Hideki Tojo -The Face of Japanese Militarism in WWII

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Allied propaganda posters during World War II frequently featured the characters of the three Axis leaders: the German with the mustache, the big-jawed Italian, and the stern Japanese General. The association was intended to portray the latter as the Japanese equivalent of the other two totalitarian leaders. In reality, Prime Minister, War Minister, and Army Chief of Staff Hideki Tojo was never an absolute ruler. Although he concentrated considerable political and military power in his hands, he was never a dictator like Hitler or Mussolini. His authority was always subordinate to Emperor Hirohito’s and was frequently undermined by political opponents. Nonetheless, his responsibility in initiating the Second Sino-Japanese War and extending World War II to the Pacific Theater is unquestionable. As head of both the Japanese government and the Japanese military, he would ultimately be accountable for the brutal treatment of civilians and prisoners of war.

But before we get to the end of Tojo’s story, let us explore his rise to the top.

Hideki Tojo was born on December 30, 1884, in the Oate Prefecture, Honshu, Japan. He was the third son of Hidenori, an Imperial Army officer, and Jitosetokenago, the daughter of a Buddhist priest. Hideki’s two older brothers died at a young age, making him the eldest son in the family. As such, he grew up rather spoiled by his parents but endured strict discipline at school. By his own admission, he was never a particularly gifted student but compensated for his lack of talents with sheer determination. This attitude toward schoolwork provided him with an excellent memory for detail and an almost obsessive focus on procedure and discipline, which would serve him well in later life.

After finishing school, Hideki joined the military academy, graduating in 1905 as a second lieutenant in the cavalry. The Russo-Japanese War had just concluded with a victory for Japan, but Hideki was commissioned too late to join in the fight. His father, Hidenori, had served with the rank of General but was repatriated due to a severe deficiency of vitamin B1, indicative of the poor diet of Japanese soldiers and a reflection of the poor logistics of Tokyo’s military. An obsession with securing resources would impact Tojo’s later decisions.

In 1909, Hideki married his fiancée, Ito Katsu, a rather progressive move on his part. Ito was a college student, unusual for Japanese women at the time, and their marriage was not arranged by their parents. The couple was apparently happy and eventually had seven children. As a young officer, Tojo furthered his military education by attending the Army Staff College, graduating in 1915. Three years later, he served briefly in Siberia without seeing any combat, as part of the anti-Bolshevik Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. This experience developed Tojo’s anti-communist positions; he identified Russia and later the Soviet Union as Japan’s main antagonist in East Asia.

After his tour of duty in Siberia, Tojo traveled to Germany as a military attaché in 1919. While there, he was strongly impressed by the concept of Total War espoused by General Erich Ludendorff. To oversimplify, this approach involved converting industrial and agricultural sectors to full-scale military production in times of war. On his long way back to Japan, Tojo crossed the United States by train. As a fan of industrial production, he should have been impressed by the potential of the U.S. in this department. However, Tojo’s impression of America was that of a rich yet decadent country ill-suited for a total war effort. His dislike of the U.S. was heightened in May 1924 when the American Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Act, which severely restricted immigration from Asian countries.

In the following years, Tojo dedicated all of his time to administrative work within the Army, barely seeing his children. In 1928, he received a promotion to Colonel and an appointment as Bureau Chief of the Army. It was in this position that he received the nickname “Kamasori,” or “the Razor,” a nod to his ruthless bureaucratic efficiency. While in this capacity, the Razor networked with young officers, and in May 1929, they created a study group called the “One Evening Society.” Its members sought to modernize the Japanese military according to the German model of Total War. They antagonized the descendants of ultra-conservative noble families who traditionally had disproportionate influence over the Army staff.

In the early 1930s, these traditionalist groups merged into the Imperial Way faction, or Kodoha, which promoted worship of Emperor Hirohito, despised the involvement of the economy and industry in warfare, emphasized fighting spirit above all, and advocated for the Army to overthrow the civilian government. Tojo and his One Evening friends instead supported the opposing Control faction, or Toseiha. They were also staunchly loyal to the emperor but argued that the military had to cooperate with civilian institutions as well as the economic and industrial elites.

An inevitable confrontation began brewing. Colonel Tojo continued his steady rise within the Army ranks, heading the Military Investigation Department within the Ministry of War in 1933. The following year, he received a promotion to Major General and an appointment as Commandant of the Military Academy. In March of 1934, the diligent and studious Tojo authored an essay in which he fused the notions of fighting spirit with the concept of Total War. In this piece, he argued that the Japanese had superior willpower compared to their potential enemies, especially the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, and France. This superior willpower should be applied to all aspects of society; the economic, political, and military sectors had to work in cooperation to secure future victories. The only way to ensure such coordination was through a monolithic, near-totalitarian state.

So far, Tojo had written a lot about war without ever fighting in one. He soon, however, would have a taste of operational command when, in September of 1935, he was appointed head of the campaign in Manchukuo. The Japanese Empire had occupied areas of Manchuria, northeastern China, since the Russo-Japanese War. During the 1920s, a government-backed corporation developed the South Manchuria Railway in the region. On September 18, 1931, a tract of the railway was blown up, ostensibly by Chinese troops, but the incident was a false flag attack designed to justify a Japanese occupation of Manchuria. On March 1, 1932, the occupied area became the puppet state of Manchukuo, governed with an iron fist by the Kwantung Army, a large detachment of the Imperial Japanese Army that over time became almost independent from Tokyo.

The Imperial Army included a unit called Kempeitai, sometimes described as the Japanese Gestapo. Under Tojo’s direction, the Manchukuo Kempeitai became the efficient arm of a police state, which he would put to good use. In February 1936, the rivalry between the Imperial Way and Control factions within the Army came to a head when a group of Imperial Way young officers tried to overthrow the government. The Minister of War, General Itagaki, feared that the mutiny could extend to the Kwantung Army and ordered its Chief of Staff, General Edagi, to take preemptive measures. Tojo was opposed to the Imperial Way, but on a personal level, he was friends with one of the coup’s leaders, Colonel Nagata. He confessed privately to his wife that he was moved by the tragedy of the rebels, whose act was doomed to fail. Nonetheless, Tojo obeyed his superior’s orders and unleashed the Kempeitai, identifying and arresting any officers suspected of being in cahoots with the coup. The February Mutiny was utterly crushed, both in Japan and Manchukuo, and Tojo’s swift action impressed his superiors back in Tokyo.

In January 1937, he received a further promotion to Lieutenant General, and in March, he replaced his old boss, Sitogaki, as Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army. General Tojo had designs of his own now that he led a large force bordering the feared and hated Soviet Union. In June 1937, the Soviets occupied the Kanchatsu Island on the River Amur, marking the border with Manchukuo. Tojo immediately ordered one division to retake control of the disputed island. This was a hostile act against a bordering foreign power and completely unsanctioned by the government. In fact, the Army General Staff not only didn’t approve but overruled Tojo’s orders. However, the Razor was not done with clamoring for war. With a cooler head, he reasoned that a war with the Soviet Union would have been unsustainable with a hostile China south of Manchukuo.

On June 9, 1937, Tojo dispatched a telegram to the War Ministry, raising the alarm about the build-up of forces under Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. He advised urgent action to be taken before the Chinese became too strong. Less than a month later, on July 7, Sino-Japanese tensions erupted at the Marco Polo Bridge. In this incident, Japanese and Chinese units engaged in separate military exercises and ended up firing at each other. This single firefight quickly spiraled into a full invasion of mainland China. The Second Sino-Japanese War had thus begun.

General Tojo had a chance to test his battle skills at last. In August of 1937, he commanded an expeditionary force of 150,000 Japanese, Mongolian, and Manchurian troops into the Chaha Province of Inner Mongolia. Operation Jihar was a large enveloping movement designed to outflank Chinese troops in Beijing (modern-day Beijing). Tojo deployed three mechanized brigades but dispersed his tanks in an infantry support role. One of his subordinates, General Sakai, argued that armor was more effective in mass concentrated attacks. He was right, but Tojo could not accept criticism and had Sakai sacked. In any case, Chinese troops in the area had no tanks whatsoever, and Tojo was able to achieve victory after all. On August 27, his forces conquered the city of Calgar (modern-day Zhang Jia Kou), with the Inner Mongolia region under Japanese control and a victory under his belt. Tojo planned his next ambitious move, staging a border incident with the Soviets to spark a war with Stalin.

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A serious incident took place in July and August 1938 at Lake Kalasan, resulting in the deaths of 1,300 troops on both sides. A furious Hirohito intervened to stop the madness, but Tojo was not around at that time. In May 1938, his old boss, General Itagaki, had become Minister of War in the cabinet of Prime Minister Kono. Itagaki needed a trusted vice minister, and of course, Tojo was interested in the position. However, this time, Tojo was not content with pushing pencils on behalf of his boss; he sought more visibility. In November, he addressed a conference of industrialists with a nationalistic speech. His rhetoric attacked the Chinese, the British, the Americans, and especially the Soviets. He predicted that they would soon be at war with Japan and warned his audience to prioritize war preparations over civilian production in the near future. The speech made it to the papers at home and abroad, leading to a drop in the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The Japanese Parliament questioned the war and prime ministers about this faux pas. The Prime Minister was embarrassed by the backlash and ensured that Tokyo could do no harm. Tojo was reassigned to a non-political job in December 1938 as Inspector General of the Army Aviation, holding that position until July 1940.

When the then-current cabinet led by Prime Minister Yanai dissolved, Kono resumed power. When appointing his new cabinet, he chose Hideki Tojo as War Minister. This may seem counterintuitive given the history, but the truth is that both men had much in common. They both worshiped the emperor and advocated for Japan to take a leading role in East Asia by creating a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. However, unlike Tojo, Kono had no plans to expand the conflict to other powers in the region and hoped to find a peaceful settlement of the Second Sino-Japanese War. But these plans would be foiled by Tojo and Foreign Minister Matsuoka. Tojo intended the war to continue against China until total victory, and the major obstacle to this goal was the embargo on vital resources, especially crude oil, enacted by the United States.

Tojo and Matsuoka pressured the cabinet into forming an alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The Tripartite Pact of September 1940 was intended by Tojo as a guarantee against potential American aggression. Relations with Washington deteriorated further when Japanese troops moved into Indochina to cut off the Chinese army’s supply lines in cooperation with the British and Dutch governments. The U.S. froze Japanese assets abroad, establishing an economic blockade. Kono and Emperor Hirohito considered re-establishing friendly relations with Western powers, but Tojo maintained his hard line. According to him, the only way to secure success in China and strengthen Japan for the inevitable confrontation with the Soviet Union was to strike first against America.

Europe had been at war since September 1939. Germany and Italy’s aggression had weakened the military presence of Britain, France, and the Netherlands in Southeast Asia. As stated by Tojo in his own diary, the time was ripe to conquer their colonial holdings and seize their bountiful oil and food reserves. Kono tried to persuade Tojo to seek a diplomatic solution, but facing continuous and transients, the Prime Minister resigned in October 1941. In yet another counterintuitive move, Hirohito and his advisors appointed General Tojo as the new head of the government. They hoped that Tojo’s devotion to the emperor would eventually cause him to stop the saber-rattling, but they had underestimated the Razor’s determination.

The new Prime Minister maintained his earlier brief as War Minister and appointed himself as Home Minister too. This move ensured he could quell any internal unrest stemming from a decision to go to war. Craftily, he sold the move as a means to quell unrest should Japan not go to war. Later, he would accumulate job titles: Minister of Education, Minister of Commerce and Industry, and Minister of Foreign Affairs. In other words, Tojo aimed to concentrate all aspects related to indoctrination, propaganda, and the conduct of the war into his hands.

On November 17, 1941, Tojo dropped any pretense of seeking diplomatic terms with the United States. In a speech to Parliament, he warned any third power, for example, America, from interfering in the Sino-Japanese War. Meanwhile, the Army and Navy Chiefs of Staff had been drafting plans for simultaneous attacks against U.S. bases in Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Wake Island, and Guam. British possessions in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong would also be targeted. The aim was to extend Japanese defense lines well beyond their home islands and Manchukuo and to seize natural resources within these new borders. Tojo also hoped that Western powers would immediately capitulate. The decision to launch these attacks was taken at the Imperial Conference on December 1st, and then came December 7th, the day that will live in infamy.

Shortly before Japan’s fighter bombers attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Tojo wrote in his diary: “December 7th, Sunday, 1100 hours. Consultation with Emperor, discussion of the Secretary of the Cabinet Hoshino and Kido, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, about commencement of hostilities against U.S., Britain, and Holland.” Tojo’s plans succeeded spectacularly, and Japan’s sudden expansion made him immensely popular with the Japanese people. He did not shy away, however, from admitting that the war in the Pacific would be long and hard. In a speech on January 21, 1942, he admitted that “the present war will become a prolonged one. In order to fulfill the purpose of the war, the whole nation must persevere in whatever difficulties and tribulations with a firm conviction of ultimate victory.”

The Prime Minister had consolidated considerable power in his hands, but he was still bound to the rules of the Imperial Constitution. This meant that he needed full support from Parliament to sustain the war effort. In theory, all political parties had been merged into an organization called the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA). The aim was to create unity in the Japanese political spectrum in times of war, but the IRAA was never equivalent to a monolithic or powerful party like the Nazi or Fascist parties. In fact, the majority of seats in the Japanese Parliament were held by members not affiliated with the IRAA. Parliamentary elections were expected on April 30, 1942, and Tojo knew that he had to swing Parliament’s majority into the IRAA fold. To do so, he invested more than 2 million yen in bribes to newspapers and politicians, garnering support for IRAA candidates.

His efforts were compounded by the shock of the April 18th Doolittle Raid, a daring American bombing raid over Tokyo that proved the U.S. had the will and resources to strike back. It also had the unexpected effect of stealing the Japanese people’s resolve to continue fighting and thus support Tojo’s military policies. As a result, 381 of Tojo’s pet candidates entered the Diet, securing a solid majority for the IRAA. The Doolittle Raid also had another unfortunate consequence: most of the pilots who took part in the action crash-landed in China and were helped by civilians. Tojo’s military unleashed a retaliatory campaign, torturing and murdering 250,000 Chinese civilians.

Despite his electoral victory, Tojo found himself at odds with other members of the political elite. For example, following the Battle