Germany–Japan relations (; ) are the current and historical relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan. , Germany and Japan are world's 3rd and 4th largest economies by nominal GDP. They maintain extensive political, cultural, scientific, militaristic and economic cooperation. Japan also has close relations with the European Union, of which Germany is the most populous member.
Japan had limited contact with Germans during its isolationist sakoku period, via the Dutch trading port of Dejima. During the bakumatsu opening period, the Kingdom of Prussia established diplomatic relations in 1860 with the Eulenburg expedition. Japan modernized rapidly after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, often using German models through intense intellectual and cultural exchange. After aligning with Britain in 1902, the Empire of Japan declared war on the German Empire in 1914, one month into World War I. Japan fought one major battle in the war's Asia-Pacific theatre, the Siege of Tsingtao. It acquired from Germany its Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory leading to the Shandong Problem, as well as the South Seas Mandate.
In the 1930s, both countries adopted aggressive ultranationalist attitudes toward their respective regions, Nazism and Kokkashugi, leading to a rapprochement. The Anti-Comintern Pact between the countries grew into the political and military alliance known as the Axis powers, to which Fascist Italy and other countries later acceded. The countries also developed an industrial cooperation, and initially used the Trans-Siberian Railway. During World War II, however, due to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Japan and Germany fought the largely separate Pacific War and European theatre, only exchanging cargo via the Yanagi and U-boat submarine missions. Germany surrendered in May 1945, three months before Japan.
After World War II, the Allies occupied Germany until 1949 and the US occupied Japan until 1952. Among worldwide growth, Germany experienced the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") and Japan later saw its own economic miracle. Bilateral relations, now focused on economic issues, were soon re-established. Both countries are members of economic organizations including the G7, G20, OECD, and World Trade Organization. They are also members of the G4 nations and the International Criminal Court. Among their scientific cooperation, both countries contribute to the ITER nuclear fusion program, and via the European Space Agency and JAXA.
According to a late 2023 Bertelsmann Foundation Poll, the Germans view Japan overwhelmingly positively, and regard that nation as less a competitor and more a partner. The Japanese views of Germany are positive as well, with 97% viewing Germany positively and only 3% viewing Germany negatively.
History
First contacts and end of Japanese isolation (before 1871)
Relations between Japan and Germany date from the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868), when Germans in Dutch service arrived in Japan to work for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The first well-documented cases are those of the physicians Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716) and Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (1796–1866) in the 1690s and 1820s, respectively. Both accompanied the director of the Dutch trading post at Dejima on the obligatory voyage to Edo to pay tribute to the shōgun. Siebold became the author of Nippon, Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan (Nippon, Archive for the Description of Japan), one of the most valuable sources of information on Japan well into the 20th century;Eberhard Friese: Philipp Franz von Siebold als früher Exponent der Ostasienwissenschaften. = Berliner Beiträge zur sozial- und wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Japan-Forschung Bd. 15. Bochum 1983 since 1979, his achievements have been recognised with an annual German award in his honour, the Philipp Franz von Siebold-Preis, granted to Japanese scientists. Von Siebold's second visit to Japan (1859–1862) became a disaster because he tried to influence Dutch politics in Japan and attempted to obtain a permanent post as a diplomat in that country.
In 1854, the United States pressured Japan into the Convention of Kanagawa, which ended Japan's isolation. It was considered an "unequal treaty" by the Japanese public,Bert Edström, Bert. (2000) The Japanese and Europe: Images and Perceptions, p. 101 since the US did not reciprocate most of Japan's concessions with similar privileges. In many cases, Japan was effectively forced into a system of extraterritoriality that provided for the subjugation of foreign residents to the laws of their own consular courts instead of the Japanese law system, open up ports for trade, and later even allow Christian missionaries to enter the country. Shortly after the end of Japan's seclusion, in the so-called Bakumatsu period, the first German traders arrived in Japan. In 1860, Count Friedrich Albrecht zu Eulenburg led the Eulenburg Expedition to Japan as ambassador from Prussia, a leading regional state in the German Confederation at that time. After four months of negotiations, another "unequal treaty", officially dedicated to amity and commerce, was signed in January 1861 between Prussia and Japan.Louis M. Cullen. A History of Japan 1582–1941: Internal and External Worlds (2003 ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Despite being considered one of the numerous unjust negotiations pressed on Japan during that time, the Eulenburg Expedition, and both the short- and long-term consequences of the treaty of amity and commerce, are today honoured as the beginning of official Japanese-German relations. To commemorate its 150th anniversary, events were held in both Germany and Japan from autumn 2010 through autumn 2011 hoping "to 'raise the treasures of [their] common past' in order to build a bridge to the future."German Consulate General Osaka-Kobe: 150 Years Germany-Japan: Friendship with Future
Japanese diplomatic mission in Prussia In 1863, three years after von Eulenburg's visit in Tokyo, a Shogunal legation arrived at the Prussian court of King Wilhelm I and was greeted with a grandiose ceremony in Berlin. After the treaty was signed, Max von Brandt became diplomatic representative in Japan – first representing Prussia, and after 1866 representing the North German Confederation, and by 1871 representing the newly established German Empire.Masako Hiyama: "Max von Brandt (1835–1920)". In: Brückenbauer. Pioniere des japanisch-deutschen Kulturaustausches (Berlin: Iudicium, 2005).
In 1868, the Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown and the Empire of Japan under Emperor Meiji was established. With the return of power to the Tennō dynasty, Japan demanded a revocation of the "unequal treaties" with the western powers and a civil war ensued. During the conflict, German weapons trader Henry Schnell counselled and supplied weapons to the daimyō of Nagaoka, a land lord loyal to the Shogunate.Adachi Yoshio 阿達義雄. Kaishō Suneru to Boshin Niigata kōbōsen 怪商スネルと戊辰新潟攻防戦. Niigata: Toyano Shuppan 鳥屋野出版, 1985 One year later, the war ended with the defeat of the Tokugawa and the renegotiation of the "unequal treaties".Donald Keene, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912 (Columbia UP, 2005). ; p. 142
Modernization of Japan and educational exchange (1871–1885)
With the start of the Meiji period (1868–1912), many Germans came to work in Japan as advisors to the new government as so-called "oyatoi gaikokujin" (, "hired foreigners") and contributed to the modernization of Japan, especially in the fields of medicine (Leopold Mueller, 1824–1894; Julius Scriba, 1848–1905; Erwin Bälz, 1849–1913), law (K. F. Hermann Roesler, 1834–1894; Albert Mosse, 1846–1925) and military affairs (K. W. Jacob Meckel, 1842–1906). Meckel had been invited by Japan's government in 1885 as an advisor to the Japanese general staff and as teacher at the Army War College. He spent three years in Japan, working with influential persons (including Katsura Tarō and Kawakami Soroku), thereby decisively contributing to the modernization of the Imperial Japanese Army. Meckel left behind a loyal group of Japanese admirers, who, after his death, had a bronze statue of him erected in front of his former army college in Tokyo.The statue was removed in 1945 at the conclusion of World War II. Georg Kerst: Jacob Meckel. Sein Leben, sein Wirken in Deutschland und Japan. Musterschmidt, Göttingen 1970Welch, Claude Emerson. (1976). Civilian Control of the Military: Theory and Cases from Developing Countries Albany: State University of New York Press. , p. 161 Overall, the Imperial Japanese Army intensively oriented its organization along Prusso-German lines when building a modern fighting force during the 1880s.
In 1889, the Constitution of the Empire of Japan was promulgated, greatly influenced by German legal scholars Rudolf von Gneist and Lorenz von Stein, whom the Meiji oligarch and future Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi (1841–1909) visited in Berlin and Vienna in 1882. At the request of the German government, Albert Mosse also met with Hirobumi and his group of government officials and scholars and gave a series of lectures on constitutional law, which helped to convince Hirobumi that the Prussian-style monarchical constitution was best-suited for Japan. In 1886, Mosse was invited to Japan on a three-year contract as "hired foreigner" to the Japanese government to assist Hirobumi and Inoue Kowashi in drafting the Meiji Constitution. He later worked on other important legal drafts, international agreements, and contracts and served as a cabinet advisor in the Home Ministry, assisting Prime Minister Yamagata Aritomo in establishing the draft laws and systems for local government.Sims, Richard. Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868–2000. Palgrave Macmillan. Dozens of Japanese students and military officers also went to Germany in the late 19th century, to study the German military system and receive military training at German army educational facilities and within the ranks of the German, mostly the Prussian army. For example, later famous writer Mori Rintarô (Mori Ōgai), who originally was an army doctor, received tutoring in the German language between 1872 and 1874, which was the primary language for medical education at the time. From 1884 to 1888, Ōgai visited Germany and developed an interest in European literature producing the first translations of the works of Goethe, Schiller, and Gerhart Hauptmann.Mori Ôgai. A Bibliography of Western-Language Materials. Compiled by Harald Salomon. Incorporating the Findings of Rosa Wunner in Japonica Humboldtiana 2 (1998), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008. 178 S., 1 Abb. (Izumi 10)
Cooling of relations and World War I (1885–1920)
At the end of the 19th century, Japanese–German relations cooled due to Germany's, and in general Europe's, imperialist aspirations in East Asia. After the conclusion of the First Sino-Japanese War in April 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed, which included several territorial cessions from China to Japan, most importantly Taiwan and the eastern portion of the bay of the Liaodong Peninsula including Port Arthur. However, Russia, France and Germany grew wary of an ever-expanding Japanese sphere of influence and wanted to take advantage of China's bad situation by expanding their own colonial possessions instead. The frictions culminated in the so-called "Triple Intervention" on 23 April 1895, when the three powers "urged" Japan to refrain from acquiring its awarded possessions on the Liaodong Peninsula.Kajima, Morinosuke. The Diplomacy of Japan, 1894–1922, Tokyo, 1976Yellow Peril, Collection of Historical Sources, in 5 vols., edited by Yorimitsu Hashimoto, Tokyo: Edition Synapse.