World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseNobutaka Shioden was born in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. In Nov 1899, he graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Imperial Guard. He served in various positions in the Imperial Guard, including some time in China, then was transferred to the Army General Staff. In 1909, he graduated from the Army Staff College. During WW1, he served as a military attaché and military observer in France. Aside from the observations about how Europeans conducted war, he also brought back with him a sense of anti-Semitism. In 1920, he was assigned to China again, this time with the Kwantung Army at Harbin, Manchuria, China. In 1922, he returned to Japan to command the Army Aviation School, then was reassigned to the Military Aviation Bureau of the General Staff. In 1924, he was promoted to the rank of major general. In 1926, he translated the anti-Semitic work "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" into Japanese. In 1928, he served on the staff of the 16th Division and the 3rd Division. In 1929, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general but entered the reserves later that year. In the 1930s, he served as the Chairman of the Imperial Aviation Association, a largely honorary position with the main responsibility of promoting military aviation to those with influence. Between 1942 and 1945, the years of the Pacific War, he was a legislator in the House of Peers of the Diet of Japan. After the war, he was arrested but not tried for war crimes. He was released in 1947.

Nobutaka Shioden Timeline