Asaka Yasuhiko
Prince Asaka Yasuhiko ( Japanese 朝 香 宮 鳩 彦 王 Asaka-no-miya Yasuhiko-ō ; * October 2, 1887 in Kyoto ; † April 12, 1981 in Atami ) was the founder of another branch of the Japanese imperial family and a general of the Japanese Army . As commander of the troops that captured Nanking in December 1937 , he was accused of playing a leading role in the Nanking massacre , for which he was never prosecuted.
family
Asaka was born in Kyoto in 1887 as the eighth son of Prince Kuni Asahiko and the High Lady Tsunoda Sugako. Prince Kuni was a former Buddhist priest and a low-ranking member of the House of Fushimi-no-miya , one of the four lines of succession in the Japanese Empire . In 1872 he was allowed by Tennō Meiji to found his own house, Kuni-no-miya , into which Prince Yasuhiko was born. He was a half-brother of princes Higashikuni Naruhiko , Nashimoto Morimasa , Kaya Kuninori and Kuni Kuniyoshi . On March 10, 1906, Tennō Meiji gave him permission to form a new branch of the Imperial Family, the Asaka-no-miya . On May 6, 1909, he married Princess Fumi-no-miya Nobuko, Meiji's eighth daughter. The marriage resulted in two sons and two daughters.
Military career
As was expected of the princes in Meiji's time, Yasuhiko also embarked on a military career. Since his childhood he went to schools, which were supposed to prepare children for military service, and in 1908 he graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy with the rank of lieutenant . He was promoted to captain in 1912, in 1917 he became a lieutenant colonel and in 1922 he was made a colonel .
From 1920 to 1923 he studied together with his half-brother Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko and his cousin Prince Kitashirakawa Naruhisa in France at the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr . On April 1, 1923, he was involved in a car accident in a suburb of Paris. While Prince Kitashirakawa was killed in the accident, Asaka survived seriously injured and limped as a result for the rest of his life.
His wife went to France to look after him. In 1925 the two visited the USA before returning to Japan. In the USA, both were impressed by the new Art Deco movement , which is why Prince Asaka had a house built in this style in Tokyo . This was completed in May 1933, a few months before his wife's death.
From 1926 he taught at the Imperial Japanese Army University and was promoted to major general in 1930 due to his achievements there . In 1933 he was promoted to lieutenant general at the same time as he was appointed commander of the Japanese Imperial Guard . In December 1935 he was appointed to the Supreme War Council, a position that allowed him to influence Tennō Hirohito .
He first exercised this influence during the attempted coup on February 26, 1936 by urging Hirohito to appoint a new government that would be more acceptable to the insurgents. Above all, he insisted that Prime Minister Okada Keisuke be replaced by Hirota Kōki . This incident, along with Prince Asaka's closeness to the Kōdō-ha and other right-wing links within the army, led Hirohito to begin to become estranged from him. Probably out of this estrangement, Prince Asaka was sent to China at the end of 1937 in the Second Sino-Japanese War, which had just begun , where he served in the Central China Regional Army under the command of General Matsui Iwane .
Role during the Nanking massacre
In November Asaka became commander-in-chief of the Japanese troops around Nanking , the then capital of the Republic of China, on behalf of the sick General Matsui . In this position he led the final assault on the city from December 2nd to 6th. Allegedly he gave the order to "kill all prisoners", which would have given the killings during the following Nanking massacre an official basis for orders .
While some authors support the statement that the order came from Prince Asaka himself, others suspect that it was given by Lieutenant General Chō Isamu , a staff member of the Central China Regional Army and known as a radical ultra-nationalist , on behalf of the prince and with the prince's knowledge or consent. But even if the initiative came from Cho, Prince Asaka, the official commander in chief, did nothing to stop the atrocities. Even General Matsui, who only returned to the force after the massacre began, did not give an order to stop the killing.
While Prince Asaka's role in the massacre is still not completely clear, the cause of such crimes is likely to be found in a note from Hirohito dated August 5, 1937, in which he called on the army to shackle the international when treating Chinese prisoners Drop right.
Presumably to allay international outrage over the massacre, General Matsui and Prince Asaka were recalled to Japan in February 1938. While Matsui was retired, Asaka was restored to his old post on the Supreme War Council, which he held until the end of the Pacific War . Although he was promoted to general in August 1939, he did not receive any further military command. From 1944 he conspired together with the princes Higashikuni and Takamatsu and the former prime minister Konoe Fumimaro in order to achieve the deposition of Tōjō Hideki .
After the surrender of Japan , the Allied occupation authorities questioned Prince Asaka on May 1, 1946 about his role in the Nanking massacre, but did nothing to bring him before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East , as General Douglas MacArthur granted immunity to all members of the Imperial Family had guaranteed.
post war period
On October 14, 1947, Asaka and his entire family lost their noble status and their privileges, as the occupation authorities restricted the imperial family to the closest circle of Hirohito and abolished the various lines of heir to the throne. This was done in order to have a better overview of the potential heir to the throne and to prevent a coup of another line. Since Yasuhiko and his son Takahiko, who died in 1994, were officers in the Imperial Japanese Army, they were excluded from all political offices. His Art Deco house was taken over by the new government and is now the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum .
On December 18, 1951, Asaka converted to the Roman Catholic faith . He was the first person related to the Imperial Family to take this step.
Asaka began to play golf after the war and soon began designing golf courses. In the 1950s, for example, he was the architect of the Dai-Hakone Country Club golf course.
The former prince died on April 12, 1981 at the age of 93 in his new home Atami.
Remarks
- ↑ Ammenthorp, The Generals of World War II
- ↑ a b Chen, World War II Database
- ↑ David Bergamini, Japan's Imperial Conspiracy , 1971, p. 24
- ↑ Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking , 1997, p. 40
- ↑ Akira Fujiwara, Nitchû Sensô ni Okeru Horyo Gyakusatsu , Kikan Sensô Sekinin Kenkyû 9, 1995, p. 22nd
literature
- Piers Brendon: The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s . Vintage; Reprint edition, 2002, ISBN 0375708081 .
- T Fujitani: Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan . University of California Press, 1998, ISBN 05202137181.
- Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II . Penguin, 1998, ISBN 0-14-027744-7 .
- David Bergamini: Japan's Imperial Conspiracy . William Morrow, 1971, ISBN 0-14-027744-7 .
Web links
- Profile of Asaka
- About this museum - Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum
- Steep Ammentorp: Asuka, Prince . In: The Generals of World War II . Retrieved November 11, 2010.
- Peter Chen: Yasuhiko . In: WW2 Database . Retrieved November 11, 2010.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Asaka, Yasuhiko |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 朝 香 宮 鳩 彦 王 (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese general, member of the Japanese imperial family |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 2, 1887 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kyoto |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 12, 1981 |
| Place of death | Atami |