When economics, strategy, and racial ideology meet: inter-Axis connections in the wartime Indian Ocean* Rotem Kowner University of Haifa, Department of Asian Studies, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 3498838, Israel E-mail: Kowner@research.haifa.ac.il Abstract Japan’s relations with Germany and Italy during the Second World War were rather limited. Nevertheless, there were some regional nuances and growing cooperation as the war drew to its close. In the Indian Ocean, at least, and especially in the area around the Straits of Malacca and the Java Sea, the Japanese and German empires, and to a lesser extent the Italian empire too, did develop a rather intensive cooperation during the final two years of the war (1943–45). This cooperation encompassed several domains, such as the exchange of vital raw materials and military technology, coordinated naval activity, and even an ideological affinity that materialized in pressures to implement harsher racial policies towards Jewish communities in the region. This article examines the scope of this unique inter-Axis collaboration, the specific reasons for why which came into being in this region in particular, and the lessons we may draw from it. Keywords Indian Ocean, inter-Axis cooperation, Japanese–German relations, raw materials, Second World War, Southeast Asia, submarine warfare Historians tend to describe Japan’s relations with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the Second World War as highly limited, with some even referring to the entire Tripartite Alliance in retrospect as ‘spineless’, ‘hollow’, or even ‘false’. 1 Certain individuals involved in forming * The research for this study was supported by the Stichting Collectieve Maror-gelden Israel and the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I wish to thank Daniel Hedinger, Reto Hofmann, and the Journal’s editors and the anonymous reviewers for inspiration and criticism. 1 See, e.g., Theo Sommer, Deutschland und Japan zwischen den Mächten 1935–1940, Tübingen: Mohr, 1962, pp. 2, 449; Johanna M. Meskill, Hitler and Japan: the hollow alliance, New York: Atherton Press, 1966; Watanabe Nobuyuki, Kyomō no sangoku dōmei: hakkutsu, NichiBei kaisen zen’ya gaikō hishi (The false Tripartite Pact: a secret diplomatic history of the eve of the Japanese–American war), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2013. For the Japanese bilateral relations with the Axis nations, see Werner Rahn, ‘Japan and Germany, 1941–1943: no common objective, no common plans, no basis of trust’, Naval War College Review, 46, 3, Journal of Global History (2017), 12, pp. 228–250 © Cambridge University Press 2017 doi:10.1017/S1740022817000067 228 at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022817000067 Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Haifa, Library, on 09 Jun 2017 at 04:45:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available