Hirohito: One of the Most Evil Men in History

Through this Unit we talk a lot about Japan because like Germany we fought a war on two fronts the pacific front with Japan and the Eastern or European front with the Nazi's. What we do not dive into is what Japan was doing before our involvement with them. I feel it is necessary to look at Japan because there are many things that occurred during this time period that our written out of history books that I feel should be addressed. The Empire of Japan was created in 1868 after the Meiji Restoration which brought Japan out of its so called Feudal society into its modern more advanced form. However its final emperor a man named Hirohito by many is seen as one of the most controversial figures of all time. He ascended to power around 1926 and became an important force in the modernization of Japan. At the time of his ascension to power Japan had the 9th largest economy. When he passed away it was the third. His influence on Japan truly made it one of the world's greatest power to this day and definitely modernized the nation. However the things that he did during his reign are considered by many including me as some of the greatest atrocities that mankind has ever seen. For example, during the second Sino-Japanese War Hirohito's army killed countless numbers of Chinese, Indonesian and Koreans. All Chinese prisoners were sentenced to death and another 10 million were forced into slavery. Many people were shot beheaded, stabbed, burned and impaled. Even worse many under his power froze to death and in Indonesia and Vietnam almost 2 million people died. He also instigated the Rape of Nanking occurred. over 300,000 died and many were sexually abused. Some accounts suggest that fathers were forced to rape their daughter and then killed themselves. All in all, Hirohito did things that were awful and by no means justified. The worst part of it all is after the war when the Allies assumed victory and many were tried for War Crimes Hirohito went free and was able to rule Japan well into the 80's when he died of Cancer. Many attribute this to the idea that America needed a buffer state because even though they were allies they were not the closest with the USSR. Hirohito policy has made Japan today a very powerful country but if you only go back a few years you will see a not so beautiful past.