Tōjō Hideki

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Tōjō Hideki

Tōjō Hideki , Japanese 東 條 英 機 , pronunciation ? / i , (born December 30, 1884 in Kōjimachi, today Tokyo - Chiyoda ; † December 23, 1948 in Tokyo - Toshima ) was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army , leader of the Taisei Yokusankai Unity Party (German Imperial Support Party ) and the 27th. Prime Minister of Japan . He served as Prime Minister and Minister of War from October 17, 1941 to July 22, 1944, after having held the latter office since July 1940. As Prime Minister he was responsible for the expansion of the conflict with China, which had been ongoing since 1937, into the Pacific War against the western colonial powers, which was triggered seven weeks after he took office by the attack on Pearl Harbor . Tōjō was in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East on November 12 in 1948 for numerous war crimes sentenced to death and at December 23, 1948 executed . Audio file / audio sample

Life

Military career

Tōjō Hideki as a young officer

Tōjō Hideki was the third son of an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army and was born in Tokyo's Kōjimachi district (now Chiyoda ), the capital's government district. In 1899 Tōjō became a cadet of the Army Officer School and left it in March 1905 (as the tenth best of his class) to serve as a lieutenant in the infantry . The talented professional officer had risen to the rank of colonel by 1928 and gradually developed an interest in military policy.

In 1933 Tōjō was promoted to major general and headed the personnel department of the Army Ministry , later he was commander of the 24th Infantry Brigade.

In September 1935 he was appointed head of the military police ( Kempeitai ) of the powerful Kwantung Army , which was stationed in Manchuria . Tōjō did not support the coup attempt of February 26, 1936 by parts of the army. The coup quickly collapsed, and as a result Tōjō became involved in the Tōsei-ha faction. Politically, he was right-wing, nationalistic , militaristic and fascist and was nicknamed "razor" ( kamisori ; カ ミ ソ リ ) because of his ability to make decisions quickly . In 1937, Tōjō was promoted to Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army and in this role was largely responsible for military operations in China. He was personally in command of an operation in Chahar in July when his troops invaded Inner Mongolia . After the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge and the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War , Tōjō organized the attack of his troops on targets in northern China . Under his command, Japanese troops committed atrocities against civilians.

The politician

In May 1938, Tōjō was ordered back to Japan to take over the post as Deputy Minister of the Army . In addition, he served as General Inspector of the Army Aviation Force until 1940 .

On July 22, 1940, Tōjō took over the management of the Army Ministry in the Konoe government and subsequently rose to become one of the most influential politicians in the cabinet. He presented himself as an advocate of the three-power pact with the National Socialist German Reich and fascist Italy .

Tōjō Hideki

After the failure of the negotiations on a settlement with the United States , Prince Konoe resigned on October 16, 1941. The following day, Emperor Hirohito called against the recommendation of Konoe's Army Minister Tōjō to succeed him as Prime Minister ( Cabinet Tōjō ). While Foreign Minister Tōgō Shigenori was still trying to negotiate and sent a special envoy to Washington , leading parts of the army and Tōjō considered a military operation to be inevitable. A few weeks later, on December 1, 1941, the cabinet informed the Kaiser of the impending escalation. With the attack on Pearl Harbor and on European colonies in Southeast Asia, Japan extended the war to the Allies .

During his time as Prime Minister, General Tōjō continued to hold the office of Minister of the Army and was temporarily Minister of the Interior (1941/42), Minister of Foreign Affairs (September 1942), Minister of Education (1943) and Minister of Industry and Trade (1943). This gave him full control over the military, police and domestic politics. Japan was a military dictatorship in which parliament was partially circumvented by special powers of the government and in 1940 the quasi-unity party Taisei Yokusankai was created, within which there was, however, a broad political spectrum. After the general election in 1942, Tōjō forced all MPs to join the successor party Yokusan Seijikai .

As minister of culture, Tōjō pushed the nationalist and militaristic indoctrination of the school system and, as minister of the interior, also euthanasia programs . Although the emperor nominally retained power in Japan, the dominance of the military ensured that Tōjō was in fact the military dictator of Japan.

As long as the army was victorious, Tōjō's popularity was high. After the Battle of Midway (1942), the turning point of the Pacific War , Japan fell on the defensive. Senior officers and some ministers began to oppose Tōjō, who took over the post of Chief of Staff of the Imperial Japanese Army in February 1944 in order to strengthen his position. When the military situation for Japan deteriorated further, Tōjō was forced to resign from all offices after the fall of Saipan on July 18, 1944.

Trial and Execution

Tōjō in the dock at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 1946
Tōjō Hideki with wife Katsuko and granddaughter Yūko, 1941

Tōjō lived secluded in his apartment until the end of the war. After Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945, the American armed forces wanted him by means of an arrest warrant and attempted to evade arrest by suicide on September 8. A doctor present marked the place of his heart with a charcoal pencil. He shot himself in the chest with a revolver, but the bullet missed his heart and he survived. He was treated in a US Army hospital and transferred to Sugamo Prison after his recovery .

In 1946, Tōjō was tried as a war criminal before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo and took full responsibility for his actions during the trial. On November 12, 1948, he was found guilty on seven counts (including waging war of aggression, inhuman treatment of prisoners of war) and sentenced to death by hanging . He was executed on December 23rd . He is buried in the Zōshigaya cemetery.

Historical assessment

Because of the crimes that were committed under his leadership, Tōjō is believed to be responsible for the murder of at least four million Chinese. He had also approved biological experiments on prisoners of war, such as in Unit 731 , and thousands of Chinese and Koreans being deported to Japan as forced laborers .

Historians John Dower and Herbert Bix criticized in their works the behavior of General Douglas MacArthur and Brigadier General Bonner Feller , who tried to protect Emperor Hirohito and the imperial family from prosecution after the war. The prosecutors in the process had downplayed the responsibility of the imperial family and presented Tōjō as the sole scapegoat .

family

Tōjō Hideki was married to Katsuko. His second son Tōjō Teruo worked as an aircraft designer and developer at Mitsubishi . His granddaughter Tōjō Yūko became an ultra-nationalist politician, claiming that Japan waged the war in self-defense.

medal

literature

  • Courtney Browne: Tojo: The Last Banzai . New York: Holt, 1967.

Web links

Commons : Tōjō Hideki  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the making of modern Japan , 2001, pages 583-585, John Dower, Embracing defeat , 1999, pages 324-326.
Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Tōjō is the family name, Hideki the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Tōjō, Hideki
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tôjô, Hideki; 東 條 英 機 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION 40th Japanese Prime Minister and General
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Kōjimachi , Tokyo (today: Chiyoda )
DATE OF DEATH December 23, 1948
Place of death Toshima