Has Japan killed more foreign civilians in WWII than any other country in history?

Maciamo · 12 Apr 2005

Thread courtesy of Wa-pedia.com

Looking at the list of World War I casualties and World War II casualties, I noticed that the civilian losses in China during WWII alone were higher than of all other countries combined (except USSR). And the numbers for other Asian countries are not even listed. As the Japanese were the sole responsible for these casulalities, then adding those of the rest of Asia, I was wondering if the Japanese do not deserve the dubious title of worse butchers of innocent in the history of mankind. No other war has caused more civilian deaths and more suffering (rapes, torture, slave workers, sexual slaves, biological experiments on live human beings...) than the Japanese invasion of Asia from the 1930's to 1945.

If you can think of a country having caused more civilian or total casualities in the same war (=same government and people, not with several centuries of interval), please let me know.

Jungle Boy · 12 Apr 2005

Russia...Stalin killed over 20 million innocent Russians during his purges. The man was a genocidal maniac.

Maciamo · 12 Apr 2005

Jungle Boy said:
Russia...Stalin killed over 20 million innocent Russians during his purges. The man was a genocidal maniac.

Yes, and Mao even did worse after WWII. Let say that Japan killed the highest number of "foreign civilians" (not own citizens). The total number of casualties caused by the Nazi are similar to that caused by the Japanese. The main difference is that the Japanese killed a disproportionately high number of civilians, while the Nazi killed more soldiers (and lost 4x more troops than the Japanese too, which indicates a higher level of soldiers vs soldiers fighting).

alexriversan · 12 Apr 2005

what about the spaniards: how many aztecs?
what about the brits/french: how many native americans?
what about the inquisition(germany/france): how many hags, wizards and faggots?

just write down one, holy nation/race; which has not murdered at all. the israelites does not count, as they are already mentioned in the bible: the fleed from the egypt slavery!

"to the crucification? one cross only each, please"
(monthy pyton, the life of the brian)

mad pierrot · 12 Apr 2005

As the Japanese were the sole responsible for these casulalities, then adding those of the rest of Asia, I was wondering if the Japanese do not deserve the dubious title of worse butchers of innocent in the history of mankind.

Are you sure? Doesn't that number include deaths of Chinese killed by other Chinese in internal conflicts? Seems impossibly high for the Japanese alone to be responsible for those deaths.

:?

Maciamo · 12 Apr 2005

mad pierrot said:
Are you sure? Doesn't that number include deaths of Chinese killed by other Chinese in internal conflicts? Seems impossibly high for the Japanese alone to be responsible for those deaths.

No, that was after WWII. The reason why the Japanese killed more people than the Nazi is that they invaded China from 1933 and stayed until 1945. 12 years in total, while the Nazi only fought for about 4.5 years (from late 1939 to early 1945).

mad pierrot · 12 Apr 2005

Good point. But surely all of China couldn't have been united against Japan for all of those 12 years? There had to have been a few petty warlords who took advangtage of the situation. Enemies weakened by fighting Japanese forces would have been tempting targets.

I get your point, though. This is something I'm going to have to look into.

:sorry:

Maciamo · 12 Apr 2005

alexriversan said:
what about the spaniards: how many aztecs?
what about the brits/french: how many native americans?
what about the inquisition(germany/france): how many hags, wizards and faggots?

You don't get my point. Everybody knows that every country has massacred other people or their own people at some time of their history.

But the Spaniards could not have massacred 20 million Amerindian for the sole reason that there were not 20 million Amerindian in the whole Americas when they got there. The world population has increased a lot in the last 2 centuries. We are now 6 billion people, but were only 1 billion in 1802 and about 500 million in 1500. Wikipedia tell us that the population of Latin America in 1750 (250 years after the Europeans arrived) was 16 million, including the European settlers.

Because WWII was one of the last major wars, and the one causing the highest death toll in history, it is only natural that the main protagonists be the worst butchers in history too. These were the Germans and the Japanese, and the title of this thread says that the Japanese killed the highest number of (foreign) civilians ever.

Maciamo · 12 Apr 2005

mad pierrot said:
Good point. But surely all of China couldn't have been united against Japan for all of those 12 years? There had to have been a few petty warlords who took advangtage of the situation. Enemies weakened by fighting Japanese forces would have been tempting targets.

China was not united, and that's partly why there was so little organised resistance from the Chinese. China was laready 10x more populous than Japan, and Japan only sent a fraction of its people as soldiers to China, but managed to control the most densely populated regions of the East. Only about 2 million Chinese soldiers died, against 10 million civilians. From what I read in my various history books, the Japanese army was extremely brutal in China, which accounts for the high number of civilian casualties.

mad pierrot · 13 Apr 2005

Whoops.

Posted something and put my proverbial foot in mouth.

China was not united, and that's partly why there was so little organised resistance from the Chinese. China was laready 10x more populous than Japan, and Japan only sent a fraction of its people as soldiers to China, but managed to control the most densely populated regions of the East. Only about 2 million Chinese soldiers died, against 10 million civilians. From what I read in my various history books, the Japanese army was extremely brutal in China, which accounts for the high number of civilian casualties.

Of course. I'm well aware of the circumstances, but it seems dubious to attribute all of the 10,000,000 civilian casualties just to Japanese forces. That's not to say the Japanese didn't have a large hand in it. I mean attributing all isn't very reasonable. (For example, say directly slaughtered 7 million, caused another 2 million indirectly, and the remaining one million killed by various factions/warlords.) Blaming just Japan as the sole source of death at that time seems unrealistic to me. The major source, sure. But the sole source? No.

Maciamo · 13 Apr 2005

mad pierrot said:
Of course. I'm well aware of the circumstances, but it seems dubious to attribute all of the 10,000,000 civilian casualties just to Japanese forces. That's not to say the Japanese didn't have a large hand in it. I mean attributing all isn't very reasonable. (For example, say directly slaughtered 7 million, caused another 2 million indirectly, and the remaining one million killed by various factions/warlords.) Blaming just Japan as the sole source of death at that time seems unrealistic to me. The major source, sure. But the sole source? No.

Agreed, but 10 million is only one estimation. According to this article, the Chinese government claims that Japan killed as many as 30 million Chinese. I tried to be conservative on the number already.

mad pierrot · 13 Apr 2005

Point taken. I believe the number to be likely more than 10 million as well. Sad, but not far-fetched at all. I've got a few copies of Japanese middle school history texts sitting around and I've been trying to find a figure for it. I'm curious what they are teaching it to be. So far, no success. I'll be back with it when I find something substancial.

bossel · 13 Apr 2005

Maciamo said:
Agreed, but 10 million is only one estimation. According to this article, the Chinese government claims that Japan killed as many as 30 million Chinese. I tried to be conservative on the number already.

I don't think, 10m is a conservative estimate. Acc. to Rummel, that's already the high. I wouldn't trust the PRC government on the number of Chinese deaths. Rummel who seems to me to have the most accurate presentation of war deaths gives the medium of roughly 6m for Japanese democide (which includes 4m Chinese from 37-45 & 2m non-Chinese from 41-45).

Germany's democide was most probably worse (in numbers, the cruelty was presumably comparable). Rummel gives the number of 21m victims of German democide (see attachment).

Eisuke said:
Total killed by Stalin during the war years:
Davies: 16-17,000,000 non-war-dead
Rummel: 18,157,000 democides
NOTE: Numbers this high are hard to reconcile with the common estimates of 7 million Soviet civilian deaths during WW2. Even if we go with larger, more recent estimates of 17M civilian deaths, these number proposed by Rummel and Davies would leave no room for murders at German hands and deaths as a simple by-product of war.

A slight misrepresentation of Rummel, I think. The numbers I have look a bit different. The medium numbers Rummel gives are 19m for battle/occupation dead & 10m for Soviet democide.

Shooter452 · 8 May 2005

Maybe not

Because the personal computer had not yet been invented, records keeping was not up to today's standards, but according to the pundits of the time, it is possible that this title belongs to the Mongols.

Beside the Chinese, the Japanese, the Indians, various Europeans, they conquered most of Islam, heaping mountains of skulls in the process. Given their trend to exagerate beyond all understanding, historians of the time still say the numbers ran into tens of millions. It is conceivable. When they encountered a community that resisted them, they were known to put whole cities to the sword--literally.

The world population might have been smaller then, so the gruesome numbers might not have been close to the 20-30 million figures we're tossing around here but chronicals of the time were in agreement that these were some cru-well dudes. If they did not kill that many, it was because their sword arms got weary.

De mortuis nihil nisi bene.

deadhippo · 9 May 2005

probably a large percentage of those deaths were indirect casualties
ie they died from desease

Shooter452 · 9 May 2005

deadhippo said:
probably a large percentage of those deaths were indirect casualties
ie they died from desease

True, quite possibly, but so were the civilian deaths in China during the Second World War.

That the disease casualties in China might have been the result of deliberate infections via Japanese biological warfare efforts or not is in debate. With low calorie diets, poor sanitation, constant upheaval as causes, it is also possible that these epidemics were naturally caused--however unlikely.

Arab chroniclers were unamimous: the Mongols slew all--men, women, children, all...without mercy and without regard. Again, I admit that there is reason to hold their figures at arm's length, but it is difficult to totally discount them.

mingo · 9 May 2005

one thing I do know is that my great grandfather was killed by japanese soldier as a innocent civilian, and my grandparents, they need to run into mountains in order to avoid "japanese demon" or "japanese ghost". That's how they earned this name for their bruteness.

TuskCracker · 16 May 2005

.
I was talking to another American, while watching the movie PURPLE BUTTERFLY. At the end of the movie was real footage of atrocities in Nanking, and the bombing of Shanghia.

We both agreed we seen this a hundred times on the HISTORY CHANNEL.

This is ancient history, the world has moved on..

Most Americans seem to generally move on, with some small exceptions and not spend the rest of their lives dwelling in the past.
.

bossel · 16 May 2005

JackInBox said:
This is ancient history, the world has moved on...

Er..., you must have a different definition of ancient than I have. Some people who lived through WWII are still alive.

TuskCracker · 17 May 2005

Er..., you must have a different definition of ancient than I have. Some people who lived through WWII are still alive.

Their very old. Lets say you were 20 years old in 1945. You would be, today, 79-80 years old.

bossel · 17 May 2005

JackInBox said:
Their very old. Lets say you were 20 years old in 1945. You would be, today, 79-80 years old.

Well, that's not really what I'd call ancient. If you call people of that age ancient, I suppose, that can be considered rude.

ralian · 17 May 2005

Maciamo said:
Agreed, but 10 million is only one estimation. According to this article, the Chinese government claims that Japan killed as many as 30 million Chinese. I tried to be conservative on the number already.

I don't trust information comes out from Chinese government. Will they ever provide accurate information?
Besides, nobody knows the accurate number on this because of lack of research and accurate information.
Also, I would like to point out that in the book written by Iris Chan ﾂ"The Rape of Nankingﾂ" , so many fabricated photos were found. Of course, the provider of those photos was Chinese government.

bossel · 18 May 2005

ralian said:
I don't trust information comes out from Chinese government. Will they ever provide accurate information?
Besides, nobody knows the accurate number on this because of lack of research and accurate information.
Also, I would like to point out that in the book written by Iris Chan ﾂ"The Rape of Nankingﾂ" , so many fabricated photos were found. Of course, the provider of those photos was Chinese government.

Don't see your point...

We don't need the PRC government to know that millions of Chinese were killed by Japanese forces.

Nobody knows the accurate numbers in Europe, too. But we have estimates.

ralian · 18 May 2005

bossel said:
Don't see your point...

We don't need the PRC government to know that millions of Chinese were killed by Japanese forces.

Nobody knows the accurate numbers in Europe, too. But we have estimates.

Wasn't it PRC government who suggested that 30M people were killed in 窶愿ｬ窶ｹﾅｾ?
Nobody else is suggesting such figure.
However, wasn't the population of 窶愿ｬ窶ｹﾅｾ 20M that time?
I could be wrong.

bossel · 18 May 2005

ralian said:
Wasn't it PRC government who suggested that 30M people were killed in 窶愿ｬ窶ｹﾅｾ?

It seems, you're confusing some things here. The official PRC victim figure for the Nanjing Massacre is >300,000. Roughly that number is widely accepted in historical circles, but there are a number of lower estimates & very few higher.

30m is, IIRC, the officiall PRC estimate for the whole Sino-Japanese War. This is probably exaggerated. I'd go for a number around 10m, but the estimates vary widely.

However, wasn't the population of 窶愿ｬ窶ｹﾅｾ 20M that time?

The actual number of Nanjing inhabitants at the time is hard to calculate, since the city was full of refugees. It may have been up to 1m, but I never saw the number of 20m anywhere.

Has Japan killed more foreign civilians in WWII than any other country in history?

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