午夜剧场

The world has changed completely. Russia and China advocate hegemonism, while the United States disrupts the international order. Liberal democracy is on the defensive.

Has Japan really been at peace throughout the postwar period? Was it truly peaceful during the Cold War? Or is it simply that we do not know the truth?

I have long focused on East Germany, which played a core role in the Communist bloc. I believed that by understanding the policies toward Japan of East Germany—a Soviet satellite state—I could understand the movements of the entire Communist sphere in the Far East.

Furthermore, Japan-Germany relations during the Cold War have focused almost exclusively on West Germany, leaving the points of contact with East Germany—the "star pupil of Eastern Europe"—unexplained. Something didn't sit right with me. I suspected there were major secrets.

I decided to uncover this historical void through a thorough investigation. It is painstaking work that requires the patience to dig up facts and fill in the pieces of history. Nevertheless, I felt that if I did not take this on, the truth might disappear, remaining hidden forever. As someone who has traveled back and forth between Japan and Germany since childhood, I felt a lifelong responsibility to confront this.

It is my nature to pursue things to the very end if I am going to do them. While working as a reporter for the Nikkei, I enrolled in the Center for Political Research at the Free University of Berlin. I obtained classified documents created by the East German dictatorial party and secret police through disclosure requests and other means, reading through 800,000 pages over more than 10 years. I tracked down contact information for East German party officials and conducted hundreds of interviews in total.

By combining the testimony of East German leaders who finally opened up with documents that were once classified, a startling reality emerged. East Germany worked with the Soviet Union to expand its network within Japanese political and business circles, spreading propaganda and disinformation. They were also involved in state-sponsored industrial espionage.

Many politicians and business leaders representing postwar Japan appear in the documents as "collaborators." This means they assisted the Soviet Union behind the scenes, and by extension, the Warsaw Pact. Japan prioritized immediate economic interests, creating holes in the Western security system.

Even today, authoritarian states spread disinformation around the world, interfere in elections, and seek smuggling routes to avoid economic sanctions. What should the retreating democratic camp do? Lessons from the past teach us that we must confront them resolutely. We cannot allow history to be buried in darkness.

Shogo Akagawa

午夜剧场 Press

452 pages, 3,520 yen (tax included)