The emperor who carried Japan through war and constitutional transformation
“Enduring the unendurable”, a phrase from his 1945 rescript announcing Japan’s surrender
Hirohito was Japan’s 124th emperor from 1926 to 1989, occupying both the sovereign position of the imperial constitution and the symbolic role defined by the postwar constitution. He stood at the apex of the state that authorized Japan’s aggression and Pacific War, while the extent of his responsibility for the war and its crimes remains contested. After Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Soviet entry into the war left the Supreme Council deadlocked, he intervened to accept the Potsdam terms and announced the surrender by radio. After the war he renounced imperial divinity and remained a symbolic head of state, while continuing his research in marine biology.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1901Born in Tokyo
- 1916Proclaimed Crown Prince
- 1921–1926Regent of Japan
- 1926–1945124th Emperor of Japan, exercising imperial authority under the imperial constitution
- 1941Approved the decision to enter war against the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands
- 1945Decided to accept the Potsdam terms and announced Japan’s surrender
- 1947–1989Symbolic emperor under the Constitution of Japan
- 1989Died in Tokyo
Related historical events
- 1937–1945The war with Japan and the second united frontEmperor of the invading powerAnnounced the surrender in August 1945.
- 1941–1945The Pacific WarEmperor who decided surrenderAfter Hiroshima, Soviet entry, and Nagasaki, he broke the deadlock in the Supreme Council and decided to accept the Potsdam terms.
Exemption from the Tokyo trial and the war-responsibility debate
After the end of World War II, Hirohito was not indicted at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. The war had been waged in his name, but the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, Douglas MacArthur, believed that a cooperating emperor would smooth the occupation and support U.S. postwar objectives. Evidence that could have incriminated the imperial house was therefore excluded from the tribunal, and Japanese court and government officials worked with Allied General Headquarters to compile lists of prospective war criminals while coordinating the defendants' testimony so that none of them implicated Hirohito. The effort to attribute ultimate responsibility for Pearl Harbor to Hideki Tojo began months before the tribunal convened.
The exemption took shape under pressure from both inside and outside Japan. Australia, Britain and a majority of American public opinion wanted Hirohito tried as a Class-A war criminal. In September 1945 a resolution calling for his indictment was introduced in the U.S. Senate, and Australia placed him on a list of prospective defendants that also covered crimes against humanity. Within Japan, members of the imperial family urged him to abdicate, and in February 1946 Prince Mikasa stood up in the privy council to press him indirectly to step down and accept responsibility. Hirohito did not yield to the abdication calls, and in October 1947 chief prosecutor Joseph Keenan stated officially that neither the emperor nor the zaibatsu bore war responsibility.
In January 1946 Hirohito issued the Humanity Declaration, denying that he was an incarnate deity, and the new constitution that took effect in 1947 defined him as "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People", stripping him of political power. The manner of the exemption nonetheless left lasting consequences. Herbert Bix judged that MacArthur's measures distorted Japanese understanding of the lost war, and when Hirohito said in 1975 that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima "couldn't be helped", historians reacted with criticism; in a 1976 survey, more than half of respondents said he bore war responsibility, or that it was impossible to say either way.