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The spirit of the Japanese nation is, by its nature,a thing that must be propagated over the seven seas and extended over the five continents. Anything that may hinder it must be abolished, even by force.
-Army Minister Sadao Araki, January 23, 1933

The post-World War I economy wreaked havoc on many nations, Japan included. Due to the postwar production slowdown, increased trade barriers and tariffs imposed by the West, and economic strains caused by the Great Kanto Earthquake, Japan fell into an economic depression two years before the global Great Depression began in 1930. Thirty-seven banks were forced to close after Japanese citizens tried to cash in government-issued earthquake bonds that had been sold to raise funds for reconstruction. The economic crisis brought down the civilian government and brought to power the zaibatsu, family-controlled businesses that held monopolies within the Japanese Empire and kept close ties, and influence, with the civilian government. When the Great Depression began, Japan was economically and politically vulnerable and increasingly unstable. Like other nations during such fragile times, Japan saw a rise in political groups promising to fix the problems of the nation.

The Cherry Blossom Society, or Sakurakai, was one such group. The cherry blossom carries significant symbolic meaning in Japan. In Buddhist cultural tradition, the flower, with its short blooming period, expresses the fleeting nature of life. Sakurakai adopted this as a name not only to connect its nationalist ideology to the symbol of the nation but also to give its activities spiritual meaning. Founded by Hashimoto Kingoro, a leader in the Japanese Imperial Army, Sakurakai advocated military insurrection and "Showa Restoration," which would free Emperor Hirohito from all political party affiliations. The Cherry Blossom Society believed the political parties established during Taisho were to blame for Japan's current economic struggles, and their elimination was the first step in strengthening the nation.

Sakurakai began with only a few members in September 1930. It quickly grew in size and attracted several hundred ultranationalist officers from the army's general staff headquarters in Tokyo. In October 1931, Sakurakai attempted their first of two coup d'états, or overthrows of the government. Both efforts ultimately failed. Those involved in the first insurrection suffered few consequences, but those conspirators involved in the second insurrection were arrested and transferred to other posts. Hashimoto was forced to retire, and the group had to disband. Despite these setbacks, other like-minded nationalist factions arose, and the military continued to play a dominant role in the political affairs of the nation.

The ideology of the radicalized factions of the Sakurakai found a receptive audience with Japanese military leaders. While the emperor was the country's leader, actual power was divided among his advisers, the police, and the military. By the 1930s many military officers held legislative and executive power and formed an independent body that was answerable to only the emperor. A formative figure in this shift was General Araki Sadao, appointed as Army Minister in 1931. He was a staunch, outspoken proponent of a policy known as Kōdōha, or the "Imperial Way," which advocated expansionism, totalitarianism, and greater militarism. General Araki retired from this post in 1936 and one year later was appointed minister of education where he used propaganda to promote patriotism and loyalty. Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s Japanese students were taught about their nation's new status as a world power and the responsibility they held in sustaining this status.

Each school day began with a procession to a courtyard where the Japanese flag was run up a poll while the national anthem played, further reinforcing the strength and connection to Japan's imperial past with its current status. At other educational institutions, such as one private Jesuit institution in Tokyo, the Fathers and the students were forced to undergo military training. Scholarships for higher education were granted not solely for good grades or hard work but to students who personified the Japanese military ideal of discipline, tradition, strength, and loyalty to the emperor. In the early 1930s the Japanese government established the Board of Information, which censored the media and outlawed "dangerous thoughts," ideas that originated in the West and conflicted with the goals of the Japanese Imperial Army. History books were revised and history classes were transformed into courses on Japanese ethics and morals. Books about the divinity of the emperor and the duty of every citizen to worship at the imperial altar become compulsory reading in all high schools and colleges.

One Japanese soldier, who served in World War II and was interviewed for the book Evil Men, recounted the impact of his schooling during this period:

You know, public education, they drove loyalty and patriotism, that sort of ideology home. In other words, what does that mean? It means that the country of Japan is, well, the country of God. It is the absolute best country in the world-that idea was thoroughly planted into us. . . . If you turn it over, it means to despise other races. That is the sort of ideology it is. And from the time we were small, we called Chinese people dirty chinks-made fun of them. We called Russians Russkie pigs. We called Westerners hairy barbarians, you know? And so this meant that when the people of Japan joined the army and went to the front, no matter how many Chinese they killed, they didn't think of it as being much different than killing a dog or a cat.

Another reason is, like I said before, to give your life to the leader, His Majesty the Emperor, of what is absolutely the greatest country in the world, Japan, is a sacred duty and the highest honor.
There's that ideology, you know. And this ideology, when you go into the military, is strengthened more and more, and your personality is taken away. . . . When it's time to go to battle-at those times, when you were ordered by a superior, you couldn't resist. So the humanitarian ideology I learned about in college just couldn't win out over the ideology of "loyalty and patriotism" that had been drilled into me from the time I was small.

1. What did members of the Cherry Blossom Society see as the best way to respond to crisis and return honor to the country? Look in the reading and online for information about cherry blossoms; why do you think the group's leaders chose it as the symbol of their secret society?

2. How do you explain the appeal of groups like the Cherry Blossom Society during the early 1930s in Japan?

3. Compare the way other world leaders (the US or Germany) responded to the economic crisis during the 1930s. How did they build support for their ideas?

4. How did Japanese schools try to instill pride and patriotism? What changes did schools undergo?

5. Consider the passage from Evil Men at the end of the reading. What words stand out? When are loyalty and patriotism positive values? Under what conditions do they become dangerous ideas?

6. One former soldier recalls being educated to "give your life to the leader" (the emperor). How would you describe the difference between educating people to respect authority and preparing people to "give your life to the leader"?

7. Create a working definition of the word militarism. What evidence of increasing Japanese militarism do you find in the changes at school during this period?

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The post-World War I economy wreaked havoc on many nations, Japan included. Due to the postwar production slowdown, increased trade barriers and tariffs imposed by the West, and economic strains caused by the Great Kanto Earthquake, Japan fell into an economic depression two years before the global Great Depression began in 1930.

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STATION 6: Britain, U.S., and Latin America

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STATION 6: Britain, U.S., and Latin America

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The Great Depression: Crash Course US History #33

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STATION 3: The Stock Market Crash of 1929

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STATION 3: The Stock Market Crash of 1929

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The Stock Market Crash of 1929 - Causes and Effects

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The Great Depression transformed the American political and economic landscape. It produced a major political realignment, creating a coalition of big city ethnics, African Americans and Southern Democrats committed, to varying degrees, to interventionist government.

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A brief overview of the economic, social and political impact of the Great Depression on Germany. Extract from History File.

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History Brief: The Rise of Imperial Japan

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STATION 6: Britain, U.S.A, & Latin America

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STATION 6: Britain, U.S.A, & Latin America

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The Great Depression - causes and effects

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Uploaded by Mr Allsop History on 2014-01-30.

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The Allies' determination to extract reparations from Germany hindered the nation's recovery after World War I. Vast sums of money were demanded from Berlin, compensation for the Kaiserreich's role in instigating war. Germany's negotiators at the Paris peace conference gave an in-principle agreement to the payment of reparations. The legal basis for reparations was provided by Article 231 of the Versailles treaty, the infamous 'war guilt' clause that deemed Germany responsible for "all the loss and damage" suffered by Allied nations during the war. But the Paris negotiators were unwilling to fix a final reparations figure or determine how reparations should be recovered. This task was instead left to an Inter-Allied Reparations Commission, formed in 1919 by the governments of Britain, France, Belgium, Italy and Japan.

The commission met over 1920 and again in Paris in January 1921, where it proposed a final figure of 269 billion gold marks, or £UK11.3 billion. This was an astonishing amount by any measure. It was the equivalent of 96,000 tons of gold - or around half the known gold reserves of the entire world; today it would equate to almost $US500,000,000,000 (half a trillion American dollars). The German delegates refused to accept this figure, quite understandably, forcing the commission to reconvene in London in March. By then, Germany was under considerable pressure to agree to a final reparations figure. Berlin had failed to pay a £1 billion interim instalment, leading to the occupation of three industrial cities along the Rhine.

In April the London meeting of the Commission fixed a final reparations figure of £6.6 billion. The reparations instalments were to be paid quarterly in gold or foreign exchange backed by gold, along with tradable commodities such as steel, raw iron or coal. Berlin was informed that any defaults on these payments would lead to the occupation of the industrial Ruhr region and the confiscation of raw materials and industrial equipment there. Though this revised amount was less than two-thirds the figure first proposed, it remained well beyond the capacity of the war-ravaged German economy. The reparations figure generated international debate for a decade. In England, the noted economist John Maynard Keynes criticised the agreed figure, suggesting that the true amount of war damages had been exaggerated by the Allies, particularly France and Belgium. Forcing Germany to pay the full amount, Keynes argued, would not only devastate the German economy, it would have a detrimental impact on European trade and probably generate considerable political instability.

"Inflation started before reparations became an issue; the connection with reparations cannot therefore be considered the entire problem. Yet reparations were more than merely a contributory factor to the acceleration of inflation. The earlier stage 'creeping inflation' was the result of long-term structural problems within the economy and the pressures exerted by war, and the later-stage hyperinflation was directly related to the obligation after 1921 to pay reparations. The connection between the reparations saga and the collapse of the mark is too strong to be coincidental."
Stephen Lee, historian

Germany made an initial reparations payment of $250 million - or about 0.8 percent of the total - in August 1921. But even this placed enormous strains on the German economy, which had dwindling gold reserves, little foreign trade and was reliant on imported raw materials for its industries. In late 1921 the Weimar government asked the Reparations Commission for a moratorium on payments. This was granted in May 1922, despite the opposition of the French government. In 1922 the value of the German Reichsmark collapsed; by late in the year it took almost 3,500 Reichsmarks to purchase one US dollar. Unable to import or buy foreign exchange, the German government found itself unable to meet its reparations obligations. The French government, believing the German government was acting purposefully and dishonestly by withholding payments, began to agitate for punitive action.

Germany was not the only European nation struggling to pay its wartime debts. France was itself defaulting on instalments for its war debts, particularly those to its largest creditor, the United States. A German cartoon of the early 1920s showed the French prime minister threatening war against Germany but being obstructed by 'Uncle Sam', who suggested: "Why don't you pay for your last war before starting another". The post-war economic malaise and the issues of war debts and reparations remained divisive issues for much of the 1920s. The reparations figures were constantly being challenged and revised, most notably by the Dawes Plan (1924) and the Young Plan (1929).

1. The defeated Germany agreed to pay war reparations, as determined at the Versailles conference.
2. The French were the strongest advocates for a massive figure, hoping to keep Germany bankrupt and weak.
3. The final figure proved too much for Germany's struggling economy to pay, though she met her first instalment.
4. The German economy slumped in 1922, with currency inflation, strikes and falling production.
5. Unable to make further payments, the Germans saw French troops occupy the Ruhr industrial region.

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This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation:
J. Llewellyn et al, "War reparations and Weimar Germany", Alpha History, 2018, accessed [today's date], https://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/reparations/.

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The Allies' determination to extract reparations from Germany hindered the nation's recovery after World War I. Vast sums of money were demanded from Berlin, compensation for the Kaiserreich's role in instigating war. Germany's negotiators at the Paris peace conference gave an in-principle agreement to the payment of reparations.

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STATION 3: The Stock Market Crash of 1929

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STATION 3: The Stock Market Crash of 1929

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The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression

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Overview of the Wall Street Crash in 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression.