Hirohito was the grandson of the great Emperor Meiji, who helped push Japan into the modern world. He served as regent for his father, the Emperor Taisho, who was mentally unbalanced, and formally ascended the throne upon his father’s death in 1926. He had a keen interest in marine biology and even published a small number of scientific papers.
Hirohito visited Britain
while still crown prince and seems to have been deeply and favorably
impressed. It is generally thought that he desired to turn Japan
into a
constitutional monarchy like Britain’s, but that his reluctance to
intervene in
politics kept him from confronting the Army when it began to establish
a
military dictatorship in Japan. He did not fully exercise his
power as
Emperor until Japan lay ruined, and only then intervened to insist that
the
government accept the Potsdam
Declaration which ended the war.
A number of historians see Hirohito in a darker light. These historians argue that Hirohito was the driving force behind Japanese imperialism, that his interest in biology extended to biological warfare, and that the relatively benign postwar image of Hirohito was the product of masterful spin on the part of the Japanese and expediency on the part of MacArthur, the Supreme Allied Commander and virtual shogun (military dictator) of Japan after the war.
A slightly different picture emerges from other recent histories, in which Hirohito appears as a weak and vacillating ruler who heaped praise on his Army and Navy when they were winning, and petulantly demanded greater efforts and sacrifices when they were losing. Prince Konoye, who preceded Tojo as prime minister, told an aide (Hastings 2007):
When I told the emperor that it would be a mistake to go to war, he would agree with me, but then he would listen to others and afterwards say that I shouldn't worry so much. He was slightly in favor of war and later on became more war-inclined ... As prime minister I had no authority over the army and could appeal [only] to the emperor. But the emperor became so much influenced by the military that I couldn't do anything about it.
The weight of evidence is that the emperor was not the pacifist he was depicted to be by postwar apologists. His ambitions were aligned with those of the military, though he was himself cautious and frightened of the risks the military were taking. It is highly unlikely that he did not know of the biological warfare research being carried out in Manchuria, since two of his brothers were shown an Army film produced by Unit 731, yet he never spoke against the brutal policies of the Army before August 1945. His actions were those of a weak monarch whose chief concern was the preservation of the imperial house.
Hirohito was denied all but a few intimates by court tradition, and
eschewed personal indulgences. His personal living quarters were highly
Westernized, as was his family life, but he maintained the traditional
social barriers towards all outside his immediate family. He worked a
long daily schedule interrupted by simple meals, and neither smoked nor
drank. He was physically somewhat frail and may have suffered from a
mild congenital neurological condition, reflected in a somewhat clumsy
gait that his court took pains to conceal.
Hirohito maintained the image of a benign figurehead from shortly after the surrender through the remainder of his life. Neither he nor any of his closest relatives were ever tried or even seriously interrogated about their roles in the war, a deliberate policy decision on the part of MacArthur. After his death in 1989, and in accordance with long Japanese tradition, Hirohito became known in Japan by his regnal name, Showa, which means “Enlightened Peace.” The irony did not pass unremarked by Japan’s neighbors in East Asia.
References
The Pacific War Online
Encyclopedia (c) 2007-2008 by Kent G. Budge. Index
