Ikeda Shigeaki

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Ikeda Shigeaki

Ikeda Shigeaki ( Japanese 池田 成 彬 ; Ikeda Seihin (alternative reading of the same name); * August 15, 1867 greg. / July 16, Keiō 3 lunisolar in Yonezawa , Dewa Province , today: Yamagata Prefecture ; † October 9, 1950 in Ōiso , Kanagawa Prefecture ) was a Japanese banker and politician .

Life

Ikeda Shigeaki, son of the samurai and banker Ikeda Nariaki , attended the Keio Gijuku private school founded by Fukuzawa Yukichi in 1858 and then began studying at the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1888 and at the economics faculty of the Keio University, which emerged from Keio Gijuku . He continued his studies at Harvard University and after completing his studies in 1895 was briefly at the daily newspaper Jiji shimpō and then at the Mitsui bank belonging to the Mitsui family active. There he contributed to the bank's IPO and rose to Director in 1909 and Managing Director in 1919. In the course of the so-called Shōwa financial crisis , he came under fire in 1927 due to financial transactions that led to the collapse of the Taiwan Ginkō , the semi-state central bank of Taiwan , which has been under Japanese administration since 1895 . In the following period Japan also fell into the global economic crisis , which was dramatically aggravated by the strict deflationary policy and the key interest rate policy of the then Finance Minister Inoue Junnosuke in 1931 and led to a decline in sales at financial institutions such as Yokohama Specie Bank . Displeasure with financial and economic policy led to Finance Minister Inoue Junnosuke and the director of Mitsui Holding Company , Dan Takuma , being murdered in the spring of 1932 by the Blood League (Ketsu meidan) organized by Inoue Nisshō , an impoverished right-wing terrorist group Farmers. After the assassination of Dan Takuma, he himself became the de facto director of the Mitsui Holding Company and promoter of the later Finance Minister Izumiyama Sanroku .

On February 9, 1937, Ikeda took over the post of governor of the central bank , the Bank of Japan (Nichigin) , as successor to Fukai Eigo , and only held this post for a few months until July 27, 1937, after which Yūki Toyotarō was his successor. On May 26, 1938 he succeeded Kaya Okinori Finance Minister of Japan (Ōkura-daijin) in the first Konoe cabinet and held this ministerial office until January 5, 1939. At the same time, he acted as the successor to Yoshino Shinji between May 26, 1938 and January 5, 1939 also as Minister for Industry and Commerce in the first Konoe cabinet. In his function as finance minister he belonged to the so-called five-ministerial council, which was composed of the prime minister Konoe Fumimaro , the army minister Itagaki Seishirō , the naval minister Yonai Mitsumasa , the foreign minister Arita Hachirō and himself as finance minister December 1938 a ban on deporting Jews from Japan , but also on recruiting, “except for entrepreneurs and technical specialists”. In view of the November pogroms , it was felt that the time had come to take action, but neither wanted to endanger the growing relations with Germany. The conference ended with the decision that Jews should not be expelled from Japan. In addition, all Jewish refugees arriving in Japan should be settled in Kobe . This ultimately contributed to the end of the Fugu Plan (Fugu keikaku) , an idea of ​​the Japanese Empire to allow Jewish refugees to immigrate from the German Empire to Japan on a larger scale during the 1930s . In 1941 he became a member of the Privy Council ( Sūmitsu-in ) .

After the capitulation of Japan and the end of the Second World War on September 2, 1945, Ikeda was arrested by the US occupation forces on charges of war crimes , but released in May 1946 without further charge. However, he was banned from any political activity.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b National Parliamentary Library : 近代 日本人 の 肖像 ( kindai nihonjin no shōzō , English Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures ): Ikeda Shigeaki ( Japanese , English )
  2. ^ Bank of Japan: List of Governors
  3. ^ Five ministers council , Japan Center for Asian Historical Record, December 6, 1938