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Yasukuni Shrine at the Heart of Japan's National Debate: History, Memory, Denial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Takahashi Tetsuya
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Tomita Tomohiko, former grand steward of the Japanese imperial household, recorded in his diaries (1) that Emperor Hirohito ceased visiting the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo when it decided to honour certain men sentenced to death by the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (2). Seven of the 14 class A criminals condemned, including the prime minister, former general Tojo Hideki, were executed; the others died in prison.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , April 2007 , e5
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2007

References

(1) The existence of these diaries was revealed by the Tokyo newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

(2) In 1945 the allies set up three categories of war crime:

class A, crimes against peace; class B, conventional war crimes; and class C, crimes against humanity.

(3) After the civil war that overthrew the shogunate (military dictatorship), imperial government was fully restored in January 1868, marking the beginning of the Meiji period, which lasted until 1912.

(4) In September 1931 Japan falsely accused Chinese dissidents of blowing up a section of railway as an excuse for the annexation of Manchuria.

(5) Article 1 of the Constitution of November 1946.

(6) 1978 declaration by the second priest in charge of the Yasukuni shrine.