Customer Reviews

Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan

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Ian Buruma takes a look at the various ways in which the people of Germany and Japan have dealt with the legacy of the atrocities committed by their countries during World War II. His book was especially timely in the case of Germany because he began writing it shortly after the unification of the Federal Republic and the GDR, when discussion of Germany's past was widespread both at home and abroad. Buruma is also well qualified to comment on Japan because he lived there for many years and speaks the language.

To summarise, the "The Wages of Guilt" finds that the German people, at least in the western part, have been more ready to come to terms with their war legacy than the Japanese. There are Nazi sympathizers and Holacaust deniers aplenty in Germany, but they seem to be confined to the fringes. In Japan, however, rightist elements remain powerful and the official line is to portray the war as an economically driven power struggle in which any excesses committed by the armed forces occurred in the heat of battle, thus denying any similarity to the behaviour of the Nazis. Moreover, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are viewed as atrocities on par with any act committed by the Axis powers; racism and a perverted scientific curiosity are among the motives attributed to America in its decisions to drop the bombs. Buruma explores the efforts to re-examine the war through the prism of German and Japanese reactions to Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Nanking, the war crimes trials, etc. and the result is a troubling and thought provoking meditation on the power of history and the psychology of escape. Check this one out, it's worth a look.

As much as many people would like to wash away the past, it comes back to haunt us. Germany, through its efforts to confront its past has made peace with its neighbors, while Japan trying to avoid any blame has tried to wash it away with denials and subterfuge, leaving bitterness and confrontation. It is also unfortunate that the West treats both with different attitudes, nazi camp guards are hunted down relentlessly while Japanese members of unit 731 who committed atrocities much worse than those nazi guards get away scot-free. We should examine why this warped sense of justice is allowed to flourish in our politically correct times. Why is the suffering of Asian people dismissed so readily? The dropping of the A-bomb on Japan should not cancel out all of Japan's responsibility for the blood shed by its minions in all of Asia. This book begins to open some of those puzzles which have remained beyond comprehension. Unfortunately even in our open society there are dark areas which free-tninking folks are afraid to tread. Read Tocqueville and his "t˙ranny of the majority" thesis and you will begin to comprehend.

Author of God's Dust, Buruma, a native of Holland, examines in this work how Japan and Germany have dealt with and manipulated their collective memories of World War II. In spite of the Dutch experience during the War, Buruma concludes that Germany has faced the past honestly and directly; Japan, on the other hand, continues to try to ignore or rewrite it. In school in the common language of modern Germany, young people are well attuned to and aware of the issues of the past. Young Japanese are either ignorant or indifferent to what their grandparents took part in. Buruma examines the issues of chauvinism, the history of nationalism, contemporary pacifism, and how Auschwitz and Hiroshima have been remembered and memorialized. Drawing on his childhood in Holland and the ten years he spent in Japan, Buruma is well positioned to comment on modern Germany and Japan. Highly recommended.

Buruma's style has always been one of immediacy, providing the reader with a sense of the author's own intimate knowledge and devotion to the subject matter. "Wages of Guilt" is no exception: Buruma provides a thought-provoking and thorough examination of the deeply felt guilt over WWII crimes felt in Germany and the unique perspective of the Japanese toward their activities during the Pacific War (1939-1945). Buruma is particularly adept at discussing the latter, as his previous book, "Behind the Mask," displayed a remarkable insight into Japanese cultural mores. Here the author provides interviews and intriguing observations in his quest to discover how two diverse cultures could be guilty of such horrific crimes -- and how they have learned to deal with their past. Recommended for students of military history, philosophy, or for just trying to understand the human condition. David R. Bannon, Ph.D.; author "Race Against Evil."

Buruma does an exemplary job of examining the respective societies ways of dealing with war memory. Of course, most amateur historians are familiar with the German obsession with war guilt (specifically atonement for the Holocaust) while the Japanese politicians prefer to make themselves out either as innocent martyrs to American nuclear barbarity or as being equally culpable members of a war-mongering human race. But Buruma's tome is strongest when interviewing the heroic few who have persisted in questioning the standard memory-ideologies of both. In the case of the Japanese, the quest for responsibility or accountability is more quixotic, when faced with an indifferent polity, but here the struggle is more direct and linear. In the case of Germany, the trial is more subtle; German collective guilt is undeniable, but local innocence is still a conforting facade. Occasionally, as in the case of Anna Rosmus and the "outing" of her hometown's complicity with Nazism, the ugly truth makes some of her countrymen revert to stereotypical form. But Buruna misses the opportunity (recognizing his book is limited to Germany and Japan) to widen the net of war time guilt; America's role in provoking Japan into war is unmentioned, as is British and French capitulation at Munich, and he softpedals to the point of silence the US Army's acquisition of biowar expertise from the notorious (and eventually whitewashed) Unit 731. Still, minor quibbles indeed in a fine book that investigates a complex subject. In the end, Sherman's maxim still holds true, with the addition that one way to remember hell is way to call sulfur fumes perfume.

This book is quite eye opening. It compares the memory and guilt of WWII in modern Germany and Japan. It looks at how the Germans of today and the Japanese of today look at their countries role in WWII and responsibilty for many atrocities. Readers will be shocked to see how many people in Japan show no remorse or understanding for their role in WWII. While, Germans tend to carry an intense amount of guilt for the war. This makes for some thought provoking reading. And unfortunately, as much as I love Japan and Japanese culture...my visits to Hiroshima confirm the thesis of this book

Why does not the author mention the facts that German don't pay for the war itself but holocaust only, nor Japan has treaties for it such as the Treaty on Basic Relations Between Japan and Korea ('65)?
Yes, he is a good honest patriot.