Germany's External Reconciliation as a Defining Feature of Foreign Policy: Lessons for Japan?
By Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman

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Introduction
On a recent lecture and seminar tour in Japan, I encountered largely resignation and frustration concerning the limited nature of reconciliation Japan has undertaken with regard to China and South Korea, but also a modicum of hope. Sponsored by the newly-created Center for Historical Reconciliation at Tokyo Keizai University (organized by Andrew Horvat and Fusatoshi Fujisawa), and supported by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and the Goethe-Institut, I conveyed the richness of Germany's experience in external reconciliation with France, Israel, the Czech Republic and Poland to audiences of students, academics, activists, journalists and bureaucrats.

I was mindful of two dangers in trying to generalize from the German case. The history of the Holocaust and World War II in Europe is unique. Nonetheless, I maintain that the mechanisms Germany developed after World War II to confront its past are transferable to other cases, or at least provide lessons. Germans fear that highlighting their successes in this field might appear as schoolmarm-ish (schulmeisterlich), as lecturing or hectoring others in the international arena. In fact, by revealing its experience, Germany can contribute constructively to a global debate, intensified after the end of the Cold War, about the need and requirements in significant international cases for going beyond the absence of war to a state of genuine friendship and partnership. In the post-World War II world, Germany provides the oldest and most comprehensive example of international reconciliation.

I drew ten main conclusions from my work on Germany's foreign policy of reconciliation, and have analyzed them for the impact each could have with Japanese implementation.

Ten Lessons
1. In all four German cases, civil society (non-governmental) actors were crucial as catalysts for beginning a new type of relationship. For example, religious groups played a significant role in breaking down barriers in post-World War II Germany and the ensuing Cold War. Thereafter, non-governmental actors assumed three main roles in their relations with governments: as complements, conduits, and competitors.

Japanese audiences frequently noted the relatively "anemic" growth of civil society in Japan due to legal, financial and tax-exempt constraints. The strength of the central state in Japan makes it difficult for non-governmental organizations to take societal initiatives toward China and South Korea. Where civil society actors do exist, they tend to be in a competitive relationship with the Japanese government. There is also limited solidarity among Japanese civil society actors.

In response to the Japanese concern about the closed nature of Chinese society that limits the activities of non-governmental actors, there was a discussion on the role of religion in China and whether religious groups there could engage in the type of connection the Polish bishops developed with their German counterparts as early as in the mid-1960s, long before Poland ceased to be a communist country. An exchange on whether there were sufficiently robust religious counterparts in Japan, China and South Korea drew on the German-Israeli experience of interfaith interactions in the Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation.

As a counterpoint to the lack of a civil society culture, the vibrancy of some individual non-governmental actors in the field of reconciliation must be noted. For over twenty-five years, Peaceboat has organized regional and global voyages devoted to reconciliation through people-to-people exchange.

2. The perpetrators must acknowledge the nature of the victims' grievances through some public act, for example a formal or informal apology, a legal act, a statement of willingness for a new relationship, symbolic visits to the location of atrocities, etc. There has to be a mutual perception that these overtures and symbolic gestures are meaningful, durable and enduring.

While there was recognition of the intermittent apologies from the Japanese government for their World War II atrocities against Koreans and Chinese, my Japanese interlocutors emphasized that the apologies have been limited and inconsistent. Moreover, they have been punctuated by official Japanese visits to the Yasakuni Shrine, where the spirits of twelve Japanese, "Class-A" war criminals are honored, and not by visits to Chinese or Korean sites. There was Japanese interest in the 1985 case of the Bitburg Cemetery, where Chancellor Kohl tried to seal German-American reconciliation despite the furor over the fact that officers of the notorious Waffen SS were buried there. Kohl learned from the voices of opposition to his visit by never repeating it, and by developing a much more sensitive view of history thereafter.

A noteworthy development, potentially comparable to President Nixon's 1972 visit to China or Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's 1977 meetings with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in terms of  representing a breakthrough on the political right, have been the statements in 2005 and 2006 by Tsuneo Watanabe, chairman of the Yomiuri Shimbun, a major conservative newspaper. He changed his position from consistent support of Prime Minister Koizumi's Yasukuni Shrine visits to opposition; his paper began an evaluation of responsibility on the part of Japanese military and government leaders for World War II in Asia and the Pacific; and he called for the Diet to set up an historical commission. He fears that if visits continue, the younger generation will infer that "Class-A" war criminals were innocent.

3. Initiatives have to be taken by both perpetrator and victim.

There was considerable Japanese interest in the reality that in all four German cases, the victims were not merely reactive to German efforts, but also originated reconciliation activities themselves. In some quarters, the need for China to examine its own history was voiced, not as a substitute for Japanese confrontation with the past but as a complement.

4. In the German examples, governments became involved once political leaders were committed to the idea of reconciliation and demonstrated this publicly. This political leadership has remained crucial throughout Germany's experience, for there is often domestic opposition to reconciliation both at home and in the victim country. Leadership on the part of individuals is also accompanied by leadership tandems from the two countries.

In the Japanese view, political leadership in the ruling LDP on matters of reconciliation consistently has been conspicuous by its absence. A recurring theme raised by audiences was the reality of threats of political and physical intimidation emanating from the right-wing in Japan.  Reconciliation efforts have emerged from the Japanese Social Democratic Party, however.

5. Reconciliation is viewed by Germans not as a terminal condition, but rather as an ongoing, lengthy process.

Contrarily, Japanese officials tend to see reconciliation initiatives as discrete, self-contained acts, with no sense of developing a pattern or habit of behavior. For example, they will point to the 1951 San Francisco Treaty as fulfillment of their obligations or to more recent single apologies.

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This essay appeared in the April 28, 2006 AICGS Advisor.

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Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman recently returned from a lecture tour in Japan.  She is currently a Senior Fellow in Residence at AICGS.