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Unit 731 was a covert biological warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel. Officially known by the Imperial Japanese Army as the Kempeitai Political Department and Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory, it was initially set up as a political and ideological section of the Kempeitai military police of pre-Pacific War Japan.
It was meant to counter the ideological or political influence of enemies, and to reinforce the ideology of military units.
The unit was disguised as a water purification unit (according to a recent documentary on 'the History Channel' the unit was disguised as a lumber factory) and was based in the Pingfang district of the northeast Chinese city of Harbin, part of the puppet state of Manchukuo. Unit 731 promoted the belief in Japanese racial superiority, racialist theories, counterespionage, intelligence, political sabotage and infiltration of enemy lines.
It also liaised with the Manchukuo military police, the Manchu intelligence service, regular Manchu police, Manchu Residents committees, local Nationalist Manchu Parties, and the Japanese Secret Service detachment in Manchukuo. Its section in Manchukuo used some agents from White Russian, Chinese, Manchu, Mongol and other foreign backgrounds for special services, or covert actions at home and abroad.
As many as ten thousand people, both civilian and military, of Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, and Russian origin were subjects of the experimentation conducted by Unit 731. Some American and European Allied prisoners of war also died at the hands of Unit 731. In addition, the use of biological weapons researched in Unit 731's bioweapons program resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in China – possibly as many as 200,000 casualties by some estimates. Because of their brutality, Unit 731's actions have now been declared by the United Nations to be war crimes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
