Emperor of Japan warned against going to war ahead of WWII

Emperor of Japan warned against going to war ahead of WWII – and even tried to stop the bombing of Pearl Harbor, new biography claims 

• Emperor Hirohito 'warned against siding with the Nazis in 1939'
• He said 'bombing Pearl Harbor would cause self-destructive war'
• Claims come from 12,000-page biography commissioned by Japanese state
• Critics say it offers 'sympathetic view' of man who was immune to war trials
• Book has taken 24 years and £2.2 million at the cost of taxpayer to compile 

By Mia De Graaf for MailOnline

 

Fight: A new biography of Emperor Hirohito claims he tried to stop his nation siding with the Nazis in 1939

Japan's former emperor tried to stop his country siding with the Nazis in the lead-up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a new biography claims.

Emperor Hirohito allegedly warned the attacks in July 1941 would cause 'nothing less than a self-destructive war'.

And in the wake of the Second World War, he told US commanders he blamed himself for failing to stop it. 

The claims come from a 12,000-page account of the leader's life, which has taken 24 years and £2.2 million to compile at the cost of the Japanese taxpayer.

It will be released in stages over the next five years, but some Japanese media outlets have been given advance extracts.

The tome portrays a sympathetic view of Hirohito as a man who rallied against army leaders.

He is remembered by some in Japan as a driving force in the nation's march to war with the Germans.

Others, however, believe he was helpless to control a corrupt military state.

The emperor's role in the war was never firmly established.

He was shielded from indictment in the Tokyo war crimes trials by a US occupation that wanted to use him as a symbol to rebuild Japan.

 

In an apparent bid to settle the confusion, Japan's Imperial Household Agency commissioned a 61-volume biography of Hirohito a year after he died in 1989 following 62 years on the throne.

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It claims he complained in July 1939 to Army Minister Seishiro Itagaki about the military's 'predisposition' as it strengthened its relationship with Germany, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency.  

Warning: The monarch allegedly warned the bombing of Pearl Harbor would cause a 'self-destructive war'

Kyodo said it provides little new material and is unlikely to change current thinking about Hirohito. It does make public some letters and essays he wrote as a child.

The record confirms that Hirohito said in 1988 that he had stopped visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine because it had added Class A war criminals to those enshrined there, Kyodo said. 

His last visit to Yasukuni was in 1975. 

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the shrine last December, sparking official protests from China and South Korea.