Shirakawa Yoshinori

Shirakawa Yoshinori, 1921 or 1922.

Danshaku Shirakawa Yoshinori ( Japanese 白 川 義 則 ; * January 24, 1869 in Iyo-Matsuyama-han , today Iyo , Japanese Empire ; † May 26, 1932 ) was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army and Minister of the Army .

Life

Shirakawa Yoshinori was born on January 24, 1869 in Iyo-Matsuyama-han, Shikoku, into a samurai family. In his youth he attended cadet schools and specialized in military pioneering . In 1890 he graduated from the Army Officer School . He enrolled at the Army University in 1893 , but had to interrupt his training the following year after the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War . He later continued it after the war and graduated in 1899, whereupon he received command of the 21st Infantry Regiment with the rank of captain. In 1902 he was transferred to the Imperial Guard . During the Russo-Japanese War he again commanded the 21st Infantry Regiment and was later appointed Chief of Staff of the 13th Division , which was also in the field . After the war he rose further in the ranks.

In June 1911 he was reassigned the post of chief of staff at the division level with the 11th Division and was promoted to major general later that year. From 1916 to 1919 he was head of the personnel office in the Army Ministry and, after his promotion to Lieutenant General in January 1919, took over command of the Army Officer's School. From 1922 to 1923 he was Deputy Minister of the Army under Yamanashi Hanzo. After a brief period as head of the Army Aviation Department in the War Office, he was on 10 October 1923 to the 28 July 1926 Commander in Manchuria standing Kwantung Army . The officer corps of the Kwantung Army was considered to be relatively independent and interventionist, and Shirakawa behaved in the same way. In November and December 1925 he interfered in the anti-Fengtian war against the instructions of the government in Tokyo . He used his troops to block the opponents of the Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin , who had his power base in Manchuria, in order to support Zhang. He openly took the view that senior officers should be allowed to act independently of State Department guidelines. The special independence of the officer corps of the Kwantung Army was later called dokudan ( 独断 ; unauthorized decision ) and dokusō ( 独 走 ; selfish action ) and Shirakawa is considered the first to fully implement this principle. He was then appointed to the Supreme War Council and remained a member of the body until his death. After the assassination of Zhang Zuolin in 1928, he advocated an immediate military occupation of Manchuria.

From April 20, 1927 to July 2, 1929 he was Minister of the Army in Prime Minister Tanaka Giichi's cabinet . Tanaka had chosen him because of his proven inclination in Manchuria to act independently and aggressively towards China, as he held similar opinions. At the beginning of Shirakawa's term of office, the decision was made to build plants for the production of poison gas on the island of Ōkunoshima . Since the production of poison gas was under the control of the army, Shirakawa had considerable influence on the selection of the location for the production facilities. He was influenced by the telecommunications minister Mochizuki Keisuke , whose son worked in the administration of the city of Takehara , to which Ōkunoshima belongs administratively.

During the Manchurian Crisis , he was personal advisor to Tennō Hirohito and was sent to Manchuria on October 17, together with Colonel Imamura Hitoshi . Rumors of separatist tendencies within the officer corps of the Kwantung Army had reached Tokyo. Rumors said that the leadership of the Kwantung Army would break away from Tokyo if the civilian government did not support the continuing occupation of Manchuria as a result of the crisis. In discussions with the army leaders, the rumors were not confirmed. There were complaints about the government, but all generals gave assurances not to go off the beaten track.

The tensions resulting from the Manchurian Crisis led to the outbreak of fighting between Chinese and Japanese troops in Shanghai on January 28, 1932 . On February 25, 1932, the Shanghai Expeditionary Army was set up in support of the Japanese troops in Shanghai and Shirakawa was appointed their commander. Before leaving for China, he received a private audience with Hirohito. On February 29th, he landed with troops near the city. In March, several brothels with comfort women were set up in Shirakawa's command area. It is likely, but not proven, that Shirakawa knew about the establishment of the comfort houses. On April 29th, while the Japanese national anthem was being played after a victory parade in the Hongkou district of Shanghai , a bomb explosion occurred, which injured Shirakawa and other high-ranking military personnel, some seriously. The bomb was thrown in the stands by activist Yoong Bong-gil. Yoong fought for the independence of Japan-annexed Korea . On May 26, Shirakawa Yoshinori died from his injuries.

Posthumously he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun , Paulownia Flowers and the Golden Dragon and was elevated to the rank of Danshaku (baron) in the Japanese nobility system of the Kazoku . His ashes were divided between two graves. One part was buried in his hometown and the other in Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo.

literature

• Herbert B. Brix: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. HarperCollins, New York 2000, ISBN 978-0-06-019314-0 , OCLC 43031388 .
• Trevor N. Dupuy : Encyclopedia of Military Biography. IB Tauris, London 1992, ISBN 978-1-85043-569-3 , OCLC 59974268 .
• Donald A. Jordan: China's Trial by Fire. The Shanghai War of 1932. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 2001, ISBN 978-0-472-11165-7 , OCLC 44467437 .
• Keiichiro Komatsu: Origins of the Pacific War and the Importance of 'Magic'. St. Martin's Press, New York 1999, ISBN 978-0-312-17385-2 , OCLC 38856033 .
• Chŏng-sik Lee: The Politics of Korean Nationalism. University of California Press, Berkeley, California 1963, OCLC 412823 .
• Richard Sims: Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation. 1868-2000. Palgrave, New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-312-23915-2 , OCLC 45172740 .
• Yuki Tanaka: Poison Gas. The Story Japan would like to forget. In: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Volume 44, No. 8, October 1988, ISSN  0096-3402 , OCLC 1242732 , pp. 10-19.
• Yuki Tanaka: Japan's Comfort Women. Sexual slavery and prostitution during World War II and US occupation. Routledge, London and New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-19400-6 , OCLC 47785668 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alvin D. Coox: Nomonhan. Japan Against Russia, 1939. 1985, p. 13.
2. ^ ^{A b c} Donald A. Jordan: China's Trial by Fire. The Shanghai War of 1932. 2001, p. 162.
3. ↑ Keiichiro Komatsu: Origins of the Pacific War and the Importance of 'Magic'. 1999, pp. 47 and 128.
4. ↑ Yuki Tanaka: Poison Gas. The Story Japan would like to forget. 1988, p. 12.
5. ^ Alvin D. Coox: Nomonhan. Japan Against Russia, 1939. 1985, p. 48.
6. ^ Yuki Tanaka: Japan's Comfort Women. Sexual slavery and prostitution during World War II and US occupation. 2002, p. 20.
7. ↑ Chŏng-sik Lee: The Politics of Korean Nationalism. 1963, p. 185.

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