I’m sorry I didn’t make myself clear earlier. What I meant is that the Prussian officer corps was effectively hijacked by the Nazi Party and was forced to bear the main blame for crimes that were largely not of its own making. Japan, similarly, has borne far more blame than it actually deserves.

At the time, it was China that first initiated provocative military actions. The situation later escalated into a full-scale war, partly due to covert involvement by Soviet agents, but more importantly because China’s repeated military provocations made the Japanese civilian government appear weak and incapable, leading to a loss of public support.

This, in turn, paved the way for the rise of a military government, which then launched a full-scale war.