Military Discipline and Insubordination in the Imperial Japanese Army, 1868-1945

As in other modern armies, discipline (gunki) was one of the core values of the Imperial Japanese Army, along with obedience, loyalty, bravery, order and simplicity. Discipline has a central function for modern armed forces: it ensures the authority of superiors and the obedience of subordinates. The latter includes not only the willingness to endure the physical and psychological hardships of everyday military life in war and peace, but also, in anthropological terms, the willingness to use force in response to an order and, in extreme cases, to kill people, while at the same time containing and controlling this use of force. It therefore has a mental as well as a physical dimension, it is inwardly directed within an individual and yet at the same time, as a pattern of action, it determines social behaviour, both within a group and against members of other groups. In this respect, military discipline has a strong influence on the military culture of a country.

In modern times, the introduction and enforcement of military discipline has generally gone hand in hand with other processes of social discipline and rationalisation, traditionally subsumed under the term modernisation. These took place in a wide variety of institutions such as schools, factories and hospitals, but above all in the military. Not least for this reason, the armed forces were seen by many as the 'school of the nation'. Military discipline and the norms associated with it gained social relevance through conscription and the incorporation of ever larger sections of the male population into the armed forces, where they were subject to it for at least part of their lives.

On the one hand, a country's military culture, and thus its discipline, was and is subject to processes of change over time. Secondly, as a norm it had different meanings and functions for different people: It varied between troop types and units, enlisted men were subject to it to a far greater extent than officers, and at all times there were those in the military who actively evaded it in whole or in part through insubordination, desertion, self-mutilation or even suicide. The Military Discipline and Insubordination subproject examines the history of discipline in the Imperial Japanese Army from the Meiji period to the end of the Asia-Pacific War. The analysis focuses on three key questions, each of which is examined in terms of continuities and discontinuities: First, how was military discipline understood during this period? Second, how and through what institutions was it taught? And third, how was it enforced against deviant behaviour?

The first key question aims to analyse the debates on the concept of discipline within the military, but also in society. The second asks about the institutional and substantive developments of military education, especially the so-called "spiritual education" (seishin kyōiku) as the "core" of ideological education within the army. The third question aims to analyse the handling of deviant behaviour within the army, especially through punishment, to find out what instruments were used to sanction insubordination and thus enforce discipline, but also to explore how effective discipline actually was in the Japanese army in the period between 1868 and 1945.

A wide range of sources will be used to answer these questions. These include, for example, memoranda, books and journal articles, parliamentary debates, laws and regulations, textbooks and manuals on discipline used in military training, but also reports and records on the punishment of soldiers, such as court martial judgements or files on disciplinary measures.

Monographs

2016

• „Die Gefallenen besänftigen und ihre Taten rühmen.“ Gefallenenkult und politische Verfasstheit in Japan seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Berlin-Boston: DeGruyterOldenbourg 2016.

Edited Volumes

2024 - forthcoming

• Enforcing Discipline and Protecting the Imperial Army. On the History of the Japanese Military Justice System, In: Maddoy, Kelly / Schölz, Tino / Stassar, Nicolas / Zachmann, Urs Matthias (Ed.): Military Justice in Modern History. The Adjudication of War and Violence in a Globalizing World, Berlin: De Gruyter (forthcoming in 2024).
• Military Justice in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Asia-Pacific War, 1937-1945, In: de Vries, Henning / Reichherzer, Frank (Ed.): (Ill)legality of Military Force and Violence. Navigating between Possibility, Necessity and Proportionality, Berlin: De Gruyter (forthcoming in 2024).  
• Silent enim leges inter arma? Die Militärjustiz im Kaiserlich Japanischen Heer während des Asiatisch-Pazifischen Krieges (1937-1945), In: Lingen, Kerstin von / Melber, Takuma (Ed.): Kriegsschauplatz Asien. Historische und globale Perspektiven, Paderborn: Brill Schöningh (forthcoming in 2024).

2024

• Military Justice in Modern History. The Adjudication of War and Violence in a Globalising World, Berlin: De Gruyter (with Kelly Maddox, Nicolas Stassar and Urs Matthias Zachmann, forthcoming 2024).

2015

• Bürger und shimin. Wortfelder, Begriffstraditionen und Übersetzungsprozesse im Deutschen und Japanischen, München: Iudicium 2015 (with Manfred Hettling).

2010

• Der mobilisierte Bürger? Aspekte einer zivilgesellschaftlichen Partizipation im Japan der Kriegszeit (1931-1945) (= Formwandel der Bürgergesellschaft – Arbeitspapiere des Internationalen Graduiertenkollegs Halle-Tōkyō Nr. 6), Halle: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg 2010 (with Maik H. Sprotte).

2009

• Kriegsverbrechen und Öffentlichkeit in Japan (= Formwandel der Bürgergesellschaft – Arbeitspapiere des Internationalen Graduiertenkollegs Halle-Tōkyō Nr. 4), Halle: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg 2009.

2006

• Geschichtswissenschaft in Japan. Themen, Ansätze und Theorien, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2006 (with Hans Martin Krämer and Sebastian Conrad).

Articles and Chapters

2024

• Enforcing Discipline and Protecting the Imperial Army. On the History of the Japanese Military Justice System, In: Maddoy, Kelly / Schölz, Tino / Stassar, Nicolas / Zachmann, Urs Matthias (Ed.): Military Justice in Modern History. The Adjudication of War and Violence in a Globalizing World, Berlin: De Gruyter (forthcoming in 2024).
• Military Justice in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Asia-Pacific War, 1937-1945, In: de Vries, Henning / Reichherzer, Frank (Ed.): (Ill)legality of Military Force and Violence. Navigating between Possibility, Necessity and Proportionality, Berlin: De Gruyter (forthcoming in 2024).  
• Silent enim leges inter arma? Die Militärjustiz im Kaiserlich Japanischen Heer während des Asiatisch-Pazifischen Krieges (1937-1945), In: Lingen, Kerstin von / Melber, Takuma (Ed.): Kriegsschauplatz Asien. Historische und globale Perspektiven, Paderborn: Brill Schöningh (forthcoming in 2024).

2023

• Hort der Traditionen und Instrument der Modernisierung. Monarchie und Kaiserhof in Japan in der zweiten Hälfte der Meiji-Zeit, In: Neugebauer, Wolfgang / Wienfort, Monika / Holtz, Bärbel (Ed.): Der preußische Hof und die Monarchie in Europa. Akteure, Modelle, Wahrnehmungen (1786-1918), Paderborn: Brill / Schönigh 2023, pp. 347-385.

2020

• Clever Approaches to Tricky Sources. How to Extract Information from Business Archives and War Memorials, In: Kottmann, Nora / Reiher, Cornelia (Ed.): Studying Japan. Handbook of Research Designs, Fieldwork and Methods, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2020, pp. 248-252 (with Katja Schmidtpott).
• Kako to no danzetsu to renzoku. 1945-nen irai no Doitsu to Nihon ni okeru kako to no torikumi [Distance and Continuity. Dealing with the Past in Japan and Deutschland in Comparative Perspective], In: Ishida, Yūji / Kawakita, Atsuko (Hg.): Nachizumu, Horokōsuto, sengo Doitsu [National Socialism, Holocaust, and Postwar Germany], Tōkyō: Bensei shuppan 2020, pp. 313-354 (with Manfred Hettling, reprint).
• The Soldiers Two Bodies. Meaning and Mourning after the Great War, In: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War (with Manfred Hettling; online available https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/bereavement_and_mourning).

2019

• Bürgerbegriffe in Japan, In: Hettling, Manfred / Pohle, Richard (Ed.): Bürgertum. Bilanzen, Perspektiven, Begriffe, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2019, pp. 433-467.

2015

• Politische versus sozio-kulturelle Aufladung. Shimin und Bürger im Vergleich, In: Hettling, Manfred / Schölz, Tino (Ed.): Bürger und shimin. Wortfelder, Begriffstraditionen und Übersetzungsprozesse im Deutschen und Japanischen, München: Iudicium 2015, S. 7-39 (with Manfred Hettling).

2014

• Ishiwara Kanji. Doitsu gunji-shi kenkyū kara Saishū sensō-ron e [Ishiwara Kanji. From the Study of German Military History to the Final World War], In: Harada, Keiichi / Yasuda, Tsuneo et.al. (Ed.): Kōza Higashi Ajia no chishiki-jin [Lectures East Asian Intellectuals]. Volume 4: Sensō to mukiatte, Manshū jihen kara Nihon haisen made [Towards War: From the Manchurian Incident to Japans Defeat], Tōkyō: Yūshi-sha 2014, pp. 269-291.

2012

• Heldenseelen und Fundamente des Friedens. Gefallenenkult und Kaiserloyalität in Japan, In: Hettling, Manfred / Echternkamp, Jörg (Ed.): Gefallenengedenken im globalen Vergleich. Nationale Tradition, politische Legitimation und Individualisierung der Erinnerung, München: Oldenbourg 2012, pp. 301-328.

2010

• „Sich um die Versehrten und Hinterbliebenen im Geiste echter Mütter und Schwestern kümmern.“ – Wohlfahrtsorganisationen für Kriegsopfer unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Patriotischen Frauenverbandes, In: Sprotte, Maik Hendrik / Schölz, Tino (Ed.): Der mobilisierte Bürger? Aspekte einer zivilgesellschaftlichen Partizipation im Japan der Kriegszeit 1931-1945 (= Arbeitspapiere des Internationalen Graduiertenkollegs Halle-Tōkyō, Nr. 6), Halle: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg 2010, pp. 35-44.
• Zivilgesellschaft und Krieg in Japan. Eine Einführung, In: Sprotte, Maik Hendrik / Schölz, Tino (Ed.): Der mobilisierte Bürger? Aspekte einer zivilgesellschaftlichen Partizipation im Japan der Kriegszeit 1931-1945, Halle: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg 2010, pp. 7-13.

2009

• Kriegsverbrechen und die japanische Öffentlichkeit, In: Schölz, Tino (Ed.): Kriegsverbrechen und Öffentlichkeit in Japan, Halle: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg 2009, pp. 7-24.

2007

• Kako to no danzetsu to renzoku. 1945-nen irai no Doitsu to Nihon ni okeru kako to no torikumi, In: Yōroppa kenkyū 6 (2007), pp. 93-118 (with Manfred Hettling).

2006

• Faschismuskonzepte in der japanischen Zeitgeschichtsforschung, In: Krämer, Hans Martin / Schölz, Tino / Conrad, Sebastian (Ed.): Geschichtswissenschaft in Japan. Themen, Ansätze und Theorien, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2006, pp. 107-134.
• Geschichtswissenschaft in Japan. Entwicklung und aktueller Diskussionsstand, In: Krämer, Hans Martin / Schölz, Tino / Conrad, Sebastian (Ed.): Geschichtswissenschaft in Japan. Themen, Ansätze und Theorien, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2006, S. 9-30 (with Hans Martin Krämer und Sebastian Conrad).

Reviews

2021

• Ito, Tomohide: Militarismus des Zivilen in Japan 1937–1940. Diskurse und ihre Auswirkungen auf politische Entscheidungsprozesse, München: Iudicium 2019. In: H-Soz-Kult 08.02.2021 (HistLit 2021-1-086).

2016

• Benesch, Oleg: Inventing the Way of the Samurai. Nationalism, Internationalism and Bushidō in Modern Japan, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014. In: Dhau. Jahrbuch für außereuropäische Geschichte 1 (2016), pp. 217-221.

2012

• Hedinger, Daniel: Im Wettstreit mit dem Westen. Japans Zeitalter der Ausstellungen 1854-1941, Frankfurt a.M.: Campus 2011. In: WerkstattGeschichte 63 (2012), pp. 128-130.

2004

• Kittel, Manfred: Nach Nürnberg und Tokio. „Vergangenheitsbewältigung“ in Japan und Westdeutschland 1945 bis 1969, München: Oldenbourg 2004. In: Sehepunkte 7/4 (15.04.2007) (with Manfred Hettling).