Moral justifications

Narrator's post:

Both Germany and Japan were able to mobilize the majority of their populations to support their war efforts in Europe and Asia respectively, with only a minority against any launching of aggression. In Germany’s case, Hitler had gradually garnered support from many Germans through justifying German rearmament and later invasion of Europe and France in particular, as attempts to restore Germany and its army to its former glories of Empire in Europe, and importantly, correct the perceived wrongs the Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919 at the conclusion of World War One, had inflicted upon Germany. The downsizing of Germany’s army had been a particular point of conflict for many ordinary Germans which Hitler capitalize upon, as they had upheld the army as a source of national pride. In Japan’s case, invasion of China and later Asia was meshed within a variety of national reasons, ranging from what many Japanese nationalists believed was long overdue in terms of the elevation of Japan from a secondary to first- rate power of equal status against the West, to making her self- sufficient and not being dependent upon other powers for her economic needs. Invasion of China and Southeast Asia was thus deemed the best way to achieved these goals, a view Tojo hastened upon his appointment as Premier of Japan. Though the Allied powers had achieved some level of justification; such as avenging Pearl Harbor in the US’s case and protecting the British Isles in the case of the UK, more would have to be done to justify to the populations of each power why it was necessary to fight the Axis powers. By the start of 1942, the Allies had much to do still in this and the earlier areas discussed to turn the war around.