The Expansion of War Ë 185
There, popular expectations of Japan’s entry into war against the Soviet Union per-
sisted, although Japan itself was too busy ghting in the Paci c. According to German
sources, certain Japanese circles suspected in 1942 that the nationalities question in
the Soviet Union had “diminished in relevance” in war⁶⁰Also, insurgency and rebel-
lion had failed to pose a substantial challenge to the Soviet government. From Geor-
gia, for example, where insurgent groups stood up against the Soviet government, it
was reported that the younger generation in particular, raised under the Soviet regime,
had come to identify with it.⁶¹Among casualties in the ght against Germany, 7.7 times
more Georgian were killed or went missing in action than Chechens or Ingush (based
on 1939 population data).⁶²(Many of these men served in the national units of the Red
Army created during the war in a token nod to their national sentiments.)
But whatever “certain Japanese circles” might have thought, Japan’s operatives in
Europe and elsewhere never ceased to regard the Soviet Union as a potential enemy. In
1941, even after the Soviet-Japanese neutrality pact was signed, Tateishi, Japan’s mili-
tary attaché in Turkey, was in touch with Bammat’s group. Bammat’s representative in
Turkey, an Azeri, Fuad Emirdzhan (Emirdzhanov) – according to Soviet sources work-
ing with Tateishi – was recruiting agents from the Caucasian Mountaineers in Turkey.
Fuad’s brother, Mamed Emirdzhan, moved to Kars in Turkey, close to the Turkish-
Georgian-Armenia borders, for intelligence purposes.⁶³Oshima, now Japan’s ambas- ̄
sador to Germany, remained loyal in spirit to the Anti-Comintern Pact and maintained
very close ties to the German government throughout the war. After the war, Moscow
used Japan’s alleged violation of the neutrality pact to cover the fact that it was ul-
timately the Soviet Union that actually violated it and staged war against Japan in
1945.⁶⁴In the Far East, too, Japan continued to monitor the Soviet Union intensely as
a potential foe to ght.⁶⁵
Throughout the war it appears that clandestine links between the Caucasian émi-
gré groups and underground groups in the Caucasus were maintained, however ten-
uous they may have been. This was certainly the case with both the Georgian rightist
groups and the Georgian Social Democrats (Mensheviks).⁶⁶The Georgian-German op-
eration in October 1943, known asAktion Mainz, was especially successful owing to
the contact the Georgian groups had kept with their underground groups in Batumi:
60 See Patrik von zur Mühlen,Zwischen Hakenkreuz und Sowjetstern: Der Nationalismus der sowjetis-
chen Orientvölker im Zweiten Weltkrieg(Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1971), 200.
61 von zur Mühlen,Zwischen Hakenkreuz und Sowjetstern, 206.
62 Marshall,The Caucasus under Soviet Rule, 246.
63 SeeOrgany gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR v Velikoi otechestvennoi voine, vol. 2, part 2
(Moscow: Rus’, 2000), 9.
64 SeeOshima’s assistant’s testimony given after the war: International Military Tribunal for the Far ̄
East (1946–1948) Exhibit 811 (Harvard University Law School Library).
65 See NA, HW40.208 (1946 interrogation of Yukio Nishihara).
66 See Mamoulia,Les combats indépendandistes des Caucasiens, 296, 299, and Mamoulia,Gruzinskii
legion, 324, 328.