Hideki Tojo is one of the most controversial personalities in Japanese history. It is this man who is most responsible for the actions of the troops of the Land of the Rising Sun during the Second World War. He is recognized by the international tribunal as a war criminal, but at the same time remains for many Japanese the standard to follow. So who was Tojo Hideki really?
early years
Hideki Tojo was born in December 1884 in the small Japanese town of Kojimati near Tokyo. His father, Hidenori Tojo, served as lieutenant general of the emperor’s army. Before the birth of Hideki, the family already had two children, but they died at an early age before the birth of the future leader of Japan.
Given the specifics of his father's occupations, Hideki Tojo's future was a foregone conclusion. He was sent to study at a military academy, which he graduated at 19. It should be noted that Hideki did not shine with knowledge, having the 42nd result in the class among fifty of his peers. Nevertheless, upon graduation, he received the rank of junior infantry lieutenant.
In 1909, Tojio married Katsuko Ito.
Military career
But for Tojo's successful career, it was necessary to continue his education. In 1915 he graduated from the Higher Military Academy. After completing his studies, he received the captain's rank and began to command one of the regiments of the guard of the emperor. He also participated in the intervention against the Bolsheviks in the Far East.
In 1919, Hideki Tojo, as the military representative of Japan, left for Switzerland. He coped with his task in this alpine country perfectly, for which he was awarded the rank of major. But the foreign trips of the future prime minister did not end there. In 1921 he went to Germany.
After returning to his homeland, he taught at a military college for some time.
The next rank of lieutenant colonel Tojo received in 1929.
In the highest military posts
Around the same time, Tojo begins to become seriously interested in politics. He enters the service at the Ministry of War, and since 1931 assumes command of the Japanese regiment in Manchuria. It was he who was one of the initiators of the creation of the puppet state of Manzhou-Guo in the territory of this Chinese province.
In 1933, he was promoted to the rank of Major General Hideki Tojo. At that time, Japan was preparing to begin an active and aggressive foreign policy to turn all of South and East Asia into an object of its influence. Then Tojo received the post of head of the personnel department at the Ministry of Defense.
Already in 1934, he commanded a whole brigade. The following year, Tojio was appointed to the post of chief of the army police in Manchuria, and a year later he began to command the headquarters of the Kwantung Army.
Participation in military operations
Then Japan began to conduct offensive operations in Mongolia. It was Tojo who was commissioned to lead them. He personally took part in the development of plans and in hostilities. In 1937, he was baptized in battle.
In the same year, a full-scale war broke out with China. Tojo led the Hebei attack, which ended successfully.
True, already in the first half of 1938 he was recalled back to Japan, where he took up staff work, taking the post of deputy army minister and at the same time being an aviation inspector.
Minister of War
In 1940, replacing Shunroku Hata, Hideki Tojo became Minister of the Army. His biography after that took a completely different turn. Now he became one of the people who directly led Japan. Since then, the country's internal and especially external political course has become largely dependent on his opinion.
Back in 1936, Japan and Nazi Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact - an alliance aimed at combating the Communist International, which was later joined by several other countries, including Italy. The Minister of War of Japan was a supporter of further expansion of cooperation with Germany, especially in the military sphere. However, this does not mean at all that Hideki Tojo and Hitler had identical views on the vast majority of issues. In many ways, their positions diverged, but at this stage, both politicians could help each other achieve their goals. In 1940, the military alliance of Japan, Germany and Italy finally took shape, after the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin. So the Axis block was formed.
At the same time, Hideki Tojo hoped to the last hope that the USSR would join the union. When Stalin made it clear that he did not intend to join the agreement of Germany, Japan and Italy in the format in which it exists, the representative of the Land of the Rising Sun went to Moscow. Of course, Hideki Tojio also played a significant role in sending this embassy. Kazan, Gorky, Sverdlovsk and other cities of the USSR lay on the path of the ambassador to the capital of the Soviet Union. In the spring of 1941, a bilateral non-aggression treaty was signed. Later, in 1945, it was torn apart by the Soviet Union.
Japan joins World War II
In accordance with the Berlin Pact, Japan was to enter the struggle for hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, which automatically meant entering the Second World War. The main rival of the Japanese were the United States of America.
Thanks to the brilliantly designed plan and the suddenness of the Japanese air attack on the American base at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, most of the US naval forces in the Pacific were destroyed.
Japan in a relatively short time managed to achieve complete military dominance in East Asia, and American troops had to spend a significant amount of time to recover.
Head of the government
Even before the entry of Japan into World War II, Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, who had lost popularity among the people and had confidence in the emperor, was forced to resign in October 1941. Hideki Tojo was invited to take his place. However, he retained the post of Minister of War. In addition, he became Minister of the Interior.
Not a single prime minister of Japan had such a breadth of authority before or after him. This served as a reason for speculation in the future that, supposedly, Hideki Tojo is a dictator. But such an understanding of the significance of the figure of this politician is fundamentally wrong. He really concentrated a considerable amount of power in his hands, which was entirely justified given the martial law, but Tojo did not introduce sole rule, did not interfere in the work of those institutions of power that did not directly concern him, did not change the constitutional system, unlike Hitler and Mussolini, although, if desired, had such an opportunity.
Of course, martial law obliged to take emergency measures to control the political processes in the country, provided for the restriction of certain rights and freedoms of citizens. But similar measures were used in the USA and Great Britain of that time, not to mention Germany or the USSR, where the restrictions reached a scale incomparable with Japan. At the end of the war in Japan there were only about two thousand political prisoners, while in the USSR and Germany this figure was hundreds of times higher.
Resignation
The successes of the Japanese army in the initial stages of the war contributed to the popularity of the prime minister among the people to sky-high limits. But after the restoration of the power of the American fleet, a series of rather impressive defeats followed a series of victories.
The defeat of the Japanese troops at Midway Atoll had the greatest blow to Tojo's image. After that, the opposition and personal opponents of the prime minister raised their heads, and discontent was growing among the people.
In July 1944, Japan suffered another defeat from US troops in the battle for the island of Sailan, after which Tojo was forced to resign.
Court and execution
But the resignation of the prime minister could not fundamentally improve the situation of Japan on the fronts. On the contrary, it only got more complicated. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union entered the war with Japan, although this meant a violation of the bilateral agreements reached in 1941. Finally, the Japanese broke the nuclear bombing by the Americans Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On September 2, 1945, the Emperor of Japan signed an unconditional surrender.
By analogy with the Nuremberg trials, an international trial of Japanese war criminals took place, among which was Hideki Tojo. He was accused of starting wars with a number of countries, of violating international law and of war crimes. The former prime minister was forced to fully admit his guilt.
In November 1948, the court pronounced the death sentence of Hideki Tojo. The execution took place in December of that year.
Personality assessment
Until now, Hideki Tojo is regarded by the world community as a war criminal and the main initiator of the outbreak of war in Asia. Many Japanese blame him for actions that led to military defeat and the destruction of the country's economy.
However, there are people who believe the sentence for Hideki Tojo is unfair. They argue that in the circumstances, drawing Japan into the war was an inevitable occurrence, and Tojo turned out to be just a man who led the country at that difficult time and was forced to make decisions according to circumstances. According to such people, in those war crimes that were actually committed by the Japanese troops, Tojo did not personally participate or even sanction them.
In any case, whatever the role of the Prime Minister in the events of those years, the name of Hideki Tojo is forever written in the tablet of Japanese history. Photos of this politician can be seen above.