What did Nazi Germany think of the Chinese during World War II, and why did their policy change?
In Nazi racial ideology, the Chinese were classified as non-Aryan and therefore considered inferior to Germans and so-called Nordic Europeans.
But in the early 1930s, politics complicated things.
Germany continued its cooperation with Nationalist China, supplying weapons and sending military advisors like Alexander von Falkenhausen to support Chiang Kai-shek in the fight against Japan.
This partnership didnt last.
By the late 1930s, Adolf Hitler shifted strategy toward Japan, which he saw as the dominant power in East Asia. In 1938, Germany recalled its advisors, cut ties with China, and recognized Japanese control over occupied Chinese territories, including Manchukuo.
Inside Germany, conditions for Chinese residents worsened. Surveillance increased, and mixed marriages were restricted or blocked.
By 1944, repression escalated further. During the Gestapos Chinesenaktion in Hamburg, Chinese civilians were arrested, beaten, and forced into labor. Chinese communities in cities like Hamburg, Berlin, and Bremen were effectively dismantled.
So while Nazi ideology always viewed the Chinese as inferior, policy shifted based on strategy until wartime repression made that ideology fully visible.
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