In the years leading up to the outbreak of World War II in Europe in 1939, there was some significant collaborative development in heavy industry between German companies and their Japanese counterparts as part of the two nation's evolving relations. This was one major factor in Japan's ability quickly to exploit raw materials in the areas of the Empire of Japan that had recently come under their military control.
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Nippon Lurgi Goshi KK was a Japanese company of the period involved in Japanese-German cooperation. The Lurgi AG German industrial group was a partner, and it was the Lurgi office in Tokyo. The Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee of the United States and United Kingdom later investigated it.[1]
At the beginning of 1942 the Japanese acquired all the low temperature carbonization patents of Lurgi for Japan, Manchuria, and of China. The agreement gave the Japanese the right to construct plants and an exclusive use of patents. A flat payment of approximately 800,000 Reichsmark, was received from the Japanese, this sum being cleared through the German government. One of the aims was synthetic oil. For example, the South Sakhalin Mining and Railway Company plant at Naihoro/Oichai in Karafuto perhaps motivated the licensing: the southern Karafuto brown coal with a content of paraffin tar (about 15%), and low water content, was suitable for hydrogenation.
Ube Yuka Kogya KK (No.2), at Ube was a low temperature carbonization plant, with a synthetic ammonia plant. This was a collaboration with Heinrich Koppers AG of Essen.
It is known that Japan and Germany signed agreements on military technological collaboration, both before the 1939 outbreak of World War II, and during the conflict. However, the first air technology interchange occurred during World War I when Japan joined against Germany on the side of the Allies, and Germany lost a Rumpler Taube aircraft at Tsingtao, which the Japanese rebuilt as the Isobe Kaizo Rumpler Taube, as well as an LVG, known to the Japanese as the Seishiki-1, in 1916.
After the war had ended the Japanese purchased licences for the Hansa-Brandenburg W.33 which was built as the Yokosho Navy Type Hansa in 1922, and as the Aichi Type 15-ko "Mi-go" in 1925.
During World War II the Japanese Navy traded a Nakajima E8N "Dave" reconnaissance seaplane (itself a multi-generational development of the Vought O2U to Germany, later seen in British markings on the German raider Orion, and some sources mention the probable dispatch of a Mitsubishi Ki-46 "Dinah", among other weapons.
In the other direction:
When it came to aircraft equipment, the Japanese Army fighter Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien ("Tony") used a licence-built Daimler-Benz DB 601A engine which resulted in the Allies believing that it was either a Messerschmitt Bf 109 or an Italian Macchi C.202 Folgore until they examined captured examples. It was also fitted with Mauser MG 151/20 20 mm cannons also built under licence.
According to decrypted messages from the Japanese embassy in Germany, twelve dismantled V-2 (A-4) rockets were shipped to Japan. These left Bordeaux in August 1944 on the transport U-boats U-219 and U-195, which reached Djakarta in December 1944. A civilian V-2 expert was a passenger on U-234, bound for Japan in May 1945 when the war ended in Europe. The fate of these V-2 rockets is unknown.
There are other cases of military technology interchange. The Ho-Ru SPG with 47 mm AT cannon, resembled the German Hetzer tank destroyer combined with wheel guide pins like the T-34. The heavy tank destroyers Ho-Ri I and II, armed with a 105 mm cannon, seem to have been influenced by German Jagd heavy tanks Elefant and Jagdtiger. The Type 4 Chi-To medium tank, armed with a 75 mm cannon, and the Type 5 Chi-Ri medium tank, armed with 75 or 88 mm cannon, were influenced by the Panther, Tiger I, and Tiger II German tanks. The Type 1 Ho-Ha half-track armoured personnel carrier was similar to the German Sd.Kfz. 251 armoured fighting vehicle.
Japanese Ambassador General Hiroshi Ōshima in the name of Japanese Army bought one example of the Panzerkampfwagen PzKpfw VI Ausf E Tiger I tank with additional equipment.
The Japanese Navy received examples of the German Type IXD2 submarine Ausf "Monsun" and other submarines, such as the Type IXD2's U-181 (Japanese submarine I-501) and U-862 (I-502), the Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini (I-503), and Reginaldo Giuliani (I-504), the German Type X submarine U-219 (I-505), the Type IXD1 U-195 (I-506), two Type IXC submarines (RO-500 & RO-501), and Flakvierling anti-aircraft cannons, with a disarmed V-2, etc.
Japanese Navy received later in last war stages from Germans, some advanced technology of Type XXI "Elektro-boote" class for designed The Sen Taka (submarine, high speed) and Sen Taka Sho (submarine, high speed, small) models, in high bursts of speed, could run faster submerged than on the surface for up to an hour, only comparable in underwater speed to the I-201 class was the German related sub type.
In 1935 a German technical mission arrived in Japan to sign accords and licenses to use the technology from the Akagi-class carrier for use in the German aircraft carriers Graf Zeppelin and Flugzeugträger B (both later cancelled) from Deutsche Werke Kiel A.G.
They also acquired the technical data on the adaptations to the Messerschmitt Me 109T/E and Junkers Ju 87C/E, for use on such carriers. This technology was also applied in the following aircraft:
To put this in perspective, the Japanese also bought licences and acquired aircraft (sometimes singly and sometimes in large quantities) from most of the western countries. These included the United Kingdom (with which it had a close relationship up until shortly after the end of World War I) and whose De Havilland aircraft were extensively used, France, who supplied a huge variety of aircraft of all types from 1917 through to the 1930s, and whose Nieuport-Delage NiD 29 fighter provided the Japanese Army Air Force with its first modern fighter aircraft, as well as the bias toward extremely manoeuvrable aircraft. The United States of America supplied the Douglas DC-4E and Douglas DC-5, the North American NA-16 (precursor to the T-6/SNJ) as well as others too many to list. This resulted in many Japanese aircraft being discounted as being copies of western designs - which from 1935 onwards was rarely the case except for trainers and light transports where development could be accelerated, the Nakajima Ki-201 and Mitsubishi J8M being rare exceptions.
By 1944, Japan was to rely heavily on the Nippon-German Technical Exchange Agreement, obtaining manufacturing rights, intelligence, blueprints, and in some cases, actual airframes for several of Germany's new air weapons. These included the Me 163 Komet (developed as the Mitsubishi J8M Shusui), the BMW 003 axial-flow jet engine (which was reworked to Japanese standards as the Ishikawajima Ne-20), information on the Me 262 which resulted in the Nakajima J9Y Kikka), data on the Fiesler Fi-103R series (which culminated in the development of the Kawanishi Baika), and even data on the Bachem Ba 349 Natter point-defense interceptor.
While the Nakajima Kikka bore some resemblance to the German Me 262, it was only superficial, even though the Ne-20 engines which powered the Kikka were the Japanese equivalent of the German BMW 003 engine which initially powered the Me 262 prototype. Also, the Kikka was envisioned from the outset not as a fighter, but as a special attack bomber and was only armed with a bomb payload.
The Japanese became involved in the Heinkel He 162 just before Germany's surrender in 1945. It seems that the Japanese were sent data concerning the He 162 not by submarine or courier, but by wire transmission. This transfer occurred in April 1945. What was sent is not known, but certainly could not have been useful in the absence of any form of blueprints, technical drawings, or other more solid data needed to produce such an aircraft. If the Japanese acquired illustrations or pictures of the He 162 from some source and perhaps from the data obtained from the transmissions, could have produced something from it, much as they did the Ne-20 from photographs of the BMW 003 turbojet. If dimensions of the He 162 were sent, it is probable Japanese engineers could have replicated the appearance of the He 162 and either equipped it with the later Ne-330 engine or the Maru pulsejets. Certainly the He 162 lent itself to the use of non-war critical materials in its construction and was relatively simple to assemble and build, all things the Japanese were capable of doing. As it was, with the situation the Japanese air industry found itself in by this time, the task of producing a new aircraft from such sketchy data would have taken more effort than could be spared.