Fumimaro Konoe
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Prince Fumimaro Konoe (Kyūjitai: 近衞 文麿, Shinjitai: 近衛 文麿, Konoe Fumimaro) (sometimes Konoye, October 12 1891–December 16 1945) was a Japanese politician and the 34th (June 4 1937–January 5 1939), 38th (July 22 1940–July 18 1941) and 39th (July 18 1941–October 18 1941) Prime Minister of Japan.
He was born into the ancient Fujiwara clan, and heir of the princely Konoe family in Tokyo. In his university years, he studied under the socialist philosopher Hajime Kawakami, and he entered politics in 1920 as a moderate and a protege of Saionji Kinmochi, opposed to the power of the army.
In June 1937, he became Prime Minister in an attempt to balance the growing power of the military, but he turned increasingly militaristic himself. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937 and under pressure from hard-liners, his cabinet agreed to expand operations in China and handed the entire conduct of the conflict in China to the military leaders to progress without government oversight. In November, Konoe announced Japan's aim of a new order in Asia, what would become the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and pressed China for concessions to end the Sino-Japanese War. He resigned on January 5 1939 over his failure to negotiate an end to the conflict in China, having broken off the Trautmann Mediation with Chiang Kai-Shek (Jiang Jieshi). This action was also of great importance for the Communist Party of China, as it has been argued that following the Rape of Nanking Chiang Kai-Shek's failure to break off the Trautmann Mediation led to the perception that the entire Kuomintang was weak. Kiichiro Hiranuma succeeded him as Prime Minister.
Final years of the war
Konoe played a role in the fall of the Tojo government in 1944 and in February 1945 he advised Emperor Hirohito to begin negotiations to end World War II. After the beginning of the American occupation, he served in the cabinet of Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni, the first post-war government, but he came under suspicion of war crimes, in which he faced almost certain conviction and execution by hanging. In December 1945, during the last call by the Americans for alleged war criminals to report to the Americans, he took potassium cyanide poison and committed suicide. It was 1945, exactly 1300 years after his ancestor, Fujiwara no Kamatari, led a coup d'état at court during the Soga clan. So symbolically ended the era of the Fujiwara regents.
His grandson, Morihiro Hosokawa, became prime minister fifty years later.
Miscellaneous
His brother Hidemaro Konoye was a well-known orchestral conductor and composer.
Further reading
- Oka, Yoshitake. Konoe Fumimaro: A Political Biography, University of Tokyo Press, 1983
External links
- [National Diet Library photos and biography]
- [Konoe biography from Spartacus Educational]
- [Annotated bibliography for Fumimaro Konoe from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues]
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| Ito - Kuroda - Yamagata - Matsukata - Ito (2nd) - Matsukata (2nd) - Ito (3rd) - Okuma - Yamagata (2nd) - Ito (4th) - Katsura - Saionji - Katsura (2nd) - Saionji (2nd) - Katsura (3rd) - Yamamoto - Okuma (2nd) - Terauchi - Hara - Takahashi - To. Kato - Yamamoto (2nd) - Kiyoura - Ta. Kato - Wakatsuki - G. Tanaka - Hamaguchi - Wakatsuki (2nd) - Inukai - Saito - Okada - Hirota - Hayashi - Konoe - Hiranuma - Abe - Yonai - Konoe (2nd) - Tojo - Koiso - K. Suzuki - Prince Higashikuni - Shidehara - Yoshida - Katayama - Ashida - Yoshida (2nd) - Hatoyama - Ishibashi - Kishi - Ikeda - Sato - K. Tanaka - Miki - Fukuda - Ohira - Z. Suzuki - Nakasone - Takeshita - Uno - Kaifu - Miyazawa - Hosokawa - Hata - Murayama - Hashimoto - Obuchi - Mori - Koizumi | ||
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