ABSTRACT
In japan the years from 1937 to 1945 are generally regarded as a dark and barren time. However, the closer one looks at Japan between the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War and its surrender at the end of World War II, the more one realizes that the prewar process of modernization, in fact, did not cease during the war years. To attribute positive developments to a period of suffering and destruction may seem strange, but. World War II — much like World War I was in Europe — was Japan's first total war. It required a high degree of common effort, mobilization, and the willingness to make sacrifices, and it set into motion processes of rationalization, modernization, and even democratization that went beyond the expectations and intentions of the authorities. These wartime changes, no less than the reforms of the Occupation, paved the way for postwar developments in Japan. The Japanese University was one such aspect of life that did not stand still at this time.
