🇯🇵 Ginza Lion Beer Hall in Tokyo is the oldest beer hall in Japan, opening in 1934. The restaurant was a favorite hang out for Nazis and German expats.
Ginza Lion was often mistaken for Ketel’s Restaurant (also known as the Rheingold) a notorious hub for Nazi spies, diplomats, and Axis sympathizers in Japan. Run by a former German POW, Ketel's featured a front entrance shaped like a massive beer barrel, had photos of Adolf Hitler on the walls, and famously had a piano draped in a large swastika flag. Because it was a prominent German bierkeller in Ginza, its history is often mistakenly mapped onto the Ginza Lion.
The Ginza Lion was later requisitioned by the U.S. military and used exclusively as an American Troops' drinking hall before being returned to the Japanese public in 1952. All Nazi artwork were taken down during American possession.