Germany-Japanese relations

Both the modern German and Japanese states were founded in 1871 – through the foundation of the German Empire under the leadership of Prussia and the “"abolition of domains and foundation of prefectures" ordinance in Japan.

The two nations were allies in World War II.

Edo Period
Relations between Japan and Germany not taken in the strict sense of the modern nation state go back to the Edo period (1600–1868), when Germans in Dutch service came to Japan to work for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The first well-documented cases are those of the physicians Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716) and Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866) in the 1690s and the 1820s respectively. Siebold was allowed to travel throughout Japan, in spite of the restrictive seclusion policy the Tokugawa shogunate had implemented since the 1630s. Siebold became the author of Nippon, Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan, one of the most valuable sources of information on Japan well into the 20th century.

From 1848 to 1870
Shortly after the end of Japan's seclusion in 1854, the first German traders arrived in Japan. In 1860 Count Friedrich Albrecht zu Eulenburg led the Eulenburg Expedition which came to Japan as ambassador from Prussia, the most powerful of the numerous regional states in Germany. After four months of negotiations, a treaty of amity and commerce was signed in January 1861 between Prussia and Japan – one of the infamous 'unequal treaties' Japan was forced into by most of Europe's colonial powers as well as the United States.

During the Boshin war (1868–1869), the German weapon trader Henry Schnell was active in supplying weapons to the force favourable to the Shogunate.

Modernization of Germany and Japan
During Meiji era (1868–1912), many Germans came to work in Japan as advisors to the new government (O-yatoi gaikokujin) and contributed to the modernization of Japan, especially in the fields of medicine (Leopold Mueller, 1824–1894; Julius Scriba, 1848–1905; Erwin Baelz, 1849–1913), law (K. F. Hermann Roesler, 1834–1894; Albert Mosse, 1846–1925) and military affairs (K. W. Jacob Meckel, 1842–1906). The ‘Constitution of the Empire of Japan’, promulgated in 1889, was greatly influenced by the German legal scholars Rudolf von Gneist and Lorenz von Stein, whom the Meiji oligarch Ito Hirobumi (1841–1909) visited in Berlin and Vienna in 1882. Also, the Imperial Japanese Army intensively oriented its organization along Prusso-German lines when building a modern fighting force. The French model that had been followed by the late shogunate and the early Meiji government was gradually replaced by the Prussian model until the 1880s under the leadership of officers such as Katsura Taro, Nogi Maresuke, and others. Dozens of students and military officers went to Germany in the late 19th century in order to study the German military system and receive military training at German army educational facilities and within the ranks of the German, mostly the Prussian army, for example later famous writer Mori Rintarô (Mori Ōgai) who originally was an army doctor.

However, Japanese–German relations cooled at the end of the 19th century due to Germany’s imperialist aspirations in East Asia. The frictions culminated in 1895, when the Wilhelminian Empire, together with Russia and France, prevented Japan from acquiring possessions on the Asian mainland (Triple Intervention). In the following, Wilhelm II’s nebulous fears of a “Yellow Peril” (Knackfuss painting) – a united Asia under Japanese leadership, led to further frictions between Germany and Japan and Japanese–German estrangement. Wilhelm II also introduced a regulation to limit the number of members of the Japanese army to come to Germany to study the military system. After the Russo-Japanese War, Germany insisted on reciprocity in the exchange of military officers and students, and in the following, several German military officers were sent to Japan to study the Japanese military after its victory over the tsarist army in the Russo-Japanese War 1904/05– a promising organization to study.

World War I
In World War I Japan entered the conflict as an ally of Great Britain, France and the Russian Empire to seize the German colonial territories of Tsingtao and the Mariana Islands, Caroline Islands and Marshall Islands.

Inter-war years
Japan was one of the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles, as a result of the war with Germany. Under the initiative of German ambassador Solf, cultural exchange was strengthened, but it was not until the rise of Nazism in Germany and militarism in Japan in the 1930s that political ties between Japan and Germany became closer again. The two countries signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936 and the Tripartite Pact including Italy in 1940 with the three major Axis leaders including Hideki Tojo, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. In both cases, again, the military played a major role. On the Japanese side, particularly army officer Oshima Hiroshi advocated a closer relationship to Germany and worked for an alliance when he was military attaché (1934–36) and ambassador (1936–38).

World War II
Relations between the two wartime Axis members were directed through mutual self-interest, underpinned to some degree by the shared militarist, expansionist and nationalistic ideologies of both governments. However, the distance between both countries prevented any significant jointly coordinated military activity, and cooperation was limited to the exchange of strategic materials, and German naval vessels accessing Japanese facilities in Southeast Asia.

Originally Germany had a very close relationship with the Chinese nationalist government, even providing military aid and assistance to the Republic of China. Relations soured after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War on July 7, 1937, and when China shortly later concluded the Sino-Soviet Nonaggression Pact with the Soviet Union. Eventually Hitler concluded that Japan, not China, would be a more reliable geostrategic partner, notwithstanding the superior economic relationship that existed between Germany and China. Japan's relationships with Germany and Italy were cemented with the signature of Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940, which demonstrated that the three countries would respect each other's strategic aims in dominating their respective spheres of influence.

Hitler had repeatedly urged Japan to strike against Britain, and thus welcomed Japan's sudden entry into the war, just as Germany suffered its first military defeat at the Battle of Moscow. To some degree, Japan's actions in Southeast Asia and the Pacific would preoccupy the Allies, diverting America and the British Commonwealth assets from Europe and North Africa to Asia. While Hitler, under no treaty obligation, chose to declare war with the United States a few days after the Pearl Harbor attack, Hitler's hopes that Japan would reciprocally attack the Soviet Union did not transpire. Japan would continue to maintain an uneasy peace with the Soviet Union until 1945.

Publicly, the German leadership applauded their new ally.

Relations between Japan and Axis ally Vichy France, which controlled strategically important French Indochina, were significantly more tense - the two sides briefly fought each other on two occasions; once when Japan reneged on the conditions concerning Japanese troops being stationed in Vichy territory (just prior to the signing of the Tripartite Pact in 1940), and once in 1945. Germany did not get involved in either situation.

Germany was anxious for rubber and precious metals, while the Japanese sought industrial products, technical equipment, and chemical goods. Until Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Japan and Germany were able to exchange these material using the Trans Siberian Railway, after which submarines (including Unterseeboot 234) were used to transport strategic commodities and technology between the two states. A total of 96 persons travelled by submarine from Europe from Japan (and 89 from Japan to Europe) during the war. Only 20 to 40% of goods managed to reach either destination.

In May 1945, as the German government surrendered to the Allied powers, the Japanese government was now fighting alone. The Japanese government immediately denounced the German surrender as an act of treason, and interned the few German individuals staying in Japan at the time.

After World War II
After their defeat in World War II, both Japan and Germany were occupied. While Japan could regain its sovereignty with the Treaty of San Francisco in 1952, Germany was split into two states. The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) restored diplomatic ties with Japan in 1955, the German Democratic Republic as late as 1973. Post-war relations between Japan and both halves of Germany, as well as with unified Germany after 1990, have focused on economic questions. Germany, dedicated to free trade, continues to be Japan’s largest trading partner within Europe until today. Also, academic and scientific exchange was strengthened, in 1973 the "Framework Agreement concerning Scientific Cooperation" (WTZ) was signed. Institutions were founded to contribute to the academic and scientific exchange such as the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo and the Japanese–German Center (JDZB) in Berlin. Bilateral cultural exchange culminated in the "Japan in Germany" year 2000 and the "Germany in Japan" year 2005/2006.

On October 30, 2000 Foreign Minister of Japan Yohei Kono and Foreign Minister of Germany Joschka Fischer agreed on cooperations based on "7 pillars": Regular meetings between the two countries have lead to several cooperations. In 2004 German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed upon cooperations in the assistance for reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, the promotion of economic exchange activities , youth and sports exchanges as well as exchanges and cooperation in science, technology  and academic fields.
 * Pillar 1: Contribution for peace and stability of the international community
 * Pillar 2: Consolidation of economical and trade relationships, under benefit of globalization impulses.
 * Pillar 3: Contribution for a solution of global problems and social duties and responsibilites.
 * Pillar 4: Contribution for the stability in the regions (Korean Peninsula, People's Republic of China, former Yugoslavia, Russia, South Asia, new independent states, Middle East and Gulf region, Middle and South America, East Timor, Africa)
 * Pillar 5: Further constitution of faithful political relations between Japan and Germany
 * Pillar 6: Promotion of economical relations
 * Pillar 7: Promotion of mutual understanding and the cultural relations

After China, Japan is Germany's principal trading partner in Asia in 2006:
 * German imports from Japan 2006: 15.6 billion Euros (+15.4% to the previous year)
 * German exports to Japan 2006: 14.2 billion Euros (+9%)