In the autumn of 1945, Japan’s mass media submitted to an Allied-centered interpretation of history imposed by the occupation authorities. Drawing on an essay by Sukehironari Hirakawa, this article examines the American-led policy of treating Imperial Japan as the Asian equivalent of Nazi Germany and the postwar media figures who adopted that historical narrative as though it had arisen from their own convictions.

June 20, 2020
In the autumn of 1945, when Japan was compelled to publicize and disseminate a historical interpretation centered on the victorious Allied powers, the Japanese mass media complied.
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
Judging Japan Through American Eyes
In Europe, the leaders of Nazi Germany were being punished at Nuremberg.
In the Far East, the leaders of the Japanese Empire also had to be punished at Ichigaya in Tokyo.
That was the occupation policy of the Allied powers, led by the United States, which understood the Japanese Empire by analogy as the Asian equivalent of Nazi Germany.
In the autumn of 1945, when Japan was compelled to publicize and disseminate a historical interpretation centered on the victorious Allied powers, the Japanese mass media complied.
Some of those involved actively embraced that view and began to speak of that historical understanding as though it had arisen from within themselves.
Partly because those forces were so vocal, there are still people today who continue to revere their authority.
In explaining the psychology behind this, one psychologist used the following analogy.
The manner in which the Japanese news media, placed entirely at the mercy of the American military, submitted to its authority resembled that of a woman who had been raped but, instead of saying that she had been forced, told herself that she too had consented, that it had been consensual intercourse, and thereby persuaded herself, refrained from filing a complaint, and preserved outward appearances.
I apologize for the excessive explicitness of the analogy, but I believe that it touches upon one aspect of the psychology—or rather, of the truth.
To be continued.