Journalist Masayuki Takayama argues that it is not Japan but Germany that has closed its eyes to the past. Drawing from his latest book, he exposes the hypocrisy of the Asahi Shimbun, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and German intellectuals who continue to accuse Japan of historical amnesia while their own nation denies collective responsibility for war crimes and the Holocaust. Takayama highlights how German leaders shifted blame onto Hitler and the Nazis, evading reparations even to nations like the Netherlands and Greece, while German media perpetuate fabricated stories such as John Rabe’s “Nanjing Massacre.” He criticizes Japanese academics who echo this propaganda, and stresses that Germans have long forgotten their centuries of persecution of Jews. This chapter insists on confronting historical falsehoods and calls for a reassessment of Germany’s claims of moral authority.

In his latest book, journalist Masayuki Takayama argues that it is Germans, not the Japanese, who are blind to their past. He exposes the hypocrisy of media outlets like the Asahi Shimbun and Süddeutsche Zeitung, who create anti-Japanese propaganda while ignoring Germany’s own history of atrocities. This article, based on Takayama’s work, reveals how Germans have disassociated themselves from the actions of the Nazis to avoid war reparations and how their history of massacres predates Hitler. It argues that a significant portion of Germans and certain academics act as proxies for anti-Japanese sentiment, and that reading this book is essential for anyone seeking the truth.

It Is the Germans Who Close Their Eyes to the Past
January 6, 2021

The following is from the latest book published on December 31, 2020, by Masayuki Takayama, the only truly unique journalist in the postwar world.
It is a must-read not only for all Japanese citizens but for people everywhere.
Especially for those who make a living through the Asahi Shimbun, a newspaper that delights in demeaning its own country to the world and will fabricate any story for that purpose, a newspaper unmatched in its vulgarity among advanced nations, as well as those who subscribe to it.
Particularly for the so-called scholars who have urged Japan to “learn from Germany.”
For those who have lived off the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which has exploited Asahi’s anti-Japan articles to continue its own anti-Japan writings.
For those who subscribe to such newspapers and television stations that every year, at the end of the year, broadcast John Rabe’s fabricated Nanjing Massacre tale as a ritual event.
As a result, nearly half of the German people are said to harbor anti-Japanese sentiment.
It must also be read by so-called scholars such as Alexis Dudden, agents of South Korea in the United States.
It would not be an exaggeration to say it is the greatest book in the world.

The Germans themselves are the ones who close their eyes to the past.
During the last war, Germans declared that they were the superior Germanic people.
Anyone can say such things.
Even the Chinese claim they are the great Han people.
But when such notions are forced on other peoples, it becomes a crime.
When they invaded Slavic Poland, they decreed, “Inferior people like you have no need for higher learning.”
It was enough if they could count to five hundred.
It was enough if they could write their own name.
Thus, they limited Polish education to four years of elementary school.
In the nineteenth century, Poland had been under Russian rule, where higher learning was likewise forbidden, yet even so, Madame Curie was able to attend high school.
Germany was more arrogant than Russia.
With that arrogance, they declared, “Inferior Jews are better off dead,” and carried out the Holocaust.

Yet history books show that Germans had killed Jews without such reasons long before.
In the thirteenth century, they massacred all the Jews in Sachsenhausen, and in the fourteenth century, they burned tens of thousands alive in Frankfurt and other cities.
The Germans are arrogant and forget what they have done almost immediately.
They are astonishingly careless.

The other day, Richard von Weizsäcker, the first president of unified Germany, died.
The foolish Asahi Shimbun highlighted his 1985 speech in which he declared, “Those who close their eyes to the past become blind to the present,” using it to slander Japan as unwilling to face history.
But Weizsäcker himself was just as careless.
He spoke as if the German people had squarely confronted their great crimes of invading neighboring countries and exterminating Jews, and had sincerely apologized.
But upon closer examination, the Germans themselves, though reluctantly paying some reparations for the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” insisted the responsibility lay with Hitler and the Nazis, not with the German people, who had no need to apologize.
Looking at Germany’s past, even without Hitler, Germans had been slaughtering Jews.
And regarding the recent war of aggression, they claim, “That was the work of the Nazis.”
Thus, they disclaim responsibility for the war, deny obligations of reparations, and even to the rapacious Netherlands, which extracted reparations from Japan twice, Germany has not paid a single mark in war damages.
It is the German people themselves who have closed their eyes to the past.

Now Greece has demanded 22 trillion yen in wartime reparations from Germany.
Greece, having been forced to buy invalid bonds and suffering damages of that scale, has ample cause.
How will the aggressor Germans attempt to lie their way out of this?
That will be worth watching.