Reading the other thread on famous battles of WWII got me thinking over an old paper topic from school. Why do you think that Hitler never demanded a quid pro quo with Japan when declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbor.

The gaurantee that Germany would declare on the US if Japan attacked her was not provided until shortly before 12/7 at a time when Germany was experiencing its first setbacks in front of Moscow. A demand that Japan support the German war aims in Russia by a declaration against the USSR in return for a German declaration against the US seems to be logical.

The evidence seems to suggest that the Japanese may not have accepted a demand to declare on the USSR in any event, however, the evidence also suggests that Hitler and Ribbentrop never really considered it as a negotiating point with the Japanese.

Some theories are that Hitler never really considered the US to be a real player militarily in WWII and had estimated that it would not be able to fully rearm until '44-'45. Some have also suggested that he overestimated the power of the Japanese and their fleet and believed that the Japanese would force an Asia first policy from the US. Additionally, any move against the US would include a move against the British and Hitler was interested in further weakening the empire. Perhaps Hitler believed that victory in the East was still a foregone conclusion despite the recent setbacks in front of Moscow and wanted no competitors for the spoils of a defeated USSR.

Others have suggested that Hitler was just a megolomaniacal lunatic.

Any thoughts...

I think he probaly thought that The USSR would be easily overcome as they were sp close to Moscow so he probaly didnt want the Japenese to get any land from Russia and wanted it all for himself.

If japan attacked US, then germany would declare. This gives USA a two front war. This is more advantageous to germany that a europe first US policy and also a US distraction to help japan. This is desirable to germany since the moscow attack was faltering. That is all the incentive that either axis partner needed.

I suspect that Hitler believed that the Soviets would send a large part of their army to Eastern Siberia, in case the Japanese tried to increase the size of Manchuko. As it happens, the Japanese policy was to ignore the Soviets and hope that the Soviets would ignore them.

Its pretty simple, really, there was no direct benefit that Japan could possibly derive from attacking the Soviet Union. Additionally, I think the Japanese figured they'd have their hands full w/ the combination of the Chinese, US, Brits, & Aussies in the South Pacific/China/Indochina.

um, it was provided before 12/7/. A whole year before...on 9/27/1940. See the Tripartite Pact...

also didnt germany and japan have a plan to meet in india

That was i always thought nobody, the whole thing was just based on "you have the eastern world, we'll have the west and well sort out the new world later" was'nt it? Its not like they actually had anything in common.

I've always found it strange that Japan and the USSR managed to never actaully fight each other shane's proberbly right just no point.

The Japanese always considered the Soviet Union their primary enemy.
They first shut Imperial Russia out of Korea and fought them over Manchuria. The change to communism only strengthened the Japanese feeling of animosity towards Russia/the Soviet Union. They still had all of Sibiria to fight over, and that was where Japanese ambitions were directed prior to WWII, when the need for oli made them gamble on picking up the oil-fields in the Dutch East Indies before the US could do anything about it.

The long-term cause of the war was Japan's rampant militarism and the consequent attitude that, as Asians, the Japanese should run Asia without interference from Western powers. The dark side of this concept was that the Japanese felt they should be the "elder brother" to the other Asians and, in general, in charge of any part of Asia that Japanese troops could control. This point of view met with resistance from other Asians, particularly the Koreans and Chinese, who were Japan's first victims. This Japanese aggression, under way since the 1870s, came under increasing criticism from Western powers. The desire of the Western nations, particularly the U.S. and Britain, to rein in Japanese aggression led to an embargo on Japan when Japanese troops entered French Indochina (Vietnam and adjacent areas) in early 1941 and took over. The embargo was the short-term cause of the war. Japan had few raw materials of its own. While it could get coal and mineral ores from its Chinese and Korean territories, oil was available only from Western-controlled sources such as Indonesia. Japan's navy and air forces were useless without oil, so the embargo would eventually disarm Japan. Faced with the choice of surrender or striking back, Japan chose the action her history dictated. To many Japanese, even today, the Pearl Harbor attack was an act of self-defense.

Japan's expansionist war aims were established half a century before Pearl Harbor. No one was able to dissuade Japan from these goals short of a full-scale war. Curiously, most Japanese still hold the view that "they couldn't help themselves" and that the war, and its consequences, made Japan a victim as much as anyone else. This is what is taught in Japanese schools. Because of this, and Japan's current economic power, other Asian nations are still concerned about century-old Japanese war aims.

YNCS, Japan was as nationalistic as most other countries until 1929. In the last days before that date it was in fact more liberal than some others. Then the world economy crise hit also Japan and it moved like other states to the right. To say the Meiji reforms were the background and a cause for ww2 is too far. Indeed Japan believed it could only survive if they are a power to be not ignored. This lead indeed also to the ultra nationalism but the causes for ww2 begin in the crise of 1929.

Adler

The Japanese army's occupation of the Sibirian coast was so impopular with the Japanese (and expensive) that the military stayed out of politics between 1922 and 1931, allowing parliamentarism and civil governments.

They butted in again in 1931 after the depression and in response to what they saw as a credible Chinese threat (the Guomindang) to their hold on Manchuria. The constitution allowed the army and navy to go straight to the emperor and make politics directly that way. Elections continued to be held, but the militarist and extreme nationalist parties never won more than something like 10-15% of the seats in parliament. Not that it mattered for the running of the country. In any case the popular appeal of Japanese militarism is a bit doubtful, though people obviously went along with pretty much anything looking like an imperial decree.

The Pact of steel between the axis powers then later the tripartie pact was primarly directed against communist Russia.

um, it was provided before 12/7/. A whole year before...on 9/27/1940. See the Tripartite Pact...

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/triparti.htm

The tripartite pact was a defensive alliance which provided that the powers would come to each others assistance in the event of an attack against them. See Article 4, "They further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic and military means when one of the three contracting powers is attacked by a power at present not involved in the European war or in the Chinese-Japanese conflict. "

Japan had made it clear that it did not consider itself obliged to enter the war against the USSR by the terms of the Tripartite Pact. In November of 1941 the Japanese ambassador to Germany solicited a guarantee from Ribbentrop and Hitler that Nazi Germany would declare war on the United States if Japan entered into war with the US. This gaurantee was without repect as to who was the agressor in such an event.