In 1945-46, representatives of the United States government made similar discoveries in both Germany and Japan, unearthing evidence of unethical experiments on human beings that could be viewed as war crimes. The outcomes in the two defeated nations, however, were strikingly different. In Germany, the U.S., influenced by the Canadian physician John Thompson, played a key role in bringing Nazi physicians to trial and publicizing their misdeeds. In Japan, the U.S. played an equally key role in concealing information about the biological warfare experiments and securing immunity from prosecution for the perpetrators. The greater force of appeals to national security and wartime exigency help to explain these different outcomes.
In 1945-46, U.S. officials made similar discoveries in both Germany and Japan, unearthing evidence of unethical experiments on human beings that constituted war crimes. The outcomes in the two defeated nations, however, were strikingly different. In Germany, the U.S. played a key role in bringing Nazi physicians to trial and publicizing their misdeeds. In Japan, the U.S. played an equally key role in concealing biological warfare experiments and securing immunity for the perpetrators. How we are to understand these very different responses?
Sheldon Harris, in his authoritative history of the Japanese biological warfare program, argues that during November 1945-March 1948:
The difference between the scientific and legal investigations formed a striking contrast between Germany and Japan. In Germany, the very idea of “medical war crimes” originated among the scientists investigating the experiments, who then lobbied the legal staff to pursue prosecutions.
