ABSTRACT
A widely used textbook on German History for Japanese students for instance contains a chapter on ‘German History and Japan: The History of German-Japanese Relations 1639-1945’ written by Miyake Masaki (Miyake and Mochida 1992: 332-44). It describes Germany as a basic model for Japanese modernization in the Meiji period, points out the conflict over Kiao-Chow (Qingdao) in 1914, skips the 1920s and goes on to highlight the Japan-German-Italian axis of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Miyake points out the similarities between the political systems of Imperial Germany and Meiji Japan. Yet, while the monarchy in Germany collapsed after World War I, it continued to exist in Japan. Therefore, the so-called ‘Taisho¯ Democracy’ was based on the old Meiji system, whereas the ‘Weimar Democracy’ featured a new republican constitution. Partly for that reason, the ‘Weimar Democracy’ was often viewed as being similar rather to the Japanese post-war democracy than to the ‘Taisho¯
Democracy’ in the 1920s (Miyake and Mochida 1992: 346). Mochida Yukio’s older comparative history of Germany and Japan also omits the Weimar period (Mochida 1970). Mochida later maintains that German fascism arose from the Weimar parliamentary democracy, but argues that Japanese militarism was based on the strong position of the Tenno¯, whose power was barely limited by the Diet (Mochida 1988: 66-7). In his most recent study, Mochida compares the ‘Taisho¯ Democracy’ with the Weimar Republic and states that there was never anything like a ‘Weimar Democracy’ in modern Japanese history. Nevertheless, in the 1920s many Japanese saw the new German state as a role model for an ideal social system. They were not aware of the contradictions and weaknesses of the Weimar Republic, which was a ‘democracy loved by no one’ (Mochida 2004: 23-52).
