Comparative Historical Approach on Japan and Germany

Comparative Historical Approach on Japan and Germany

Japan and Germany were simultaneously occupied by the Allied Powers after World War II. Both had during the war experienced limitations on freedom of expression; this included the inspection of private letters and state control over the press in wartime. Afterwards, both nations became members of the Western world and militarily allies of the U.S., experiencing high economic growth. Though Japan and (West) Germany have many such similar circumstances, there have been some clear differences with regard to freedom of speech and the press.

According to the “Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2005” of “Reporters without Borders,” an international NGO based in France, out of 167 countries Germany is ranked worldwide at 18^th and Japan at 37^th in terms of freedom of the press.¹⁹ The difference of these figures may not seem so large because the research includes almost all nations and regions in the world, in which there are many apparent military dictatorships or religious dictatorships. When we focus on the diversity among so-called democratic countries, however, this difference becomes more noteworthy.²⁰ Germany has also the past of strong censorship and powerful propaganda.²¹ Of course, even in the present time, it does not have complete freedom of speech.²² Nevertheless, the above rating makes it clear that Japanese freedom of the press is less evident than in Germany. With this initial comparison in mind, then, I am led to ask what causes lay behind the differences in conditions of freedom of speech in Japan and Germany. I would like to focus on the American zone in Germany and directly compare it to Japanese case, which was occupied chiefly by the U.S.

I will make use mainly of qualitative research, relying on secondary materials about the American occupation in Japan and Germany. The difference between quantitative and qualitative research are both subtle and profound. In general, qualitative research does not rely on quantitative hypothesis testing or the use of samples for inference to a population. Qualitative research relies more on observation, intuition, and personal insight.²³

In taking up the case studies of Germany and Japan, I will show that each situation was complex, diverse, and unique. I will also look at the interaction of officials with the American military authorities, and Japanese and Germany governments; negotiations among the governments; as well as bargaining between the media and the Americans and both local governments. Some statistics then will be utilized, but I will not treat a large number of economic or cross-national data.

Nevertheless, good statistics would support arguments, as well as give a new perspective, which would lead us to a new argument. In this respect, the goal of the comparison should coincide with the concept of the synthetic comparative strategies, which Charles Ragin proposes. The strategies extract and combine the advantages of case-oriented and variable-oriented approaches, in order to avoid making oversimplified assumptions.²⁴

The period treated in this thesis will be the years 1945 to 1955, since the recovery of sovereignty of took place in April 1952 and for West Germany in May 1955.

3. Extant Studies of Occupation and Control of Freedom of Speech

From 1982 to 1986, the Japanese literary critic Jun Etō wrote several articles to reveal the state of the severe censorship and propaganda under the American occupation, by using abundant official documents of GHQ/SCAP from the American National Archives.²⁸ These articles are collected in a single book the Closed Linguistic Space: Occupation Army’s Censorship and Postwar Japan. This book stimulated Japanese academia and conservative critics, and simultaneously nationalism among people, mentioned above. Etō was successful in showing how censorship and propaganda policy were planned and executed, and concludes that the American suppression has affected Japanese journalism and literature. This book remains a “valuable source for students of the postwar era.”²⁹ I will refer to his arguments more precisely and my criticism of them in section 1.4.

In 1992, Kyoko Hirano, a Japanese historian who researched the American censorship on Japanese cinema during the occupation, argued that many in GHQ could experiment ambitiously without fear of provoking voter opposition or causing confusion. She suggested that Japanese voters were not counted as subjects in a country, which was, officially, being democratized.³⁰ Likewise, in 1995, Heide Fehrenbach, an American historian, analyzed American censorship on German cinema during the occupation era.³¹

This same year, American political science Richard L. Merritt’s in Democracy Imposed examined opinion polls by OMGUS in the American zone of West Germany from 1945-1949. In this book, he analyzed the relationship between the American occupation, freedom of the press, and the reaction of ordinary people, claiming that most Germans’ reactions to the American occupation and freedom of the press were positive in nature.³²

John Dower, an American historian, depicted in Embracing Defeat of 1999 the relationship between American censorship and the reactions of ordinary people. He criticized American censorship for helping create and manage “the deeper legacies of this censored democracy” that “transcended ideology.” The censorship reminded ordinary people of the imperial censorship that was recent at the time. The people realized that on the political and social issues, maintaining silence and conformism were indispensable to survive in the society.³³

Academic work that notes the relationship between American censorship and the mass media are limited to the two following volumes: in 1996, Teruo Ariyama focused on the struggle between freedom of the press and American control immediately after the end of war.³⁴ In the same year, Taketoshi Yamamoto, in Media Analysis during the American Occupation, attempted to dig out more documents from the Archives in Washington, and analyze what happened at the time. His position opposes Etō’s view by arguing that there was space for the Japanese mass media to choose their own way, and he also depicts some episode of the Japanese mass media’s ingratiating itself to GHQ.

I agree with Yamamoto's argument, but he analyses Japan as his sole subject of study. By contrast, then, this thesis will examine both Japan and German cases comparatively and will criticize some of the arguments made by Etō, noted above. Comparative work between the American occupation Japan and Germany are indeed few in number and, to my knowledge, there have been no comparative treatments focusing on how restrictions to the freedom of speech influenced both societies.³⁵ Therefore, this examination will contribute to the research on both the occupation and on the control of freedom of speech in a broader context beyond Japan alone.

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