Japanese war criminals of World War II
The status of Japanese war criminals results from the classification of the Allies , especially the United States , after Japan's surrender in World War II and the subsequent legal processing.
The status of some people as war criminals is very controversial in Japan . Not all those considered war criminals by the Allies were also prosecuted. The reason for this were mostly pragmatic considerations, as in the case of the Emperor Hirohito , whom the USA regarded as the leading war criminal, but - apart from his factual disempowerment - did not pursue him because his cooperation was considered useful. Another well-known case is that of Shirō Ishii , who, despite inhuman “medical” and bacteriological experiments on living people, was spared not only from the death penalty but from further persecution in return for the results of his research.
The people considered war criminals by the Allies were divided into three classes, A, B and C.
Class a
Most of the leading Japanese politicians and military leaders have been given the highest class “A” because of their positions of responsibility in the government. The list originally included hundreds of Japanese people. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East in the years 1946 to 1948, eventually charged only 28 of them, of which seven were sentenced to death and all on 23 December 1948 the birthday of Prince Akihito , in Sugamo Prison in Tokyo executed , the 18 other convicts got jail terms. For the trial of these politicians, an International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) was set up in Tokyo, similar to the Nuremberg Trials in Germany .
The legal basis of the judgments is tainted with the smack of “ victorious justice ”, since the convicted persons could not be proven personal guilt and they were therefore convicted according to legal constructs that did not exist in Japan such as “conspiracy to war of aggression” and the “knowledgeable Tolerating “the mistreatment of prisoners of war and arbitrarily exempting other culprits from prosecution in US interests. Therefore, the status of the convicted will remain controversial in the future.
The following quote from the memoirs of the US secret service officer Elliott Thorpe can serve as an example of the casual handling of the cases by the American occupation authorities:
“Kenji Doihara was something else. He was an able army officer with unusual ability in many directions. […] There were many Japanese Leaders whose careers were much more dubious than Doihara's, but they were fortunate enough not to become known to the Western press. I finally put Doihara's name on the war criminal list, because he had taken an aggressive part in the unwarranted attack on China in 1938. Anyway, our people wanted to hang him. So they did. "
“Kenji Doihara was different. He was a capable army officer with unusual abilities in many ways. [...] There were many Japanese leaders whose careers were far more dubious than the Doiharas, but who were fortunate enough not to be known to the Western press. [see web links ] I finally put Doihara's name on the list of war criminals because he played an aggressive part in the unjustified attack on China in 1938. Anyway, our people wanted to hang Doihara. And so they did it. "
Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō was sentenced to death and hanged . He was accused of conspiracy to wage war of aggression and knowingly tolerating the mistreatment and killing of prisoners of war. However, his role as a militarist and warmonger is undisputed. He was one of the supporters of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was formally illegal because of the belated declaration of war .
Other people classified in this class:
- Kenji Doihara
- Iwane Matsui especially for his responsibility in the Nanking massacre
- Heitaro Kimura
- Koki Hirota
- Seishiro Itagaki
- Akira Muto
- Matsuoka Yosuke
- Osami Nagano
- Toshio Shiratori
- Kiichiro Hiranuma
- Kuniaki Koiso
- Yoshijiro Umezu
- Shigenori Togo
Classes B and C
The Japanese, mostly military leaders, who had ordered, tolerated or committed war crimes were placed in these classes. From a list of several hundred thousand possible defendants, only 5,472 were brought to court, 4,019 were convicted, 902 of these were executed, the rest received prison terms.
They should be tried in the places where they committed their crimes.
These included several members of the notorious 731 Unit who escaped conviction in exchange for delivering the results of their brutal biological and chemical experiments on live prisoners to the US military. General Douglas MacArthur , in agreement with the US government, offered them an amnesty against their data.
The fact that so few of the suspects were brought to court or even convicted is attributed to various causes:
- Too little time and human resources among the prosecutors
- the destruction of incriminating materials at the end of the war through the effects of war and the Japanese
- Lack of cooperation up to and including open hostility on the part of the Japanese officials, without whom it was difficult to get hold of the suspects and witnesses
- the US military and government self-interest mentioned earlier
In 1948, the United States decided not to pursue war criminals in Japan, so some of the worst criminals escaped prosecution.
The reason for this is seen to be that Japan was increasingly needed as an important ally in the Cold War . In 1948, the remainder of the Class A war criminals who had not been executed were released from custody and, in some cases, easily found again in leadership positions in business, politics and education.
Due to the lack of cooperation from the US occupying power, the other allies, such as Australia , who were still interested in the persecution, were hardly able to act efficiently.
The persecution officially ended in 1952 with the peace treaty between the USA and Japan, which guaranteed a general amnesty for all war criminals who had not been imprisoned until then. Here the US pursued a different policy than with the at least rudimentary denazification in Germany: even Nobusuke Kishi , who was imprisoned as a war criminal, was later able to become Prime Minister of Japan .