Matsuoka Yosuke

Matsuoka Yōsuke, photo from 1933

Matsuoka Yōsuke ( Japanese 松岡 洋 右 ; born March 3, 1880 in Kumage-gun (today: Murotsumi, Hikari ); † June 26, 1946 in Tokyo ) was Foreign Minister of Japan in the cabinet of Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro .

Life

After his youth in Japan Matsuoka traveled to the United States and studied at the University of Oregon law . He graduated with success in 1900.

Matsuoka was a devout Christian and eagerly attended the Bible studies offered at the college . He also claimed to have met the Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan .

After Matsuoka returned to Japan, he took up a position in the foreign service . He stayed there for eighteen years and subsequently became President of the South Manchurian Railway.

For the first time Matsuoka Yosuke came into the field of vision of the world when he announced Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933 and led his delegation out of the meeting room. This happened because the federal Lytton Commission had heavily criticized the Japanese actions in Manchukuo .

In 1940 the newly elected Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro appointed him to his cabinet as Foreign Minister. Matsuoka was a big proponent of an alliance with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy , whose powerful support he saw as the perfect balance against the United States. Therefore, Matsuoka was one of the most active initiators of the Tripartite Pact of 1940.

In April 1941 he signed the Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact in Moscow . After Germany attacked the USSR on June 22, 1941 ( German-Soviet War ), Adolf Hitler suggested to Matsuoka at a meeting that Japan should take part in a second front in the east. Matsuoka was very pleased with this request and began to press Prime Minister Konoe and the leadership of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy about it. But the army and navy, as well as the government, decided to concentrate first on targets in the Southeast Asian region.

Despite all adversity, Matsuoka Yosuke stayed with his opinion, which he continued to represent in public. His diplomatic approach towards the USA became more and more daring, as he suspected that they wanted to force a war on Japan. Konoe, who, on the contrary, was interested in a peaceful solution, decided together with the military leadership to part with Matsuoka. When the entire cabinet resigned in July 1941, this also affected Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke. Konoe, who was immediately charged with forming a government again, then renounced a reinstatement of Matsuoka. The new foreign minister was Admiral Toyoda Teijirō .

Matsuoka Yōsuke was taken prisoner by the Americans in 1945 and was charged with war crimes in the Tokyo trials in 1945 . But before his case could be heard, Matsuoka died on June 26, 1946.

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  Matsuoka and Adolf Hitler on a visit to Berlin in March 1941.

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  Matsuoka in conversation with Wilhelm Keitel and Heinrich Georg Stahmer (far left Hans Heinrich Lammers ) at a reception given by Ōshima Hiroshi in Berlin on March 28, 1941.

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  On the way back from his visit to Germany in Moscow, Matsuoka signs the Japanese-Soviet neutrality pact in the presence of Stalin and Foreign Minister Molotov .

Works

• An address on Manchuria ,: Its past and present , 1929.
• Japan's interests, rights and responsibilities in the Far East , Japanese Chamber of Commerce of New York, 1934.

See also

• German-Japanese relations

literature

• David J. Lu, Agony of Choice: Matsuoka Yosuke and the Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1880-1946 , Lexington Books, 2003, ISBN 978-0739104583 .

Web links

• Newspaper article about Matsuoka Yōsuke 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, Matsuoka is the family name, Yōsuke the first name.