Ugaki Kazushige

Ugaki Kazushige

Ugaki Kazushige ( Japanese 宇 垣 一 成 ; born August 21, 1868 in Okayama Prefecture ; † April 30, 1956 in Tokyo ) was an influential Japanese general from the 1920s until the Pacific War .

Live and act

Ugaki Kazushige graduated from the Military Academy in 1890 . After the First World War , he was promoted by General Tanaka Giichi , head of the military academy and commander of the 10th division. In 1923 he was appointed Deputy Minister of the Army Ministry, in 1925 he became a general. From 1924 he was Minister of the Army in the Kiyoura , Katō Takaaki , Wakatsuki I cabinets for four terms and then again in 1930/1931 in the Hamaguchi cabinet . In the years 1924 to 1927 he used the policy of arms limitation to dismantle four divisions and to rationalize and modernize the army. This led to critics, including General Araki Sadao , calling him a "political general". - Ugaki was a military attaché at the Japanese embassy in Berlin ,

In 1931 Ugaki refused to cooperate with the insurgents of the March incident who wanted to make him prime minister. However, he did not manage to punish the insurgents and from 1931 to 1936 he took over the post of Governor General of Korea, which was under Japanese rule . There he tried to strengthen the agricultural and industrial base in view of the invasion of China.

In February 1937, after the fall of the Hirota Cabinet , he was designated for the post of Prime Minister, but was unable to form a cabinet due to differences with the leadership of the Japanese army . He became foreign minister in the following Konoe I cabinet in May 1938 , but resigned in September. - He and other generals headed the Tōsei-ha of the armed forces, an association of conservative and moderate officers in contrast to the more radical Kōdō-ha .

After the surrender in 1945 Ugaki was arrested by the occupying powers and was only able to operate freely again in 1952. In 1953 he was elected to the House of Lords with great approval. He was a member of the Ryokufu-kai , but illness soon made him politically inactive.

literature

• S. Noma (Ed.): Ugaki Kazushige . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X
• Hunter, Janet: Ugaki Kazushige . In: Concise Dictionary of Modern Japanese History. Kodansha International, 1984. ISBN 4-7700-1193-8 .

Web links

Commons : Kazushige Ugaki  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Newspaper article about Ugaki Kazushige in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

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