Hirohito emperor of Japan?

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
I've read the accounts at the end of WWII and Japan's surrender. Many of Japan's generals and cabinet members were arrested for war crimes.
This was at the hands of General MacArthur the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers after the surrender.

MacArthur thought it best not to arrest the emperor. That the transition would go better if he was left as emperor. Hirohito did have to announce that he wasn't divine. That he wasn't god or a god.

I think part of the surrender agreement is that the generals would take the blame instead of the emperor.

I have also read that the emperor was just a puppet. He didn't have any role in the government or war. He wasn't the Commander in Chief of Japan's military although he did approve the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In 1937, Japanese troops committed the war crime that is now known as the Rape of Nanking (the then Capital of China. Also referred to as the Nanking Massacre. They even had a sword killing contest.
I wonder if the Emperor had any hand in that massacre?

On May 1, 1946, SCAP officials interrogated Prince Asaka, who was the ranking officer in the city at the height of the atrocities, about his involvement in the Nanking Massacre and the deposition was submitted to the International Prosecution Section of the Tokyo tribunal.
The Emperor was his uncle by marriage.

Just looking at how perhaps politics pays a part in who get's a trial and who even get's arrested by the opposition at the end of a war.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
Was wondering also about Jefferson Davis and Lee at the end of the Civil War. One was the president and the other a general.
I think Davis was initially arrested and imprisoned for treason. Later the case was dropped when the jury thought Davis could prove his case.
I don't believe Lee was ever arrested. Why did they go after the president and not the general?

I wonder how many other examples in other wars as well as to who gets amnesty and who doesn't?
 
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