You have to see this...

[Patrick Dempsey]

Hello,
I'm taking the liberty of re-posting a link from the "German daggers.com" forums, as i think these photo's should be seen by as many people as possible.There are six pages of wartime photo's to look at, but go here first:
http://www.geocities.com/alvinlee_81/WarPics3.html

Japanese officers, in Wehrmacht uniforms, with unique armshields...Have you ever seen the like?

enjoy the site,
Patrick.

[Dez H]

Hi Patrick

This is most interesting, I have never seen anything like it. Hardly the blonde giants we are accustomed to. With the nazi’s racial purity policies it makes you wounder why these people would even bother being volunteers in the Wehrmacht.


Dez

[mott5ranch]

Dez,
All races on the planet were in the war. The German Wehrmacht had millions of volunteers from everywhere. The nazi party propaganda machine about races was aimed at Jews, gypsies, handicapped, retarded, water heads, down syndrome, etc....not other axis countries' native populations. The Germans had and still have the greatest respect for the Japanesse.

[Rick White]

Here's one:

[Rick White]

another..

[Dez H]

Gary
I realize all races were involved in the Second World War. As for the Japanese and Germans sure they were allies but they basically were engaged in two separate wars, Japanese in the Pacific while the Germans were held up in the Atlantic and central Europe. The WaffenSS had volunteers from countless countries including; Russia, France, Croatia and even Britain fighting with them. I have just never seen pictures like this before, Japanese soldiers in Wehrmacht uniforms.


Dez

[bhholst]

Hello:
the pictures IMHO are from the pre-war period and non-German personnel are serving a training term with the German army. I remember a picture showing a National Chinese Army member undergoing training in the German Mountain Troops in their uniform who later was a highranking officer. Perhaps the wearing of the German uniforms was part of the program without them being fullfledged members.
This post is in no way meant to dispute above posts which I believe to be essentially correct
Bernhard H. Holst

[Bruce Simcox]

Just.....

.....take a long look at the link above that Patrick provided and you'll find some rather compelling photographs that more than 'suggest' that Asiatics were fighting during the Second World War, while wearing Wehrmacht uniforms. Very interesting web page.

--------------------

Bruce

[Chris Boonzaier]

Working at Frankfurt airport I come in contact with all kinds of people. Nothing astounds me more than the sheer diversity of race that can be found in ex USSR countries.
Some of them look very, very Japanese indeed.
I would not be suprised if folks from Almaty or some place similar served under the germans.

[Rick Research]

Rick's pre-war photos are quite interesting. Bernhard would certainly seem correct-- note that the men in Rick's pictures are not wearing any rank insignia, while the one over at GDcom are, in addition to their sleeve shields.

I can recall, dimly, an account (in a U.S> army unit history, I believe, mentioning capturing him) of a teenaged Japanese citizen called up into Wehrmacht service at the end of the war, but of course as a kid who had grown up in Germany in a diplomatic/business family, he had never served in the Japanese army.

There are also U.S. Army photos taken in Normandy of prisoners in Wehrmacht uniform who, as Chris says, were actually Mongolian ex-Soviet POWs.

Over on Robert Noss's forum at GDcom, way back in the old pages now, he had a photo of a group of international student officers at the Kriegsakademie in the 1930s. An American, South Americans, and--at opposite ends of the group, since they were fighting each other to the death "back home," Chinese and Japanese officers were posed in their national uniforms, out on a trip.