Chiang Wei-kuo

Chiang Wei-kuo (Chinese: 蔣緯國; 6 October 1916 – 22 September 1997), also known as Wego Chiang, was the adopted son of Republic of China President Chiang Kai-shek, the adoptive brother of President Chiang Ching-kuo, a retired Army general, and an important figure in the Kuomintang. His courtesy names were Jian'gao (建鎬) and Niantang (念堂). Chiang served in the Wehrmacht before fighting in the Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War.

As one of two sons of Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Wei-kuo's name has a particular meaning as intended by his father. Wei literally means "parallel (of latitude)" while kuo means "nation"; in his brother's name, Ching literally means "longitude". The names are inspired by the references in Chinese classics such as the Guoyu, in which "to draw the longitudes and latitudes of the world" is used as a metaphor for a person with great abilities, especially in managing a country.

Born in Tokyo when Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT were exiled to Japan by the Beiyang Government, Chiang Wei-kuo was the biological son of Dai Jitao and a Japanese woman, Shigematsu Kaneko (重松金子). Chiang Wei-kuo previously discredited any such claims and insisted he was a biological son of Chiang Kai-shek until his later years (1988), when he admitted that he was adopted.

According to reliable rumors, Dai believed knowledge of his Japanese tryst would destroy his marriage and his career, so he entrusted Wei-kuo to Chiang Kai-shek, after Yamada Juntarō (山田純太郎) brought the infant to Shanghai. Yao Yecheng, a concubine of Chiang Kai-shek at the time, raised Wei-kuo as his foster mother. The boy called Dai his "Dear Uncle" (親伯).

Chiang moved to the Chiang ancestral home in Xikou Town of Fenghua in 1920. Wei-kuo later studied physics at Soochow University.

His sibling, Chiang Ching-kuo, a student-turned-political-prisoner in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, served as the impetus behind Chiang's sending Wei-kuo to Nazi Germany for a military education at the Kriegsschule in Munich.

At the Kriegsschule, he studied the German army's advanced methods, structure, and weaponry. He was specifically drawn by the then-theoretical machine gun company, which would use the Maschinengewehr (i.e., a medium machine gun) as the main weapon. The Maschinengewehr was the MG 34 then: a fast and reliable gun. The machine gun company would cooperate with air and armored units to assist the infantry's attack. This would be called the Bewegungskrieg ("War of Movement"), and it would be very effective in the future World War II. After completing this training, Wei-kuo completed specialized training in Alpine warfare, thus earning him the coveted Gebirgsjäger Edelweiss sleeve insignia. Wei-kuo was promoted to Fahnenjunker ("Officer Candidate"), and received a Schützenschnur lanyard.

Wei-kuo commanded a Panzer unit during the 1938 Austrian Anschluss as a Fähnrich, or "sergeant officer-candidate", leading a tank into that country. Subsequently, he was promoted to Lieutenant of a Panzer unit and awaited the Invasion of Poland. Before he was given the mobilization order, he was recalled to China to assist the war effort against the invading Japanese forces.