For Mutsuhiro Watanabe in 1952, it was supposed to be his real "Liberation Day," a year in which all charges against Japanese war criminals were dropped and he appeared again. Who is this gentleman, and why do people pay so much attention to him? He was a "celebrity" on MacArthur's (Supreme Allied Commander)'s arrest list.
So is this one a prominent figure? Or have you committed a heinous crime? His situation was slightly different, he failed to show his "cold blood" on the battlefield, but released his "perversion" in prison to an outrageous degree, so that on the list of 40 people, he was impressively ranked 23rd.
Notorious prison guards
Reality and Watanabe Muhiro made a little joke, born in a rich family, and he has a university education background, how to see should be "career" bright, but enlisted in the Japanese Army, how he could not rank among the "upstream", the army for several years also mixed with a corporal.
At the age of 27, he was appointed head of Omori Prison, and in the war, soldiers did not go to the battlefield but guarded a group of prisoners, which was actually a humiliation for ambitious people. This gap between ideals and reality led to his later psychological distortion, so he regarded torturing captives as an "alternative success.".
His story is not known for how many captives he destroyed, but because he met an unusually tenacious captive, American sports star Louis Zamperini. His autobiography Walking with the Devil tells the story of this nightmare, and his story was later adapted into the film Indestructible.
Prisons become punishment camps
Let's start with the crimes committed by Mutsuhiro Watanabe. He was able to abuse his prisoners without fear because the attitude of the entire Japanese army towards prisoners was two words: brutality. At that time, there were already Geneva Conventions, and prisoners should have the right to be treated equally, but these did not bind the Japanese army in the slightest, on the contrary, they treated prisoners inhumanely.
Therefore, Watanabe's atrocities are unproachable, and he can do whatever he wants in the prisons under his jurisdiction. And Omori Prison is also famous for his fact that it is known to the outside world that it is a "punishment camp" where prisoners of war are constantly being sent.
Zamperini really had an intersection with Muhiro Watanabe, first in Omori Prison and then in another prisoner-of-war camp, all in charge of Watanabe Mutsuhiro. Later, in the first winter of the camp, he witnessed the deaths of 81 Australian prisoners of war due to harsh conditions and human brutality. In the end, 1/3 of the entire camp was killed. And Zamperini can finally live, in addition to will, there are more important factors, personal physical fitness.
Cruel and perverted devastation
Watanabe's favorite thing to do was to take his four-foot-long kendo wooden sword and suddenly hit the prisoner of war in the head as if he were playing baseball. He would also force the captives to burn the photos and letters of their families, and torture the captives physically and mentally.
However, for Watanabe, the greatest psychological satisfaction was to torture "celebrities", he preferred to beat up the Allied officers, and when he learned that Zamperini had not only participated in the Olympic Games, but also received a ranking, and even received and shook hands with Hitler, he felt that he had found a "target".
Beating him did not seem to be enough to show his "might" for Watanabe, and he began to crush Zamperini's will in various perverted ways, such as making him lift a piece of wood. In Watanabe's view, since Zamperini is an athlete, these "physical tasks" should be competent. The piece of wood was six feet long, solid, quite heavy, and had to be lifted above the head. Zamperini persisted for 37 minutes. (It's actually more like a psychological contest between the two.) ）
The Japanese army was also quite slippery, they obviously did not treat the prisoners well, but they also had to declare to the outside world how good they were, because of Zamperini's special status, they wanted him to speak for them, so as to wash their whites. How could Zamperini have agreed, but his refusal was in exchange for Watanabe's week-long beatings.
But even more indignantly, the cruel prison guard, who had been accused by countless captives, suddenly disappeared, and no matter how he looked for it, there was no clue, and even his mother thought he was dead. He just changed his appearance and hid, and when the outside world stopped pursuing the crimes of Japanese war criminals, he jumped out again.
He didn't think there was anything wrong with him; he later had a serious career selling insurance, reportedly making a lot of money, and in interviews with the media, he openly declared that he didn't want to be judged by Americans. When the 1998 Winter Olympics were held in Nagano, Japan, the 81-year-old Zamperini came to Japan again, this time as a torchbearer, and offered to meet Watanabe, but was refused.
Watanabe lived until he was 85 years old, and his heart never repented of his atrocities. If there is no external distortion of the environment, which should be the essence of the study of French literature (Watanabe's university major), why would it be fun to torture prisoners.