Higashikuni Naruhiko

Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko

Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko ( Japanese 東 久 邇 宮 稔 彦 王 , Higashikuni-no-miya Naruhiko-ō or 東 久 邇 稔 彦 , Higashikuni Naruhiko ; * December 3, 1887 in Kyoto ; † January 26, 1990 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese politician and 43rd Prime Minister of Japan from August 17, 1945 to October 9, 1945  . He was Emperor Hirohito's uncle, the only member of the Japanese imperial family to ever head a cabinet, and the prime minister with the shortest tenure - exactly 54 days - in Japanese history.

family

Higashikuni Naruhiko was the ninth son of Prince Kuni Asahiko and his lover Terao Utako. Emperor Mutsuhito granted him the title of prince Higashikuni no miya , and on November 3, 1906, he received permission to start a new branch of the imperial family. Thus, on May 11, 1915, he married the 19-year-old Princess Toshiko, Mutsuhito's ninth daughter. She gave birth to four sons: Prince Morihiro (1916–1969), Prince Moromasa (1917–1923), Prince Akitsune (1920–2006) and Prince Toshihiko (* 1929).

Army time

After Naruhiko graduated from Army Officer's School in 1908 , he was made a lieutenant . He then graduated from the Army University (1914) and went to the Ecole Supérieure de Guerre in Paris , where he studied military science from 1920 to 1926 .

His idiosyncratic behavior shown there shocked the imperial court. He left his wife and children in Japan, and even the death of his second son Moromasa could not persuade him to return. Instead, he enjoyed himself with a French lover in Paris, indulging in fast cars and the life of the upper class. To put an end to these conditions, the court sent an official to Paris who ordered Naruhiko back.

Despite these escapades, he climbed the career ladder step by step: he became a colonel in 1925 , three years later a brigadier general and finally major general . From 1930 he commanded the Fifth Infantry Brigade until he was given the rank of lieutenant general in August 1934 and the supreme command of the Fourth Army Division was handed over. Naruhiko was also brought to the Supreme Defense Council a year later, and he was promoted to honorary president of the Japanese Press Association.

As head of the Army Aviation Main Department ( 陸軍 航空 本部 ) in the Army Ministry from July 1937 to April 30, 1938, he commanded the bombing of civilian targets during the Second Sino-Japanese War .

He continued his engagement in China as commander of the Second Army until 1939, when he reached the rank of general in August of the same year .

Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe recommended him as his successor, believing that only a member of the imperial family with a distinguished military career could be the faction of war advocates in the Cabinet - Chief of Staff General Sugiyama Hajime , Army Minister General Tōjō Hideki and Major General Mutō Akira , Head of the Military Office Matters - tame. Instead of him, however, the anti-western oriented Tōjō Hideki was entrusted with this task. The tradition of not entrusting members of the imperial family with high political offices may have played a role here.

Between 1941 and 1945 Naruhiko headed the Home Guard. Files of the Investigative Records Repository (IRR) that have only been accessible since 2002 show that the actual order for the execution of the Doolittle Airmen was probably made by the prince - as the commander of the Home Guard. The Americans also determined that he had planned to replace the Tennō Hirohito with the underage Akihito and to take over the imperial reign himself.

prime minister

Together with his half-brother Prince Asaka, his nephew Prince Takamatsu and the former Prime Minister Konoe, he worked on the overthrow of Tōjō Hideki. He had to resign after the Allies took Saipan in July . Two other incumbents followed until Emperor Hirohito elevated Naruhiko to the post-war first prime minister on August 16, 1945. The task of his cabinet was on the one hand to properly end the demobilization of the Japanese army , on the other hand to ensure the preservation of the imperial institutions. A civil rights directive ( jinken-seirei , also: "freedom directive ", jiyū no seirei ), which the GHQ decreed on October 4, led to a break with the US occupation under General Douglas MacArthur . She demanded the release of all political prisoners , allowed parties and guaranteed the right of assembly and freedom of expression . Naruhiko saw these reforms as harbingers of a communist revolution and resigned on October 9, 1945.

Life after political career

On October 14, 1947, he renounced his prince title or membership in the imperial family and founded the new religious order Higashikuni-Kyo. The occupiers banned this in 1950, after which it was under a purge order until 1952. His political career was over; as a middle-class man, he unsuccessfully ran some grocery stores, second-hand shops and ladies' tailors.

Naruhiko became honorary chairman of the International Martial Arts Federation (IMAF) in 1957 , later honorary president of the Japan Shepherd Dog Association and several other organizations. In 1958 he published his war diaries under the title Ichi Kōzoku no Sensō Nikki ( 一 皇族 の 戦 争 日記 , "War Diary of a Member of the Imperial Family"), ten years later his memoirs Higashikuni Nikki ( 東 久 邇 日記 , "Higashikuni's Memoirs") . His wife died in 1978 and he passed away in Tokyo in 1990 at the old age of 102.

See also

• Higashikuni cabinet

Web links

Commons : Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. Records of the Army Staff: The Investigative Records Repository (IRR). released under the provisions of the US Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act of 2000

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