9th International Symposium on Richard Sorge

Dec.4 2015,Sydney

Richard Sorge Case and Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army
Tetsuro Kato (katote@ff.iij4u.or.jp) Visiting Professor, Waseda University,
Professor Emeritus, Hitotsubashi University

1. Richard Sorge was well-informed about Japanese preparedness forbiological warfare as early as 1937
According to Japanese police record of the interrogation of Max Klausen ofJanuary 5, 1942, Richard Sorge might wire to Moscow about Unit 731 of theImperial Japanese Army as early as 1937.
This record was uncovered by a Unit 731 biological warfare and humanexperimentation researcher and journalist, Shoji Kondo. He presumed that it
might be based on the information from the source close to Duke Fumimaro
Konoe, Prime Minister of Japan through June 1937 to January 1939 and July
1940 to Oct 1941 when Sorge group were arrested (Sheldon Harris, Death

Factory, Japanese translation by Shoji Kondo, Kashiwa Shobo, 1999, p.48).
Max Klausen surely stated, “ I happened to hear the conversation at Richard
Sorge’s home between himself and Guenter Stein to the effect that in 1937,
Imperial Japanese Army set up a facility in or around Harbin for the culture anddevelopment of such lethal germs as cholera and pest as a part of a stratagem fora possible war. Since I was not capable of handling the code at that time, I am
not sure if I really sent the wire.” (Contemporary Historical Materials : Sorge

Case 4, Misuzu Shobo, 1971,p.280)
1-1

Sorge’s Interest in Kwantung Army

Although there were huge amounts of records of police interrogation and/or
preliminary hearing concerning intelligence gathering done by members of Sorgegroup, such as division formation of Kwantung Army, division commanders,available weapons, airpowers and so forth, this is the only statement, as far as I
know, which directly refers to Harbin biological weapon facility in or around 1937.
In fact Unit 731 was yet to be known before Nomonhan Incident (Battles of
Khalkhyn Gol, 1939 ). It still had been operated by the name of “Unit Togo” of The
Epidemic Prevention Department of the Kwantung Army and the experiment
facility at Pingfang was being constructed.
1-2

Guenter Stein left Japan in 1938

On September 7, 1942, a preliminary judge questioned Klausen (about Imperial

1Japanese Army in Manchuko) reading to him the decoded message in item 378 of
the list of the intercepted wire, if he had known about it. Klausen’s reply was that,
although he was not capable of message encryption at that time, it was reasonable
to presume that the information had come from a cooperative source, as Guenter
Stein was mentioned there (Sorge Case 3, p.213).
This question and answer imply something related with the biological warfare. It isalso considered possible that further attempt of investigation was not made because
the information provider, Guenter Stein, left Japan in 1938 and was not inJapanese jurisdiction.
1-3

Was it surely informed to Soviet Union?

There is a detailed description in “Sorge Case 3” concerning the interrogation of
Yotoku Miyagi (1903-43), Branko Vukelic (1904-1945) and Max Klausen(1899-1979)
in great detail about such information they provided to Sorge as

deployment,

armament and the most advanced Hasegawa mechanized unit of Kwantung Army,
but no mention was made on biological warfare unit. Likewise, the same or similar
information had never been found in Soviet’s record of wirefrom Sorge Groupatleast in declassified documents of Russian archives.
Accordingly, we may not be able to jump to a conclusion on this basis that Soviet
had come to know about the Japanese germ warfare research before Nomonhan
Incident, which led to the revelation of the suspects among detainees at Siberian
POW (prison of war) camps after the war and also to Khabarovsk War Crime Trials
in 1949. Even so, we may also not be able to rule out the possibility at all that it
could have provided the causes of the investigation and indictment after the war by
the Soviet, along with the condemnation by communist China for inordinate
damages, of Japanese biological warfare research and development.
1-4

Possible Routes of the Intelligence

In that instance, many possible sources of information could be considered like,a) direct input to Richard Sorge (1895-1944) by Klausen himself who was wellversed of things in or aroundthe area he covered, Harbin, at the time when heworked in Shanghai，b) the one that were passed to Sorge by Hozumi Ozaki (1901-1944)

which heacquired through his activities at the Investigation Department of South
Manchurian Railroad and the Breakfast Club

among some of Konoe Cabinet

members，c) the one that Sorge himself got from German Embassy in Tokyo and from a few
pro-German Japanese high ranking army officers (Akira Muto for instance) and2d) the one that were provided by Chinese Communist Party with whom Sorge kept
contact even after he had left Shanghai.
However, the most probable case among those could be the one that was passed toSorge through Miyagi

by Tokutaro Yasuda (1898-1983), another accused person ofSorge Link. Yasuda was a medical doctor, graduate of Kyoto Imperial University,
year 1924, from which came quite a few Unit 731 members. Among the fellow
students, there were notorious Unit 731 leaders. General Shiro Ishii, graduatedyear 1920 and Tomosada Masuda, year 1926. The same Hisato Yoshimura, year
1930, Ryoichi,Naito ,Tachio Ishikawa and Kozo Okamoto, all of them year 1930

were his junior. However, the certain source of information still remains in the air
and is yet to be known. Although none is certain, but some of possible scenarios area) it got to Yasuda through a sympathetic doctors from the same medical school, as
Yasuda walked in the same path as Senji Yamamoto, a radical doctor assassinatedby a rightist in 1929 did,b) Yasuda possibly learned it from one of his patients, a high ranking army officer,c) and it was possibly transmitted to Sorge by way of Miyagi.

2. It was right wing publication “Seikai (Political) Jeep” by Futaki
Hideo, ex-Unit 731 member, that made Sorge Case a “Red Spy Case”
Hideo Futaki was a project manager of Unit 731 in charge of tuberculosis andsyphilis research group. After returning to his hometown, Kanazawa, he set up
Unit 731 temporary main facility in Noma Shrine there to cover up what theUnit did in Manchuria during the war. He first published local publication“Yoron (public opinion)” and “Nippon Yoron (Japanese public opinion)” in
November 1945 by recruiting Professor Tachio Ishikawa of Kanazawa College ofMedicine, who cashed in Unit 731 records and data of germ warfare and lethal
human experimentation he was holding, to deal with American force foracquiring immunity.
Futaki came to Tokyo in the spring of 1946 and started publishing the right wing
scandalous magazine “Seikai (political) Jeep” to compete with the left wing
disclosure publications, “Sinso (truth)”. It made the record sales of 100,000
copies at the highest while lasting until 1956. Actually, ahead of US/G2
Willoughby report of February 1949, the special October 1948 issue of “Seikai

Jeep” greatly helped to color and establish Sorge Case as “Red Spy Case”, despite
the fact that Sorge Case had been taken so far as antiwar and anti-fascism story
due to the impact of Ozaki Hotsumi’s “Aijo wa Furuhoshi no Gotoku (Love is3

Like a Falling Star)”. At the same time, so far moderate “Seikai Jeep” and its
publisher which

dared to carry articles by non-nationalistic writers like Yukio

Ozaki and Nyozekan Hasegawa, and even comments by socialist and/or
communist Diet members, took this opportunity to become positive anti-Soviet
and anti-communist institution. In so doing, they succeeded to make close
connection with such authorities as GHQ/PHW (Public Health and Welfare),Welfare Ministry and major medical drug companies by publishing “Igaku no

Tobira (Door to Medicine)” with the help of Welfare Ministry Medical Bureau,
which helped them to exonerate ex-Unit 731 members and recover their status
in the medical circles.
2-1 Testimony by Ms. Hanako Ishii“It was after the war when I came to know that Richard Sorge had been executed.
Since no official announcement was made, there was no way of knowing where myhusband’s dead body was buried. However, it was October 1948, as I recall, that I
happened to note the article in “Seikai Jeep” with the title “The truth about
Ozaki/Sorge Red Spy Case”. So, I hastened to buy and took it home. The article readthat since nobody came out to claim the dead body, it was buried by Sugamo Prisonin public section for the unknown in Zoshigaya Cemetery and a humble wooden
marker was placed. In order to know the exact location of the burial site, I madealmost daily visit to the cemetery keeping office as well as to the prison, only to noavail. They were not willing to help me for fear of the eyes of American occupation
forces. When I visited Zoshigaya Cemetery on November 16, 1949, a grave digger
approached me and said that when he was digging mass burial site for the unknown
the other day, he found bones unusually big for a Japanese. He had no doubt it wasa non-Japanese. So he laid it out aside. (‘Sorge as a human being’, Hanako Ishii,
Kadokawa Bunko,pp183-185)”
2-2 Cover up, Cooperation, Escape from war crime and Rehabilitation with GHQ
Initially, all the ex-members, from Ishii Shiro down, were intended to be covered up
in Unit 731 restoring process. But they were all dismissed at International Military
Tribunal for the Far East due to the interference in the fourth interrogation of theinvestigation team of the occupation force. It was made by those under the influenceof G2 chief, Charles Willoughby, like Seizo Arisue, Takushiro Hattori and someothers. They worked on the interrogation team through the interpreters, Ryoichi
Naito, Kanichiro Kamei and others. They agreed to provide US force in exchangewith the data and materials of germ warfare and human experimentation and also
showed willingness to cooperate with ABCC（Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission）

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in their atomic-bomb damage investigation and anti-infection measure.
2-3

Rally of ex-Unit 731 members

Hideo Futaki was very close to Ryoichi Naito who was a contact man, key person
for negotiation with US force. In 1950 Futaki founded Japan Blood Bank (latter day
Midori Juji which is infamous for medicinal injury) with Naito and Koichi Miyamoto.
He enjoyed good connection with G2/CIS (Civil Information Section through Paul
Rusch,) and PHW (Public Health and Welfare through Brigade General Crawford F.
Sams ). Futaki arranged the social club Seikonkai (Heart and Soul Association) for
Unit 731 senior members and built Seikonto (Heart and Soul Monument) in Tama
Public Cemetery.
Although it is not certain that Futaki made public known about Unit 731
intentionally as intended by G2, he was definitely in a position to know thesummary of Sorge case investigation (CIS Report, August 1947) being done by Paul
Rusch and others even before the so called Willoughby Report was released in
February 1949.
2-4

The Role of Futaki’s “Seikai Jeep” at the time of Khabarovsk War Crime Trial

Futaki’s “Seikai Jeep” played a big role in its April 1950 issue. It denied and tried toburke the sensational reportage in “Sinso” and “Report” of the USSR Khabarovsk
War Crime Trial concerning bacteriological warfare, as complete fabrication. It also
made a big propaganda campaign to warn the infiltration of Soviet spy among those
who returned from Siberia as well as in communist party that split up in 1950. And
at the time of Korean War and McCarthyism, they appealed the necessity of germ
warfare and also stressed a danger of the “revival of Sorge Case”.

3. Suspicious death of Unit 731 medical doctor Tomio Karasawa in theSoviet detention camp and of Prince Fumitaka Konoe, Fumimaro
Konoe’s eldest son, both at the time of the restoration of Russo-Japan
diplomatic relation in October 1956.
When the total return of Japanese detainees in Siberian Soviet camps was
agreed in December 1956, ex-Unit 731 medical doctor Tomio Karasawa
committed suicide in October 20. He was one of the defendants at Khabarovsk
trial and was sentenced to 20 years corrective labor. One week after the day ofhis death, Fumimaro Konoe’s eldest son, Fumitaka Konoe, also died of disease in
the same camp. He was a witness of Karasawa’s death.
US force regarded this suspicious serial incidents as the death by drug and they
made follow-up investigation with the help of the testimony by former KGB

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agent (fleed to USA at the time) Juli Rastborov’s testimony is found in “Konoe
Fumitaka File” made by US/MIS (Military Information Service).
It may seem to support a part of Masaaki Nishiki’s

reasoning he made in his

book, “Mugan-san ni yoroshiku (”Send my best regards to Mr. MUGAN[YUMEGAO =Dreamy Face]”)”. However, little possibility is there in theconnection of Konoe Fumitaka’s death with Sorge Case as done by Masaaki
Nishiki, Miyoko Kudo and others. We cannot find the direct connection between
Sorge Case and Fumitaka Konoe’s death but say their’s is a biased view peculiar
to Japanese way of thinking.
3-1 Khabarovsk War Crime Trial of Unit 731
Although it is hard to tell when the Soviet started the investigation, they somehow
got a scent of Unit 731’s research and development works of biological warfare andhuman experimentation and tried to find out what was really done from various
angles by,a) the arrest and interrogation of Unit 731 Division 4 chief, major general Kiyoshi
Kawashima, and Cultivation Section chief, major Tomio Karasawa,b) from the materials they confiscated at Manchurian archives and ,c) the testimony by Kuwantung Army Surgeon General, lieutenant general Ryuuji
Kajitsuka and Chief Instructor, Toshihide Nishi.
In January 1947, the Soviet made a demand to GHQ to prosecute, interrogate andturn over war criminals like Unit 731 commander and lieutenant general Shiro
Ishii, Division 1 chief and colonel Hitoshi Kikuchi and Division 2 chief and colonel
Kiyoshi Ota. However, US Army agreed only to make the interrogation in theirpresence in Tokyo, after they cajoled Ishii and others to sit for it in exchange ofacquittal, trying to take all the research data and materials in their hands.
After the conclusion of Tokyo trial (International Military Tribunal for the Far
East) which gave immunity from responsibility to Unit 731 members, Soviet
pronounced judgement at Khabarovsk trial of Unit 731 in December 1949, as thestate-sponsored crime and condemned 12 people including ex-Kuwantung Armycommander Otozo Yamada, Kiyoshi Kawashima, Tomio Karasawa and Toshihide
Nishi to correctional labor in camps for 25 years maximum. Further in 1950, they
demanded at Far Eastern Commission for calling the international court to convict
Emperor Hirohito, Shiro Ishii and Seiji Kitano, only to be turned down by US andUK.
3-2 Prince Fumitaka Konoe’s life and struggle in Soviet camp
In the summer of 1936 Prince Fumitaka Konoe, a student at Princeton University,

6became acquainted with Hotsumi Ozaki at Yosemite Conference of the IPR(Institute of Pacific Relations). And in 1938 he had opportunities of seeing Ozaki
and Sorge as the secretary to the prime minister in the first

Fumimaro Konoe(hisfather’s) cabinet. Although there were such influential persons like Akira Kazama,
Tomohiko Ushiba, Kinkazu Saionji and Takesi Inukai around and close to him, he
was supposed to be just too young to get involved in Sorge Case at the age of 23.
In 1939 while he was working at Shanghai Toa Dobunshoin Daigaku (East Asian
Literary School) he was called up for military service as he fell into disgrace ofmilitary police on Chunking plot through Zheng Pingru

ofMakoto Onodera’sSpecial military agency.
In 1942 he came to know while in military service the announcement by the
Department of Justice concerning the Sorge/Ozaki international intelligence group.
At the end of the war in August 1945, he was a lieutenant and company chief of thethird field gun troop of Kwantung Army and was held in Manchuria as a prisoner.
As he was considered convenient to Soviet for use in relation to his father,
Fumimaro Konoe who was close to imperial court and killed himself on beingclassified as an A-class war criminal in1945, he was sent around detain camps andprisons here and there before he was sentenced 25 years in prison under Soviet
penal law article 58 paragraph 4 (helping international bourgeosie) in 1952. He wasrelentlessly asked to work for Soviet, namely to become “another Hotsumi Ozaki”(Alhangrusky, “Killing of Prince Konoe” , Shinnchosha, 2000).
3-3

US Exposing of Possible Soviet Agent from Japanese Returners

About 600,000 Japanese detainees in Siberia (2,400,000 German POW) finally went
home until 1950 with the exception of the war criminals who were continued to beheld even after the conclusion of San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952. They were
eventually set free in a state of grace on the restoration of the Russo-Japan
diplomatic relation in 1956.
However, Soviet never hesitated to threaten the returnees to work for them after
they went back to their home land. On the other hand, US army made every effort
in interrogating the returnees on “Project Stitch” on their landing at Maizuru,
Hakodate and others, to pick up PSA (possible Soviet agent) so they could thwart
possible spy activity. As a result, according to Kenro Nagoshi, 352 Soviet agentswere located, among which 138 confessed the loyalty commitment to the Soviet and
32 had actual contact from Soviet agents after the return. Another Sorge case wasalso said to be framed up involving Masao Ito and his 200 crews. In fact “another7

Ozaki Hotsumi” emerged in 1954 in KGB Rastborov case involving the employees ofJapanese Foreign Ministry.
Among US/NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) MIS (MilitaryIntelligence Service) files, we are able to go over the individual files of such Unit 731
members as Otozo Yamada, Shigeharu Asaeda and Norimitsu Kikuchi (and thesefiles are included in “The collection of materials regarding Biological Warfare andUnit 731” compiled by Kondo Shoji, Kashiwa Shobou 2003). The interrogation
records of about 1,000 PSA were checked by myself at NARA.
In addition, the returnees must have been interrogated in detail as a part of US Air
Force “Project Wringer” about geography and landscapes of where they weredetained. Presumably, the location map was made up by G2 Geography Section on
the basis of data thus obtained from about 10,000 returnees and it was taken as theuseful data into making up a human GPS for specifing points of strategic
bombardment.
3-4

Riddle of Fumitaka’s Last Word ”Send my best regards to Mr. MUGAN”

In MIS Fumitaka Konoe file, there are remarks like,a) US force knew about brainwashing attempt by Soviet of Fumitaka Konoe earlier,b) Fumitaka became neurotic on finding the suicide of Karasawa,c) he was given drug administration until his death by caregiver like Toshihide
Nishi and other ex-731 members andd) Fumitaka’s close friend in camp, Takehiko Yoshida, who delivered the will of
Fumitaka was a suspected Soviet surveillance agent.
On the other hand Rastborov made the testimony in the states “Fumitaka wasnothing but a political prisoner”. Although Masaaki Nishiki insisted in his book“Mugann-sanniyoroshiku(”Sendmybest

regards

to

Mr.

MUGAN

[YUMEGAO=Dreamy Face]”)” that Mugan who was referred to six times in theletter that Fumitaka wrote in the late days of detention in1955/56 is hardly
acceptable. It seems more probable that Fumitaka meant Ryugan (Dragon face) forthe emperor Hirohito and Mugan (Dreamy Face) for Prince Takamatsu, as stated in
Kudo Miyoko “Seven Mysteries of the KonoeFamily”（PHP, 2009）.
But it might be also possible that Mugan meant Kouichi Kido, the closest advisor
Emperor Hirohito and the go-between of Fumitaka’s marriage with his wife Masako
in 1944, Akira Kazama, the general secretary of Fumimaro Konoe Cabinet, and/or
Masaru Nakayama, Professor of Dobunshoin Daigaku (East Asian Literary School)
and important brain of Fumimaro Konoe. Without evidence and testimony by
Fumitaka Konoe himself. The riddle of “MUGAN” remained forever.

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