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Month: June 2026

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Japanese : https://i-rich.org/?p=2763

Mizoguchi Ikuo
Guest Fellow
International Research Institute of Controversial Histories

Historian Kasahara Tokushi continues to publish numerous books on the premise that the “Nanjing Massacre” actually occurred. Most of the many scholars who belonged to the “a massacre occurred” camp have passed away, leaving Kasahara fighting a lonely battle.

Kasahara published The Nanjing Incident in the Iwanami Shinsho series in 1997 and released a revised edition 28 years later in 2025. To promote this book, Kasahara appeared in the newspaper Akahata, the organ of the Japan Communist Party (August 13, 2025) and made the following statement:

“Hyakuta Naoki, leader of the Japan Conservative Party who has repeatedly claimed that the Nanjing Massacre never happened, was elected to the House of Councillors. The current state of Japan, where a rising party that casually spreads such a fake story, is precarious and terrifying.”

Recently, however, a real “fake story” was discovered in Mr. Kasahara’s aforementioned book. The details were recently released in the latest issue of the monthly magazine Hanada (July 2026) under the title, “Serious Doubts Regarding the Iwanami Shinsho Book The Nanjing Incident.”

(1) Falsification of original text

Citing from “The Vautrin Documents,” Mr. Kasahara quotes the following from the diary of Ms. Vautrin (of December 25), who was involved in the protection and education of refugees at the Jinling Women’s College of Arts and Sciences, located within the safety zone established inside Nanjing City.  (Note that the text is identical, word for word, in both the first edition and the revised edition.)

A—Description in “The Nanking Incident”: “Christmas has arrived. The city is still plagued by slaughter, rape, looting, and arson, and terror is rampant. Vautrin wrote in her diary that a certain missionary said, ‘It is Christmas in hell.” (“The Vautrin Documents”)

However, the Japanese translation of the English text from the “Diary of Wilhelmina Vautrin” is as follows:

B—Description in the original English text: “At Christmas dinner today Searle Bates said he had been trying to write an article on “A Christmas in Hell.” It really has not been that for us here at Ginling; in fact we had some bits of heaven on our campus,--although the day certainly has been different from any Christmas I have ever experienced at Ginling.” (Dairy of Wilhelmina Vautrin, 1937-1940, Yale University Divinity School)

In The Days of the Nanjing Incident, translated into Japanese and published by Otsuki Shoten, 1999, of which Mr. Kasahara wrote numerous pages of commentary, the description of Christmas Day (December 25) is as follows:

C: “During Christmas dinner, Saul Bates said he was writing an article titled ‘A Christmas in Hell.’ ‘In reality, that is not the case here at Ginling Women’s College. This campus is, to some extent, heaven.’”

B and C are almost identical in content. The differences between these and A however, are:

①    The statement, “A missionary said, ‘It’s a Christmas from hell,’” is not accurate; the correct statement is “Searle Bates said he had been trying to write an article on “A Christmas in Hell.’”

②    In fact, the main point of the original text is that “in Ginling, it was not actually hell. Rather, I spent a heavenly time on campus.” Mr. Kasahara’s quote suggests hell, which was the exact opposite of a “heavenly time”.

③    Mr. Kasahara’s “murder, rape, looting, and arson are rampant” does not appear at all in the original text.

However, Mr. Kasahara found the phrase “murder, rape, looting, arson…” in the “Vautrin Documents” (Reference No. RG11 BOX145 FILE2876)—a collection found in a corner of the Yale University archives, the author and date of compilation are unknown—and uses it as evidence to justify his own bias. Historians should give priority to the “Diary of Wilhelmina Vautrin” as a primary source with clearly established provenance. Mr. Kasahara’s claim however amounts to little more than a pseudo-fabrication.

(2) Falsification (Alteration) of Photographs

The original source of the photograph published in Iwanami Shinsho’s book The Nanking Incident (1997 edition) is the Asahi Graph. In his caption for that photograph, Mr. Kasahara made significant alterations, as described in ① and ②:

①    Caption from the Asahi Graph (November 10, 1937 issue):

“A group of women and children from the Hinomaru village returning from farm work to their village, escorted by our soldiers” (Photographed by Special Correspondent Kumazaki on October 14.)

②    Caption in The Nanking Incident:

“Chinese women from the Jiangnan region being abducted by Japanese soldiers. Published in A Record of the Atrocities Committed by the Japanese Aggressors (published in 1938) by the Political Department of the Military Commission of the Nationalist Government”.

As stated in (1), Japanese soldiers are “escorting” women and children who are returning from farm work, yet Mr. Kasahara claims that the photo shows Chinese women “being abducted by Japanese soldiers”: completely false.

In the original photograph, smiles are visible in the far left of the “women and children returning from farm work”. The left edge of Kasahara’s photograph is distorted with halation, obscuring the women and children’s facial expressions.

The exact same photograph is also included in Photographic Record: The Sino-Japanese War (4 volumes, 1995, Holp Shuppan), co-authored by Mr. Kasahara and Mr. Suzuki Ryo and published two years prior to The Nanjing Incident. In that version, there is absolutely no halation visible.

Incidentally, in the April 1998 issue of Iwanami Shoten’s booklet, Tosho, Mr. Kasahara wrote an apology in which he also addressed the halation.

“I discovered The True Record of Japanese Aggression in the East Asian Collection at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, in the summer of 1984, and reproduced the above photograph with my own camera. The presence of halation is due to my amateurish skills and is not intentional, as Mr. Hata suggested in Shokun!.”

However, no halation is visible at all in the photographs taken by Mr. Matsuo Ichiro, who photographed the original Record of Japanese Atrocities, and Mr. Higashinakano Shudo, who made a copy of it at Stanford University. Kasahara’s claim that it was “due to my amateurish skills” is nothing more than an excuse: he is lying. To reiterate, Mr. Kasahara possessed the photograph without halation which he used in Photographic Record: The Sino-Japanese War, two years before The Nanking Incident. Furthermore, he states in Tosho, “History is required to approach a truer historical picture through the accumulation of historical source scrutiny. Similarly, photographic sources used to clarify historical truths must be based on verified photographs.” Yet it is glaringly obvious that Mr. Kasahara has not used “verified photographs.”

(3) Conclusion

The issue of falsification within The Nanjing Incident began with doubts raised by mystery writer Ishii Ryusei of its contents. The book contains numerous passages that are clearly fake and these instance of falsification are merely the tip of the iceberg. Questions directed at Iwanami Shoten are set to continue.

Although not mentioned in this article, works by scholars who refute the Nanjing Incident story (such as Higashinakano Shudo and Ara Kenichi) are hardly cited in Mr. Kasahara’s bibliography. It is wrong to base historical interpretations on clearly biased sources—such as those of Mr. Kasahara who identifies himself as a researcher of the “Nanjing Massacre”—that will be used in junior high school history textbooks.

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Written by SUGIHARA Seishiro
Published by Jiyusha, 2026
Reviewer: Hifumi Tomoko (Senior Research Fellow)

After reading this book, my impression of General Douglas MacArthur changed completely. It is fair to say that the majority of Japanese people do not have a particularly favorable impression of MacArthur. During the American occupation, he was seen as the man responsible for weakening Japan by placing all of the blame for Japan’s war on the Japanese people, instilled a self-denigrating view of history, implemented social reforms that completely ignored traditional Japanese culture, carried out educational reforms that destroyed the Japanese spirit, conducted extensive censorship, large-scale purges of public officials, and imposed a constitution that entirely demilitarized Japan. Furthermore, MacArthur was an arrogant man who mocked the Japanese people, calling them “12-year-olds.”

By contrast, this book reveals MacArthur’s little-known achievements, which have not been given much attention until now. At the very least, for the average Japanese person today, MacArthur merely an image one has seen in a history textbook photograph--today’s Japanese people need to read this book.

To recap his achievements: (1) prohibited the outflow of cultural assets such as artworks; (2) curbed the influx of foreign capital; (3) prevented deaths from infectious diseases through major reforms of the medical and public health systems; (4) alleviated famine; and (5) refused to accept the Emperor’s abdication. While all of these are significant, very few Japanese people are aware that these were in fact MacArthur’s achievements. As the author notes, the Japanese people should be made aware of these achievements, to the point of erecting a monument to MacArthur.

It is true, however, that MacArthur stated that “the Japanese are like 12-year-old children” and because of this, the Japanese people’s estimation of MacArthur is extremely low. One could even say that his statement gave rise to a general dislike of MacArthur. However, the author analyzes the true meaning of this remark as follows: In short, MacArthur wanted to convey to Americans that the Japanese are innocent and kind-hearted, which is why they were drawn into the war and ultimately lost. However, the Japanese are now in the process of learning various things necessary to survive in a harsh world. The author asserts that MacArthur’s remark was not intended to belittle the Japanese.

Furthermore, the author highlights the following as MacArthur’s most significant statement, remarks he made before Congress upon his return to the United States in 1951 (Showa 26). MacArthur stated, “The laws and regulations enacted during the occupation will be amended after the occupation ends to suit Japanese culture and civilization.” In other words, MacArthur expected that the occupation would, after the restoration of sovereignty, incorporate Japan’s unique characteristics and evolve with universal reforms. Unfortunately, after the restoration of sovereignty, no revisions were made within Japan to transform the occupation into the “better occupation” MacArthur had envisioned. In terms of both security and historical perception, far from making revisions, Japan inherited negative legacies of the occupation and has even continued to maintain and develop these negative legacies to this day. The author identifies Yoshida Shigeru—who remained prime minister even after the restoration of sovereignty—as the one who bears responsibility for this, pointing out that Yoshida profited from Japan’s defeat.

As we have seen, this book sheds light on MacArthur’s achievements, the true intent behind his statements, and, above all, the meaning of the occupation from a wide variety of perspectives. It is a fine work that is both substantial and engaging, written in a manner that is highly accessible even to those unfamiliar with history.

Understanding MacArthur’s achievements and the true intent behind his statements also means recognizing the culpability of those who profited from Japan’s defeat, starting with Yoshida Shigeru. Ultimately, this will lead the Japanese people to correct the mistakes they have committed, break free from a masochistic view of history, and return to Japan’s true essence. More than 80 years after the war, the Japanese people today—who not only lack firsthand experience of war but have also lost interest in war itself—are immersed in individualism, and believe that fulfilling one’s own desires and needs is the very definition of happiness. It is exactly these people who will find this book indispensable as they strive to forge a brighter future for Japan.