Political assessment of the events of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1939) in the writings of German official military representatives.

Abstract

The article examines the assessments of German military specialists of the processes of the initial period of the Sino-Japanese War. The authors are based on previously little-known documents from the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, some of these documents are being put into circulation for the first time. The article reflects the struggle of ideologies on the territory of China during the latter's military clash with Japan. The authors show on the basis of German documents the harsh anti-communist nature of Japanese policy in the occupied Chinese territories, but they also address the problem of Japanese chauvinism in the late 1930s. In this regard, the failure of the strategy of the Japanese occupation authorities aimed at splitting Chinese society is justified. The author shows that Japan was not economically ready in 1939 to wage war against the USSR and China at the same time, in this regard, the article pays much attention to the economic issues of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The relevance of the article is due to the lack of widely published materials in the activities of German military representatives who turned out to be observers of the second Sino-Japanese War. It is important to get reliable information about the essence and origins of the Sino-Japanese conflict. The scientific novelty lies in the analysis of the role of Alexander von Falkenhausen at the initial stage of the Sino-Japanese War and during the preparation of the Chiang Kai-shek regime for it. The authors also touch upon the issue of strategic miscalculations of the Japanese high command at the initial stage of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the problem of shortcomings in Chiang Kai-shek's strategy is also touched upon. The authors also touch upon the issue of strategic miscalculations of the Japanese high command at the initial stage of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the problem of shortcomings in Chiang Kai-shek's strategy is also touched upon.