title: Nazi Germany's Foreign Policy in the Far East 1933-1938
Creators: name: Wang, Qi
Publisher: name: :none
Year: 2018

description: Nazi-Deutschlands Fernostpolitik war von 1933 bis 1937 von einem „Gleichgewicht“ zwischen zwei separaten und zunehmend unvereinbaren Strategien geprägt. Zwei unterschiedliche Entscheidungsorgane, die deutsche Armee und die NSDAP, unterstützten jeweils China bzw. Japan, was 1938 schlussendlich zu einem Bekenntnis zu Japan führte. Ziel dieser Masterarbeit ist es herauszufinden, welcher zu Grunde liegende Faktor dieses Gleichgewicht sowie dessen schlussendlichen Bruch erklären kann. Dafür werden die Außenpolitikprozesse des Deutschen Reichs auf internationaler Ebene mit China und Japan sowie auf nationaler Ebene analysiert. Die zwei-stufigen Verhandlungsverfahren des Hapro-Abkommens und des Antikominternpakts sind dabei von besonderem Interesse. Diese Arbeit kommt zum Schluss, dass der doppelgleisige Ansatz der Entscheidungsstruktur ausschlaggebend für das „Gleichgewicht“ bis 1938 war. Das bedeutet, dass sowohl traditionell konservative Bürkokraten sowie radikal revolutionäre Nazis einen gewissen Einfluss auf Entscheidungen hatten. Der Grund für das spätere Bekenntnis zu Japan war die verwandelte Entscheidungsstruktur, die den Triumpf der Nazi-Ideologie über die deutsche Diplomatie aufzeigt.
description: Nazi Germany’s foreign policy in the Far East from 1933 to 1937 was characterized by a ‘balance’ between two separate policies pursued by two decision-making authorities. These were a pro-Chinese policy of the German Army centered on military-industrial cooperation and a pro-Japanese one of the Nazi Party for ideological and political alignment. With the conclusion of the Hapro Agreement and the Anti-Comintern Pact, these two policies were to a large extent incompatible and the official German position of ‘neutrality’ insisted on by the Foreign Office had become increasingly tenuous. This ambiguous neutral position had been maintained until April 1938 and was replaced by a policy of commitment to Japan. Therefore, this thesis seeks to determine the underlying factor that made the earlier ‘balance’ possible and the ultimate reason that led to its breaking. In contrast to most studies in this field that have emphasized external factors at the international level, this thesis attempts to highlight the significance of decision-making structure at the domestic level of foreign policy analysis. To this end, motivations, stakeholders and detailed processes in the formation of German policies towards China and Japan, respectively, are explored, in order to assess not only the considerations involved from the inter-state perspective, but also the role played by different decision-making bodies within the country. Particularly through investigating the two-level negotiation processes of the Hapro and the Anti-Comintern agreement, interactions between domestic political and international relations in the Reich’s foreign policy-making can be demonstrated. This study finds that the ‘balance’ sustained until 1938 was due to a dual approach decision-making structure, in which both traditional conservative bureaucrats and Nazi radical revolutionaries had certain decision-making power. By examining the causality of a series of changes with respect to both the international power-political situation and the domestic reform of government, it is shown that the shift to a pro-Japanese commitment was the consequence of the transformed Nazi decision-making structure and indicated the triumph of Nazi ideology over German diplomacy. These findings reflect the internal conflicts in Nazi Germany’s foreign policy-making processes and how they had contributed to its Far Eastern policies in a period of rapid and far-reaching change.