Emperor Hirohito: The Silent Hitler

Today, Germany and Japan are stable democracies and American allies. But during World War II, Imperial Japan under Emperor Hirohito produced evil on a scale that dwarfs even the monstrous actions of Adolf Hitler. From 1927 to 1945, Japan’s legacy was an endless stream of atrocities and war crimes resulting in the deaths of 22 million people. And all of this took place under the auspices of the superficially timid, bookish and soft-spoken Emperor Hirohito, considered by his country to be a living god.

 Up until the late 19th century, Japanese culture was instilled with an “emperor-centered ideology.” Unquestioning devotion to their god-king allowed the military to manipulate its men and “to validate [its actions in the Emperor’s name and] [it] as a special institution in the Japanese polity,” according to historian Edward Drea. At the same time, it allowed Hirohito to maintain control over his military, and his subjects, in a manner that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler could only dream of.

No one was permitted to question the Emperor, and by extension, those institutions operating under the Emperor’s authority. Unlike in Germany, which had known enough democracy and enlightened thinking for the evil in Nazi rule to be recognized by portions of the population, few in Japan ever questioned the Emperor—he was a god, and therefore, infallible. The Meiji Constitution declared Hirohito “sacred and inviolable” and “free from all worldly responsibilities.”

Despite appearances, Hirohito was an absolute ruler. Hirohito (Shōwa Emperor) was Emperor Meiji’s first grandson, born on 29 April 1901. At 11, he became the crown prince and received the ranks of army second lieutenant and navy ensign. In 1926, he became Emperor. The Japanese believed he was a god in human form (arabitogami) and was declared the nation’s High Shinto Priest. Zen Buddhist leaders believed Hirohito was the long-term protector of their religion and a “Gold Wheel-Turning King” (konrin jōō), “one of the four manifeststations of the ideal Buddhist monarch or cakravartin-raja.” They believed Hirohito was a “Tathagata [fully enlightened being] of the secular world,” according to Zen Buddhist priest and historian Brian Victoria.

There are ancient precedents for the deification of royalty as supreme military commanders. Egyptian Pharaohs Tutankhamun and Ramesses II were revered as the offspring of the sun god Ra. Greek leader Alexander the Great was seen as the son of Ammon-Zeus and Roman emperors Caligula, Nero and Domitian were heralded as divine.

Hirohito was more than a mere figurehead. He was head of the armed forces and a real war leader “exercising his constitutional prerogatives of supreme command” (daigensui). Standing 5’5” and weighing 150 pounds, with glasses and a slight build, he didn’t look like a blood-thirsty dictator. He was a passive, sensitive man who enjoyed marine biology, studying fungi and reading science books. Unusual subjects for a brutal dictator’s curriculum. But he was a dictator: the “emperor, as a source of law, transcended the constitution, whose purpose was not to place limits on his powers, but the…opposite—to protect him and provide a mechanism enabling him to exercise authority unimpeded by limits” according to historian Herbert Bix.

Hirohito often met with his commanders to dictate strategy. He ordered “his men to commit acts in violation of laws and customs of war” according to Lord Russell of Liverpool. Few WWII leaders had such control over the halls of power. He was land driven, empire-hungry, resource-coveting and indifferent to the suffering of conquered peoples and his own citizens. He ruled an “army run amok, led by fanatics whose blind devotion to the Emperor encouraged barbaric behavior” according to historian Edward Drea. For destroying and raping Nanking, for example, Hirohito decorated his generals with medals. Neither Hirohito nor his subordinates stopped the Rapes of Nanking, Hong Kong or Manila, although they knew all about it: “War crimes may afflict all armies, but the scope of Japan’s atrocities was so excessive and the punishments so disproportionate that no appeal to moral equivalency can excuse their barbarity,” wrote Drea.

Hirohito maintained his people in a condition of political tutelage and immaturity. Government propaganda was grounded in elite religious teachings and created an exaggerated metaphysical and epistemological solipsism, making Japanese feel they were the best humanity had to offer led by the best god in creation (pictures of Hirohito hung everywhere and shown worshipful respect). Japanese society expressed these beliefs by embracing violence as an acceptable means of achieving its theological mandate to rule the world.

In September 1940, Hirohito allied with Hitler of Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini of Fascist Italy in the Tripartite Pact. Hirohito wrote that these countries benefited Japan because they “share the same intentions as ourselves.” In December 1941, emboldened by his territorial conquests, Hirohito—as the Armed Forces’ Commander-in-Chief—took his aggression to another level, by going to war against Great Britain, the Netherlands, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

During the six months after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan won a series of victories over unprepared Allied forces, giving it control over an enormous area, including the Philippines, Guam, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). Japanese victories extended into parts of Thailand, New Guinea and numerous Pacific islands. With the invasion and occupation of these objectives, which were ripe for exploitation, Japan showed her true casus belli. Hirohito helped plan these aggressions as he got “caught up in the fever of territorial expansion and war” according to Herbert Bix.

“In the early days of the War, the Japanese were an invincible force in the Pacific, moving swiftly and easily from victory to victory—and island to island,” historian Rafael Steinberg notes. Hirohito was one of the driving forces for Japan’s aggression and his empire dwarfed Hitler’s in size. The Rising Sun was blinding and anyone who looked at an atlas in 1942 concluded the Allies were losing everywhere and Japan reigned supreme in Asia. They had seized territories amounting to one seventh of the earth’s circumference (three times larger than the U.S. and Europe combined) in developing their “Co-Prosperity Sphere,” ruling 500 million people.

Following Pearl Harbor, Hirohito issued the Declaration of War as an Imperial rescript. It blamed the U.S. and England for causing war by supporting China and undermining Japan’s efforts to create an Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Emperor wanted peace, but the Allies forced him to strike first. “Our Empire, for its existence and self-defense, has no other recourse but to appeal to arms and to crush every obstacle in its path.” Overwhelming military successes reinforced Japanese military leaders’ and citizens’ belief they were the gods’ chosen ones.

On the day of Pearl Harbor, Hirohito wore his naval uniform and was in a “splendid mood,” gloating over victories. He praised frontline units and sent rescripts to commanders “which carried far more honor and prestige than did presidential citations for American commanders” according to Herbert Bix. By 12 December, Hirohito thanked “the gods” for Japan’s victories and “asked for their protection” as he led the “nation in this time of…national emergency” as Bix writes. Hirohito, “being knowledgeable about political and military affairs… participated in the making of national policy and issued the orders of the imperial headquarters to field commanders and admirals. He played an active role in shaping the barbaric Japanese war strategy” according to Bix.

Hirohito led his country throughout WWII, but all the gains his nation made throughout 1941 and 1942 were slowly, but surely, rolled back during the next three years. By July 1945, the Allies had massed together 3,000 ships and millions of men to launch the invasion of Japan. In preparation for this attack, Hirohito was “hoarding” his best units for the invasion of the homeland. He had more than 4 million servicemen and 20-plus million citizens in various forms of militia saved to resist the Allied invasion of his islands.

The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 convinced Hirohito to command his subjects to lay down arms. The devastation made the necessary psychological impact to alter Hirohito’s thinking. He said on 7 August, “we should lose no time in ending the war so as not to have another tragedy like this.”

After Hiroshima, the Soviet Union bore down on Japanese forces in Manchuria with 1.5 million troops after Stalin officially declared war on Japan on 8 August. IJA units numbering 665,000 in Manchuria started to disappear by the thousands under the red wave of Soviet armor, planes and infantry. This made Hirohito quicken his pace on the surrender agreement. Following the bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August, Hirohito knew he needed to act.

Hirohito sued for peace immediately: “I have given serious thought to the situation prevailing at home and abroad and have concluded that continuing the war can only mean destruction for the nation and prolongation of bloodshed and cruelty in the world...the time has come when we must bear the unbearable.” Even with the imminent invasion of Japan by two major powers and no chance of a “negotiated peace” through Russian diplomats, Hirohito waited days to address his nation due to fear of retribution from military diehards who wanted to continue fighting. Even after the U.S. Navy’s submarines had tightened their coil around Japan, sinking most supply ships coming and going from Asia, and the introduction of the B-29 bombers devastating cities after the atomic bombs had dropped, IJA reactionaries attempted to capture Hirohito, destroy his recorded surrender message and kill his advisors to prevent capitulation. They stormed the Imperial Palace, shooting and beheading those who opposed them. They searched for the phonograph recording of Hirohito’s unreleased surrender announcement, but did not locate it. The coup failed on the day of the broadcast. The conspirators committed suicide in front of the palace. After this threat was eliminated, on 15 August, Hirohito announced over the radio in his high-pitched voice Japan’s surrender. It was the first time his people ever heard him speak.

Hirohito’s risky and bold move worked—he was the only one who could persuade his people to lay down arms. On 2 September 1945, a Japanese delegation signed the surrender on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Since his subjects believed he was a god, only his authority could end Japan’s 2,600-year history of never surrendering to a foreign power. The reason his people accepted this decision was because “His Majesty’s orders come before anything else” according to fighter ace Saburo Sakai. Millions of weary GIs, Marines, Sailors and their families thanked their God for the atomic bombs.

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur left Hirohito as Emperor to secure the peace, and to liberalize and democratize Japan. General Curtis LeMay explained MacArthur’s position saying the Allies left Hirohito alone “because of his anti-communist posture and willingness to work with the U.S. during the Cold War [which President] Truman saw as valuable…Personally, I would’ve strung the bastard up by his balls.”

MacArthur did force a major change on Japanese culture. On 1 January 1946, Hirohito, in his “Humanity Declaration” rescript and his last act as a supposed deity, renounced his “claims to heavenly descent,” breaking a putatively divine line of his ancestors spanning from 660 B.C.E. Japan’s defeat brought down its supposed god. The infallible and divine Hirohito became a mere mortal like his subjects. Yale University historian James B. Crowley wrote, “The nature of this defeat [of Japan] was overwhelming, numbering among its victims the efficacy of a religious myth—a belief in the divine qualities of the Imperial institution.” This shows the war’s dramatic impact on Japan’s psyche and its beliefs. The psychosocial change was immense. However, after the war, the “disingenuous” Hirohito “lacked all consciousness of personal responsibility for what Japan had done…and never once admitted guilt for the war of aggression that…cost so many lives” according to historian Bix.

Japan’s lack of remorse continues in overt ways: Pilgrims today go to the graves of notorious criminals like Prime Minister and General Hideki Tojo and Emperor Hirohito to venerate their spirits. It is analogous to Germans laying wreaths at Hitler’s grave (if there was one), yet this is still done. His nation still reveres him even though he was responsible for the deaths of more than 22 million people, including an additional 3 million Japanese. But, as what, the god of death? It is his only legacy.

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