Siemens scandal
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The Siemens Scandal (シーメンス事件 Jiimensu jiken?) of January 1914 was one of several spectacular political scandals of late Meiji and Taisho period Japanese politics. It involved collusion between several high ranking members of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the German industrial conglomerate of Siemens AG.
The Japanese navy was engaged in a massive expansion program, and at the time, many major items (such as advanced warships and weaponry) were still being imported from Europe. Siemens had secured a virtual monopoly over Japanese naval contracts in return for a secret 15% kickback to the Japanese naval authorities responsible for procurement.
In 1914, the British firm of Vickers (via their Japanese agents Mitsui Bussan) offered the Japanese naval authorities a more lucrative deal, involving a 25% kickback, with 40,000 Yen for Vice Admiral Matsumoto, specifically involving the procurement of the battleship Kongo. When the German headquarters of Siemens found out about the deal, they sent a telegram to their Tokyo office demanding a clarification. An expatriate employee of the Siemens Tokyo office (Karl Richter) stole incriminating documents indicating that Siemens had previously paid a bribe of 1,000 pounds sterling to the Japanese navy in return for a wireless contract, sold the documents to the Reuters news agency together with a copy of the telegram, and fled back to Germany.
Japanese newspapers immediately reported the details of the corruption scandal, and the issue was raised in the Diet by members of the Rikken Doshikai political party. As the current Prime Minister Admiral Yamamoto Gonnohyoe was also concurrently Navy Minister, the scandal was of very serious proportions. Both the Army and Navy Intelligence Services and the Kempeitai launched investigations.
The Japan Weekly Chronicle newspaper reported that an Admiral Fuji of the navy procurement office had confessed to receiving payments from Vickers of a total 210,000 yen in 1911 and 1912 on various occasions, reminding its readers that whether or not the money was received illegally under Japanese law, it was certainly illegal under the British Corrupt Practices Act of 1906.
Demonstrations erupted in Tokyo in early February 1914, which turned violent on 10 February 1914 and 14 February 1914. Although Prime Minister Yamamoto was not directly implicated, and he took steps to dismiss naval officers in charge of procurement and shipbuilding, public dissatisfaction continued to grow, and Yamamoto was challenged to explain the bribery allegations before the House of Peers.
After both houses of Diet refused to pass the 1914 Navy budget, Yamamoto resigned on 24 March 1914, bringing down his entire cabinet with him. In May, a military court marshal reduced ex-Prime Minister Yamamoto and his predecessor Admiral Saito Makoto in rank, sentenced several leading members of the navy procurement department to prison, heavily fined both Vickers and Siemens and banned them from future participation in contracts.
With the start of World War I a couple of weeks later, Vickers was asked to restart production on the Kongo, and the men involved were all pardoned and rehabilitated.
Incidentally, the London Telegram newspaper edition of 21 January 1914 reported that Karl Richter had been arrested in Germany for his theft of the incriminating papers, and sentenced to two years in prison. Obviously, “whistle-blower” laws were far off in the future.
