Nakamura Kōtaro

Nakamura Kōtarō, before 1940.

Nakamura Kōtarō ( Japanese 中 村 孝 太郎 ; * August 28, 1881 in Ishikawa Prefecture , Japanese Empire ; † August 29, 1947 ) was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army and Minister of the Army .

Life

Nakamura Kōtarō was born on August 28, 1881 in Ishikawa Prefecture. After attending cadet institutes in his youth, he graduated from the 13th class of the Army Officer School in June 1902 with the rank of lieutenant of the infantry. He later attended, among others with Terauchi Hisaichi and Umezu Yoshijirō , the army college , which he graduated in 1909. He then held various administrative posts in the Army General Staff , to which he was repeatedly ordered throughout his entire military career. In 1920 and 1921 he was a Japanese military attaché in Sweden . After his promotion to colonel in August 1922, he commanded the 67th regiment until August of the following year, before serving as an adjutant in the Army General Staff until July 1927.

He resigned with his promotion to major general from this post and became the commanding general of the 39th Infantry Brigade. In August 1929 he moved to the post of Chief of Staff of the Chosen Army in Korea, which was annexed by Japan . Between December 1930 and February 1932 he was head of the personnel office in the Army Ministry before he took over the supreme command of the garrison army in China . Two months later he was promoted to lieutenant general, the usual rank for a commander in a Japanese army. After a brief period as commanding general of the 8th Division , Nakamura was deputy inspector general of military training from December 1935 to February 1937 . On February 2, 1937, the new Prime Minister Hayashi Senjūrō appointed him as Minister of the Army in his cabinet, but replaced him on February 9 by Sugiyama Hajime .

He then served as the commander of the Eastern District Regional Army and in June 1938 reached the rank of full general. Then he was commander in chief of the Chosen Army until July 1941. From December of that year to May 1, 1943, he was again Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern District Army, and between the two commandos he had been a member of the Supreme War Council . Due to health problems, he retired from active military service in May 1943 and died on August 29, 1947.

literature

• Richard Fuller: Japanese Generals 1926–1945. 1st edition. Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, Pennsylvania 2011, ISBN 978-0-7643-3754-3 . P. 149.
• Meirion Harries: Soldiers of the Sun. The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. Random House, 1994, ISBN 0-679-75303-6 .

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Nakamura is the family name, Kōtarō the first name.