page_title: Racial policy of Nazi Germany
section_title: Han Chinese and Japanese
hierarchical_section_title: Racial policy of Nazi Germany / Policies regarding Poles, Russians and other Slavs / Han Chinese and Japanese
caption_attribution_description: English: Adolf Hitler meeting Japanese ambassador to Germany Hiroshi Ōshima
context_page_description: The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in Nazi Germany based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, which claimed scientific legitimacy. This was combined with a eugenics programme that aimed for racial hygiene by compulsory sterilization and extermination of those who they saw as Untermenschen, which culminated in the Holocaust.
  Nazi policies labeled centuries-long residents in German territory who were not ethnic Germans such as Jews, Romanis, along with the vast majority of Slavs, and most non-Europeans as inferior non-Aryan subhumans in a racial hierarchy that placed the Herrenvolk of the Volksgemeinschaft at the top.
context_section_description: Despite having a separate evolutionary origin from the Europeans, the Han Chinese and Japanese were both considered by Adolf Hitler and the government of Nazi Germany to be "Aryans of the East", "Honorary Aryans" and the "Herrenvolk of the Orient" (i.e. the "Master race of the Orient").
  In 1945, Adolf Hitler said:
  "Pride in one's own race, and that does not imply contempt for other races, is also a normal and healthy sentiment. I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves. They belong to ancient civilizations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own. They have the right to be proud of their past, just as we have the right to be proud of the civilization to which we belong. Indeed, I believe the more steadfast the Chinese and the Japanese remain in their pride of race, the easier I shall find it to get on with them."
  --Adolf Hitler, The Political Testament of Adolf Hitler, Note #5, February 1945 - April 1945
  Due to Nazi Germany's recognition of Han Chinese and Japanese as "Aryans of the East" Adolf Hitler had allowed Han Chinese and Japanese soldiers to study in Nazi German military academies and serve in the Nazi German Wehrmacht as part of their combat training. Since 1926, Germany had supported the Republic of China militarily and industrially. Germany had also sent advisers such as Alexander von Falkenhausen and Hans von Seeckt to assist the Chinese, most notably in the Chinese Civil War and China's anti-communist campaigns. Max Bauer was sent to China and served as one of Chiang Kai-shek's advisers. Around this time, Hsiang-hsi Kung, the Republic of China Minister of Finance, visited Nazi Germany and was warmly welcomed by Adolf Hitler on June 13, 1937. During this meeting, 
  Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring and Hjalmar Schacht bestowed upon Hsiang-hsi Kung an honorary doctorate degree, and attempted to open China's market to German exports. And in order to attract more Han Chinese students to study in Germany, Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring and Hjalmar Schacht earmarked for 100,000 reichsmarks for Han Chinese students studying in the universities and military academies of Nazi Germany after they persuaded a German industrialist to set aside the money for that purpose. Additionally, Hsiang-hsi Kung, in favor of commercial credits, politely refused a generous international loan offer by Adolf Hitler. The most famous of these Han Chinese Nazi soldiers was Chiang Wei-kuo, the son of Republic of China President Chiang Kai-shek, who studied military strategy and tactics at a Nazi German Kriegsschule in Munich, and subsequently achieved the rank of lieutenant and served as a soldier in the Wehrmacht on active combat duty in Europe until his return to the Republic of China during the later years of World War II.
  Adolf Hitler had supported the Empire of Japan as early as 1904, when during the Russo-Japanese War it had defeated the Russians, which he considered a defeat for Austrian Slavism. He made a number of other statements expressing his respect and admiration for the Japanese in his book Mein Kampf.
  Although of a different evolutionary race, the Han Chinese and Imperial Japanese were considered by Nazi ideologists such as Himmler as having sufficiently superior qualities as did German-Nordic blood to warrant an alliance. Himmler, who possessed a great interest in, and was influenced by, the anthropology, philosophies and pantheistic religions of East Asia, mentioned how his friend Hiroshi Ōshima, the Japanese Ambassador to Germany, believed that the noble castes in Japan, the Daimyō and the Samurai, were descended from gods of celestial origin, which was similar to Himmler's own belief that "the Nordic race did not evolve, but came directly down from heaven to settle on the Atlantic continent."
  Karl Haushofer, a German general, geographer, and geopolitician, whose ideas may have influenced the development of Hitler's expansionist strategies, saw Japan as the brother nation to Germany. In 1908, he was sent by the German Army "to Tokyo to study the Japanese Army and t
caption: Adolf Hitler meeting with Empire of Japan ambassador Hiroshi Ōshima
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