During the mid-morning of the 2 September 1945, the last Axis fighting country, the Japanese Empire, unconditionally signed the final surrender. The Second World War had been long and bloody, reducing Eurasia to rubble. Germany, supporter of the conflict, had surrendered to the Allies the 9 in May 1945, preceded by Italy, the first Axis country to capitulate the 8 in September 1943 (for the RSI the 29 April 1945).
The political-military control of the three countries was entrusted to the various Allied military governments, which were called "Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories" (AMGOT). They administered the aforementioned states during the transition period until the formation of the new national unity governments. A new era was appearing for the world, which will see two antithesis systems opposed: the US block, expression of capitalism and the Soviet container block of socialist countries. The states that would have been part of one of the two sides were decided in Yalta among the leaders of the Allied Nations.
In this article we will analyze the Allied role in the Japanese, German and Italian constitutions, dealing in particular with articles in which all three nations are forbidden to wage war on their own.
As for Japan, unlike its former European allies, where governments were placed under direct AMGOT control, its government was not dismissed, but placed under the indirect control of the SCAP, led by General Douglas MacArthur (photo opening ). Despite this, Japan suffered greater influence from the US in drafting the Constitution than in Italy and Germany, in fact the draft of its post-war constitution was officially drafted by the Allies, more precisely it was written by General Whitney and his staff, the which were part of the "Government Section" of the SCAP. The gen. Whitney, during the 4 February day, 1946, addirittuara stated: "General MacArthur has entrusted me with the historic task of writing the text of the new constitution for the Japanese people".
Given the incredible resistance and the immense tenacity demonstrated in war by the members of the Japanese army (the last Japanese soldier, Teruo Nakamura, surrendered in the 1974) one of the fundamental principles that were imposed by the Allies to the Japanese was to abolish the war of aggression as a sovereign right and to allow war if and only if Japan was attacked by external forces. A further condition: Japan did not have to have any land, sea or air force. Hence the origin of the Japanese "Self-defense Forces". MacArthur has always stated that this principle was decided in a meeting with the then Japanese prime minister, Sidehara. The text was also based on a text by Japanese liberals, who were against the imperial power. Government representatives were threatened by the SCAP to hand over Emperor Hirohito to military courts as a war criminal if they did not accept the new constitution. In fact, Japanese politicians were reluctant to radically change the constitution, rather they preferred to keep the old imperial. In the end, the constitutional charter was accepted and still in force today, although today's Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, recently announced the rearmament of the Land of the Rising Sun to counter Chinese power in the Pacific.
For Germany it was different: at the end of the war, the country of the Teutonic people was completely reduced to rubble by Allied bombing and battles against the Soviets. Divided in two in Torgau, sections to be handed over to the winning powers were divided into 4: USA, United Kingdom, France and USSR. Berlin was the mirror of the whole country, divided into 4 too. The control of the West was entrusted to the AMGOT (which united the USA, UK and France) while the East to the Soviets. Here we will not deal with the establishment of the GDR because in the 1990 the "Gundgesetz" was literally adopted by all the Germanic Landers, literally the "fundamental law", so called in view of Germanic unification, even if opposed at the last moment by the capitalist countries , both from the socialist countries. Even in the German Constitution, as in Japan, the constitutional article prohibiting the war of aggression is contained, even if in a less stringent way than the State of the Rising Sun. The scholar Cristopher Bollyn, who wrote an interesting article about the US occupation of Germanic soil, states that since Germany has never signed a post-World War II peace treaty and does not have an "official" constitution, it does not has still legally concluded the war. In practice, it is still under Allied occupation. In fact, the UN still contains a clause that recognizes the right to attack Germany in the event of rearmament of the aforementioned nation. Despite all this, West Germany joined NATO in the 1955, since in the Gundgesetz it is said that Germany can cede pieces of sovereignty in the name of common peace (does it remind you of something?). Note however that the Allied troops remain on the western territories of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is a disarmament and an imposed pacifism, like that followed by the Treaty of Versailles.
Finally, we come to Italy. For the Bel Paese it is very difficult to find a study that is not partisan and that is as objective as possible. Talking about the Allied role in the Constitution and in particular in the article 11 “Italy rejects war as an instrument of offense to the freedom of other peoples and as a means of resolving international disputes; allows, on an equal footing with other states, the limitations of sovereignty necessary for an order that ensures peace and justice between nations; promotes and favors international organizations aimed at this purpose "is a real taboo. It is a rather strange thing to have this approach so monolithic and firm, without a minimum of elasticity. The only fact that is "accepted" is that two parliamentarians, Russo Perez and Nitti, opposed the drawing up of this article, since they believed that Italy was objectively unable to wage an imperialist war. Let us remember, however, that in the article 11 our country is allowed to surrender part of sovereignty in exchange for a common peace, in analogy with Germany. In fact, Italy was among the founders of NATO in the 1949 and this seems absolutely contradictory: in fact, for a country that "repudiates war as an instrument of offense against other peoples", taking part in a military organization is like an oxymoron.
But why did the Allies deprive the three Axis countries of the possibility of making war? This is simple: at the end of the Second World War, the three States of the former Tripartite Pact were unable to wage war again, for rather objective reasons. The forced imposed pacifism has a much deeper reason than the fear of a return of Fascism or Nazism, and is that a submissive country must not have full sovereignty. The right to wage war freely is a fundamental part of a sovereign country. Right that we are absolutely denied.
(photo: web / ministry of defense)
