– Web site of the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo

Imagine a museum in Berlin featuring old Nazi planes, a memorial to the bravery of the Gestapo and a display claiming the Poles welcomed their invaders.

No such museum exists. It would ignite worldwide condemnation. Germany would be accused of whitewashing the truth about its role in World War II.

But a museum offering similar revisionist twists exists in the capital of another World War II Axis power.

Yasukuni Jinja in Tokyo is a Shinto shrine whose name means “peaceful country.” But it is a place where those who waged war are worshipped as gods.

“Several million spirits are enshrined at Yasukuni, including those of generals and politicians hanged as Class A war criminals after the Tokyo (war crimes) trial,” writes historian Ian Buruma in “Wages of Guilt,” his exploration of how Japan and Germany have handled the memory of World War II.

Yasukuni is back in the news because of Shinzo Abe, the new prime minister, who has advocated a less guilt-ridden attitude toward Japan’s history, including World War II.

Abe worshipped at Yasukuni in April, when he was a front-runner for Japan’s top job. Despite criticism from opponents at home and leaders around the world, he’s expected to return in August as prime minister to officially mark the death of those who fought in what Japan calls “The Great East Asian War.”

I’ve been to Yasukuni three times over the years. From the outside, it appears much like other beautiful ancient temples scattered around Japan. A dark, curving wood roof is highlighted with golden decorations. Billowing white curtains catch the breezes. A giant steel gate frames cherry trees. Tradition has it that the famous cherry blossom season has not officially begun until the trees at Yasukuni burst forth.

Small markers dot the shrine’s meticulously maintained grounds. Prayers for the dead are attached by relatives or well-wishers to a small outdoor board. Tranquility reigns.

But a step inside is a shock. Here is a vestige of Japan’s unrepentant militarism.

Since 1882, the shrine has honored the kami – deified spirits – of those who died fighting for Japan and the emperor as far back as 1853.

Most of the 2.46 million kami today are the dead soldiers and sailors of World War II.

They include the planners of Pearl Harbor and kamikaze pilots who willingly flew their planes into American ships. Schoolchildren – boys and girls – who launched suicidal attacks against Marines during the battle of Okinawa in 1945 are kami.

So are foreign troops who often unwillingly fought and died on the Japanese side.

Military industry workers immolated in the American fire bombings of Tokyo and the atomic blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are also deified.

The shrine’s supporters are unapologetic about those executed after World War II. The military and political officials “were cruelly and unjustly tried as war criminals by a sham-like tribunal of the Allied forces.”

At Yasukuni’s museum, Japan’s role in World War II is held up as a brave struggle to overthrow Western colonial oppression and unite the peoples of Asia under the enlightened stewardship of imperial Japan.

Japan’s often bloody suppression of China and the rest of Asia is recast as brilliant military campaigns in which people welcomed the Japanese as liberators instead of conquerors.

Visitors to the museum will see a display of an old World War II aircraft, a model of the sunken battleship Yamato and restored artillery pieces.

In the courtyard, cherry blossoms are tagged with the names of army regiments and navy ships they were planted to commemorate. A stone tablet extols the Kempeitei, the Japanese secret police who played much the same role that the Gestapo had in Nazi Germany.

Yasukuni is a place that can make both Americans and Japanese nervous with each other’s presence. During each of my visits, the elderly Japanese who make up the bulk of visitors cast wary looks as I jotted notes. It was unsettling for me to see small cadres of uniformed schoolchildren visiting on field trips to “learn” Japanese history.

Though Yasukuni rarely rates more than passing mention in American guidebooks, it’s not the fault of the shrine that it is not better known. Yasukuni does not hide its mission to recast Japan’s militaristic traditions in a more favorable light. Many museum displays and guidebooks are in English. The Web site has an English section.

Yasukuni would be just a minor but controversial footnote in Japanese culture were it not for the political pilgrims.

For Abe, the new prime minister, it is a personal matter. His grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was a government minister in World War II later sentenced to three years in prison as a war criminal. In a remarkable comeback, Kishi returned to politics in the 1950s and went on to become prime minister – and a stalwart American ally.

Politicians of many political stripes are urging Abe to forgo visits to Yasukuni, especially the polarizing Aug. 15 event.

Nationalists, some in old imperial army uniforms, mark the end of World War II. Activists of various political stripes mount noisy counter-demonstrations.

Abe “should not keep silence over the Yasukuni issue,” said former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, in a recent Korean newspaper interview.

Given its history, any attempt at silence over Yasukuni is unlikely.

Yasukuni resources

GETTING THERE: The address of Yasukuni Shrine is 3-1-1 Kudankita, Chiyoda-ku, in Tokyo. The nearest subway stop is the Kudanshita station.

Online: www.yasukuni.or.jp

On the Cover

One of the displays in Tokyo’s Yasukuni museum is a the Yokosuka DY4 Suisei, or “Judy,” a World War II dive bomber.