"It Goes without saying that when survival is threatened, struggles erupt between peoples, and unfortunate wars between nations result"
Tojo Hideki
Tojo Hideki
Dec. 30, 1884 - Dec. 23, 1948 |
Tojo Hideki Japanese Military Leader: (See: Militarism)
Tojo's activity around the World War II: March 1937 – Tojo Hideki was named the chief of staff of Japanese Kwantung Army in China May 1938 - Tojo Hideki stepped down as the chief of staff of Japanese Kwantung Army in China July 1940 - Tojo Hideki was appointed the Army Minister October 1941 - Tojo Hideki was named 40th Prime Minister of Japan November 1941 - Prime Minister Tojo Hideki rejected the American counter-proposal for peace July 1944 - Tojo Hideki submitted his letter of resignation for his position as the Prime Minister of Japan September 1945 - Former Japanese Prime Minister Tojo Hideki failed in his suicide November 1945 - Former Japanese Prime Minister Tojo Hideki was sentenced to death by hanging Tojo's background and rise to power: Tojo Hideki - Japanese war leader, who graduated from two military institutions, Military Staff College and the Imperial Military Academy, briefly served in Germany after WWI. Soon after his service in Europe he was placed as a commander of an Infantry Regiments. His rigorous and disciplinary methods helped him move up the military and political ranks. He was detail oriented in his bureaucratic achievements and was aggressively pushing military perspective while he was the war minister. He was referred to as “Razor Tôjô”. He used his political positons to improve Japanese fighting skills and military units, he managed to do so despite civilian opposition. He played major roles in the invasion on China and continued advocating for further expansion over the Asian continent. Tojo during the war: By 1937 he was named the chief of staff of the army in Manchuria, and by the 1939 he became the vice-minister and a year later the minister of war. In addition, Tojo was a strong supporter of the military intervention in South East Asia and after becoming the prime minister he started a “New Order in Asia” program. Upon assuming his new position he retained all of his previous political positions in an effort to control the government and directly oversee the ministry of war and the industry. Upon assuming his position as the prime minister he pushed for alliance with the Axis. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the following numerous campaigns in the Pacific were executed under his approval. During the war, he continued to take over additional political positions and applying his militaristic doctrine to the posts. He became actively involved in both domestic and foreign affairs. In addition, he took on direct commands of some of army’s affairs. He continued to spread militarism and eventually assumed a near dictatorship position. Even though Tojo was almost in complete control of the government he was never able to assume full dictatorship like Stalin or Hitler. With his military background and the ability to assume multiple political positions he was able to restructure Japanese political structure to militarism. However, this model did not last for very long. After the US started taking the upper hand in the Pacific war, his government’s influence got significantly undermined and by July, 18 1944 his entire cabinet resigned. After the Japan’s surrender, Tojo, along with other military leaders, was tried and sentenced to death for wartime crimes. Despite his crimes, and civilian protests, he was later included in the Yasukuni Shrine Memorial. |