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

[Jungle Boy]

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

[Maciamo]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Maciamo]

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.

[Maciamo]

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.

[Sr Pasta]

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.

Where's you're source for that? I've heard people claiming as many as a hundred million people living in the Americas before the europeans came, where of 90 per cent or so died mainly because of deseases and the destruction of their social structures. I've no idea what the numbers where, but you seem to simply assume a low number?

[Keoland]

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.

Ahem.

Do not underestimate us iberians, my friend. At the time of the spanish conquest in 1532, the Inca Empire had 12 million inhabitants. And the total population of Mesoamerica is estimated at 25 million people.

That's 37 million natives, and it's not even counting the population north of the Aztec Empire, nor those outside the Inca Empire, and much less those that lived in what is now Brazil and Argentina, the latter ones estimated at about 10 million people.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=28051

The population of the Inca Empire at the time of the
Spanish conquest in 1532 is commonly estimated to have been around 12 000 000 (...)

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/.../sacrifice.htm

(...) Later, however, he and his colleague Woodrow Borah revised his estimate of the total central Mexican population upward to 25 million (...)

So, if the population of Latin America 250 years later was just 16 million people, with millions of european settlers included... you do the math.

[Himuro Murder Fan]

Ok. If you read the WWII book and watch the movies Japan barly killed more then Germany. Hittler killed millions of jews and sush. Japan just dropped a few bombs on the Pearl Harbor and killed much less then Germany. It is true that Japan was allies of Germany but now they are on our side I think and hope. It's no ones fauly but Germany so blame them. But it's too lat for talking about this so don't blame germany.

[lexico]

Ahem.

Do not underestimate us iberians, my friend. At the time of the spanish conquest in 1532, the Inca Empire had 12 million inhabitants. And the total population of Mesoamerica is estimated at 25 million people.

That's 37 million natives, and it's not even counting the population north of the Aztec Empire, nor those outside the Inca Empire, and much less those that lived in what is now Brazil and Argentina, the latter ones estimated at about 10 million people.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=28051

The population of the Inca Empire at the time of the
Spanish conquest in 1532 is commonly estimated to have been around 12 000 000 (...)

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/.../sacrifice.htm

(...) Later, however, he and his colleague Woodrow Borah revised his estimate of the total central Mexican population upward to 25 million (...)

So, if the population of Latin America 250 years later was just 16 million people, with millions of european settlers included... you do the math.

So what exactly is your point ?
Not to "underestimate the Iberians" in what ? In the Iberian capacity to commit genocide by wiping out at least 37 mil - 16 mil = 21 million AmeroIndian peoples in the American regions occupied by the Portuguese and the Spaniards in the 250 years from mid 1500's to mid 1700's ? Shame on you to brag about murder !

Do the Iberians have the capacity to rise above the narrow peninsular mentality or the Eurocentric mentality for once ?
What do you see in John Donn's No Man..., Picasso's Guernica, or Rodin's Burghers of Calais ? Can you laugh at them in that safty of your home because you lack the imagination ?

[Keoland]

So what exactly is your point?

My point was that Maciamo was excluding outright the possibility that the spaniards could have killed more than 20 million amerindians, on the grounds that there were not 20 million amerindians to beguin with.

Since the data avaliable points otherwise, I pointed that out - what Spain did in the early XVIth century probably rates as the biggest wiping out of humans ever in terms of the percentage of the total population (I don't recall a bigger one).

So what exactly is your point?

Actually, the 16 million include millions of european settlers. Also the 37 millions are just the mesoamericans plus the population of the Inca Empire. It does not include the rest of South America. The total amerindian population of central and south america in 1519 was probably around 50 million people, perhaps more.

And the eliminations occurred (in the spanish part) in the very first years of the colonization, not over 250 years - the 16 million people in 1750 already include some recovery by the native population. The data points to the elimination of around 80-90% of the natives in the first 100 years.

The point is to show the hypocrisy of many which point to the atrocities of the XXth century and show them as "the greatest ever", but at the same time are totally blind to the fact that other peoples (which have a good international standing - there is no international movement against the portuguese or spanish) have done things that make whatever the Japanese or Germans did in WW2 look like small things in comparison. Which happens to be quite relevant to the title of this thread.

It also makes us often wonder why the Germans and Japanese are so often accused, while nobody seems to care about us

Do the Iberians have the capacity to rise above the narrow peninsular mentality or the Eurocentric mentality for once?

Funny you ask that. In the XVIIIth century, Montesquieu wrote something he called "Persian Letters", which were done as if someone from Persia was visiting Europe. The idea was to show the cultural difference between the two civilizations.

Regarding us iberians, his fictional persian character wrote:

"I have, in six months time, run through Spain and Portugal; and I have lived among a people, who despising all others, do the French alone the honour of hating them".

http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0959

(Letter LXXVIII)

To be honest, we have background from the days of the Romans. The numbers advanced by Julius Caesar in his De Bello Gallico indicate that he wiped out one third of the population of Gaul during seven years of war. Whole tribes were anihilated.

He also presents exact data one some points. The Helvetii and their allies, which migrated to Gaul in 60 b.C., numbered exactly 368 000 souls, according to their own census. After he clashed with them for some months, and especially after the Battle of Bibracte, Caesar notes that only 113 000 were left to return to their original country. The soil of the Hill where the Helvetii made their final stand was soaked in human blood from men, women and children. That is the equivalent of the Massacre of Nanking, but done in just one day, out of a much smaller population and just with swords.

The Venetii in Brittany (250 000 people), for that matter vanished totally from History after their rebellion. Caesar wanted to make an example out of them.

These cases are recurrent in Latin History. Yet most people point to the Romans as an example to be followed. And Caesar is a very respected leader

Can you laugh at them in that safty of your home because you lack the imagination ?

I don't need imagination, I lived in Africa for some time and saw a fair share of butchery myself. Have you ever seen women who had their limbs chopped off and then were impaled by their vaginas after having been raped by dozens?

Or people gunned down the streets by the police just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (namely, when the police was passing by?).

Or having to pass over a line of corpses to get to work, after the disco next door was attacked by the guerilla? (I stepped on many teeth who were on the ground - the people tried to flee, and many were stomped to death - they left their teeth there when their heads were stepped on by the fleeing crowd).

Or waiting for transportation while the person which was previously there just had their brains blown off? (and the fresh corpse is still there, because it will take many hours until someone even bothers to pick it up).

I do have these experiences. Unlike what you think, one does not become insensitive to human death by never experiencing it - it is when it becomes a familiar everyday sight that we stop caring. Either that, or we go insane.

Regards,
Keoland