Hirohito
Emperor Hirohito of Japan (
Japanese: 裕仁) (
April 29,
1901 –
January 7,
1989) was the 124th
Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from
1926 to
1989. Since his death he has been known as in
Japan, the posthumous name given to him by order of the Japanese cabinet dated January 13, 1989. Although he is widely referred to as Hirohito, or Emperor Hirohito outside of Japan, past emperors are only referred to in Japan by their posthumous names. His reign was the longest of any historical Japanese emperor, and he oversaw many significant changes to Japanese society.
Born in the Aoyama Palace in
Tokyo, Hirohito was the first son of the
Crown Prince Yoshihito and then-
Crown Princess Sadako. His childhood title was . He became heir apparent upon the death of his grandfather,
Emperor Meiji, on
July 30,
1912. His formal investiture as Crown Prince took place on
November 2,
1916.
He attended the boy's department of
Gakushuin Peer's School from
1908 to
1914 and then a special institute for the Crown Prince (Tōgū-gogakumonsho) from
1914 to
1921. On
November 29,
1921, he became
regent of
Japan, in place of his ailing father. In
1922, Prince Regent Hirohito took a six month tour of the
United Kingdom and five other
European countries (
France;
Italy,
Vatican City;
the Netherlands; and
Belgium) thus becoming the first Japanese crown prince to travel abroad.
He married his distant cousin Princess
Nagako, the eldest daughter of
Prince Kuni Kuniyoshi, on
January 26,
1924. There were seven children from the marriage:#Princess Teru (
Teru no miya Shigeko), b.
December 9,
1925, d.
July 23,
1961; m.
October 10 1943 Prince Morihiro (b.
May 6,
1916, d.
February 1,
1969), the eldest son of
Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko and his wife, Princess Toshiko, the eighth daughter of Emperor Meiji; lost status as imperial family members,
October 14,
1947.#Princess Hisa (
Hisa no miya Sachiko), b.
September 10,
1927, d.
March 8,
1928.#Princess Taka (
Taka no miya Kazuko), b.
September 30,
1929, d.
May 26,
1989; m.
May 5,
1950 Mr. Toshimichi Takatsukasa (b.
August 26,
1923, d.
January 27,
1966), eldest son of Nobusuke Takatsukasa [peer].#Princess Yori (
Yori no miya Atsuko), b.
March 7,
1931; m.
October 10,
1952 Mr. Takamasa Ikeda (b.
October 21,
1927), eldest son of former Marquis Nobumasa Ikeda.#
Crown Prince Akihito (now HM The Emperor), b.
December 23,
1933; m.
April 10,
1959 Miss
Michiko Shoda (b.
October 20,
1934), elder daughter of Mr. Hidesaburo Shoda, former president and chairman of Nisshin Flour Milling Company.#
Prince Hitachi (
Hitachi no miya Masahito), b.
November 28,
1935; m.
October 30,
1964 Miss Hanako Tsugaru (b.
July 19,
1940), fourth daughter of former Count Yoshitaka Tsugaru.#Princess Suga (
Suga no miya Takako), b.
March 2,
1939; m.
March 3,
1960 Mr. Hisanaga Shimazu, son of former Count Hisanori Shimazu.
|
Hirohito, pictured on the cover of the American newsmagazine Time, on the occasion of his coronation. |
On
December 25,
1926, upon the death of his father Yoshihito, he succeeded to the throne and a new era
Shōwa (Enlightened Peace) was proclaimed. He was
crowned emperor on
November 10,
1928 in
Kyoto. The new emperor had the distinction of being the first Japanese monarch in several hundred years whose biological mother was his predecessor's official wife.
The first part of Hirohito's reign as sovereign (between
1926 and
1945) took place against a background of increasing military power within the government, through both legal and extralegal means. The
Imperial Japanese Army and
Imperial Japanese Navy had held
veto power over the formation of cabinets since
1900, and between
1921 and
1944 there were no fewer than 64 incidents of right-wing political violence.
One notable case was the assassination of moderate
Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi in
1932, which marked the end of any real
civilian control of the military. This was followed by an attempted
military coup in February
1936, mounted by junior Army officers; it was occasioned by a loss of ground by the militarist faction in
Diet elections. The coup resulted in the murder of a number of high government and Army officials, and was put down with Hirohito angrily assuming a major role in confronting them.
Still, from the
1930s on, the military clique held almost all political power in Japan, and pursued policies that eventually led Japan to fight the
second Sino-Japanese War and
World War II.
Many people in China, Taiwan, Korea and Southeast Asia see Hirohito as the mastermind behind the atrocities committed by the imperial forces in World War II, and some feel he, and some members of the imperial family such as princes
Chichibu,
Takeda,
Kan'in,
Asaka,
Fushimi and
Higashikuni, should have been tried for
war crimes. Because of this, many Asians residing in countries that were subject to Japanese invasion retain a hostile attitude towards the
Japanese imperial family.
The central question is how much real control Hirohito had over the Japanese military during the two wars. The view promoted by both the Japanese Imperial Palace and the American occupation forces immediately after World War II had Hirohito as a powerless
figurehead behaving strictly according to protocol, remaining at a distance from the decision-making processes.
However, many historians such as Akira Fujiwara (
Shôwa tennô no jû-go nen sensô, 1991) and Peter Wetzler (
Hirohito and war, 1998), based on the primary sources and the monumental work of Shirô Hara (1), have produced evidence suggesting that the emperor worked through intermediaries to exercise a great deal of control over the military and was not a bellicist, certainly not a pacifist but an opportunist who governed in a pluralistic decision-making process. For
Herbert Bix he may even have been the prime mover of most of the events of the two wars. All these historians argue that the traditional view focus only on the rare imperial conferences and omit the numerous "behind the chrysanthemum curtain" meetings where the real decisions where made between the emperor and his chiefs of staff.
The primary sources, such as the general Sugiyama's memo and the postwar diaries of Kido and Konoe, describe in detail the many informal meetings Hirohito had with his chiefs of staff and ministers. These documents show that the emperor was not only kept informed of all the military operations but that he frequently questionned his staff, asking for changes.
Prior to what is formally known as "World war II", Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and the rest of China in 1937 (the
Second Sino-Japanese War). The primary sources reveal that Hirohito never really had any objection to the invasion of China in 1937, which was recommended to him by his chiefs of staff and prime minister
Fumimaro Konoe. His main concern seems to have been the possibility of an attack by the Soviets in the north and his questions to his chief of staff
prince Kan'in and minister of the army
Sugiyama were mostly about the time it could take to crush the Chinese resistance.
According to Akira Fujiwara, Hirohito even personally ratified the proposition of his army to remove the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisonners on August 5 (Fujiwara,
Nitchû sensô ni okeru horyo gyakusatsu, Kikan sensô sekinin kenkyû 9, 1995, p.22). More, the works of Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno, show that he authorized by specific orders (rinsanmei) the use of chemical weapons against the Chinese (
Dokugasusen kankei shiryô II, Kaisetsu, 1997, p.25-29). For example, during the invasion of Wuhan, from August to October 1938, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions (Yoshimi and Matsuno, ibid. p.28) despite the resolution adopted by the League of nations on May 14 condemning the use of toxic gas by the japanese army.
During
World War II, under Hirohito's leadership, Japan formed
alliances with
Nazi Germany and
Fascist Italy, forming the
Axis Powers. Hirohito, who had a predilection for England, was at first reluctant to this alliance. In july 1939, he even had a bad quarrel on this subject with one of his brother,
prince Chichibu, who was visiting him three times a week to support the treaty, and reprimanded the army minister Itagaki (Shôwa monologue, p.106-108, Wetzler,
Hirohito and war, p.25, 231) but he finally gave his consent after the success met by the
Wermacht in Europe.
On
September 4,
1941, the Japanese Cabinet met to consider the war plans prepared by Imperial General Headquarters, and decided that:
Our Empire, for the purpose of self-defence and self-preservation, will complete preparations for war ... [and is] ... resolved to go to war with the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands if necessary. Our Empire will concurrently take all possible diplomatic measures vis-a-vis the United States and Great Britain, and thereby endeavor to obtain our objectives ... In the event that there is no prospect of our demands being met by the first ten days of October through the diplomatic negotiations mentioned above, we will immediately decide to commence hostilities against the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. |
The young Emperor in his coronation robes 1926 |
The "objectives" to be obtained were clearly defined: a free hand to continue with the conquest of
China and
Southeast Asia, no increase in US or British military forces in the region, and cooperation by the West "in the acquisition of goods needed by our Empire".
On
September 5, Prime Minister
Konoe informally submitted a draft of the decision to the Emperor, just one day in advance of the Imperial Conference at which it would be formally implemented. On this evening, Hirohito had a meeting with chief of staff of the army Sugiyama, chief of staff of the navy Nagano and Konoe. The emperor then questionned Sugiyama about the chances of success of an open war with the Occident. As Sugiyama answered positively, Hirohito scolded him : «-At the time of the China incident, the army told me that we could make Chiang surrender after three months but you still can't beat him even today! Sugiyama, you were minister at the time.-China is a vast area with many ways in and ways out, and we met unexpectedly big difficulties.-You say the interior of China is huge; isn't the Pacific Ocean even bigger than China? Didn't I caution you each time about those matters? Sugiyama, are you lying to me?»(Conversation in Bix,
Hirohito and the making of modern Japan, p.411, 745)
Chief of Naval General Staff Admiral
Osami Nagano, a former Navy Minister and vastly experienced, later told a trusted colleague "I have never seen the Emperor reprimand us in such a manner, his face turning red and raising his voice."
According to the traditional view, Hirohito was deeply concerned by the decision to place "war preparations first and diplomatic negotiations second" and announced his intention to break with and, at the Imperial Conference on the following day, directly question the chiefs of the Army and Navy general staffs — a quite unprecedented action.
Nevertheless, all speakers at the Imperial Conference were united in favour of war rather than diplomacy. Baron
Yoshimichi Hara, President of the Imperial Council and the Emperor's representative, then questioned them closely, producing replies to the effect that war would only be considered as a last resort from some, and silence from others.
At this point, the sovereign astonished all present by addressing the conference personally, and in breaking the tradition of Imperial silence left his advisors "struck with awe". (Prime Minister Konoe's description of the event.) Emperor Hirohito stressed the need for peaceful resolution of international problems, expressed regret at his ministers' failure to respond to Baron Hara's probings, and recited a poem written by his grandfather,
Emperor Meiji which, he said, he had read "over and over again":
Methinks all the people of the world are brethren, then.:
Why are the waves and the wind so unsettled nowadays?Recovering from their shock, the ministers hastened to express their profound wish to explore all possible peaceful avenues.
At this time, Army Imperial Headquarter was continuously communicating with the throne in detail about the military situation. On 8 October, Sugiyama signed a 47 pages report to the Emperor (sôjôan) outlining in minute detail plans for the advance in Southeat Asia (Wetzler,
Hirohito and war, p.52-54).
As the war preparations continued, however, Konoe found himself more and more isolated and gave his demission on October 16. The army and the navy recommended at this point the candidacy of
prince Higashikuni, one of the emperor's uncles. According to the Shôwa "monologue" p.118, written after the war, the Emperor then said that if the war were to begin while a member of the imperial house was prime minister, the imperial house would have to carry the responsibility and this he opposed.
He thus choose the hard line General
Hideki Tojo, who was known for his devotion to the imperial institution and asked him to make a policy review of what had been sanctioned by the imperial conferences. On November 2, Tôjô, Sugiyama and Nagano reported to the emperor that the review of eleven points had been in vain. Hirohito gave his consent to the war and then asked :«Are you going to provide justification for the war?» (Bix, ibid p.421, Wetzler, ibid. p.47-50.)
On November 3, Nagano explained in detail the Pearl Harbor attack plan to the emperor. (Wetzler, ibid p.35. )On the 15th Hirohito was shown the full war plan and had many meetings with the military and Tôjô until the end of the month. On December 1, an imperial conference finally sanctioned the "War against the United states, England and Holland". On
December 8 (
December 7 in Hawaii)
1941, in simultaneous attacks, Japanese forces struck at the US Fleet in
Pearl Harbor and began the
invasion of South-East Asia. From here, there was no turning back.
Whatever his actual involvement leading up to hostilities, with the nation now fully committed to the war, Emperor Hirohito took a keen interest in military progress and sought to boost morale. At first, the news was all good. As the tide of war gradually began to turn (around late
1942 and early
1943), some people argue that the flow of information to the palace gradually began to bear less and less relation to reality, while others suggest that the emperor worked closely with Prime Minister Tojo, continued to be well and accurately briefed by the military, and knew Japan's military position precisely right up to the point of surrender. The chief of staff of the General Affairs section of the Prime minister's office, Shuichi Inada, remarked to Tôjô's private secretary, Sadao Akamatsu that «there has never been a cabinet in which the prime minister, and all the ministers, reported so often to the throne. In order to effect the essence of genuine direct imperial rule and to relieve the concerns of the emperor, the ministers reported to the throne matters within the scope of their responsibilities as per the prime minister's directives... In times of intense activities, typed drafts were presented to the emperor with corrections in red. First draft, second draft, final draft and so forth, came as deliberations progressed one after the other and were sanctioned accordingly by the emperor.» (Akamatsu's diary, in Wetzler, ibid. p.50)
In the first six months of war, all the major engagements had been victories. Throughout the following years, the sequence of drawn and then decisively lost engagements was also reported to the public as a series of great victories. Only gradually did it become apparent to the people in the home islands that the situation was very grim. U.S. air raids on the cities of Japan starting in
1944 made a mockery of the unending tales of victory. Later that year, with the downfall of Hideki Tojo's government, two other prime ministers were appointed to continue the war effort,
Kuniaki Koiso and
Kantaro Suzuki - again, with at least the formal approval of Hirohito, but whether he agreed with their policies is still disputed. Both were unsuccessful and Japan was nearing defeat.
In early
1945, in the wake of the loss of
Leyte, the Emperor began a series of individual meetings with senior government officials to consider the progress of the war. All but one advised continuing. The exception was ex-Prime Minister
Fumimaro Konoe, who feared a
communist revolution even more than defeat and urged a negotiated surrender. According to some accounts, Hirohito apparently took the view that peace was essential, but that the armed forces would have to engineer a conspicuous military victory somewhere in order to provide a stronger bargaining position. With each passing week this became less likely. In April the
Soviet Union issued notice that it would not renew its neutrality agreement. Japan's ally
Germany surrendered in early May 1945. In June, the cabinet reassessed the war strategy, only to decide more firmly than ever on a fight to the last man. This was officially affirmed at a brief Imperial Council meeting, to which the Emperor listened in stone-faced silence.
The following day, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
Koichi Kido prepared a draft document which summarised the hopeless military situation and proposed a negotiated settlement. According to some sources, the Emperor privately approved of it and authorised Kido to circulate it discreetly amongst the less hawkish cabinet members; others suggest that the Emperor was indecisive, and that the mixed signals from the palace may have delayed the peace process, costing many tens of thousands of Japanese and Allied lives. By mid-June the cabinet had agreed to approach the Soviet Union to act as a mediator, though not before the bargaining position had been improved by a repulse of the coming Allied invasion of mainland Japan.
On
June 22, Hirohito met his ministers, saying "I desire that concrete plans to end the war, unhampered by existing policy, be speedily studied and that efforts be made to implement them." The attempt to negotiate a peace via the Soviet Union came to nothing: the Allies were determined not to settle for anything short of
unconditional surrender, and as late as July
1945 the Japanese government was not prepared to consider that option: they insisted on at least one condition, a guarantee of the emperor's continuing position in Japanese society.
 |
General MacArthur and The Emperor |
On
August 15,
1945, following the
atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the
entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan, Hirohito, after more hesitation, abandoned the condition of preserving his own position and finally made the radio broadcast announcing the unconditional surrender of Japan's military forces (known as
Gyokuon-hōsō). The broadcast exhorted the Japanese to "accept the unacceptable" in surrender. It was the first time the public had ever heard the Emperor's voice. He was purposely vague, because the Emperor of Japan clearly could not be regarded merely as a human saying "We surrender to the Americans"; he had to be viewed as the godly leader of Japan, so when he said "accept the unacceptable", most people sitting by the radio didn't know what he meant. Even if they had known, there was a clear difference between standard Japanese speech and the emperor's own lexicon. He used in this broadcast, according to historian Richard Storry in
A History of Modern Japan, "a form of language familiar only to the well-educated".
As Hirohito finally choose his uncle prince
Higashikuni as prime minister to negotiate the occupation, there were attempts by numerous leaders, among them
President Harry S. Truman, to have him put on trial for alleged
war crimes. U.S. General
Douglas MacArthur insisted that Hirohito remain Emperor to keep him as a symbol of the continuity and cohesion of the Japanese people. Hirohito was spared trial and retained the throne, but Hirohito was forced to explicitly reject (in the ) the traditional claim that the Emperor of Japan was divine, and a descendant of the
Sun Goddess.
According to the
Japanese constitution of 1889, Hirohito had a divine power over his country, which was derived from the mythology of the Japanese Imperial Family who were said to be the offspring of the creator of Japan,
Amaterasu. The imperial title was thus transformed from 'imperial sovereign' to '
constitutional monarch' in
1946. Immediately after Hirohito's repudiation of divinity, he asked the occupation authorities for permission to worship the Sun Goddess. Some have seen this as an implicit reaffirmation of the claim to divine status; others have seen it as simply an expression of Hirohito's personal religious beliefs, with no political or social implications.
Although Hirohito was forced to reject any claims to his own divine status, his status was deliberately left vague, partly because General MacArthur thought him likely to be a useful tool to get the Japanese to accept the occupation, and partly due to behind-the-scenes maneuverings by
Shigeru Yoshida to thwart MacArthur's attempts at casting Hirohito as a European-style monarch. While Hirohito was usually seen as a
head of state, there is still a broad dispute about whether he became a mere citizen or something else. Many scholars claim that today's
tennō (usually translated
Emperor of Japan in English) is not an
emperor. See the "
Emperor of Japan" article for discussion of the position of Emperor of Japan.
For the rest of his life, Hirohito was an active figure in Japanese life, and performed many of the duties commonly associated with a constitutional
head of state. The emperor and his family maintained a strong public presence, often holding public walkabouts, and making public appearances on special events and holidays. He also played an important role in rebuilding Japan's diplomatic image, traveling abroad to meet with many foreign leaders, including numerous American presidents and Queen
Elizabeth II. In 1975, Hirohito and his wife were honored guests at
Colonial Williamsburg in
Virginia, the first such visit by Japanese royalty.
Hirohito was deeply interested in and well-informed about
marine biology, and the
Imperial Palace contained a laboratory from which Hirohito published several papers in the field. His contributions include the description of several dozen species of
jellyfish new to science.
On
September 22,
1987, Hirohito underwent surgery on his pancreas after having digestive problems for several months. This was the very first time a Japanese Emperor underwent surgery. The doctors discovered that he had
duodenal cancer, but in accordance with Japanese tradition, they did not tell him. Hirohito seemed to be recovering well for several months after his surgery. About a year later, however, on
September 19,
1988, he collapsed in his palace, and his health worsened over the next several months as he suffered from continuous internal bleeding. On
January 7,
1989, at 6:33 AM, Hirohito died. At 7:55 AM, the grand steward of Japan's Imperial Household Agency, Shoichi Fujimori, officially announced the Emperor's death, and revealed details about his cancer for the first time. Upon his death, he was renamed Emperor Showa (
Shōwa Tennō), after the era during which he ruled. His posthumous name was determined on
January 13 and formally released on
January 31 by Japanese prime minister. (From
January 7 until
January 31, the formal appellation of Hirohito was "Taikō Tennō(大行天皇)", which means the departed emperor.) On
February 24, Emperor Showa's funeral was held, and unlike that of his predecessor, it was not done in a strictly
Shinto manner, and a number of world leaders attended it. He is buried in the Imperial mausoleum in
Hachioji, alongside other past emperors.
Yasukuni Shrine
Although largely refraining from becoming involved in the politics surrounding
Yasukuni Jinja, Hirohito maintained an official boycott of the controversial monument from
1978, when it was revealed to him that wartime Prime Minister
Hideki Tojo was being honored there, until the time of his death.
This boycott has been maintained by his son
Akihito, who has also refused to worship at Yasukuni since
1978.
*
Fumimaro Konoe*
Gyokuon-hōsō*
Hideki Tojo*
Japanese nationalism*
Shōwa period*
Tanaka Memorial*
World War II*
Imperial Japan(1)Former member of section 20 of War operations of the Army high command, Hara has made a detailed study of the way military decisions were made, including the emperor's involvement published in 5 volumes in 1973-74 under the title
Daihon'ei senshi.
* Mosley, Leonard
Hirohito, Emperor of Japan, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1966. ISBN 1111755396 ISBN 1199997609 - The first full-length biography, it gives his basic story.
* Hoyt, Edwin P.
Hirohito: The Emperor and the Man, Praeger Publishers, 1992. ISBN 0275940691
* Behr, Edward
Hirohito: Behind the Myth, Villard, New York, 1989. - A controversial book that posited that Hirohito had a more active role in WWII than had publicly been portrayed; it contributed to the re-appraisal of his role.
* Bix, Herbert P.
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, HarperCollins, 2000. ISBN 006019314X - A recent scholarly (and copiously sourced) look at the same issue.
* Wetzler, Peter
Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan, University of Hawaii Press, 1998. ISBN 082481925X
* Kawahara, Toshiaki
Hirohito and His Times: A Japanese Perspective, Kodansha International, 1997. ISBN 0870119796 (Japanese standard image)
*
Hirohito, Emperor @A Trivial Encyclopedia of Japan (with links in multiple languages)
*
Kunaicho | Emperor Showa
