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Senior Second Rank BaronKiichirō Hiranuma
平沼 騏一郎
Hiranuma in 1939
Prime Minister of Japan
In office 5 January 1939 – 30 August 1939
Monarch	Hirohito
Preceded by	Fumimaro Konoe
Succeeded by	Nobuyuki Abe
President of the Privy Council
In office 9 April 1945 – 3 December 1945
Monarch	Hirohito
Preceded by	Kantaro Suzuki
Succeeded by	Kantaro Suzuki
In office 13 March 1936 – 5 January 1939
Monarch	Hirohito
Preceded by	Ichiki Kitokuro
Succeeded by	Fumimaro Konoe
Personal details
Born	(1867-09-28)28 September 1867 Tsuyama, Japan
Died	22 August 1952(1952-08-22) (aged 84) Tokyo, Japan
Political party	Independent
Children	Takeo Hiranuma (Adopted)
Alma mater	Tokyo Imperial University

Baron Kiichirō Hiranuma (平沼 騏一郎, 28 September 1867 – 22 August 1952) was a Japanese lawyer and politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan in 1939.

Hiranuma rose to prominence as a prosecutor and official in the Ministry of Justice. He served as minister of Justice under Prime Minister Gonnohyoe Yamamoto and later became a privy counsellor. After serving as president of the privy council, he became prime minister in 1939, but resigned later the same year. He later returned to cabinet under Fumimaro Konoe. After the Japanese surrender, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for his role in World War II.

Early life

Hiranuma was born on 28 September 1867, in what is now Tsuyama City, Okayama Prefecture, as the son of a low-ranking samurai from the Tsuyama Domain of Mimasaka Province. His upbringing and early education was steeped in bushido and the study of Chinese classics. Hiranuma graduated with a degree in English law from Tokyo Imperial University in 1888.

Hiranuma reacted against the rapid westernisation and disregard for Japanese culture common at that time. Throughout his life, his political principles would be substantially based on Confucianism as taught by the Mito School. Like the Mito scholars, Hiranuma believed that Japan possessed a particular essence, the kokutai, characterised by the moral bond between the nation and the Emperor as a sacred ruler. Foreign influences, unless properly adapted, he viewed as threats to the kokutai.

Ministry of Justice

After graduation, Hiranuma obtained a post in the Ministry of Justice. Hiranuma established a reputation during his time at the Ministry of Justice as a strong opponent of government corruption, and successfully handled a number of high-profile cases. He served as director of the Tokyo High Court, public prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Japan, and Director of the Civil and Criminal Affairs Bureau. In 1909, he secured the conviction of 25 former and serving members of the Diet of Japan for accepting bribes from the Japan Sugar Company.

Hiranuma was highly outspoken against corruption and immorality in Japan's political parties, and that attitude soon expanded to include what he saw to be foreign threats, such as socialism and liberal democracy. As Hiranuma rose within the ministry he attracted a considerable following among his juniors, notably including Kisaburo Suzuki and Suehiko Shiono.

In 1911, he was chief prosecutor for the High Treason Incident, the 1910 socialist-anarchist plot to assassinate the Meiji Emperor. The closed-court trial of 25 men and 1 woman, including 4 Buddhist monks, resulted in the execution of 12, including the prominent anarchist Shūsui Kōtoku and the feminist Kanno Suga.

He rose to become Vice Minister of Justice in 1911 and Prosecutor General in 1912. In 1915, he forced Home Minister Ōura Kanetake in the cabinet of Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu to resign for suspected bribery in what is known as the Ōura scandal. In 1921, Hiranuma became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Hiranuma was appointed Minister of Justice in the second cabinet of Gonnohyōe Yamamoto, formed in the aftermath of the Great Kantō earthquake in September 1923. Hiranuma resigned along with rest of the cabinet in January 1924 to take responsibility for the lapse in security represented by the Toranomon incident, in which a communist attempted to assassinate Crown Prince Hirohito. The incident gave Hiranuma a renewed vigilance towards what he considered subversive ideology and for this reason he formed the Kokuhonsha, a political organisation with the intention of defending the kokutai. This organisation gathered a broad range of influential figures, including General Sadao Araki, Admiral Kanji Katō, Kisaburo Suzuki, Yoshimichi Hara and Harumichi Tanabe.

At the nomination of the new prime minister Keigo Kiyoura, Hiranuma was appointed to the Privy Council in February 1924.

Privy Counsellor

While serving on the Privy Council, Hiranuma continued to exercise a strong influence on the Ministry of Justice. Hiranuma and his clique were the driving force behind the adoption of the Peace Preservation Law, intended to combat communism and other threats to the kokutai.

In April 1926 Yūzaburō Kuratomi [ja], one of Hiranuma's old superiors in the Ministry of Justice, was appointed president of the Privy Council. Upon Kuratomi's request, Hiranuma was appointed vice president. Hiranuma would serve in that role for ten years and exerted considerable influence. Hiranuma, together with the senior privy counsellors Miyoji Ito and Kentaro Kaneko, would lead the conservatives who dominated the council. In October of the same year, Hiranuma was elevated to the rank of baron (男爵, danshaku) in the Kazoku peerage system abolished by the 1947 Constitution.

Hiranuma was strongly opposed to Prime Minister Wakatsuki Reijirō's efforts at economic reform. He was also strongly opposed to the ratification of the London Naval Treaty of 1930. In 1931, he rallied support within the government for the Imperial Japanese Army after it had seized control of Manchuria without prior authorization, and he later helped in the creation of Manchukuo. He also pushed for Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations. According to one theory, he in 1934 he directed the prosecution during the Teijin Incident.

During the 1930s, Hiranuma was often considered as a candidate for prime minister, but he had incurred the enmity of the last genrō Prince Saionji, who had the right to nominate the prime minister. As a supporter of parliamentary government, Saionji disliked Hiranuma for undermining party cabinets. Furthermore, Saionji was wary of the influence of the Kokuhonsha, which he considered to be close to fascism. Hiranuma himself denied any association with fascism, which he considered a foreign ideology unsuitable for Japan.

When Kuratomi retired in May 1934 he recommended Hiranuma as his successor, but due to Saionji's opposition the Imperial Household Minister Kitokurō Ichiki was appointed instead. Hiranuma was appointed President of the Privy Council after Ichiki's retirement in February 1936.

Prime minister

Hiranuma was Prime Minister of Japan from 5 January 1939 to 30 August 1939. His administration was dominated by the debate on whether Japan should ally itself with Germany against the Soviet Union. Hiranuma wanted an anticommunist pact, but feared a military alliance would commit Japan to war against the United States and the United Kingdom when most of its armed forces were already committed to the Second Sino-Japanese War.

With the signing of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in August 1939, Hiranuma's cabinet resigned over that foreign policy issue and over the massive defeat of the Japanese Army in Mongolia during the Nomonhan Incident against the Soviet Union.

Return to cabinet

Hiranuma became a central figure in a conservative reaction against the New Order Movement promoted by Fumimaro Konoe since his reappointment as prime minister in July 1940. Hiranuma criticised the Imperial Rule Assistance Association as a potential "new shogunate" prejudicial to the prerogatives of the Emperor. Hiranuma was furthermore concerned that the new organisation was being dominated by radicals with socialist tendencies, such as Yoriyasu Arima, Kingoro Hashimoto and Seigo Nakano.

Eventually Konoe himself began to feel that the New Order Movement had become too radical. As a solution for this Hiranuma entered the cabinet as Home Minister in December 1940. Hiranuma's associate, Lieutenant General Heisuke Yanagawa became minister of justice at the same time. Hiranuma moved to neutralise the IRAA, stating in the Diet in January 1941 that the IRAA would not conduct politics, but merely serve as a public association supporting the state. In March the leadership of the IRAA was replaced, with Yanagawa being appointed to the hitherto vacant post of vice president and the moderate former Finance Minister Sōtarō Ishiwata [ja] replacing Yoriyasu Arima as secretary general. Hiranuma declared in April that IRAA would be under the supervision and control of the Home Ministry.

As Home Minister, he was a staunch defender of State Shinto. Hiranuma declared: "We should research the ancient rites in detail and consider their application in administrative affairs in general and the common life of the nation.”

Hiranuma was strongly opposed to the political and diplomatic actions of Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsuoka and to the Tripartite Pact concluded between Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy in September 1940. The cabinet was reshuffled in July 1941 in order to remove Matsuoka, partially due to Hiranuma's maneuvering.

In the new cabinet Matsuoka was replaced by Admiral Teijiro Toyoda. Hiranuma and Yanagawa became ministers without portfolio, with Hiranuma's protégé Harumichi Tanabe as his successor in the Home Ministry. During this period Hiranuma frequently met with the American Ambassador Joseph Grew in order to de-escalate the conflict between Japan and America. In August 1941 was Hiranuma attacked in his home by a member of a small ultranationalist group. Despite being shot six times Hiranuma survived and fully recovered.

Hiranuma withdrew from government upon the resignation of Konoe in October 1941.

Jushin

Hiranuma served as one of the jushin (重臣), or unofficial senior advisors, to Emperor Hirohito during World War II. Hiranuma saw the jushin as the core of a new group of genrō advisors, as the last surviving Meiji period genrō, Prince Saionji Kinmochi, had died in November 1940. The new group included former prime ministers Mitsumasa Yonai, Nobuyuki Abe and Fumimaro Konoe. In April 1945, Hiranuma was again appointed president of the Privy Council.

Prosecution and conviction

After the War, he was arrested by the American Occupation Authorities and was convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East as a Class A War Criminal.

He was given a life sentence, but paroled in early 1952, and died shortly afterwards. His grave is in Tama Cemetery, outside Tokyo.

References

Citations

1. Yasko 1973, pp. 7–8.
2. ^ Mitchell 1976, pp. 36–37.
3. Yasko 1973, p. 10.
4. Yasko 1973, p. 32.
5. ^ Mitchell 2002, pp. 15–16.
6. Yasko 1973, p. 37.
7. Yasko 1973, pp. 90–95.
8. Yasko 1973, pp. 58–59.
9. Mitchell 1976, p. 39.
10. Yasko 1973, p. 61-63.
11. Yasko 1973, p. 19-21.
12. Yasko 1973, p. 105.
13. Yasko 1973, p. 117.
14. ^ Krebs 2006, pp. 192–194.
15. McClain 2002, p. 454.
16. Krebs 2006, pp. 194–198.
17. Hotta 2013, pp. 177.

Bibliography

• Bix, Herbert P. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. Harper Perennial (2001). ISBN 0-06-093130-2
• Brendon, Piers. The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s. Vintage; Reprint edition (2002). ISBN 0-375-70808-1
• Frank, Richard B. Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Penguin (Non-Classics); Reissue edition (2001). ISBN 0-14-100146-1
• Hotta, Eri (2013). Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780385350518.
• Krebs, Gerhard (2006). "The German Nazi Party: A model for Japan's 'New Order'". In Spang, Christian W.; Wippich, Rolf-Harald (eds.). Japanese-German Relations, 1895-1945: War, Diplomacy and Public Opinion. Abingdon: Routledge. pp. 180–199. ISBN 9781134292998.
• McClain, James L. (2002). Japan: A Modern History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 0393041565.
• Mitchell, Richard H. (1976). Thought Control in Prewar Japan. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801410024.
• Mitchell, Richard H. (2002). Justice in Japan: The Notorious Teijin Scandal. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0824825232.
• Sherman, Christine. War Crimes: International Military Tribunal. Turner Publishing Company. (2001). ISBN 1-56311-728-2
• Wolferen, Karel van. The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation. Vintage; Reprint edition (1990). ISBN 0-679-72802-3
• Yasko, Richard (1973). Hiranuma Kiichirō and Conservative Politics in Pre-War Japan (PhD thesis). University of Chicago.

External links

• Newspaper clippings about Hiranuma Kiichirō in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

v t e Prime ministers of Japan (list)
Empire of Japan (1868–1947)	Meiji era (1868–1912) H. Itō Kuroda Sanjō (caretaker) Yamagata Matsukata H. Itō Kuroda (acting) Matsukata H. Itō Ōkuma Yamagata H. Itō Saionji (acting) Katsura Saionji Taishō era (1912–1926) Katsura Saionji Katsura Yamamoto Ōkuma Terauchi Hara Uchida (acting) Takahashi To. Katō Uchida (acting) Yamamoto Kiyoura Ta. Katō Wakatsuki Shōwa era (1926–1947) G. Tanaka Hamaguchi Shidehara (acting) Hamaguchi Wakatsuki Inukai Takahashi (acting) Saitō Okada Gotō (acting) Okada Hirota Hayashi Konoe Hiranuma N. Abe Yonai Konoe Tōjō Koiso K. Suzuki Higashikuni Shidehara Yoshida
State of Japan (1947–present)	Shōwa era (1947–1989) Katayama Ashida Yoshida I. Hatoyama Ishibashi Kishi Ikeda Satō K. Tanaka Miki T. Fukuda Ōhira M. Itō (acting) Z. Suzuki Nakasone Takeshita Heisei era (1989–2019) Uno Kaifu Miyazawa Hosokawa Hata Murayama Hashimoto Obuchi Aoki Mori Koizumi S. Abe Y. Fukuda Asō Y. Hatoyama Kan Noda S. Abe Reiwa era (2019–present) Suga Kishida Ishiba
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v t e Shōwa Statism
Themes	Anti-communism Bushido Corporatism Emperor system Fascism Gekokujō Hakkō ichiu Japanese militarism Kokutai Pan-Asianism State Shinto Statism Capitalism Totalitarianism Ultranationalism Yamato-damashii
Movements	Reform bureaucratism Shōwa Restoration
People	Before 1945 Hirohito Sadao Araki Inejirō Asanuma Tanaka Chigaku Kingoro Hashimoto Kiichirō Hiranuma Koki Hirota Nisshō Inoue Kanji Ishiwara Nobusuke Kishi Ikki Kita Kuniaki Koiso Fumimaro Konoe Jinzaburō Masaki Seigō Nakano Shūmei Ōkawa Uesugi Shinkichi Hideki Tojo Masanobu Tsuji Post-war Japan Bin Akao Yukio Mishima Otoya Yamaguchi Other Subhas Chandra Bose Park Chung Hee
Organizations and factions	Before 1945 Black Ocean Society Fleet faction Gakutotai Great Japan Youth Party Imperial Rule Assistance Association Imperial Rule Assistance Political Association Japanese Committee on Trade and Information Kōdōha League of Diet Members Supporting the Prosecution of the Holy War National Defense Brotherhood National Foundation Society National Spiritual Mobilization Movement Sakurakai Shōwa Kenkyūkai Tōhōkai Tōseiha Yokusan Sonendan Young Officers Movement Yūzonsha Post-war Japan Nippon Kaigi Tatenokai Other Concordia Association Makapili
History	1930s February 26 Incident League of Blood Incident Marco Polo Bridge incident March incident May 15 incident Military Academy incident Mukden incident October incident State General Mobilization Law Withdrawal from the Washington Naval Treaty 1940–1945 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Kyūjō incident Pacific War Tripartite Pact 1945–1949 Matsue incident Purge Reverse Course Sanmu incident After the 1950s Mishima incident
Works	An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus How Japan Plans to Win Kokutairon and Pure Socialism Momotaro: Sacred Sailors Momotarō no Umiwashi Moyuru ōzora Patriotism Ode of Showa Restoration Shinmin no Michi Sun and Steel The Most Beautiful
Related topics	American cover-up of Japanese war crimes The Cleanest Race Collaboration with Imperial Japan Korean Greater East Asia Conference International Military Tribunal for the Far East Japanese war crimes Japanese history textbook controversies List of World War II puppet states of Japan Propaganda in Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II Uyoku dantai
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