亡命/レジスタンス・ネット　　コミュのHans Baerwald

1927-2010

Hans H. Baerwald, UCLA professor emeritus and an internationally known scholar of Japanese politics, died at his home in Pope Valley, Calif., on June 2, 2010.

Born in Tokyo to a German businessman and his wife on June 18, 1927, Baerwald began a lifelong connection with Japan. During his childhood, he “learned by hearing” and became fluent in both Japanese and German and, as a result of several years in the American School in Japan, he added English. In 1938, with World War II impending, his mother enrolled Hans and his sister, Ann, in Swiss schools, where they became fluent in French.

In 1940, the family immigrated to Berkeley, where Baerwald attended Berkeley High School and subsequently the University of California at Berkeley. During this time, he ushered for the San Francisco Opera, where his love of music was nurtured, and became an ardent fan of the Cal Bears, an enthusiasm that continued throughout his life.

At the age of 18, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to the Japanese Language School. As a Second Lieutenant he was posted to Government Section in General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters in Tokyo during the American occupation. In this capacity, he participated in implementing the political purge of Japanese leaders, a complex process about which he has written extensively.

Returning to Berkeley in 1949, he resumed his studies and graduated the following year with an interdisciplinary major focused on Japan. Subsequently, he entered the doctoral program in political science at Berkeley and returned to Japan to gather research materials for his Ph.D. dissertation.

After completing his degree, Baerwald accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Asian Government and Politics at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. In 1962, he moved to the Department of Political Science at UCLA where Japanese studies ultimately became his sole teaching responsibility. He helped found the Southern California Japan Seminar, served as vice chair of his department, director of the Education Abroad Program Study Center in Tokyo, director of the Japan Exchange Program, and director of its successor, the Japan Research and Exchange Program for which he received a major grant from the Japan Shipbuilding Industry Foundation. Grants from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Japan Foundation and the University of California supported his research on Japanese politics.

In addition to numerous research papers and monographs, he is the author of “The American Republic,” with E.H. Odegard, “The Purge of Japanese Leaders Under the Occupation,” “Japan’s Parliament: An Introduction” and “Party Politics in Japan,” each of which has been translated and published in Japanese.

In November 1989, Baerwald was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star, by the Japanese Government on behalf of the Emperor of Japan in recognition of his bettering U.S.-Japanese relations in the academic field.

A teacher, husband, father, friend, his spirit lives on in his wife, Jennifer; his children, Andrea Lindgren, Jan Baerwald, and David Baerwald; his grandchildren, Melissa Crehan, Kim Morton and Beker Baerwald; and in his students upon whom he was always a profound influence.

In his memory, gifts may be made to the Hans Baerwald Graduate Fellowship in Japanese Studies, c/o Maura Resnick at the Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies, 11282 Bunche Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1487, phone 310-825-6644.