Otoya Yamaguchi
Otoya Yamaguchi ( Japanese 山口 二 矢 , Yamaguchi Otoya ; born February 22, 1943 , † November 2, 1960 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese ultra nationalist . On October 12, 1960, at the age of 17, he stabbed the socialist politician Inejiro Asanuma on the open stage with a Yoroi-dōshi (Japanese short sword ) when he was giving a speech in Tokyo's Hibiya Hall in the run-up to the upcoming parliamentary elections. Less than three weeks after the attack, Yamaguchi died of suicide by hanging in his cell in a juvenile detention center. Before, he had written the following words on the wall of his cell with a mixture of tooth powder and water:
“Seven lives for the empire. Long live the emperor. "
(This is a reproduction of a quote from Kusunoki Masashige from the 13th century.)
A photo taken during the speech by the hitherto unknown photographer Yasushi Nagao shows Yamaguchi a few seconds after the fatal attack while pulling back the short sword. The picture was named Press Photo of the Year by World Press Photo in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize in the photography category in 1961 .
The Nobel Prize for Literature Ōe Kenzaburō published the book Seventeen based on Yamaguchi in 1961 .
Web links
- Tv recording of Asanuma's speech with the moments of the attack on YouTube
- Report on the suicide of the attacker on Time.com ( Memento from February 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Yasushi Nagaos award-winning photo of the attack (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ōe Kenzaburō: Seventeen. Two novels. Foxrock Press, New York 2000, ISBN 1-562-01091-3 (Contents: Seventeen and J ).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Yamaguchi, Otoya |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 山口 二 矢 (ja-hani) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese ultra-nationalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 22, 1943 |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 2, 1960 |
| Place of death | Tokyo |