The World of Turtledove's In the Presence of Mine Enemies

Deleted member 103950

Do you think there are Jews living in the Empire Of Japan in this world? If so, whats the Empire's attitude towards them? Do they allow them to exist? Do they have an agreement with the Reich not to support them?
 
Do you think there are Jews living in the Empire Of Japan in this world? If so, whats the Empire's attitude towards them? Do they allow them to exist? Do they have an agreement with the Reich not to support them?
There probably are secret Jews in Japan and Greater East Asia and they are probably watched by the various authorities. As long as they are non-political and do not proselytize they are left alone. In many of the colonies, sorry, I mean members they may have needed skills.
 
There probably are secret Jews in Japan and Greater East Asia and they are probably watched by the various authorities. As long as they are non-political and do not proselytize they are left alone. In many of the colonies, sorry, I mean members they may have needed skills.
In our world, the Empire of Japan was not anti-Semitic, quite the opposite, when they saw that the West considered Jews as rich and powerful creatures who controlled the world, Japan just thought they could befriend Jews to become rich and powerful and thus learn their secrets to dominate the world themselves, as an excuse for imperialism they considered Jews as Asians who were being oppressed by the West.

Japan made areas for Jewish refugees from Europe to migrate to and live in, such as in the Shanghai ghetto (that harbored more than 20.000 Jewish refugees) and in Harbin, they repeatedly ignored Germany's requests to hand them over and also arrested White Russian émigrés who commonly killed Jews, though despite all of that, Japan still saw Jews as useful idiots rather than human, and arrested many of them due to suspicion.

I could not find anything that implied Japan was trying to create a Jewish puppet state in the Greater East Asia Sphere, only to make Jews confined to restricted ghettos throughout Asia with the illusion of autonomous self-rule, perhaps Japan could have made the Jewish Autonomous Oblast bordering Manchukuo as a semi-independent Jewish puppet state after a successful Kantokuen, this is a thing that seriously impacts their relationship with Germany in an Axis victory world Cold War.

1b3c39f553c5376c8cac0d9058d9ceaf.jpg
 
In our world, the Empire of Japan was not anti-Semitic, quite the opposite, when they saw that the West considered Jews as rich and powerful creatures who controlled the world, Japan just thought they could befriend Jews to become rich and powerful and thus learn their secrets to dominate the world themselves, as an excuse for imperialism they considered Jews as Asians who were being oppressed by the West.

Japan made areas for Jewish refugees from Europe to migrate to and live in, such as in the Shanghai ghetto (that harbored more than 20.000 Jewish refugees) and in Harbin, they repeatedly ignored Germany's requests to hand them over and also arrested White Russian émigrés who commonly killed Jews, though despite all of that, Japan still saw Jews as useful idiots rather than human, and arrested many of them due to suspicion.

I could not find anything that implied Japan was trying to create a Jewish puppet state in the Greater East Asia Sphere, only to make Jews confined to restricted ghettos throughout Asia with the illusion of autonomous self-rule, perhaps Japan could have made the Jewish Autonomous Oblast bordering Manchukuo as a semi-independent Jewish puppet state after a successful Kantokuen, this is a thing that seriously impacts their relationship with Germany in an Axis victory world Cold War.

1b3c39f553c5376c8cac0d9058d9ceaf.jpg
the way i'd heard it is that Japan took The Protocols of the Elders of Zion at face-value but didn't embrace the antisemitism that went with it--they started admiring the Jews because of it and wanted to recruit them to help with their own empire-building schemes, because surely an ancient people who secretly controlled the world must be really good at it to have gotten away with it for so long :p
 

Deleted member 103950

I could not find anything that implied Japan was trying to create a Jewish puppet state in the Greater East Asia Sphere

There was the Fugu Plan. Although that never came to fruition because they lost the war.

 
So from everything I've read, the Japanese themselves didn't much care one way or another.

I can't recall offhand if Turtledove touches on this issue or not in the book. Part of me thinks that the Reich put pressure on Japan to adopt the same policies, but I could be wrong (I DO know that this was discussed in High Castle, and in the show, Japan had aligned their race laws to that of the Reich, but didn't seem to actively pursue Jews.

My guess is that we'd see something similar to this. No government-orchestrated rounding up and murder. But if caught, the Japanese would likely execute Jews they caught. I am not sold on this position though. It would be interesting to see Jewish "survivors" in Japan.
 
So from everything I've read, the Japanese themselves didn't much care one way or another.

I can't recall offhand if Turtledove touches on this issue or not in the book. Part of me thinks that the Reich put pressure on Japan to adopt the same policies, but I could be wrong (I DO know that this was discussed in High Castle, and in the show, Japan had aligned their race laws to that of the Reich, but didn't seem to actively pursue Jews.

My guess is that we'd see something similar to this. No government-orchestrated rounding up and murder. But if caught, the Japanese would likely execute Jews they caught. I am not sold on this position though. It would be interesting to see Jewish "survivors" in Japan.
Since it's Turtledove, Japan on ITPOME would most certainly exterminate Jews as much as how in the book Italy continued with their extremely unpopular racial purity laws for some reason, even though if they won the war they would most certainly have abolished them, Mussolini himself said that he didn't agree with the racial laws and they were only a temporary political move.

Another mistake he made is that Indians are considered Aryan and are allowed to study and live in Germany, but in real life Nazis saw modern-day Indians as brown mongrels that lost all of their Aryan purity due to millennia of race mixing with Dravidians, Hitler couldn't care less about India.
 
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MaxGerke01

Banned
So from everything I've read, the Japanese themselves didn't much care one way or another.

I can't recall offhand if Turtledove touches on this issue or not in the book. Part of me thinks that the Reich put pressure on Japan to adopt the same policies, but I could be wrong (I DO know that this was discussed in High Castle, and in the show, Japan had aligned their race laws to that of the Reich, but didn't seem to actively pursue Jews.

My guess is that we'd see something similar to this. No government-orchestrated rounding up and murder. But if caught, the Japanese would likely execute Jews they caught. I am not sold on this position though. It would be interesting to see Jewish "survivors" in Japan.
Well they did execute Frank Frinks Jewish sister and children but let him live as we saw in a horrifying scene however the fact that they had that gassing room in place indicates its something they had done many times before....
 

Deleted member 103950

For Jews in the Imperial Japanese empire. I can see it coming to a flashpoint where the existence of Jews within it could be used by the Nazis to escalate the cold war.

Or alternatively, if a cooler head prevailed. The Nazis could use the existence of Jews in the Empires Borders for propaganda. Saying that the Empire allowing Jews in their borders would make them weak. That the Jews would be the Empires downfall, and when it did break apart because of the Jews, the Reich would be there to take over.

But there are a lot of variations one needs to keep in mind when thinking about Axis Victory timelines, as they are by their very nature unrealistic and unbelievable. The most realistic one is probably Fatherland.
 
Based on the fact that ITPOME there are still secret Jews at the very heart of the Reich, I think it's very likely Jews in Japan's sphere managed to avoid systemic extermination. I could see the Japanese policy being MITHC-esque, but also think it's less likely. In MITHC the Nazis are noticeably more powerful than Japan, hence enabling them to tell Japan what to do. In ITPOME it's indicated things are fairly evenly matched, with Japan even being slightly more advanced on consumer technology. It seems less likely that Japan in that scenario would just go along with Nazi racial laws even nominally.
 

MaxGerke01

Banned
I dont think this downplays Nazi cruelty nor does the Ultimate Solution comically exaggerate it. The fact alone that the Nazis existed and were successful for a time beggars belief so how do you really measure the appropriate level of Nazi cruelty ?
We can only base it on what we know they did OTL and what they said they would do so in a world where they actually won who knows how far they would go. I think its safe to say that considering who they were and what they stood for we shouldnt give them the benefit of the doubt,,,
 
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William E. Dannemeyer, who was a Congressman from Orange County, CA IOTL would be an excellent choice for being a prominent politician in the post-WW3 collaborationist American government. He was the children of German immigrants and held extremely conservative views, even promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories after his retirement from Congress.
 
Do you think there are Jews living in the Empire Of Japan in this world? If so, whats the Empire's attitude towards them? Do they allow them to exist? Do they have an agreement with the Reich not to support them?

Depends on their relation with Germany. If their relationship with Germany is friendly then they might give in to German pressure. In Turtledoves Work Germany and Japan seem to be relatively even and seem to be in a open cold war. So Japan might allow Jews to live openly. They'd probably watch them heavily and crack down if they think their getting even mildly political but as long as Jews are quiet, subservient, and useful they might be allowed to live and even do things like openly have permanent Synagogues.

If relations with Germany got better and Germany offered enough to Japan that could easily change drastically.

Basically as long as Germany and Japan are enemies and Jews are useful things will go "good" for them.
 
Any updates or name list posts forthcoming ?

At the moment, sadly, no. Work and grad school has really kept me from much in the way of creative pursuits. If someone wanted to pick up some of the names that were asked about that I didn't get to, I'd be cool with that to keep this concept alive in the meantime.

Depends on their relation with Germany. If their relationship with Germany is friendly then they might give in to German pressure. In Turtledoves Work Germany and Japan seem to be relatively even and seem to be in a open cold war. So Japan might allow Jews to live openly. They'd probably watch them heavily and crack down if they think their getting even mildly political but as long as Jews are quiet, subservient, and useful they might be allowed to live and even do things like openly have permanent Synagogues.

If relations with Germany got better and Germany offered enough to Japan that could easily change drastically.

Basically as long as Germany and Japan are enemies and Jews are useful things will go "good" for them.

You may have a point here. Japan is more on par with the strength of the Reich ITTL as opposed to MITHC, where Japan was painfully behind. That said, how many Jews were living in Japan/Japanese occupied territory IOTL? Some might have escaped to Japan afterwards to escape persecution, but it would be a low number. And I would definitely say that Jewish existence within Japan's realm would be on a whim, which would be very stressful to those Jews who did manage to live there.
 

MaxGerke01

Banned
At the moment, sadly, no. Work and grad school has really kept me from much in the way of creative pursuits. If someone wanted to pick up some of the names that were asked about that I didn't get to, I'd be cool with that to keep this concept alive in the meantime.



You may have a point here. Japan is more on par with the strength of the Reich ITTL as opposed to MITHC, where Japan was painfully behind. That said, how many Jews were living in Japan/Japanese occupied territory IOTL? Some might have escaped to Japan afterwards to escape persecution, but it would be a low number. And I would definitely say that Jewish existence within Japan's realm would be on a whim, which would be very stressful to those Jews who did manage to live there.
There was actually 18-20.000 in Shanghai which became Japanese during WW2 ,and another 4,000 or so elsewhere-up to 24,000 survived in Japan or Japanese territory.,,, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_settlement_in_the_Japanese_Empire#During_World_War_II
 
Hey everyone!

I know it's been a minute. I'm currently on break and working on a few updates, and also hoping that maybe I can squeeze in some time this coming semester (maybe).

Here's a little teaser for you while I work on the next story update:

  • Liberty Party Candidate: Benjamin Highland (59)
    • Born in 1961, was 9 years old when WWIII broke out.
    • Originally from California, where his parents had been professors before the war, he was placed in state care in 1971 while his parents were “reeducated” (father died in custody in 1974, mother was released in 1980).
    • Worked in social services starting in the mid-1980s after university.
    • Ended up in administration by the early 2000s and networked with dissenters as much as possible.
    • When Congress passed the political liberalization act in 2013, he worked with this network to found the Liberty Party.
    • Elected from Colorado as Congressman in 2014, and has served in that position ever since.
    • Libs do play into nationalism, but more towards the “freedom and equality” bent than military greatness. Reject the racist policies of the FJP era. Dance a fine line with Germany - they don’t want a conflict, but they want full independence (eyeing partnerships with Brazil and Mexico - neutral about Japan).
    • Highland’s “I remember when” speech that he gives at a campaign event on July 3rd is going to become a lightning rod, boosting his campaign and putting him neck-and-neck with Simpson (the New Federalist candidate).

Working on planning the "big arcs" that happen that the characters are going to have to navigate/survive.
 

MaxGerke01

Banned
Hey everyone!

I know it's been a minute. I'm currently on break and working on a few updates, and also hoping that maybe I can squeeze in some time this coming semester (maybe).

Here's a little teaser for you while I work on the next story update:

  • Liberty Party Candidate: Benjamin Highland (59)
    • Born in 1961, was 9 years old when WWIII broke out.
    • Originally from California, where his parents had been professors before the war, he was placed in state care in 1971 while his parents were “reeducated” (father died in custody in 1974, mother was released in 1980).
    • Worked in social services starting in the mid-1980s after university.
    • Ended up in administration by the early 2000s and networked with dissenters as much as possible.
    • When Congress passed the political liberalization act in 2013, he worked with this network to found the Liberty Party.
    • Elected from Colorado as Congressman in 2014, and has served in that position ever since.
    • Libs do play into nationalism, but more towards the “freedom and equality” bent than military greatness. Reject the racist policies of the FJP era. Dance a fine line with Germany - they don’t want a conflict, but they want full independence (eyeing partnerships with Brazil and Mexico - neutral about Japan).
    • Highland’s “I remember when” speech that he gives at a campaign event on July 3rd is going to become a lightning rod, boosting his campaign and putting him neck-and-neck with Simpson (the New Federalist candidate).

Working on planning the "big arcs" that happen that the characters are going to have to navigate/survive.
Wow hard to believe its been over 1 year now that you began this timeline.I thought about it the other day when I saw an old picture of Julia Child. Looking forward to seeing more.
 
Sequel, Chapter 3-A
Alicia Gimpel always found her weekend adventures away from the university campus fascinating. Sure, Zurich was tiny in comparison to either Berlin or Munich. But every time she took a walk, she felt like she’d entered a different world, all the more so since most of the Swiss in the city spoke German - after a fashion, though her first few days in the country she’d struggled to follow the Schwiizerdütsch dialect. Despite the fact that the Reich had dominated the continent for nearly ninety years, the German-speaking Swiss had steadfastly maintained the uniqueness of their version of the language. And that was just the tip of things. Every walk through the city made her feel as though she were living in the world of that book her mother had told her about, where the Kaiserreich had won the First World War, thereby preventing the Nazis a chance to come to power. The elections for the Swiss legislature were in a few months, and posters were everywhere, extolling the virtues of the various candidates. That was no longer unheard of in Germany, but with such limited options, the campaigns at home felt much more like the same old propaganda she’d seen since she was a child.

What she saw in Zurich, on the other hand, was entirely new. She gathered that the current majority in the Swiss Federal Assembly had become unpopular, and the signs for the opposition candidates baldly called out those in power. Even now, ten years after the reforms started by Buckliger, few “opposition” politicians would dare be so direct back home. And that was just the most obvious thing. She had quickly picked up on how open the locals were when discussing...well anything. There was never that hesitation, the calculation of what should be said aloud and what should be left in one's thoughts. Although this shouldn’t have been so surprising in a nation that not only guaranteed the right to free speech in law, but regularly defended and upheld that freedom in the courts, it still caught Alicia by surprise.

It might have been her imagination, but she felt as though people were friendlier here too. She regularly had people make eye contact and smile at her, which she couldn’t recall ever really happening back home in Berlin, where everyone seemed too intent on their own business to pay too much attention to others around them. Most Germans had walls around them to protect their thoughts and opinions from the Security Police. The Swiss had no such worries.

This was her third such weekend outing, and like the previous two, Alicia had started by visiting a local historic church. Her last two weekends had been spent exploring the neighborhoods around the university, staying on the eastern bank of the Limmat River. Today, she’d crossed over to the western bank, beginning her adventure at the Fraumunster Church, parts of which dated back nearly 1600 years. Although she’d seen more structurally impressive churches, being in a place that old always awed her, and this location, in particular, was important to her research into the Swiss Reformation.

After several hours there, where she took some preliminary notes that she could follow up on latter, along with a plethora of photographs, she headed out to explore the surrounding neighborhood, eating lunch in a lovely cafe on the Munsterhof and then finding her way to the old botanical gardens on Talstrasse, where she enjoyed seeing the old palm house and the Gessner Garden. It was no Tiergarten, but still a peaceful respite in the middle of the city, nestled on one side by the street and on the other by the Schanzengraben moat from the city’s old defenses.

Now, as the sun was heading lower in the sky and afternoon was starting to approach evening, she wandered up Lowenstrasse, planning on finding a streetcar stop before too long and making her way back across the Limmat to the university campus. As she crossed Nuschelerstrasse, she noticed an older church across the street, catty-corner to where she stood waiting for the walk signal. It puzzled her for several reasons. First, it hadn’t been marked on any of the maps of the city she’d reviewed, and it was clearly a historical building so the omission surprised her. Second, the architecture was quite unique compared to other churches she’d seen. More Mediterranean or even Arabian, which stood out when put next to the gothic-style churches so common in much of the city.

Curiosity piqued, she crossed to the other side of the street for inspection she noticed people going inside. At first, she assumed they were tourists, but then she noticed they were dressed more formally. Maybe there was a special ceremony going on, or a worship service? As she reached the far curb and stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the church, she stopped dead in her tracks and stared up at the sign above the door. The Hebrew script was unmistakable. In smaller text, she saw the German sign saying “Lowenstrasse Jewish Synagogue and Cultural Center.”

She quickly became aware that it would be obvious to anyone nearby that she was staring - practically gaping - and that she didn’t need that attention. Alicia began to walk on, as slowly as she felt she could get away with, soaking up every detail she could. What she wouldn’t give to actually go in, or to even talk to the people entering. But she knew the Gestapo was likely to have agents keeping tabs on the German students in Switzerland. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she’d seen someone tailing her on a previous off-campus excursion. Reluctantly, she picked up her pace and headed down the street to see if she could find the nearest streetcar stop.

The entire way back to the university, she couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d seen. There must be some way she could get in there to talk to people without putting herself (and her family and friends back in the Reich) in danger. Maybe something with her research. She also wanted to call home and tell her mother or Gottlieb, but that was out of the question. She’d have to keep this discovery to herself until she went home this summer.

***********************************************************​

As it turned out, she wouldn’t have to wait quite that long. The next day she got a call from Gottlieb with some exciting news: he was planning a visit to see her in April for the Easter holiday. This wasn’t an observed holiday in the Reich, but it was in Switzerland, and it was when Alicia’s university held its mid-term break.

“Oh Liebchen, that would be wonderful! I can’t wait to see you! I have so many things to talk to you about. Fascinating things.” That last bit had been a bit of code that the two of them had worked out, to imply anything that wouldn’t be okay to discuss on the telephone.

“I can’t wait to see you either and hear about everything you’ve seen and let you show me around the city. I’m sure it's beautiful.”

“It really is. Part of me will miss it when I come home I think.”

“Three months and I’ll be there with you. I’d come sooner, but the Foreign Ministry has a mountain of paperwork for me to go since I have no official business there, and it will probably take that long to get everything processed. That, and work has me swamped.” Although she couldn’t follow all the technical jargon, he’d explained before she left that Zeiss was working with the government on setting up a “super network” of most of the computers in Germany, something that had long been talked about but never before attempted. Gottlieb was on one of several teams working on the so-called “Großdeutches Net.” She was proud of him, and he was thrilled to be working on the team, but the workload was massive and she was honestly surprised he’d been able to get time off.

When she asked him about that, he replied, “I was too, but my boss has a soft spot for me, since he worked with my dad. That and he knows you’re off studying and feels quote ‘sorry for the separated love birds.’”

Alicia chuckled at that and also sighed. It had been the biggest drawback she’d seen to coming to Zurich to study, being separated from Gottlieb and the rest of her family. At times the long engagement they’d agreed to was frustrating too, but she was also glad of this opportunity. The internal conflict between her professional career and her personal feelings was strong at times.
 
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