"Imperial Japan and Defeat in the Second World War - The Collapse of an Empire" - Prof. Dr. Peter Wetzler, former Professor of Japanese Economics and Politics and Senior Research Fellow of the OAI, presents widely acclaimed study.
On May 8, the world commemorated the end of World War 2 75 years ago. In fact, however, the war initially ended only in Europe, while events in Asia dragged on. The Japanese Empire, which had been allied with Nazi Germany, continued to fight despite a hopeless situation and surrendered only on August 15, 1945, after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the USSR entered the war against Japan.
Prof. Dr. Peter Wetzler has now published a widely acclaimed study on the last years of the war from the Japanese point of view in the renowned British Bloomsbury Publishing House, in the series Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan of the SOAS University of London*. It is based extensively on original Japanese sources and sheds some light on the seemingly irrational decisions and actions of the Japanese side.
Prof. Dr. Peter Wetzler
Prof. Dr. Wetzler has been regarded as one of the world's leading historians in the field of the Pacific War since his monograph on Japanese Emperor Hirohito and the Beginning of the Pacific War**, in which he proved, among other things, that Hirohito was privy to and approved of his military's plans before the attack on the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Wetzler was a professor of Japanese economics and politics at HWG LU's East Asia Institute (OAI) until 2009 and remains active there today as an honorary senior research fellow. Students at the Institute will also benefit from this, as Prof. Wetzler is mentoring them this semester in the seminar Crisis Management in Japan on the topics The Great Tokyo Earthquake of 1923 and The Unconditional Surrender of Japan in 1945.
* Imperial Japan and Defeat in the Second World War - The Collapse of an Empire
** Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan
