Greater East Asia Conference in November 1943, participants left to right: Ba Maw, Zhang Jinghui, Wang Jingwei, Hideki Tojo, Wan Waithayakon, José P. Laurel, Subhas Chandra Bose
Hideki Tojo was a statesman and general of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), the leader of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, and the 27th Prime Minister of Japan during much of World War II, from October 17, 1941, to July 22, 1944.
Background
Hideki Tōjō was born on December 30, 1884 in the Kōjimachi district of Tokyo, Japan. He was the she 3rd son of Lieutenant General Eikyō Tōjō. The Tojo family came from the samurai caste. The Tojo family came from the samurai caste, though the Tojos were relatively lowly warrior retainers for the great daimyōs (lords) that they had served for generations. Tojo's father was a samurai turned Army officer and his mother was the daughter of a Buddhist priest, making his family very respectable, but poor.
Education
Hideki had an education typical of a Japanese youth in the Meiji era. The purpose of the Meiji educational system was to train the boys to be soldiers as adults, and the message was relentlessly drilled into Japanese students that war was the most beautiful thing in the entire world, that the Emperor was a living god and that the greatest honor for a Japanese man was to die for the Emperor.
As a boy, Tojo was known for his stubbornness, for having utterly no sense of humor, for being an opinionated and combative youth fond of getting into fights with the other boys and for his tenacious way of pursuing what he wanted. Japanese schools in the Meiji era were very competitive, and there was no tradition of sympathy with failing; those who did were often bullied by the teachers into committing suicide.
Tojo was of average intelligence, but he was known to compensate for his limited intelligence with a willingness to work extremely hard.
In 1899, Hideki entered the Army Cadet School. When he graduated from the Japanese Military Academy (ranked
10th of 363 cadets) in March 1905, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry of the IJA. He graduated from Military Staff College (1915).
Career
In 1918-1919, Tojo briefly served in Siberia as part of the Japanese expeditionary force sent to intervene in the Russian Civil War. Tojo served as Japanese military attache to Germany between 1919-1922.
In 1924, Tojo was greatly offended by the Immigration Control Act passed by the American Congress banning all Asian immigration into the United States with many Congressmen and Senators openly saying the act was necessary because the Asians worked harder than whites. Tojo wrote with bitterness at the time that American whites would never accept Asians as equals and "It [the Immigration Control Act] shows how the strong will always put their own interests first. Japan, too, has to be strong to survive in the world".
By 1928, he was bureau chief of the Japanese Army and was shortly thereafter promoted to colonel. In 1934, Hideki was promoted to major general and served as Chief of the Personnel Department within the Army Ministry. Tojo was appointed commander of the IJA 24th Infantry Brigade in August 1934. In September 1935, Tojo assumed top command of the Kenpeitai of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria. Tojo was promoted to Chief of staff of the Kwangtung Army in 1937. As chief of staff, Tojo was responsible for the military operations designed to increase Japanese penetration into the Inner Mongolia border regions with Manchukuo. In July 1937, he personally led the units of the 1st Independent Mixed Brigade in Operation Chahar, his only real combat experience.
After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident marking the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Tojo ordered his forces to attack Hebei Province and other targets in northern China. Tojo received Jewish refugees in accordance with Japanese national policy and rejected the resulting Nazi German protests. Tojo was recalled to Japan in May 1938 to serve as Vice-Minister of War under Army Minister Seishirō Itagaki. From December 1938 to 1940, Tojo was Inspector-General of Army Aviation. On 1 June 1940, the Showa Emperor appointed Kōichi Kido, a leading "reform bureaucrat" as the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, making him into the Emperor's leading political advisor and fixer. On July 30, 1940, Hideki Tojo was appointed Army Minister in the second Fumimaro Konoe regime and remained in that post in the third Konoe cabinet.
Tojo continued to hold the position of Army Minister during his term as Prime Minister from October 17, 1941, to July 22, 1944. He also served concurrently as Home Minister from 1941 to 1942, Foreign Minister in September 1942, Education Minister in 1943, and Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1943.
After Japan's unconditional surrender in 1945, U.S. general Douglas MacArthur ordered the arrest of forty alleged war criminals, including Tojo. Five American GIs were sent to serve the arrest warrant. As American soldiers surrounded Hideki's house on September 11, he shot himself in the chest with a pistol but missed his heart. As a result of this experience, the Army had medical personnel present during the later arrests of other accused Japanese war criminals, such as Shimada Shigetarō.
After recovering from his injuries, Tojo was moved to Sugamo Prison. Tojo was tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for war crimes and found guilty of, among other things, waging wars of aggression; war in violation of international law; unprovoked or aggressive war against various nations; and ordering, authorizing, and permitting inhumane treatment of prisoners of war.
Crimes committed by Imperial Japan were responsible for the deaths of millions, some estimate between 3,000,000 and 14,000,000 civilians and prisoners of war through massacre, human experimentation, starvation, and forced labor that was either directly perpetrated or condoned by the Japanese military and government with a significant portion of them occurring during Tojo's rule of the military. One source attributes 5,000,000 civilian deaths to Tojo's rule of the military.
Tojo was sentenced to death on November 12, 1948, and executed by hanging 41 days later on December 23, 1948, a week before his 64th birthday. In his final statement, he apologized for the atrocities committed by the Japanese military and urged the American military to show compassion toward the Japanese people, who had suffered devastating air attacks and the two atomic bombings.
Achievements
Works
book
Essays in time of national emergency
(Tojo wrote a chapter in the book Hijōji kokumin zenshū (E...)
1934
Religion
He was Shinto and Buddhist.
Politics
Politically, he was fascist, nationalist, and militarist, and was nicknamed "Razor" (カミソリ Kamisori), for his reputation of having a sharp and legalistic mind capable of quick decision-making. Tojo was a member of the Tōseiha ("Control") faction in the Army that was opposed by the more radical Kōdōha ("Imperial Way") faction. Both the Tōseiha and the Kōdōha factions were militaristic, fascistic groups that favored a policy of expansionism abroad and dictatorship under the Emperor at home, but differed over the best way of achieving these goals. The Imperial Way faction wanted a coup d'état to achieve a Shōwa Restoration; emphasised "spirit" as the principle war-winning factor; and despite advocating socialist policies at home wanted to invade the Soviet Union. The Control faction, while being willing to use assassination to achieve its goals, was more willing to work within the system to achieve reforms; wanted to create the "national defense state" to mobilize the entire nation before going to war; and, while not rejecting the idea of "spirit" as a war-winning factor also saw military modernization as a war-winning factor; and saw the United States as a future enemy just as much as the Soviet Union.
Views
Like many other Japanese officers, Tojo disliked Western cultural influence in Japan, which was often disparaged as resulting in the ero-guro-nansensu ("eroticism, grotesquerie and nonsense") movement as he complained about such forms of "Western decadence" like young couples holding hands and kissing in public, which were undermining traditional values necessary to uphold the kokutai.
Konoe favored having Germany mediate an end to the Sino-Japanese war, pressuring Britain to end its economic and military support of China even at the risk of war, seeking better relations with both Germany and the United States, and of taking advantage of the changes in the international order caused by Germany's victories in the spring of 1940 to make Japan a stronger power in Asia. Konoe wanted to make Japan the dominant power in East Asia, but he also believed it was possible to negotiate a modus vivendi with the United States under which the Americans would agree to recognize the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere".
Personality
Hideki Tōjō boasted that his only hobby was his work, and he customarily brought home his paperwork to work late into the night, and he refused to have any part in raising his children, which he viewed both as a distraction from his work and a woman's work, having his wife do all the work of taking care of his children. A stern, humorless man, Tojo was known for his brusque manner, his obsession with etiquette, and for his coldness.
Like almost all Japanese officers at the time, Tojo routinely slapped the faces of the men under his command when giving orders, saying that face-slapping was a "means of training" men who came from families that were not part of the samurai caste, and for whom bushido was not second nature.
He began to take an interest in militarist politics during his command of the 8th Infantry Regiment. Reflecting the imagery often used in Japan to describe people in power, Tojo told his officers that they were to be both a "father" and a "mother" to the men under their command. Tojo often visited the homes of the men under his command, assisted his men with personal problems and made loans to officers short of money.
Tojo was a well respected for his work ethic and his ability to handle paperwork, who believed that the Emperor was a living god and favored "direct imperial rule", ensuring that he would faithfully follow any order from the Emperor.
Physical Characteristics:
His height was 1.45 meters.
Connections
In 1909, Hideki married Katsuko Ito, with whom he had three sons (Hidetake, Teruo, and Toshio) and four daughters (Mitsue, Makie, Sachie and Kimie).
The Truth of the Pacific War: Soulful Messages from Hideki Tojo, Japan's Wartime Leader
In this book, we provide you with the material needed to rethink whether or not the perception of World War II by the winners was right, through looking back on history starting with the current world affairs. This is all necessary for us to get a thorough understanding of ongoing confusion in the world and to seek the path of peace, stability and progress of future humankind. The material provided is a new testimony by General Hideki Tojo, who is enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine and who was Japan’s most significant figure in the Pacific War. Furthermore, we have also recorded a testimony by Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers Douglas MacArthur in order to ensure a fair argument.
2014
Warlord: Tojo Against the World
Vilified in the West as the Japanese equivalent of Hitler, Hideki Tojo was in fact cut from very different cloth. Lacking the skills and charisma of a statesman, fueled by no apocalyptic visions, Tojo was an unimaginative soldier whose primary goals were to establish Japan's military strength and serve his emperor. Yet his determination and ambition caused him to participate in the seizure of power when the military took over the government. WWII scholar Hoyt, a resident of Japan, relies on new sources and remarkable insight to show how Tojo and the leaders of Japan's armed forces gained control of the country, but how ambition ultimately proved to be Tojo's undoing.
2001
Tojo
General, minister of war, prime minister, and unrepentant ultranationalist, Hideki Tojo was the most powerful leader in the Japanese government during World War II. The author examines Tojo's life against the backdrop of increasing Japanese militarism - Civil war, political assassinations, and coup d'états - and uses exclusive interviews with Tojo's wife to illuminate the spartan, single - minded, incorruptible personality of the man who chose war rather than succumb to U.S. - induced economic strangulation.
1998
Tojo and Coming of War
This study of Japan's wartime Prime Minister is divided into three main parts: an introductory section on Tojo's early life and prewar career, a second part concerned with the critical period before Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and four concluding chapters dealing with Japan's defeat and the war crimes trials in Tokyo.