I’ve read on several websites that the first German serviceman killed in world war two was killed by the Japanese in China. Is this true and does anyone have any details of the circumstances?
Thanks,
An Gadaí
Even if it’s literally true that a German serviceman died in the chaos of the second Sino-Japanese war, it’s a little dishonest to call that the “first German casuality of World War Two”.
I forgot to say 1937 was the year given.
Any German soldier who died in China in 1937 died not likely die from the “chaos of war”. Weimar, and then for a time Nazi Germany were strong supporters of the Kuomintang – the anti communist forces of Chiang Kai Shek.
The National Revolutionary Army fought against both the Communist People Liberations Army and the Japanese Imperial Army.
German officers were intimately involved in training and outfitting the army of the Kuomintang.
It would not be surprising that when the National Revolutionary Army fought against the Japanese in 1937, that among the 8 divisions that were fully trained and had German advisors, that a few of those “advisors” were KIA. It is well known that some German officers dressed as NRA troops to fight the Japanese aggression.
Hitler called off German aid to the Chinese after 1937, believing that the Japanese would be more reliable allies against the Communists.
Where in the OP does it say that?
I can’t find a cite but it seems credible. World War II started in China two years earlier then it started in Europe so the first casualties were going to be there. The Japanese bombed several Chinese cities, many of which had European soldiers in them, including Germans. So it’s not at all unlikely that some German soldiers were killed by the Japanese in China before the 1939 invasion of Poland officially began the war in Europe.
If you make your definitions elastic enough, you can make any claim you want. Doesn’t mean that anybody else has to accept it.
Me, I say that any deaths in 1937 were not part of WWII. If you accept that, what else do you accept? Were any German servicemen killed in Europe at any time in any place that may be included as a run-up to the war? That’s likely too. Does it count for WWII? Who says?
Sorry, but until Germany was formally in a declared war against a nation, which I believe did not occur until Sept. 1, 1939, no deaths counted as a part of the war.
That seems to be like saying that all of the British and Germans and French who were killed in 1940 didn’t die in WWII because it didn’t start until the United States was attacked in 1941. Or arguing that nobody was killed in WWII because the Swiss stayed neutral. China and Japan were the first two major powers of the war to start fighting - so 1937 is the beginning of WWII. If the Japanese invasion of China doesn’t “count” as part of the World War then why should the German invasion of Poland?
Because the German invasion of Poland caused a state of war to exist between many countries, whereas the Japanese invasion of China involved only two countries.
Thus the term “World War”. That and the German-Itailian-Japan Axis did not exist at the time. That Germany and Japan where on opposite sides makes it pre WW2.
The OP had two qualifications: a German serviceman and World War 2.
You can argue various times for when WWII actually started. You can point to Japan’s invasion of China. Or Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Or any of a number of dates and places. Heck, you could argue that WWII was nothing more than a continuation of WWI after an uneasy truce, and therefore anything that happened after Nov. 11, 1918 counts as part of it.
But realistically, virtually everyone who talks about WWII dates its formal start as Sept. 1, 1939. And Germany was not in an active, formally-declared war before that date. I don’t see any other way of putting a bound on the subject that everyone can agree to.
You can talk about the ironies of the precursors to WWII all you want, certainly. Precursors to the war are still not part of the war.
So when Japan fights China it’s not a world war? Two nations with a combined population of over 600,000,000 people fighting a war that lasted twelve years is dismissed as unimportant. But Germany invades Poland in a campaign that lasted thirty-eight days and suddenly it’s important.
It’s funny how Europeans get so snippy whenever they hear an American implying World War II started in 1941 - “Hey, you ignorant Yank, what do you call all that fighting we were doing since 1939?” - and yet there’s the exact same arrogance about the bigger war that was going on Asia before 1939.
Then why isn’t the war on terror that encompasses Iraq, Afganistan and those guys hiding out on the Pakistan border not referred to as WW3? Yet . . .
Because it’s still limited to one particular area of the world. A war with China (or India for that matter) is always going to encompass a large amount of the worlds population. Doesn’t make it a world war.
The “World War” that started in 1939 involved the Germany army advancing about 200 kilometers. How is that not a limited area?
My point is that whatever definition you invent to classify the war in China as a small war, you’re going to find you’ve classified the war in Europe as an even smaller war. Unless you use the rather arbitrary definition that wars are classified by how many Europeans fight in them.
No. The Japan\China war was not a small war by any means, and it had multiple players as well (those Flying Tigers mercinaries come to mind) . Just pointing out that a world war is one that is fought on multiple fronts. Not just one. Definitly not trying to deminish the suffering that took place. Hell, if the west had paid more attention to that perhaps WW2 would have been contained.
A lot of stuff got ignored prior to it blooming into a world wide conflict. Just as is being done today.
The German army could have started WW2 by advancing 1 kilometre, but that’s not the point.
The China - Japan war may not have been small but it was certainly not world-wide.
The 1939 conflict involved far more countries and was fought all over Europe, North Africa, the Pacific and the Far East. That clearly fits the definition of a World War.
Well to be fair the German invasion of Poland did bring war not only to Germany and Poland but also to France, the UK, India, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the French and British empires which meant most of the population and territory of the world was at war.
Actually,
Like German involvement in the Spanish civil war and the oft’ forgotten “Abraham Lincoln Brigade” (more accurately; the Lincoln and Washington Battalions).
If you count the Spanish civil war as part of WW2 (and reject the notion of “premature antifascists”).
CMC +fnord!
You’re completely missing the point. Japan v China may well be call a world war, but it isn’t ‘World War II’, specifically and universally defined as the conflict which began in 1939.
If you insist on a formal declaration of war before counting casualties, then a whole bunch of the world’s biggest and bloodiest wars have a death toll of 0.