An aristocratic statesman whose diplomacy widened Japan’s imperial war
In October 1941, he said he could not be confident of war and that power should go to someone who could choose diplomacy.
Fumimaro Konoe was an aristocratic Japanese politician and prime minister who directed wartime mobilization for the empire. Although he engaged with socialism and racial equality arguments against Western imperialism, he pursued Japan’s war in China and its project of dominance in East Asia in the name of overcoming that order. He led the Tripartite Pact and the Imperial Rule Assistance Association in 1940, then sought negotiations with the United States without stopping military expansion and resigned in 1941, handing power to Hideki Tojo. Suspected of war crimes after Japan’s defeat, he died by cyanide suicide in 1945.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1916Member of the House of Peers
- 1919Member of Japan’s delegation to the Paris Peace Conference
- 1933–1937President of the House of Peers
- 1937–1939Prime Minister, First Konoe Cabinet
- 1940–1941Prime Minister, Second and Third Konoe Cabinets
- 1940–1941President of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association
- 1945Minister of State in the Higashikuni Cabinet
Related historical events
- 1938–1941The Soviet-Japanese Border Wars and the Neutrality Pactprime minister seeking to keep the pactHe opposed immediately abandoning the neutrality pact and tried to preserve diplomatic room amid army and foreign minister pressure to move north.
- 1937–1945The war with Japan and the second united frontPrime minister who pursued the invasion of ChinaAs prime minister, he pursued Japan’s invasion of China and its project of dominance in East Asia.
- 1941–1945The Pacific Warwartime prime ministerPresented the Tripartite Pact and managed the 1940-1941 confrontation between civilian diplomacy and military expansion.
Late-War Peace Efforts and the Konoe Memorial
Even after handing over power in October 1941, Konoe kept opposing the Pacific War. At an imperial luncheon with all living former prime ministers on 29 November 1941 he objected to war, and on hearing of the attack on Pearl Harbor said a miserable defeat was coming and that it would last only two or three months. In 1944 he helped bring down Tojo's cabinet after the defeat at Saipan, and in February 1945, granted his first audience with the Emperor in three years, he advised him to open surrender negotiations, only to be refused by an Emperor still seeking a decisive victory.
On 14 February he submitted the "Konoe Memorial," urging surrender to the Allies to prevent a "communist revolution" at home. To make that case he cited Soviet expansion, pro-Soviet figures in the government and Communist Party leader Sanzo Nosaka. Moving among civilian and senior statesmen groups while conducting his own peace maneuvers, he sought negotiations mediated by the Soviet Union. After the fighting at Okinawa the government counted on Moscow's good offices, and on 7 July the Emperor said to send a special envoy. On 12 July Konoe was formally appointed the Emperor's envoy, but he was effectively refused by Stalin, who had already decided at Yalta in February to enter the war against Japan. His own negotiating plan made preservation of the imperial polity the single minimum demand and conceded all overseas territory, the Ryukyus, the Ogasawaras and the northern Kurils, even agreeing to offer labor as reparation, with direct talks with the United States and Britain to follow if Soviet mediation failed. After the surrender of 15 August he joined the Higashikuni cabinet as a minister of state, but war-crimes suspicion closed in on him.