous peoples 167, 170, brucellosis 26, 89; description of human
24 173, 175 experiment and ethical considerations
25 The Anatomy of Dependence (Amae no 87–8
Kozo) 111 Buddhism 11, 133
26 anthrax 26t, 68, 85–6t, 171 Bush, G.W. 178, 198n
27 apologies, age of 167–8, 173–8, 194–6, Butenandt, A. 156, 160, 161–2
28 197n, 201n
29 Arendt, H. 9 Cady, J.F. 35
30 Armenian-Americans 174, 175 Changchun, PLA siege of 132
Asano Shimpei 37–8 CHATTER project 172
31 Asian Pacific Americans (APA) 177 “Chauvinism in Medicine” 135–6
32 chemical weapons 24, 94–5, 146, 192
33 “B and C War Crimes Trials” 38–40, 108, Chernyakova, N. 41, 69
34 169 Cheseldine, R.M. 127
35 bacterial dysentery 83, 84, 85–6t Chimba Osamu 35
Bauer, E. 155 China: anger over Yasukini shrine visits 48;
36 bioethics: exceptionalism in 141–3; biological warfare attacks on 26–9, 73,
37 ignoring of Japanese atrocities 8 85–6t, 111; Changchun 132; Cultural
38 biological warfare: arguments for Revolution and similarities with
39 effectiveness of 73–4; in China Japanese atrocities 132–3; forced
40 1939–44 26–9, 73, 85–6t, 111; courts laborer lawsuit 47, 48, 49, 53n;
admit to 47–8, 49; evidence revealing government response to Japanese BW
41 Japan’s program 33–5; failure of 28–9, crimes 7–8, 129–33; Japanese slaughter
42 72–3; Hirohito’s approval of 24, 41–2; of civilians in rural areas 188; Mao’s
43 Ishii bacterial bombs 5, 29, 30, 66, 68, reasoning on lack of action on medical
44 72, 73; Japanese casualties of 26–7, atrocities 129–30; military tribunals
45 28–9; Japanese development of 4–5, 1945–7 35; nationalism’s role in failure
 Index   243
1 to deal with medical atrocities 129–33; denialism: changing outlook in Japan
2 seeking compensation for victims of 15–16; contrasting Japanese denialism
atrocities 46, 47–8, 49, 131–2, 177; with German position 6, 125; of
3
sister units to Unit 731 established in Japanese governments 6, 125–6, 176,
4 25; Superior People’s Court Special 196; and justifications for wartime
5 Military Tribunal 42–3, 45–6; transfer medical atrocities 109–11, 125–6, 176,
6 of Japanese war criminals from Soviet 184; and Nanjing Massacre 184, 187;
7 Union 42–3, 69–70, 131; visit of Wen an obstacle to harmony in Asia-Pacific
Jiabao to Japan 49; Zhou Enlai on 184, 196; US role in Japanese 168–9,
8
leniency to Japanese war criminals 184; see also historical memory
9 in 131 Densenbyo Kenkyusho (Center for
0 Chinese-Americans 167, 168, 176–8 Infectious Diseases) 40
11 Chinese Sufferers and Bereaved of the Deutsche Christen 157, 158–9
12 Victims by Bacterio-weapons of the Devil’s Gluttony (Akuma no hoshoku)
731 Corps of Japan Army vs. 72, 117
13
Japan 47–8, 49, 177 “Doctors’ trials” 32, 36, 127, 129, 146,
14 cholera 26, 171; aerosol experiments 89; 170–1
15 Japanese biological warfare attacks Doi Takeo 111
16 on China 85–6t; Zhejiang campaign Dower, J.W. 75, 169, 170
17 28–9 Dresden 189
“Chukiren” 46, 131
18
citizen activist groups 14–15, 46, 47, 131 educational remembering at Ravensbrück
19 Civil Liberties Act 1988 194 145, 149–53, 184
20 Clinton Administration 168 Endo Shusaku 118
21 Clinton, B.: apology to Guatemalans 195, epidemic hemorrhagic fever 26, 91;
22 201n; apology to Hawaiians 194–5, description of human experiment and
201n; intervention on Armenian ethical considerations 82, 89–90
23
genocide resolution 175; making Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply
24 apologies 174, 177, 178 Department 23
25 Cold War: “age of apologies” after 167–8, Epidemic Prevention Research
26 173–8, 194–6, 197n, 201n; American Laboratory 23
27 medical experimentation and 170–2; ethics: Adorno’s rejection of “positive”
American support of Japan in 169; 152; “advancement of medical science”
28
biological weapons research 171; argument 115–16; ethical values
29 China’s dealings with Japan in context permitting human experimentation
30 of 129; climate of medical ethics in without scruples 75–7; failure to pursue
31 172; tensions at IMTFE 32 justice detrimental to development of
32 comfort women 49, 53n, 188, 196, 198n 15; human experimentation an offence
compensation 46, 47–8, 49, 131–2, 177 against Asian 133–4; and irrelevant
33
Confessing Church: differences between experiments with highly implausible
34 German Christians and 158–9; hypotheses 88–9; “medicine as the art
35 preserving reputation of 161–2; of humanity” 133–4; and “national
36 Verschuer’s membership 156–7, interest” arguments overriding 109–10,
37 162, 164 124–6, 126–8; negative consequences
Confucianism 133–4, 150 of using unethically obtained data
38
Congressional Asian Pacific American 91–2; and relevance of human
39 Caucus 177 experiments 84, 87–8; and relevant
40 Control Council Law No. 10 32 experiments with ethical research
41 Cook, H.T. and Cook, T.F. 45 alternatives 90–1; and relevant
42 culture 152–3; Asian 133–4 experiments without ethical alternatives
93–100; remembering as a method for
43
Dagan, B. 145–6, 151 fostering 149–51; and rigor 89–90, 99;
44 Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme stances toward use of unethically
45 Soviet of the USSR 63 obtained data 81–2, 92–3, 98–100;
 244   Index
1 subordinated to US quest to best Soviet with purity 178; individual
2 Union 171–2; technical analyses and responsibility for war atrocities 116;
debate on 84–91; of using of position maintained with US support
3
unethically obtained data 81–2, 169, 184, 191
4 91–100; see also medical ethics Hiroshi Iwanami 37
5 exceptionalism: current wave in bioethics Hiroshima and Nagasaki: comparison
6 141–3; medical ethics’ need to counter with Changchun siege 132; deaths 190;
7 152–3; negative 153 US radiation research 7, 172; “victim
consciousness” for Japanese over
8
Factories of Death 70, 73 10–11, 169–70
9 Fell Report 30 historical memory 13–14; and “age of
0 Fischer, E. 155, 156, 161 apologies” post Cold War 167–8,
11 forced laborer lawsuit 47, 48, 49, 53n 173–8, 194–6, 197n, 201n; and
12 Fort Detrick 171 American lack of reflection on behavior
Fouraker, L. 70, 72, 74 189, 194–5, 196; American social
13
Fricke, O. 157, 158, 160, 161–2, 163 amnesia for American crimes 14, 167,
14 frost bite experiments 93–7, 116 168, 170–3, 188–91, 194, 196; and
15 Fujiwara Akira 185, 186 Chinese diaspora politics in America
16 Futagi Hideo 93, 94 167, 168, 176–8; and citizen action
17 groups 14–15, 46, 47, 131; contested in
Gebhardt, K. 148 Japan 14–15, 176–7, 193–4, 196;
18
Geneva Convention 1949 184, 192 contrast in German and Japanese
19 Geneva Protocol 1925 4, 23 151–3, 184; educational remembering
20 German Christians 157, 158–9 145, 149–53, 184; and future of Asia-
21 German Protestant Church 158, 163 Pacific 193–6; German 6, 151, 184,
22 Germany: see Nazi Germany 196 see also Ravensbrück
Gold, H. 5, 6, 47, 168, 169 concentration camp; obstacles of
23
Gong Tingxian 134 impunity for America facing up to
24 Greek-Americans 174–5 191–2, 196; “social” and “chosen”
25 groups speaking out against atrocities 46 amnesia 166; and US requirements for
26 Guantanamo Bay 194 addressing past injustices 167–8, 174,
27 Guatemala 195, 201n 178, 194–5; US suppression of
guilt and remorse over medical atrocities information on Japanese war crimes 33,
28
9–12, 111–15 34, 60, 61, 62, 126–8, 168–9; see also
29 Gunji Yoko 110, 115 denialism
30 Holocaust: education 144, 151–2; German
31 Hansen, R. 167, 172 responsibility, regret and remorse 6; US
32 Harmsen, H. 159 response to 167–8, 175–6
Harris, S.H. 35, 41, 50n, 57, 70, 73, 74, 81, Holocaust Memorial Museum 36, ‘75, 175
33
124, 126, 127–8, 129, 134 Honda, M. 177
34 Hataba Osamu 35 Hoshi 112
35 Hawaii 194–5, 201n human cloning 153
36 Hayashi Atsumi 111–12 human experimentation 4–5, 25–6, 30–1,
37 Hill and Victor Report 30–1, 82; Japanese 82–4; “advancement of medical
data considered highly valuable 97–8; science” argument for 115–16; on
38
justification for using Japanese data American POWs 36–40, 51–2n, 108;
39 108–9; “Paratyphoid interview with collaborations over 43–5, 110; deaths
40 Dr Tabei” 87; “Songo – Epidemic as a result of 26t, 81; dehumanization
41 Hemorrhagic Fever interview with of test subjects 76–7; destruction of
42 Shiro Kasahara and Masaji Kitano” evidence 43; ethical research
89–90; “Tuberculosis, interview with alternatives to 90–1; ethical values and
43
Dr Hideo Futagi” 93 moral premises rationalizing 75–7;
44 Hirohito, Emperor: approval of BW evidence of extent of Japanese 40–1,
45 development 24, 41–2; and association 44; exaggerated success of 74, 82–3;
 Index   245
1 failures 28–9, 72–3; IMTFE trial work 74, 82–3; involvement in “Tokyo
2 materials revealing 33–4, 34–5, 50–1n; Nutrition Research Centre” 171;
and Ishii’s idea of offensive medicine offensive medicine 72, 75; smallpox
3
72, 75; by Manchurian medical experiment 87
4 community 44–5; maruta technology Iwanami Hiroshi 37, 38, 40
5 66, 76–7, 112; in medical universities
6 39, 40, 108, 115, 117; Nazi 13, 146–7, Japanese Army: and collaboration over
7 148–9, 232–4; postwar use of data human experimentation 40, 43–5; Ishii
232–4; practiced on Japanese mainland reporting to 74; personnel charged at
8
41; relevance of experiments 84, 87–9; Khabarovsk 30, 62, 128; Soviet defeat
9 relevant experiments without ethical of 129; Togo Unit under command of
0 alternatives 93–9; restoring subjects to 24; Unit 731 a secret unit within 23, 24,
11 health for further trials 67, 77; rigor of 124–5; USA vs. Kajuro, Aihara et al.
12 experiments 89–90; supply of subjects 38–40, 41
for 43–4, 66, 125; Togo Unit feasibility Japanese Army Military Medical School
13
study 24; in United States 171–3, 23, 40
14 235–41; US intelligence investigations Japanese courts: “abandonment of the right
15 1945–7 82–4; US securing of Japanese to claim” defense 47–8, 49; dismissal of
16 data 33, 60, 100, 108, 126; see also demands for compensation and
17 Unit 731 apologies 46, 47–8, 49, 177; forced
Human Heredity and Racial Hygiene 155–6 laborer lawsuit 47, 48, 49, 53n; invoking
18
human remains discovery 40, 47 “statute of limitations” to reject cases
19 Hwang Yoo-Suk 142 47; recognition of bacteriological
20 warfare 47, 48, 49; textbook screening
21 Ienaga Saburo 46–7 lawsuit 46–7, 151, 194; “Unit 731
22 Imperial Japanese Navy: attempts to hide Lawsuit” 47–8, 49, 177
crimes of 36–7; significance of trials Jaspers, K. 9
23
40–1; USA vs. Asano, Shimpei et al. Jewish-American groups 175–6
24 37–8; USA vs. Iwanami, Hiroshi Jiang Chunyun 48
25 et al. 37 Joint Communiqué of Government of
26 imperialism: American 129–30; Japan and Government of PRC 48, 49
27 Japanese 125
“Innere Mission” 159 Kaiser Wilhelm Society 144, 146, 156,
28
international law: advances in 189; US and 157, 160, 161
29 Japanese violations of 14, 184, 191, 193 Kamisaka Fukuyo 39, 117
30 International Military Tribunal for the Far Kawashima Kiyoshi 60, 62, 65, 66, 69, 125
31 East (IMTFE) 2, 32–3; international Keenan, J.B. 34
32 law principles 184; IPS documents Kerry, J. 195
33–4, 34–5, 50–1n; at odds with NMT Khabarovsk war crimes trial 5–6, 41–2;
33
over treatment of doctors involved in background to 59–62; charges 30,
34 human experimentation 36, 108, 127, 62–3, 64–5; commission on
35 129; redress for victims 129; signs of bacteriological and medical issues 64;
36 conflict between superpowers at 60–1; evidence on human experimentation at
37 Soviet frustration at 61; US with Unit 731 65–8; evidence on work at
holding of evidence 33, 34, 60, 61, 62, Unit 100 at 67–8; issue of individual
38
126–8, 168–9 responsibility 116–17; Manchuria as a
39 Iraq war: Abu Ghraib Prison 194, 195; aerial BW development site 66, 125;
40 bombing 192–3; capture of Baghdad nationalist rhetoric in 128–9; reliability
41 187; refugees 193, 195, 200–1n of data and evidence 7, 41, 70–2, 128;
42 Ishii bacterial bombs 5, 29, 30, 66, 68, suicide of Karasawa Tomio 114; timing
72, 73 41, 63–4; US response to 7, 126, 169;
43
Ishii Shiro 26t, 30, 45, 124; alleged verdicts and sentencing 30, 63–4, 68–9
44 baptism 114–15, 163; architect of Unit King, D. 167, 172
45 731 23–4; exaggerating significance of Kitano Masaji 26t, 30, 44, 82, 89–90, 91
 246   Index
1 Kleinman, A. 9 memory: see historical memory
2 Kobayashi Kiichi 44 Mengele, J. 156, 159, 160, 162
Kokoro 44, 45, 52n mental illness 12, 110, 111
3
Kolchinsky, E. 61 Mielke, F. 91, 104, 146–7
4 Kondai Army Hospital 110 Milgram, S. 11
5 Kondo Shoji 41, 108 Mitscherlich, A. 91, 104, 146–7
6 Korea 15, 46, 75, 194, 196 Mizobuchi Toshimi 126
7 Korean War 14, 45, 192, 194, 195 MKULTRA project 172
Koshi Sadao 113, 114 Mochalsky, H. 158, 160, 161–2, 163
8
Kwantung Army Military Horse Epidemic Moreno, J.D. 7, 126, 172
9 Prevention Workshop 24 Morimura Seiichi 72, 76, 77, 88, 95, 109,
0 Kwantung Army Technical Testing 111, 113, 117
11 Department 24 Morrow, T.H. 34
12 Kyushu Imperial Medical University 39, Müller-Hill, B. 155, 157, 158, 163
40, 108, 115, 117, 118 museums, “peace” oriented 176
13
mustard gas experiments 94–5
14 Landas, M. 39, 40
15 Lederer, S. 172 Nagasaki and Hiroshima: see Hiroshima
16 LeMay, C. 169, 190, 191 and Nagasaki
17 Lenz, F. 155 Nanjing Massacre: Chinese-Americans
Lice and Bombs (Nomi to Saikin) 110 mobilizing around issue of 168;
18
“logs” 66, 76–7, 112 comfort women system established
19 Luan Army Hospital 44 after 188; comparison between US
20 bombing of cities and 191; controversy
21 MacArthur, D. 33, 36, 40, 41, 128, 168 over 183–4; denial over 184, 187;
22 Manchuria: establishment of of BW evidence of Japanese troops 187;
research in 4, 24; medical community number of victims 197n; reasons for
23
collaboration in human experimentation barbarity 185–6; and structure of
24 44–5, 110; Russian liberation of 43; violence in Sino-Japanese War 185–8
25 supply of “test material” 66, 125 Nanjing Massacre Memorial 131
26 Mao Zedong 129–30 nationalism: as a foundation for Japanese
27 maruta 66, 76–7, 112 atrocities 124–6; impact on historical
Marx, K. 135 memory in US and Japan 193;
28
Materials 30, 42, 60, 62, 72, 74, 84, 91 justification for unethical behavior by
29 Max Planck Society 144, 161, 163 US 126–8, 193; links with imperialism
30 medical ethics: Asian 8, 13, 15, 133, 207; and racism 125; “national interest”
31 in climate of Cold War 172; arguments overriding ethics 109–10,
32 exceptionalism and 141, 142–3, 152–3; 124–6, 126–8; nationalist rhetoric at
“medicine as the art of humanity” Khabarovsk war crimes tribunal 128–9;
33
133–4; and need for on-the-ground in public education system 125; and
34 moral realities 9–10; resisting abuse of role in China’s lack of response to
35 science 136, 143; to combat powerful medical atrocities 129–33; unforseen
36 political agendas 143–4 consequences of expansion of 135; and
37 medical universities: affiliations with Unit US justification for cover up of medical
731 24–5, 26; BW program personnel atrocities 126–8
38
in post-war 109; collaborations with Nazi Germany: biological warfare 146–7;
39 military and pharmaceutical companies contrast in treatment of doctors involved
40 43–5; human experimentation in 39, 40, in human experimentation in Japan and
41 108, 110, 115, 117; Kyushu Imperial 36, 108, 127, 129; convicted war
42 Medical University 39, 40, 108, 115, criminals 32; educational remembering
117; serving own research purposes of 145, 149–53, 184; failure to
43
through Nazi human experimentation prevent atrocities in 152; human
44 146–7 experimentation 13, 146–7, 148–9,
45 “medicine as the art of humanity” 133–4 232–4; learning to “make sense” of
 Index   247
1 atrocities 144–5; memories and radiation experiments 7, 171–2, 238t
2 reconciliation in wake of atrocities 6, Ravensbrück concentration camp 145;
151, 184, 196; Nazi medicine and educational remembering 145, 149–51;
3
similarities and differences with human experimentation at 148–9; as a
4 Japanese medical atrocities 13; racial memorial site 147–8, 151; poem by a
5 theory 13, 156; Verschuer’s avoidance surviving inmate 145–6
6 of trial 161 Reagan, R. 167, 194
7 Nie Jing-Bao 5, 7, 8, 13, 41, 70, 71, 74, 124, religion: organized religion’s support for
126, 128, 130, 132, 133, 134, 166–7 wars 11; and protection of perpetrators
8
Niemöller, M. 157–8, 163 from punishment 14, 161–2
9 Ningbo biological warfare attack 27–8, religious beliefs: alleged baptism of Ishii
0 73, 85t 114–15, 163; and refusal to obey
11 Nishi Toshihide 63, 66–7 illegitimate authority 11, 111, 163; and
12 Nixon, R. 192 “responsible” Nazis 11; Verschuer
Noda Masaki 10, 11, 12 finding compatibility with involvement
13
Nomonhan Incident 1939 26–7, 111 in atrocities 11, 156–7, 159, 160,
14 Northeast Working Group on Processing 163, 164
15 of Japanese Prisoners (NEWG) 42, 43 remembering, educational 145, 149–53,
16 Nuremberg Code 170–2, 191–2 184; see also historical memory
17 Nuremberg Military Tribunal (NMT): responsibility for medical atrocities: denials
doctors’ trials 32, 36, 127, 129, 146, and justifications for 110–11, 115, 126,
18
170–1; of Gerhard Rose 160; 146; guilt and remorse 9–12, 110, 111,
19 international law principles 184; USA 112–15; individual 9, 12, 116–19, 126;
20 vs. Karl Brandt et al. 36; Verschuer’s and Jasper’s 4 types of responsibility 9;
21 avoidance of 160 and mental illness 110, 111; questioning
22 “advancement of medical science”
offensive medicine 72, 75 argument 115–16; and religious beliefs
23
Okamoto Kei 114 11, 111, 163; resisting involvement with
24 Osler, W. 135–6 atrocities 111–12, 117, 163; US
25 Ota Yukiko 48 insulation of Japan from 184; voiced in
26 novels of Endo 118–19
27 paratyphoid 85–6t, 87 Rose, G. 160
peace constitution 193, 194
28
peace movements 11, 14–15 San Francisco Treaty 47, 194
29 Permyakov, G. 41, 61, 62, 63, 64, 69–70 Sanders Report 30, 128
30 pharmaceutical companies 45 Sasaki Toichi 186
31 Philippines-American war 170 The Sea and Poison 118–19
32 Pine Bluff, Arkansas 171 Senda Hideo 112
plague: bacteria used in Ishii bacterial Shenyang and Taiyuan trials 42–3; political
33
bombs 29, 72, 73; Japanese biological significance 45–6
34 warfare attacks on China 2, 85–6t; Shimizu Keihachiro 110, 126
35 Ningbo epidemic 27–8, 73, 85t Sholokh, E. 64, 69
36 The Plutonium Files 171 smallpox experiments 26t, 87
37 poem by a survivor of Ravensbrück 145–6, Smirnov, L. 60, 64, 67, 129
151 Song of Sadness 118, 119
38
Powell, J.W. 7, 34, 41, 50n, 51n, 126 Soviet Union: collection of data for
39 IMTFE 61, 62; death penalty
40 Questioning Medical Ethics (Yi no rinri o suspension and restoration 63–4, 69;
41 tou) 114 deciphering propaganda in 70–1;
42 Decree of the Presidium of the
racism: American medical experimentation Supreme Soviet of the USSR 63; desire
43
and 172–3; focus on 135; Japanese 13, to obtain Japanese research data 61, 69;
44 75, 125; Nazi 13, 156; a shared moral justice system 71; transfer of Japanese
45 practice 9–10 war criminals to China 42–3, 69–70,
 248   Index
1 131; US quest to best 171–2; see also immunity from prosecution deal 33, 60,
2 Khabarovsk war crimes trial 100, 108, 126; inauguration 24–5; Ishii
State–War–Navy Coordinating Shiro architect of 23–4; medic requests
3
Subcommittee for the Far East for human experimentation 45;
4 (SWNCC) 97, 98 restoring subjects to health for further
5 sterilization programs 159, 173 trials 67, 77; reunions 126; staff 24–5,
6 Superior People’s Court Special Military 25–6; staff disclosures of trauma
7 Tribunal 42–3; political significance suffered 110–11; supply and selection
45–6 of test subjects 43–4, 75; test subjects
8
Supotnitzky, M. 62, 69, 70, 72–3, 74 as “logs” 66, 76–7, 112; US Army
9 Sutton, D.N. 33–4, 35, 36, 47, 51n survey of 25; US suppression of
0 syphilis study 173 evidence regarding 33, 34, 60, 61, 62,
11 126–8, 168–9; work as a “double
12 Tama Detachment of Nanjing: see medical thrill” 124
Unit 1644 Unit 731 Criminal Evidence Museum 131
13
Tamura Yoshio 44, 74, 126 “Unit 731 Exhibition” 6, 47
14 tetanus experiments 26t, 82–3 “Unit 731 Lawsuit” 47–8, 49, 177
15 textbook screening lawsuit 46–7, 151, 194 Unit 1644 4, 25, 27, 112; indictments
16 Thompson Report 30 against members of 34–5; mentioned at
17 To Those Who Hesitate to Ask 145–6, 151 IMTFE 33–4
Togo Unit 24 Unit 1855 4, 25, 108
18
Tokyo District Court 47 Unit 8604 4, 25
19 Tokyo Imperial Army Medical Unit 9420 4, 25
20 University 40 United States Army: survey of human
21 Tokyo Nutrition Research Centre 171 experimentation by Unit 731 25; trials of
22 Tokyo Supreme Court 49 Japanese war criminals 36, 38–40, 41
Tokyo Tribunal: see International Military United States Navy trials of Japanese war
23
Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) criminals 36–8
24 triage 141, 153 United States of America: American
25 Truman, H. 168 indigenous peoples 167, 170, 173, 175;
26 Tsuneishi Keiichi 60, 61, 73, 81, 89, 90, American POWs 36–40, 51–2n;
27 100, 114, 115–16, 119, 126 Armenian-American lobbying 174, 175;
tuberculosis 93–4, 118, 233t, 235t Asian Pacific Americans (APA) 177;
28
Tuskeegee experiments 173 biological and chemical weapons
29 typhoid 66, 88, 232t; description of human research 7, 171; bombing in violation of
30 experiment and ethical considerations international law 14, 189–92; Chinese-
31 90–1; Japanese biological warfare Americans 167, 168, 176–8; conditions
32 attacks on China 26–7, 85–6t, 111 for apologies and compensation for past
injustices 167–8, 174, 178, 194–5;
33
Unit 100 4, 24, 33, 67–8, 108 double standards in treatment of
34 Unit 162 43 Japanese and Nazi doctors 108, 127;
35 Unit 516 24, 111, 113 ethnic groups and shaping of policy 167,
36 Unit 731 23–31; bacteria bomb 174–6; exceptionalist narrative 170, 178;
37 development 5, 29, 30, 66, 68, 72, 73; Greek-American lobbying 174–5;
banned from textbooks 46–7; biological Guatemalan apology 195, 201n;
38
warfare development and trials 4–5, Hawaiian apology 194–5; Holocaust
39 23–4, 26–9; careers of former members response 167–8, 175–6; human
40 of 5–6, 99–100, 109; comparison of experimentation in 171–3, 235–41;
41 doctors’ self defense with Verschuer’s impunity an obstacle for America facing
42 161–3; convictions of personnel at up to war crimes 191–2, 196; interned
Khabarovsk 68–9; deaths 1940–5 65; Japanese 194; investigations into
43
evidence of accused at Khabarovsk Japanese human experimentation 25–6,
44 65–8; failures of 28–9, 72–3; human 30–1, 82–4; Jewish-American groups
45 experimentation at 25–6, 30–1, 82–4; 175–6; lack of reflection on behavior
 Index   249
1 189, 194–5, 196; nationalism as a involvement in atrocities and religious
2 justification for unethical behavior beliefs 11, 156–7, 159, 160, 163, 164;
126–8, 193; Philippines-American war friendship with Fricke 157, 158, 160,
3
170; providing immunity from 161; job ban 160, 161; on voluntary
4 prosecution and payment for Japanese sterilization 159
5 research data 33, 60, 100, 108, 126; “victim consciousness” 10–11, 169–70
6 radiation experiments 7, 171–2, 238t; Vietnam War 192, 194, 195
7 response to Khabarovsk trial 7, 126, vivisection 1, 4, 5, 44, 52n; of American
169; response to slavery 167, 177; role POWs 37, 108; extent of practice 44,
8
in Japanese denialism 168–9, 184; social 108; for “fun” and curiosity 110, 114,
9 amnesia for American crimes 14, 151, 115; futility of experiments 115–16;
0 167, 168, 170–3, 188–91, 194, 196; remorse over 114; representation of
11 suppression of Japanese war crimes 33, perpetrators in fiction 118–19
12 34, 60, 61, 62, 126–8, 168–9; Tuskeegee
experiments 173; Vietnam War 192, 194, Wallace, D. 5, 7, 34, 35, 51n, 81, 84, 99,
13
195; Winter Soldier investigations 195 100, 114, 115, 124, 126, 169, 171
14 USA vs. Asano, Shimpei et al. 37–8 War, Crime and Responsibility 10
15 USA vs. Iwanami, Hiroshi et al. 37 War without Mercy 75
16 USA vs. Kajuro, Aihara et al. 38–40, 41 Wen Jiabao 49
17 USA vs. Karl Brandt et al. 36 Williams, P. 5, 7, 34, 35, 51n, 81, 84, 99,
114, 115, 124, 126, 169, 171, 199
18
Vanderbilt University prenatal clinic 171 Winter Soldier investigations 195
19 Verschuer, Otmar von 155–65; appointed Wirth, W. 146–7
20 Professor of Human Genetics 161, 162; Working, R. 69
21 attitude of loyalty to authority 158; wound infection experiments 148–9
22 background 155–6; Butenandt
Commission investigation 160–1; Yasukuni Shrine visits 48, 176
23
church protection from punishment 14, yellow fever research 171
24 161–2; claims membership of Yokohoma Trials 38–41, 108, 169
25 Confessing Church precludes Yoshida Yutaka 51n, 185, 186
26 participation in unethical scientific Yoshimura Akira 110
27 activities 156–7, 162, 164; Yoshimura Hisato 95, 96, 97, 99
collaboration with Mengele 156, 159, Yuasa Ken 44
28
160, 162; comparison of self-defense
29 with that of doctors in Unit 731 162–3; Zhang 42, 43, 46, 52n, 53n
30 “denazifciation trial” 160–1; exemption Zhejiang campaign 28–9, 35, 47, 85–6t
31 from conviction after war 159–61; Zhou Enlai 42–3, 46, 131
32 finding compatibility between Zhukov-Verezhnikov, N.N. 64
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45