Kingoro Hashimoto

Kingorō Hashimoto
橋本 欣五郎
Hashimoto in 1947
Member of the House of Representatives
In office
30 April 1942 – 1 December 1945
Preceded byMulti-member district
Succeeded byConstituency abolished
ConstituencyFukuoka 4th
Personal details
Born(1890-02-19)19 February 1890
Okayama City, Okayama, Japan
Died29 June 1957(1957-06-29) (aged 67)
Tokyo, Japan
PartyImperial Rule Assistance Association
Military service
Allegiance Empire of Japan
Branch/service Imperial Japanese Army
Years of service1911–1936; 1937–1939
Rank Colonel

Kingorō Hashimoto (橋本 欣五郎, Hashimoto Kingorō; 19 February 1890 – 29 June 1957) was an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army and politician. He was famous for having twice tried to stage a coup against the civilian government in the 1930s.[1]

Early life and career

Hashimoto was born on 19 February 1890 in Okayama Prefecture to the family of a minor ship owner. The family moved to Moji in Fukuoka Prefecture when he was seven.[2] Hashimoto graduated from the 23rd class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1911. He subsequently graduated from the Army Staff College in 1920 as a captain. Hashimoto had learned Russian as a cadet and was assigned to the Russia Section of the General Staff.[2]

In April 1922, he was assigned to the Kwantung Army in Manchuria and was stationed at Harbin Special Service Organisation (特務機関, tokumu kikan). During his time in Manchuria he befriended the ultranationalist Shūmei Ōkawa, who then worked for the South Manchuria Railway.[2] In 1923, he was sent on special assignment to Manzhouli, near the border with the Soviet Union. From September 1927 through June 1930, he served as military attaché to Turkey. On his return to Japan, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and chief of the Russia section.[3]

Coup attempts

Colonel Hashimoto (1931)

From the middle of 1930, Hashimoto became increasingly involved in radical politics within the military, with active participation in various attempts at a coup d'état. The Sakurakai (Cherry Blossom Society) was formed by him and Captain Isamu Chō.

Hashimoto actively participated in the March incident of 1931. It sought political reform with the elimination of party government by a coup d'état and the establishment of a new cabinet under General Kazushige Ugaki to stamp out Japan's allegedly-corrupt politics.

The attempt failed, but Hashimoto, along with Isamu Chō and Shūmei Ōkawa, organized a further coup, the Imperial Colors Incident, also known as the October Incident. All the conspirators were arrested and transferred to other posts.

Later activities

Hashimoto in 1937.

After leaving active service, Hashimoto formed the Great Japan Youth Party in October 1936.[4]

Hashimoto returned to active service after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. He was involved in the Panay incident of 12 December 1937 in which unprovoked Japanese bombers attacked and sank the USS Panay (PR-5) on the Yangtze River in China. Hashimoto was the senior Japanese officer in the region, and a few days after the sinking, he was quoted in US newspapers as saying "I had orders to fire." US-Japanese relations continued to sour in the aftermath of the incident, which would eventually lead to the Pacific War.

Hashimoto supported aggressive policies during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940, along with the other military extremists of the Imperial Japanese Army.

As a prominent nationalist, Hashimoto was invited to participate in the formation of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe in October 1940. Hashimoto served as a standing director.

Hashimoto was elected to the House of Representatives in 1942 and was a member of the Imperial Rule Assistance Political Association. After Kuniaki Koiso became prime minister, Hashimoto's old superior Yoshitsugu Tatekawa was made commander of the Yokusan Sonendan and Hashimoto became his deputy and director of the central headquarters in August 1944. He held that position until February 1945.

With the dissolution of the Imperial Rule Assistance Political Association in March, Hashimoto joined the National Defense Brotherhood in the Diet rather than the mainstream Dai Nippon Seijikai (大日本政治会).

After the end of the war, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Sugamo Prison by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.[5] He died in 1957.[5]

References

Citations

  1. ^ Hoyt, Edwin Palmer (1 January 2001). Warlord: Tojo Against the World. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780815411710.
  2. ^ a b c Szpilman 2017, p. 49.
  3. ^ Szpilman 2017, p. 49-50.
  4. ^ Szpilman 2017, p. 51.
  5. ^ a b Sources of Japanese Tradition, Abridged: Part 2: 1868 to 2000. Columbia University Press. 13 August 2013. ISBN 9780231518154.

Sources cited

  • Szpilman, Christopher W.A. (2017). "Western and Central Asia in the Eyes of the Japanese Radical Right". In Esenbel, Selçuk (ed.). Japan on the Silk Road: Encounters and Perspectives of Politics and Culture in Eurasia. Leiden; Boston: Brill. pp. 48–68. doi:10.1163/9789004274310_004. ISBN 9789004274310.
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