Text of Tanaka memorial : Japan's "Mein Kampf" : with evidence of authenticity, discovery and exposure by Soviet Union / introduction by W.J. Thomas. (Sydney : N.S.W.Bookstall Co., [1942])

Baron Geiichi Tanaka was the Japanese Prime Minister and Foreign Minister from 1937 to 1929. He was thought to have written the so-called “Tanaka Memorial” as a briefing summary for the Emperor, setting out Japan’s plans for foreign conquest. It was supposed to have been written in 1927 but was first published, in Chinese, in the Current News Report, in Nanking in Dec. 1929.

In translation the crucial passage reads,

If we want to conquer China, we must conquer Manchuria and Mongolia. If we want to conquer the world, we must conquer China first, if we can conquer China completely, people of many small Asian countries will respect Japan and surrender to us.

By the exploitation of China's wealth, we can get the resources to invade India and many southern islands and lastly Europe.

Although it is now widely believed to have been a hoax by the Chinese, as part of their propaganda campaign against Japan, it was accepted as true at the time. Frank Capra used it in his documentary series, Why we fight, as justification for war between the United States and Japan.

The fact that it seemed to predict the course the Japanese took in the 1930s and 1940s made it particularly resonant.

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