Family donates Hideki Tojo's wartime papers to Tokyo library
Around 300 documents authored by former wartime prime minister Hideki Tojo were given by his descendants to a Tokyo library and are now accessible to researchers.
Family members of Hideki Tojo, Japan's wartime prime minister executed in 1948, have contributed roughly 300 of his personal documents to a library in Tokyo, making them available for public inspection. The items, donated over May and June by the relatives of his second and third daughters, consist of handwritten notes and letters that critique the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. In his writings, Tojo recounts his questioning by U.S. chief prosecutor Joseph Keenan, portraying it as a "last opportunity" to defend his perspective.
He denounces the tribunal as "victor's justice" and expresses disdain for restrictions that limited his expression, while also refusing to blame Emperor Showa for the Pacific War. Yuta Okubo, an assistant professor at Kanazawa University tasked with managing the archive, highlights the records' importance for analyzing Tojo's actions during the Tokyo trial. The donation arrives as Japan observes the 80th anniversary of the tribunal's establishment.
Why it matters
The papers give scholars new primary sources on Japan's wartime leadership and post-war justice.
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