Japan surrender

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Japanese prisoners of war on Guam bow during the radio broadcast of Emperor Hirohito's speech to "end the Great East Asian War"

The surrender of the Japanese Empire on September 2, 1945 ended the last interstate hostilities of the Second World War , after it was over in Europe with the German surrender on May 8. The armed forces of the Japanese Empire, with around one million men in China and Southeast Asia, did not capitulate until September 9 and 12, 1945, respectively.

By the end of July 1945 at the latest, the Imperial Japanese Navy was no longer capable of major operations and an Allied invasion of the main Japanese islands appeared likely. Despite public declarations that they would fight to the end, Japan's military leaders, the Supreme War Council , sought informal contact with the Soviet Union , which was still neutral , so that it could negotiate a peace that would be more advantageous for Japan than the unconditional surrender demanded by the USA and Great Britain .

In the meantime, the Soviet Union was already preparing to enter the war against Japan and its allies in Europe for at least three months after the end of the war in accordance with the agreements of the conferences of Tehran (late November 1943) and Yalta (early February 1945). Late in the evening of August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on the Empire and its allies in violation of its neutrality pact with Japan .

The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th . With the start of Operation August Storm on August 9, Soviet troops attacked the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo and Japanese positions on the Kuril Islands. On the same day, the United States dropped its second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The influence of the atomic bombs on surrender and their ethical justifiability are still controversial today.

The combination of all these catastrophic events for the Japanese war effort led Tennō Hirohito to order the Supreme War Council to accept and surrender the terms of the Potsdam Agreement . After several days of intense debates and clandestine discussions as well as an attempted coup , Hirohito gave a nationwide radio address on August 15 in which he announced the unconditional surrender of the Japanese Empire to the Allies.

On August 28, the occupation of Japan began by the forces of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers . The surrender ceremony took place on September 2nd on the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri . Representatives of the Japanese government and the respective allied forces signed the deed of surrender, which officially ended the hostilities. As a result, VJ Day was celebrated in many countries around the world . Individual Japanese soldiers were not reached by the news or did not believe it and continued their resistance for months or years, in some cases even decades. These soldiers became known as holdouts . The state of war between Japan and the Allies officially ended on April 28, 1952 with the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty .

prehistory

With the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese Empire , which by then had conquered several colonies in Asia and occupied large parts of China , opened the Pacific War against the United States . The early Japanese successes ended in the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942 and the Japanese troops were gradually pushed back , at the latest after the Battle of Guadalcanal .

In the Cairo Declaration of November 27, 1943, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt , Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided to jointly push back Japanese aggression and cut Japan back to the four main islands. In this treaty, occupied Korea was also promised freedom and independence. By November 1944, American troops had advanced enough to bomb Honshu . On April 5, 1945, the Soviet Union terminated the Soviet-Japanese neutrality treaty . After the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht on May 8 and 9, 1945, Japan was the only opponent of the Allies . On the one hand, the military government under Admiral Suzuki Kantarō was not yet ready to give up, on the other hand, peace efforts by the Japanese failed.

Mushroom cloud after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945

As part of the Potsdam Conference , the Republic of China , the United States and Great Britain issued a follow -up declaration ( Potsdam Declaration ) to the Cairo Declaration on July 26 and issued an ultimatum to Japan. The final article of the declaration reads:

“(13) We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction. "

“We call on the Japanese government to now announce the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces [...]. The alternative for Japan is its rapid and complete destruction. "

Articles 6 to 12 of the declaration regulate the post-war status of Japan: Article 6 calls for the eradication of militarism ; Article 7 provides for an occupation of Japan after the surrender; Article 8 limits the Japanese territory to the 4 main islands; Article 9 provides for the disarmament of the armed forces; Article 10 calls for war crimes trials and the strengthening of democratic tendencies, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of thought and human rights; Article 11 provides for the control of Japanese industry for the payment of reparations and the prevention of a new armament; Article 12 provides for the withdrawal of the Allies as soon as the goals set out above have been achieved.

However, the government and military of the empire did not respond; instead, the people demanded final victory or self-surrender.

At the beginning of August, the American high command decided to use the atomic bomb on a real target. Other alternatives such as B. peace negotiations (with negotiators), changed surrender conditions, an invasion of the main Japanese islands ( Operation Downfall ), another siege of Japan with conventional armed forces, waiting for the Soviet Union to enter the war or a test demonstration of the atomic bomb were either discarded, not used or not considered.

On August 6, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima . On August 8, the Soviet Union entered the war with Operation August Storm ; the Red Army invaded Manchuria and the Kuril Islands . On August 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped on a Japanese city, this time Nagasaki . The atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first and so far only war missions of this new type of weapon of destruction. They killed over 200,000 people and injured at least as many again. They wreaked havoc, many people and their descendants suffered or are still suffering from the consequences or long-term effects of radiation sickness ( see Hibakusha ). The importance and necessity of the use of atomic bombs for Japan's surrender remains controversial to this day. All other major Japanese cities (with the exception of Kyoto ) were also destroyed by heavy bombardment with conventional bombs at this point.

The unconditional surrender

MacArthur in his address
General MacArthur signs the deed of surrender
Japan's Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the deed of surrender

Japan finally had no choice in August 1945; the Allied threats of surrender or annihilation seemed serious. The myth of the kamikaze , the divine wind that had saved the country from the Mongol invasion, had been conjured up with great sacrifice and failed. On August 14, a record number of over 800 B-29s flew again attacks on targets in Japan. They were supported by carrier aircraft and other units attacking from Okinawa and Iwojima .

An exchange of notes on the surrender was arranged by the Swiss diplomat Walter Stucki .

One week after the atomic bomb explosions, on August 14, 1945, the Tennō issued the "Imperial Decree on the End of the War" ( 終 戦 の 詔書 , shūsen no shōsho ). This was broadcast on the radio on August 15, 1945 ( Gyokuon-hōsō ), which has since been considered VJ-Day . In the decree, the emperor recognizes the conditions of the Potsdam Declaration. On September 2, Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru (on behalf of and on behalf of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government) and the commander of the Kantō Army , General Umezu Yoshijirō (on behalf of and for the Imperial Japanese General Headquarters) signed on the USS Missouri in Sagami -Bay in Tokyo at 9 am the instrument of unconditional surrender . For the United States, after General Douglas MacArthur , Fleet Admiral CW Nimitz , for Great Britain Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser , for the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General Kusma Nikolajewitsch Derevyanko , for France, Major General P. Leclerc , for Australia, General Sir Th. Blamey , for Canada, Colonel Moore Cosgrave , for the Netherlands Admiral CEL Helfrich , for China General Xu Yongchang (Wade-Giles transcription: Hsu Yung-Ch'ang) and for New Zealand Vice Air Marshal Leonard M. Isitt .

On September 9, 1945, the Japanese China Army with around one million men surrendered in Nanjing to the national Chinese under Chiang Kai-shek. The Japanese armed forces in Southeast Asia only surrendered to the Allied forces under Lord Louis Mountbatten on September 12, 1945 in Singapore .

This ended the Second World War.

Allied occupation

The Allied occupation of Japan, which began with the surrender on September 2nd, consisted almost entirely of US troops. General Douglas MacArthur became Chief of Occupation Administration ( Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP)). The most important project of the SCAP was the drafting of a new constitution . It was announced on November 3, 1946. All points of the Potsdam Declaration were implemented in it. In addition, the Tennō renounced his divine status in the constitution ( see Arahitogami ). The Allies decided not to affect the imperial dignity nor to dissolve the Japanese state apparatus .

In the Tokyo trials (indictment on April 29, 1946, start of negotiations May 3, 1946, verdict November 12, 1948) leading Japanese military and wartime politicians were indicted, in particular Prime Minister and Chief of Staff General Tōjō Hideki . He and six other defendants were sentenced to death . Around 20 others were sentenced to life imprisonment, but most of them were released in 1955 when Japan regained sovereignty. The veneration of 14 of these Class A war criminals in Yasukuni Shrine as Kami since 1978 has repeatedly led to violent political controversy in the post-war period.

peace contract

On September 8, 1951, Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty with 47 countries . Important non- signatories were the Republic of China on Taiwan (peace in 1952), the PR China (peace in 1978) and the Soviet Union (peace negotiations repeatedly failed due to the Kuril conflict ).

In the Charter of the United Nations of October 24, 1945, an enemy state clause concerning Japan and Germany was inserted, but Japan joined the UN in 1956 . Japan was now needed as an ally of the US against the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union in East Asia.

Others

  • General MacArthur had countersigned the Japanese declaration of surrender with five different fountain pens , which he later gave to selected people - including a red-colored one from his wife. Another was given to the British Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival , shortly before a Japanese prisoner of war.
  • Since during the surrender ceremony Moore Cosgrave, who signed for Canada, put his signature on the Japanese copy one line too deep - presumably by distraction - and as a result the representatives of the allied nations who followed him had to move on to the next, the certificate was changed at the urging of Japanese delegation - they doubted whether the emperor would still recognize the authenticity - changed so that all incorrect lines were corrected and each authenticated individually.
  • Lieutenant-General Jonathan Wainwright , who until shortly before was a prisoner of war in the Japanese army, was also present at the ceremony . He was promoted to four-star general on September 5th and received the declaration of surrender from the Japanese fighting in the Philippines on September 12th in Singapore .
  • Also the French Jacques-Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque , who was the only person involved in the fighting before the surrender in Europe and Asia.
  • Some Japanese soldiers remained on islands in the Pacific as one-man guerrillas until the 1970s, the best known being Yokoi Shōichi and Onoda Hirō . When they returned to their homeland, they found that the war had ended years ago and that Japan and the United States had made peace. So that the soldiers could " save face ", they were awarded medals for their services in battle in a solemn ceremony .
  • One of the main reasons for the failure of the Japanese peace efforts before the atomic bombs was the fact that the US insisted on abolishing the Tennō . Japan feared a war crimes trial against the head of the Tenno system. Nevertheless, after the capitulation, the empire was formally retained.

See also

Movie

  • Serge Viallet: Tokyo - When the war ended , Japan in ruins , two-part documentary (ARTE), France 2005.
  • Alexander Sokurov : The Sun , feature film, Russia / Italy / France 2004.

literature

  • Marc Gallicchio: Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II. Oxford University Press, New York 2020, ISBN 978-0-1900-9110-1 .

Web links

Commons : Surrender of Japan  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Since summer time was in effect in the German Reich , the armistice was actually on May 9th from 0:01 a.m., on this declaration of surrender: The paper that ended the war , Spiegel Online , Panorama , May 8, 2005.
  2. ↑ Barton J. Bernstein: Understanding the Atomic bomb and the Japanese Surrender: Missed Opportunities, Little-Known Near Disasters, and Modern Memory , in: Diplomatic History, 1995.
  3. ↑ Bruce Cumings: Parallax Visions , Duke 1999
  4. ↑ Marc Tribelhorn: How a Swiss Helped End the Second World War. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 6, 2018.