In attempting to achieve a united front among Germany, Poland and Japan against the USSR, the [Imperial] Japanese were frequently reminded by the Poles that they had reached their agreement with the USSR not out of any genuine friendship but rather of the need to protect their rear against a Germany that was growing stronger every day. The head of Polish military intelligence, for example, stated on 12 December 1933:

Germany has rearmed itself at the present moment to a far greater extent than anyone assumes. The Polish General Staff is better informed in this respect than France for example.⁵⁴

Despite the complaints in the [Imperial] press about Polish betrayal of the old relationship against the USSR, the Polish government demonstrated its difficulties eloquently by reaching a parallel non‐aggression pact with [the Third Reich] in January 1934. When asked about the reasons that lay behind the Nazi view of this episode by Mussolini in Venice in June, Hitler replied:

Ten years ago, Poland had been militarily stronger than Russia. But now she no longer was. She had concluded the pact with us out of fear of Russia.⁵⁵

For the [Imperial] Army, the year 1934 was regarded by many as a target date for [Imperial] Japan to be in a position to catch up with the Soviet union and challenge it. Decisions were taken in 1932 to strengthen the attaché bureaux in Paris, Berlin and Warsaw and this was followed in the spring of 1934 by the appointment of outstanding officers to the attaché posts, Major‐Generals Ōshima Hiroshi in Berlin and Yamawaki Masatake in Warsaw.⁵⁶

Both officers pressed their hosts to support a deepening of bilateral relations with the [Imperial] Army. The press pointed to the ‘rumour of Japanese–Polish collaboration’ in the course of 1934 and to claims about the existence of ‘the closest collaboration between the Japanese and Polish intelligence services — at least so far as Russia is concerned’.

The [Third Reich’s] military attaché in Warsaw, Major‐General Schindler, noted that ‘the bureau of the Japanese military attaché here operates as a sub‐office of the Japanese Intelligence Division by assembling all information gathered in Europe about foreign armies, and especially about Russia’ and that Yamawaki was the driving force behind this. ‘If the information reaching me is correct,’ he continued, ‘not only Lieutenant‐Colonel Fujizuka, but also General Yamawaki himself has an office in the Intelligence Section of the Polish General Staff’.⁵⁷

He then went on to report that Le Temps carried fresh allegations about the signing of an agreement in December 1934 for collaboration between the two general staffs that included arrangements to collaborate over military training, aviation and infantry equipment. It was also claimed that in the event of war, they would exchange raw materials and military equipment and that Poland would look after Japanese interests at the League, from which Japan was due to depart finally on 27 March 1935.⁵⁸

Schindler accepted that it was quite evident that there was an existing arrangement over training in the sense that exchanges and secondments were already an established fact. However, he did not believe that any agreement extended beyond benevolent neutrality to mutual exchange of goods and equipment in wartime.⁵⁹

The former Polish ambassador to Tōkyō and minister of foreign affairs, Tadeusz Romer, always denied the existence of any treaty with Japan, though it would not follow that the General Staff would necessarily think itself bound to disclose any technical military arrangements, particularly if these were not committed to paper and signed by both parties.⁶⁰

[…]

This suggests, therefore, that there had at least been some kind of oral agreement between the Polish and Japanese General Staffs about the Soviet Union, but it is quite likely that it was not consigned to paper, or at least not signed and that it was something limited to the knowledge of the military — a situation permissible in the [Imperial] system, if not the Polish.

It is also very clear that there was informal co‐operation between Polish and [Imperial] military attachés in different capitals outside Warsaw and Tōkyō. Polish military relations with the general staffs and staff officers from Sweden, Finland, the Baltic States and Rumania permitted [Imperial] Army officers to obtain information indirectly and directly from them all in the inter‐war period, as can be seen in the co‐operation in Riga in the 1930s between Colonel Onodera and Major Brzeskwinski.⁶⁹

Though collaboration extended to exchange of information on Soviet codes and cyphers, there is absolutely no evidence that anything was said to the [Imperialists] about the Polish successes in reading the cypher messages sent by means of Enigma machines by the [Wehrmacht].

While efforts to draw Poland into the anti‐Comintern arrangement succeeded in so far as police co-operation about Communists was concerned, all efforts to try to persuade the Poles to move into a more active role proved in vain, in spite of the efforts of [Imperial] personnel in Europe. Warsaw continued to function as a centre for intelligence‐gathering about the USSR until 1939, when the Polish leadership firmly rejected [Berlin’s] efforts to reincorporate Danzig in Germany by negotiation and accepted Chamberlain’s guarantee.

The deal with the Soviet Union in August 1939 in the middle of the negotiations for an alliance among Japan, Germany and Italy sealed not only the fate of Poland and the Baltic States, but it also led to a highly disagreeable outcome to Soviet–Japanese confrontation over Outer Mongolia and a denunciation of Hitler for abandoning the secret agreement attached to the Anti‐Comintern Pact.

#Regrouping after the Destruction of Poland
The failure of [Imperial] mediation efforts and the elimination of the Polish state, coupled with the resentment at [Berlin’s] expedient arrangements with the Soviet Union, made it possible for Polish military officers who escaped via Rumania and Lithuania to France and Britain to continue to support the old arrangements with Japan, even after Japan joined the Tripartite Pact in September 1940.

The [Imperial] Army was forced to transfer its intelligence work directed toward the USSR from Warsaw to Riga, Helsinki and Stockholm, but succeeded in maintaining contact with Polish officers working underground after the Polish defeat, though many others were able to make contact with British, French and Soviet recruiters in countries like Rumania.

(Emphasis added.)

1912: Fritz Ernst Fischer, Axis doctor who performed medical atrocities on inmates of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, polluted humanity.
1921: Adolf Schicklgruber gave a speech in which he explained the NSDAP’s flag’s significance.
1938: The Third Reich invalidated Jews’ passports.
1943: Axis forces on Wake Island executed ninety‐eight American POWs.