Emma Goto
For some, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (or officially The International Military Tribunal for the Far East) is considered as a form of “victor’s justice”. History is written by the victors, and so you could argue that the Americans were free to blame Japan for the terrible things that they did in WW2, without any sort of introspection on their own actions. On the other hand, Japan’s treatment of its prisoners of war and enemy civilians during WW2 was despicable, and there needed to be some accountability for their actions.
Judgement at Tokyo provides a run-through of all the major events of the trial, as well as introducing us to its 11 judges (representing 11 of the countries that fought against Japan in the war). Of note is Chinese judge Mei Ju-ao, who was seeking justice after the events of the Nanjing Massacre, as well as Indian judge Radhabinod Pal, who was the only judge that argued for all of the defendants on trial to be acquitted of their crimes. I’ll admit I knew very little about the trials and just imagined it was a “America vs Japan” type of situation, so I appreciated the author providing a broader perspective by focusing on the non-white judges.
Overall the trial was quite messy. The biggest elephant in the room was that while the US wanted to see justice for the war crimes that Japan had committed, Emperor Hirohito was deemed off-limits. And the defendants were quite loyal to Hirohito as well - so there was quite a weird dance of them trying to say how much they respected the Emperor and how much they would listen to his opinion if he gave it, while also trying to paint the Emperor as someone that didn’t have any say in how the war progressed and so was not culpable at all.
Australia was quite pissed off by this (with the US and UK trying to tell them to shut up about it), and civilians back home in America were not happy about it either, but the US (particularly General MacArthur, who was in charge of the occupation in Japan) decided they needed the Emperor to stay in power to keep a stable, democratic Japan.
The author points out that Shigenori Togo, Minister of Foreign Affairs during WW2, suffered the most injustice out of all the defendants during the trial, as although he was part of the Prime Minister’s cabinet and in the room when a lot of decisions were made - he was against Japan starting a war with America, and pressed for Japan to surrender earlier as well.
In the end, seven Class A war criminals were sentenced to death and hanged, and sixteen were sentenced to life imprisonment (but then paroled within 10 years). Others were imprisoned awaiting another trial, but eventually released. Nobusuke Kishi was one of these men - imprisoned for his involvement at Manchuria, he would go on to become prime minister, and then eventually his grandson becoming Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe.
Today, Japanese conservatives continue to downplay or deny war crimes like the Nanjing Massacre or the use of comfort women. And in Japan’s case its main conservative political party, the LDP, has near-continuously held power since the 50s, so this is not a minority view.
The main thought I’m left pondering after I finished this book is how could things have been done differently to prevent this outcome?
The trial made clear the war crimes Japan committed and convicted and executed the leaders at the top - arguing that they should bear ultimate responsibility for the actions of the people below them. Maybe that satisfied some people who needed to see at least someone blamed for the atrocities that happened during WW2. But they did not manage to eradicate or change the opinions of those that thought Japan waged war for justifiable reasons. And when alleged war criminals like Kishi would go on to become prime minister, and eventually his grandson Abe too, you can imagine that whatever strongly-held beliefs that Kishi had about the war would have been firmly passed down the generations as well. Not to mention with a bungled or seemingly unfair trial, it’s also given the conservatives of today plenty to be angry about with “victor’s justice”. Would it have even been possible to do the trial truly fairly?
Also I’m not sure I could imagine the US completely rooting out the conservatives of Japan, because it’s not like they would have wanted the left in power either - that’s a touch too close to communism for America, right? (Actually I learned later from Wikipedia that CIA was even covertly helping to keep the LDP in power, to prevent those pesky communists). And of course the risk of destabilising Japan when they have a nearly-communist China looming on their doorstep was probably not a good idea either.
Japanese politicians today also continue to make visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where 2 million war dead (including war criminals) are enshrined. Ostensibly they argue that they are just visiting the 2 million war dead to pay their respects. But the shrine is pretty clear on where it stands, with a memorial dedicated to Indian judge Radhabinod Pal for his dissent against the trial. While he gave some valid points on the legality and fairness of the trial, his dissent was also biased by the fact he seemed to unfairly dismiss eyewitness evidence - the author notes that Pal went on to also deny some evidence of the Holocaust.
The author mentions that in preparation for this book he had his assistants translate tons of historical documents from Chinese and Japanese into English so that he could read through them, even if he didn’t use them directly. It’s clear there was really a lot of effort put into this book. It’s a really definitive overview of the trial, and in my opinion not overly biased towards America, even if the author is American. He takes care to point out the racist attitudes still very prevalent back then in the 40s, as well as the fact that the Chinese government does have things to gain from playing up the Nanjing massacre as well.
From that perspective, it’s hard to give this any less than a 5. However if I rate this book in terms of how much I enjoyed it, it would probably lean closer to a 4. It took me a good 2 weeks to finally get around to finishing this, and it was a bit of a slog at times. So I think I’ll go in the middle and give this one a 4.5/5.
Originally posted at www.emgoto.com.
For some, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (or officially The International Military Tribunal for the Far East) is considered as a form of “victor’s justice”. History is written by the victors, and so you could argue that the Americans were free to blame Japan for the terrible things that they did in WW2, without any sort of introspection on their own actions. On the other hand, Japan’s treatment of its prisoners of war and enemy civilians during WW2 was despicable, and there needed to be some accountability for their actions.
Judgement at Tokyo provides a run-through of all the major events of the trial, as well as introducing us to its 11 judges (representing 11 of the countries that fought against Japan in the war). Of note is Chinese judge Mei Ju-ao, who was seeking justice after the events of the Nanjing Massacre, as well as Indian judge Radhabinod Pal, who was the only judge that argued for all of the defendants on trial to be acquitted of their crimes. I’ll admit I knew very little about the trials and just imagined it was a “America vs Japan” type of situation, so I appreciated the author providing a broader perspective by focusing on the non-white judges.
Overall the trial was quite messy. The biggest elephant in the room was that while the US wanted to see justice for the war crimes that Japan had committed, Emperor Hirohito was deemed off-limits. And the defendants were quite loyal to Hirohito as well - so there was quite a weird dance of them trying to say how much they respected the Emperor and how much they would listen to his opinion if he gave it, while also trying to paint the Emperor as someone that didn’t have any say in how the war progressed and so was not culpable at all.
Australia was quite pissed off by this (with the US and UK trying to tell them to shut up about it), and civilians back home in America were not happy about it either, but the US (particularly General MacArthur, who was in charge of the occupation in Japan) decided they needed the Emperor to stay in power to keep a stable, democratic Japan.
The author points out that Shigenori Togo, Minister of Foreign Affairs during WW2, suffered the most injustice out of all the defendants during the trial, as although he was part of the Prime Minister’s cabinet and in the room when a lot of decisions were made - he was against Japan starting a war with America, and pressed for Japan to surrender earlier as well.
In the end, seven Class A war criminals were sentenced to death and hanged, and sixteen were sentenced to life imprisonment (but then paroled within 10 years). Others were imprisoned awaiting another trial, but eventually released. Nobusuke Kishi was one of these men - imprisoned for his involvement at Manchuria, he would go on to become prime minister, and then eventually his grandson becoming Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe.
Today, Japanese conservatives continue to downplay or deny war crimes like the Nanjing Massacre or the use of comfort women. And in Japan’s case its main conservative political party, the LDP, has near-continuously held power since the 50s, so this is not a minority view.
The main thought I’m left pondering after I finished this book is how could things have been done differently to prevent this outcome?
The trial made clear the war crimes Japan committed and convicted and executed the leaders at the top - arguing that they should bear ultimate responsibility for the actions of the people below them. Maybe that satisfied some people who needed to see at least someone blamed for the atrocities that happened during WW2. But they did not manage to eradicate or change the opinions of those that thought Japan waged war for justifiable reasons. And when alleged war criminals like Kishi would go on to become prime minister, and eventually his grandson Abe too, you can imagine that whatever strongly-held beliefs that Kishi had about the war would have been firmly passed down the generations as well. Not to mention with a bungled or seemingly unfair trial, it’s also given the conservatives of today plenty to be angry about with “victor’s justice”. Would it have even been possible to do the trial truly fairly?
Also I’m not sure I could imagine the US completely rooting out the conservatives of Japan, because it’s not like they would have wanted the left in power either - that’s a touch too close to communism for America, right? (Actually I learned later from Wikipedia that CIA was even covertly helping to keep the LDP in power, to prevent those pesky communists). And of course the risk of destabilising Japan when they have a nearly-communist China looming on their doorstep was probably not a good idea either.
Japanese politicians today also continue to make visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where 2 million war dead (including war criminals) are enshrined. Ostensibly they argue that they are just visiting the 2 million war dead to pay their respects. But the shrine is pretty clear on where it stands, with a memorial dedicated to Indian judge Radhabinod Pal for his dissent against the trial. While he gave some valid points on the legality and fairness of the trial, his dissent was also biased by the fact he seemed to unfairly dismiss eyewitness evidence - the author notes that Pal went on to also deny some evidence of the Holocaust.
The author mentions that in preparation for this book he had his assistants translate tons of historical documents from Chinese and Japanese into English so that he could read through them, even if he didn’t use them directly. It’s clear there was really a lot of effort put into this book. It’s a really definitive overview of the trial, and in my opinion not overly biased towards America, even if the author is American. He takes care to point out the racist attitudes still very prevalent back then in the 40s, as well as the fact that the Chinese government does have things to gain from playing up the Nanjing massacre as well.
From that perspective, it’s hard to give this any less than a 5. However if I rate this book in terms of how much I enjoyed it, it would probably lean closer to a 4. It took me a good 2 weeks to finally get around to finishing this, and it was a bit of a slog at times. So I think I’ll go in the middle and give this one a 4.5/5.
Originally posted at www.emgoto.com.
