1902. This gave them the backing of a powerful European ally, which enabled them to successfully defeat the Russian Empire two years later. Hitler contrasts the conduct of the Japanese with what he regards as the stupidity of the Germans in allying themselves with the decaying, multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire. Had the Germans showed the same foreign policy nous as the Japanese, then the First World War could well have been avoided.

Hitler's recognition that the Japanese, though still only a culture-bearing race, had positive qualities nonetheless, undoubtedly played a part in his decision to ally the Third Reich with Japan in the wake of Pearl Harbor. Though Nazi ideology regarded the Japanese as racially inferior to white Americans, we can at least explain the rationale behind Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States. The Japanese, though considered inferior, could help the Germans to achieve its geopolitical goals, especially in relation to its projected conquest of Russia.

What this indicates, among other things, is that Nazism's racial categories were not so rigid that they could not be adapted to the changing circumstances and necessities of war.

In Chapter 11 of Mein Kampf, Adolf Hilter discusses his theories about race and nationality. He divides human cultures into three groups: those that create culture, those that bear culture, and those that destroy culture. He claims that all significant human achievements have been accomplished by the Aryans; thus the Aryans are the only "culture creators."

Hitler says some might have objected that some Asian cultures--most notably Japan--had progressed to the level of first-world status by incorporating European technology into their culture; Hitler believes this is an inaccurate observation. He claims that other cultures, such as the Japanese, have appropriated European technology, but they have not incorporated it into their culture. Rather, the foundation of their culture has become fundamentally Aryan, and it merely assumes the outward form of Japanese. As he states:

It is not true, as some people think, that Japan adds European technology to its culture; no, European science and technology are trimmed with Japanese characteristics.

Later on in the chapter, he adds:

But if it is established that a people receives the most essential basic materials of its culture from foreign races, that it assimilates and adapts them, and that then, if further external influence is lacking, it rigidifies again and again, such a race may be designated as culture-bearing,' but never as 'culture-creating.'

Since Japan's culture was built upon European technology, according to Hitler the Japanese could not be viewed as culture creators; rather, they were simply bearers of culture.