Honda Kumatarō

Honda Kumatarō

Honda Kumatarō ( Japanese 本 多 熊太郎 ; * December 8, 1874 , † December 18, 1948 ) was a Japanese diplomat during the Meiji , Taishō and Shōwa period , ambassador to China during the Pacific War and foreign policy advisor in the Tōjō cabinet .

Career

As a student of law at Chūō University , Honda Kumatarō passed the study abroad exam in May 1894 and the diplomacy and work as ambassador of the Japanese Foreign Ministry in August 1895, whereupon he was employed at the Ministry. In 1901 he became secretary to the Foreign Minister Marquis (then Baron) Komura Jutaro and accompanied him in the negotiations that preceded the conclusion of the Treaty of Portsmouth . While Gotō Shimpei was in charge of the South Manchurian Railway Company , Honda Kumatarō was the second secretary of the legation in Beijing. From 1918 he served as envoy to Switzerland, from 1924 as ambassador to Germany . He resigned from this post in 1925.

Honda Kumatarō was appointed ambassador of the Greater Japan Empire to the Chinese national government in Nanjing in 1940 by Matsuoka Yōsuke . Since 1943 he was a foreign policy advisor in the Tōjō cabinet.

In December 1945 Honda Kumatarō was assigned to the third level war criminals by the Allies , but later reclassified to A level war criminal and imprisoned in Sugamo Prison . He was later released because he became ill.

According to the memoirs of journalist Kiyosawa Kiyoshi, Honda Kumatarō claimed in an article in Mainichi Shimbun dated March 1, 1944 that the US had announced that it would kill all Japanese. He is said to have taken an adamant position during the Japanese-American negotiations prior to the surrender. The Japanese statesman and fascist-influenced political ideologue Nakano Seigō , founder of the political party Tōhōkai , was advised on foreign policy issues by Honda Kumatarō.

literature

• Anglo-American Far Eastern policy , article by Honda Kumatarō from 1941

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Living Age ... - Elakim Littell, Robert S. Littell, Making of America Project , p. 610
2. ↑ Eugene Soviak (Ed.): A Diary of Darkness: The Wartime Diary of Kiyosawa Kiyoshi . Princeton University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-691-00143-X ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
3. ^ Leslie Russell Oates: Populist Nationalism in Pre-War Japan: A Biography of Nakano Seigo . Routledge, 2010, ISBN 978-0-415-56498-4 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Honda is the family name, Kumatarō the first name.