Hist 199 Bix article on "War Responsibility"

The preface to this article outlines the new materials that historians have had at their disposal since the death of Hirohito such as Oral Histories, Women's Histories, studies of POWs, International law scholarship--all of which have widened the perspective of Japanese historians. Bix is among them and what follows is his assessment based on some of these new materials.

 

 

 

 

I. Hirohito: Japan's Last Empowered Emperor

 

 

Tremendous costs of WWII:

--10 million Chinese

--3.1 million Japanese.

The individual who oversaw all this carnage was Emperor Hirohito. He was the young, dynamic new monarch who, like his grandfather the Meiji Emperor, was expected to reinvigorate the monarchy. When he was enthroned in 1926 it helped to move Japan in a more nationalistic direction.  His subjects were presumed and required to be absolutely loyal in assisting him from below. 

 

So, Bix argues against the idea that Hirohito was a hapless monarch, powerless to resist the actions of his subordinates. If the emperor was really so "sacred and inviolable," is it possible that he could have exercised so little influence on events unfolding around him?

 

Since childhood, he had been taught that his ancestors, not his living “subjects” were the source of his authority and the object of his responsibility – the sole entities to whom he was morally accountable.  Note how in his Radio Broadcast accepting the Terms of the Potsdam Declaration Hirohito posed the question:

How are we to save the millions of our subjects, or to atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our imperial ancestors? This is the reason why we have ordered the acceptance of the joint declaration.

 

So, it was about "saving our subjects" and "atoning before the hallowed spirits of our Imperial Ancestors."

And as his speech was drawing to a close, he added:

Having been able to save and maintain the structure of the Imperial State, we are always with you, our good and loyal subjects, relying on your sincerity and your integrity.

As John Dower points out, reassuring (and atoning to) the "Imperial Ancestors," along with preserving "the structure of the Imperial State" seem to be the Emperor's primary concerns.

Dower goes on to say:

Japan had initiated open war against China in the emperor's name. From that time on, Hirohito had appeared in public only in the bemedalled militarty garb of commander in chief....Now, three years and eight months later, his task was not merely to call a halt to a lost war, but to do so without disavowing Japan's war aims or acknowledging the nation's atrocities--and in a manner that divorced him from any personal responsibility for these many years of aggression....The emperor never spoke explicitly of either "surrender" or "defeat."

He had explained,

[I declared war on America and Great Britain to protect the Japanese people and to bring peace and stability to the East Asian region. I did not declare war to infringe on the rights of other nations, or to expand Japanese territory.]

Not everyone would agree with that part of the Declaration!

 

Bix argues, then, that Hirohito was positioned at the intersection of politics and military affairs.  The Meiji Constitution granted him great power ad authority which could not be restricted by the political parties in the Diet.

The following are a series of events over which he could have exercised some authority or oversight in the 1920s-1930s:

 

1. In 1928, eager to assert the prerogatives of imperial power, he supported the firing of PM Tanaka Giichi because Tanaka wanted to punish the Young Officers who had assassinated Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin rather than have their crimes hushed up.  So Hirohito backed the side of the insubordinate militarists.

2. Manchurian Incident in 1931. Hirohito accepted the Manchurian Incident as fait accompli rather than seeking punishment for the instigators and planners.  He failed to discipline the military in general and the army field commanders in particular allowing them to effectively highjack Japan’s China Policy and turn it openly aggressive. 

 

3. In 1932, following the assassination of the last civilian or Party Prime Minister, Inukai Tsuyoshi, by young naval officers, Hirohito and the Court Group abandoned their support for constitutional government thereby quickening the militaristic drift in Japanese politic.

4. Also in 1932, when the Japanese government recognized puppet state of Manzhuguo, he violated both the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) and Nine Power Treaty (1922). 

 

5. In 1933, in a gesture of support for what the military leadership was doing, Hirohito accepted Japan's withdrawal from League of Nations. 

6. In 1935, he never objected to the nationwide campaign to attack law professor Minobe Tatsukichi and his Organ Theory of government.

 

7. He cooperated in the rhetoric of a "National Emergency," although in the Feb. 26, 1936 Incident [aka, 2-26 or the Ni-Ni-Roku Incindent], when an attempted coup d’etat by the Army killed some of Hirohito’s close advisers, he did object.

Prime Minister OKADA Narrowly escaped with his life, but Home Minister SAITO Makoto, Finance Minister TAKAHASHI Korekiyo, and Army Inspector General of Military Training WATANABE Jotaro were all killed.

The "Young Officers" were following the ideas of Kita Ikki, a radical who proposed that the military should seize power, suspend the Constitution, and take over the government. (See short 6-min Video on Kita) Emperor Hirohito was angered and offended by the young officer leaders of the coup who kept claiming they were his, or "the emperor's loyal troops." 

 

8. In July 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Hirohito supported the territorial expansionists again.  When thousands of troops were dispatched, he sanctioned broad Japanese military offensives in the Beijing and Tientsin area. 

9. Then, when the war spread to Shanghai, Hirohito sanctioned strategic bombing of Chinese cities and more troop dispatches to end the war quickly.  Soon, an all out, undeclared state of war existed in China.  On his watch.

10. In July 1937, after the bombing of Shanghai, the Japanese army took Nanking and an Imperial Headquarters was established there.  Pursuing Chinese Nationalist troops disguised as civilians widespread murder, rape and abuse of civilians followed for six weeks, this assault becoming known as the Rape of Nanking. Hirohito never ordered an investigation of the criminal behavior of Japanese troops. Could he have not known about this? As many as 200,000 maybe even 300,00 Chinese citizens were killed and murdered in a most callous and brutal manner. These were War Crimes!

 

11. In 1940 Hirohito approved the dispatch of Japanese troops into Indochina, expanding the War in what was called "the Move south."  the US responded with embargoes and economic sanctions.

 

12. Dec, 8, 1941, Japan attacked the US and the UK without prior notification which was a violation of International Law.  PM Konoe gave Emperor chance to hold off on this attack but he declined the offer. 

 

Bix's Conclusion:

Hirohito bore the strongest share of political, legal, and moral responsibility for events like these described above. He participated in the framing of the China war as a "Holy War."  He did nothing to stop bringing emperor worship to a fever pitch.

By September 1944 he knew Japan would have to accept a negotiated settlement, but he delayed surrender in order to preserve the Throne with him on it! 

At every stage, he was free to chose alternative actions rather than accept the thinking of his military commanders, but from then until mid-1945, whenever confronted with the option of peace, he chose war. 

 

II. Why Hirohito was Not Tried

During the crucial transition period of the first few weeks after surrender, Hirohito and his band were free to destroy documents and records as they chose.  The materials they destroyed pertained to:

--atrocities

--massacres

--the "comfort women" system of sexual slavery

--the mistreatment of war prisoners

--experiments on live Chinese subjects by Unit 731 conducting research on bacteriological warfare.

--the promotion of Yasukuni Shrine and an enhanced emperor's role leading up to WWII. 

 

Instead, they shifted blame to army leaders while maintaining that the emperor and people had done nothing wrong except be mislead by bad military leaders.  The long war had impoverished the nation and produced a leveling of social classes; there were fears that the japense people might rise up in opposition.

The surrender speech a huge factor, too.  The idea of the so-called "sacred decision” was promoted, making Hirohito a savior of his people (and the whole world?), while the words defeat or surrender never used.

 

MacArthur went to extraordinary lengths to shield Hirohito: For example, for the Tokyo War Crimes trials, no one could mention “Head of State,” which departed from the Nuremberg Model where it was specified in the Charter that:

The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

[At the trial, Tojo’s testimony was interrupted when "He claimed that he was fulfilling his duty as a soldier and a leader, and that he was following orders from Emperor Hirohito," so that he could change his story and omit any reference to the Sovereign from his testimony.]

Hirohito was complicit in shifting all blame for the war and atrocities onto his subordinates.  Occupation-sponsored myths that Hirohito was a moderate, a man of peace, but surrounded by bad advisers and aggressive militarists helped strengthen a sense of "Victim Consciousness" among Japanese and impede the search for the truth.

If the individual who stood at the apex of the prewar political system was not responsible for what happened, how could ordinary Japanese feel that they were?

 

 

III. War Remembrance: The Endless Search for Truth and Justice

 

Can’t blame Hirohito for everything any more than we can blame Hitler for all Germany did.  Many of the Japanese bureaucrats, business, religious, and education leaders had also embraced the goal of ending Anglo-American domination of Asia and the Pacific by force—substituting in its place Japanese rule in China and Southeast Asia though that did not make them as blame-worthy as War Criminals. 

But Hirohito was at the very center of of the policy-making process through every stage of the war; he provided continuous oversight to wars he knew were aggressive.  He made the system work and was the reason why it worked.  Japanese people really did not understand—nor did the Occupation help them understand—that this institution was the agent of their prewar and wartime oppression.

Emphasis on the "Kokutai" (国体) had narrowed the intellectual horizons and encouraged many to see themselves as powerless vis-à-vis the state. = "Victim Consciousness."

As long as Hirohito remained on the throne unaccountable for his actions…why should Japanese people way down the power chain feel any responsibility? 

When researchers tried to pursue Hirohito’s wartime conduct, government resources were all but cut off.  Only after relations with Beijing were normalized in 1972 was the victim-consciousness, i.e., Japan was only defending itself narrative. challenged.  It was especially in the 1980s and 1990s that major historical studies explored the relationship between politics, the military and the emperor.  Immediately after WWII, the occupation prevented open discussions about Hirohito’s responsibility, especially after the Cold War got underway. 

With the end of the Cold War these topics have surfaced again, but it has also elicited nationalism, such as in the controversy over textbook revisions, the Yasukuni Shrine and the adjacent Yushukan Musuem.  

Yasukuni shrine is preserving the emperor-centered view of the past and the official interpretation of the Greater East Asia War. It had been an integral part of of Japanese state worship and militarism.  Even tho state and Shinto officially separated, Welfare Ministry oversees payments to families of the “bereaved” or the enshrined.  Nakasone visited; Koizumi visited. Abe pledged o improve relations with China and Korea but he issues denials about comfort women, sexual slavery, has tried to make the teaching of patriotism compulsory again. 

Germany established a “Fund for Remembrance, Responsibilities and the Future,” but Japan has been much more intransigent.  Claims everything taken care of in 1952 SF Peace Treaty.

The full truth of the war cannot be known in Hirohito's absence.  The apparition of Hirohito will linger as long as war responsibility and Japan’s misdeeds are debated.