The core member of Japan's World War II was the Baden-Baden Group, which was formed in 1921.
The formation of this fascist militarist clique was inseparable from Japan's national salvation and revolution.
The formation of an organization must have its theory, its key members, and the strength to combine the two.
These three conditions are slowly coming together in Japan.
The originator of Japanese fascist theory, one is Kita Kazuki, and the other is Okawa Shumei.
In 1904, when the Russo-Japanese War was in full swing, a young Japanese man studied hard at the Imperial Library in Tokyo, and two years later, he came up with his own work on the way out for Japan, "The Theory of National System and Pure Socialism."
The book reads: Japan must realize the communist system or social communism through the public ownership of land and production institutions and their public management, and this task must be realized by the lower classes.
The author's intention was to accomplish the Great Socialist Revolution with the assistance of the Emperor.
However, the book was banned by Japan, and in desperation, he began to turn to the Chinese revolution and support Sun Yat-sen. ** After the establishment, he immediately went to China and changed his name from Keijiro to Kita Kazuki.
However, the May Fourth Movement, a large number of anti-Japanese movements, made Bei Yihui also fall into contradictions. "Seeing that the people who were in the forefront of the anti-Japanese movement and who propagandized and agitated and commanded were all comrades who had lived and died together for ten years, he went on a hunger strike, but when he failed, he decided to leave China.
The greatest influence of the May Fourth Movement on him was that no matter what kind of revolution involved national interests, he would become a civil rights activist and a statist.
Therefore, he concluded that the soul of Japan should be stirred up from the bottom to take on the role of Japan's own revolution.
Before returning to China, he completed his research on the theory of the Japaneseization of fascism in Shanghai.
On August 23, 1919, when Okawa Shumei met Kita Yihui in Shanghai, he was taken aback.
In a dilapidated house, Kita Ikki relied only on eating rice balls and drinking water to write his eight-volume masterpiece "Outline of the Principles of the National Transformation Case." At that time, he had completed the first seven volumes, and he handed them over to Okawa Shuaki to take back to Japan, and agreed that after completing the eighth volume, he would also return to Japan.
Kita Kazuki was determined to fully serve Japanese nationalism. He combined revolution and expansion, and believed that Japan, which was in the position of a proletarian in the world, should become a revolutionary empire that defeated Britain, resurrected Turkey, made India independent, and made China stand on its own feet, after which the sun flag would give sunshine to all mankind.
Moreover, Kita Yihui believed that the main force of the revolution was not the workers or peasants, but the soldiers, and he wanted to make the most organized and effective soldiers the backbone of the country's transformation.
So he built a convenient springboard between nationalism and militarism.
Because he thinks that Marx, for example, was born in Germany, but was a Jew without a state but only a society, his doctrine was not based on the state but on society, although in the first place. However, if Japan is a social organization, I can only see the country.
Therefore, socialism in Japan is nationalism.
It can be seen that the object of his service is not the class, but the abstract state.
So his nationalism soon turned into militarism and fascism.
And all over the world, 1919 was also a year of great harvest for fascists, the year Mussolini organized the fascists to fight in Italy; Hitler joined the National Socialist Workers' Party in Germany; In Shanghai, Bei Yihui completed the "Outline of the Principles of the National Transformation Case", a fascist theoretical work.
Fascist theories croaked in both the East and the West.
The crown prince Hirohito did not like Kita Ikki because Kita Ikki demanded that the imperial family also hand over the property he owned, but Hirohito's younger brother Chichibu Palace was very interested in Kita Ikki, and he saw in Kita Ichki the ideas that the Japanese Young Zhuang faction officers were looking for. So he sent someone to mimeograph and publish the "Outline of the Principles of the National Transformation Case." As soon as this book came out, it had a huge impact. Young Japanese officers have used it as a theoretical basis for instigating fascist activities.
At the same time, the unusually clever Okawa Shuaki deleted the content of the theory that was unacceptable to the royal family, and the two parted ways after a quarrel.
Kita Ichiki hid in the Wisdom Temple, while Okawa Shumei was appointed as the palace superintendent.
Since Kita Kazuki had pointed out that Japan's goal was to become a revolutionary empire that would save Asia and the world, it was the most radical and crazy middle and lower class samurai officers who should accomplish this task.
How far this group of samurai officers can go will need to be supported by the elites at the top.
At this time, the crown prince at the top was looking for strength to support him, and the middle and lower-level officers who were influenced by Kita Ichiki's ideas were also looking for support from the top.
This mutual search was perfectly combined in 1921.
In 1919, Emperor Taisho was unable to govern himself due to cerebral thrombosis, and power fell into the hands of Prince Hirohito and the imperial family.
The ambitious Hirohito visited Europe in March 1921 and did two things that had a great impact, one was in France, where Hirohito bought a bust of Napoleon on his first and only trip in micro-clothes, which is enough to show his heart. Another thing was that the elder of the imperial family, Meiji's son-in-law, Higashikurenomiya, led a group of martial palaces and military observers stationed in Europe to meet the crown prince, and the prince Hirohito specially held a banquet for these officers.
The meeting with the officers of the Shaozhuang faction allowed the ambitions of the emperor and the ambitions of the officers to converge for the first time. A group called Baden-Baden was born.
This group came into being on October 27, 1921 at a three-person gathering in Baden-Baden.
The meeting was shallow, but it had a high status in Japan's modern history. October 27, the day of the Baden-Baden gathering, is considered the birth day of Japan's Showa warlord group.
The reason why the gathering of three young officers who have not yet entered the mainstream of the army can have such great energy is related to both Japanese history and the Japanese imperial family.
Baden-Baden is a spa resort in the noble castle district of the Black Forest in the upper reaches of the Caiin River in Germany. The figures of the three gatherings were three young officers who were all young officers: itinerant military attaches Tetsuyama Nagata and Nintz Okamura, and Toshiro Obata Toshiro in Moscow.
These three men were good friends when they were elementary school in the Japanese Army, and they formed their own gang to avoid being bullied by others. Of the three, Nagata Tetsuyama and Okamura Ninji have the best relationship, calling each other Tetsu and Nin. Toshishiro Obata and Nintz Okamura are on the same cadet team. Since then, the three of them have been playing together, fighting together, and they are friends with good personalities and temperaments.
Later, the three of them were admitted to the Army Non-commissioned Officer School and the Army University together. Among the highly trained Japanese military schools, Nagata Tetsuyama ranked fourth in the non-commissioned officer school and second in the Army University, Toshiro Obata was fifth in the non-commissioned officer school, first in the Army University, and Okamura Nintz was sixth in the non-commissioned officer school.
They were awarded by Emperor Taisho for their outstanding grades at the Army University.
At their core is Nagata Tetsuyama, and together the three of them seriously discuss their bosses, talk about the country, and resent domestic corruption. They believed that in order to reform the personnel corruption in the army, the Choshu faction's monopoly on the army's personnel arrangements must be broken. He also believes that the army should exercise the right of command independently, thus reversing the phenomenon of estrangement between the military and the government and between the military and the people.
As a gathering that has been so valued by the history of Japan, there is no program of action that can be put into practice. However, because all three of them became the proud sons of the Japanese Army in the future, these three people became the symbol of the Japanese Showa warlord group under the name of "Three Feather Ug".
In fact, there were four people in the party, the fourth was Hideki Tojo, although he eventually became the prime minister, but at that time because he was one level lower than Miha-wu when he was in the non-commissioned officer school, he could only light a cigarette for Nagata Tetsuyama and stand guard at the bathroom door in Baden-Baden, and he could not enter this unconventional party.
In addition to these four men in Baden-Baden, they also selected seven other young officers who did not belong to Nagasu: Hideki Tojo, military attache in Switzerland, Umezu Mijiro, military attache in Berlin, Yamashita Fumi, military attache in Copenhagen, Kotaro Nakamura, military attache in Paris, Nakajima Asago, military attache in Cologne, Shimomura Ding, and military attache in Beijing, Matsui Ishine and Ryosuke Isoya.
Thus the 11-member Baden-Baden Group was formed.
Although the content of this gathering is shallow, the reason why it has a high place in the history of Japan is all due to the three participants of the meeting and the list of 11 people they selected.
These 11 people became important figures in the Japanese military circles and were the core backbone of the Showa warlord clique that Japan relied on to start World War II.
Tetsuyama Nagata: Director of the Military Affairs Bureau of the Japanese Army.
Toshiro Obata is the president of the Army University.
Okamura Nintz: Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese invasion of China.
Umezu Mijiro: Chief of the General Staff of the Japanese Army.
Yamashita Fumi: Commander of the Japanese forces in the Philippines.
Kotaro Nakamura: Japanese land minister.
Matsui Ishone: Commander of the Central China Front of the Japanese Invasion of China.
Nakajima Imago: Commander of the 10th Division, Commander of Nanjing.
Shimomura Ding: Commander of the North China Front, later Minister of Land.
Ryosuke Isoya: Commander of the 10th Division of the Japanese Army.
Most of these 11 people happened to be the military attaches that Prince Hirohito received in Europe, and Hirohito, who had not yet come to power, had already gained their support by meeting with these military attachés. Similarly, through the Prince's reception, these officers also gained the support of the Emperor.
In November 1921, the first thing Crown Prince Hirohito did in place of the ailing Emperor Taisho as regent was to gather young people who were willing to dedicate themselves to their ideals to the east of the palace to the quiet palace observatory surrounded by walls and moats on the east side of the palace.
Hirohito renamed the place the University Dormitory, a dormitory for university students.
What to concentrate on is to listen to the 37-year-old Shuaki Okawa talk about Yamato nationalism, great Asianism, and fascism after parting ways with Kita Yihui.
Opened in January 1922, the university dormitory became a training center for the Japanese Imperial Family to train fascist officers.
The sketches of Japan's later vast plans to conquer the world were first drawn here.
The university dormitory also organically combines the royal family's magnates, passionate young Japanese officers, and Kita Kazuki's fascist ideas. Although Kita Yihui did not attend, through the narration of Okawa Zhouming, the thoughts that Bei Yihui brewed in the Shanghai pavilion were injected into the minds of the young lieutenants in the audience like a virus.
On December 25, 1926, the 124th Emperor Hirohito of Japan succeeded to the throne and changed his name to Showa.
National salvation and revolution were the most exciting and appealing slogans of the early 20th century.
Under this slogan, a group of outstanding young people established the Soviet, a group of outstanding Chinese youths gathered in Shanghai to establish the Communist Party of China, a group of young people joined the Whampoa Military Academy in Guangzhou, and another group of outstanding young people gathered in the university dormitory in Tokyo, Japan, to complete the transformation of their fascist ideology.
They seem to us to be fascist freaks, but in them they also have the responsibility not only to transform their own people, but also to liberate the whole world.
Shuaki Okawa once said that the Japanese people must become the center of a whirlwind for the liberation of mankind. The Japanese nation was destined to complete the revolutionization of the world. The realization of this ideal and the military reorganization of Japan are the spiritual products of our generation.
Japan's fascist road was gradually unfolded under the Japanese militarist ideology with Hirohito as the center, the members of the Baden-Baden Group as the backbone, and Kita Kazuki.