Shigenori Tōgō
Shigenori Tōgō (東郷茂徳, Tōgō Shigenori) (Korean: 박무덕, Hanja: 朴茂德, Park Moo-Duk, 10 December 1882 - 23 July 1950) was Minister of Foreign Affairs for Japan at both the start and the end of the Japanese-American conflict during World War II. He also served as Minister of Colonial Affairs in 1941, and assumed the same position, renamed the Minister for Greater East Asia, in 1945.
Prewar service
In 1920, Togo was sent on a diplomatic mission to Weimar Germany, as diplomatic relations between the two countries were reestablished following the Japanese ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. While in that post, he married a German woman who remained his wife till his death. In 1937, served as Ambassador to Germany, and between 1938-1940 served as Ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Wartime service
Throughout the war, Tōgō was among those who doubted that Japan could succeed in a war with the United States. As a result, he endorsed a more reconciliatory policy towards the western powers. As part of this policy, he announced on January 21, 1942 that the Japanese government shall uphold the Geneva Convention even though did not sign it. On September 1, 1942, resigned his post as Foreign Minister due to his opposition to establish a special ministry for occupied territories within the Japanese government (the new ministry was eventually established in November of that same year). Throughout most of the war, he lived in retirement. Upon the formation of the government of Admiral Kantaro Suzuki in April 1945, was again appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. In that position, he was one of the chief proponents for acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration which, he felt, contained the best conditions for peace Japan could hope to be offered. Up until the last, he hoped for favorable terms from the Soviet Union. At Tōgō's suggestion, no official response was made to the Declaration at first, though a censored version was released to the Japanese public, while Tōgō waited to hear from Moscow. Unfortunately, many Allied leaders interpreted this silence as a rejection of the Declaration, and so bombing was allowed to continue.
Tōgō was one of the Cabinet Ministers who advocated Japanese surrender in the summer of 1945, and several days after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this action was finally taken.
When the war against the United States was decided, he disliked pressing the responsibility of the failure of diplomacy against others, and signed the document of the declaration of war by his responsibility. He became the defendant of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, as a war criminal for that. He was sentenced to 20 years for war crime charges and died of sickness from his confinement in prison.
A volume of his memoirs was published poshumously under the title "The Cause of Japan", which was edited by his former defence counsel Ben Bruce Blakeney.
Descent and family
Tōgō was of Korean descent, whose ancestor was a potter, Park Pyeong-ui (박평의 1558~1623) who was abducted to Japan during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598) by Hideyoshi Toyotomi. He was the creator of Satsuma ware which has been regarded as one of Japanese representative porcelains along with Yi Sam-pyeong's Arita ware. Tōgō's original surname was Park, a Korean surname but his father reportedly purchased the surname, Tōgō, when Shigenori was five.
Japanese diplomat and scholar on international relations Kazuhiko Togo is his grandson.
References
- "Foreign Office Files for Japan and the Far East". Adam Matthew Publications. Accessed 2 March 2005.
- Spector, Ronald (1985). Eagle Against the Sun. New York: Vintage Books.
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