TOKYO - Around 300 documents belonging to Hideki Tojo, Japan's wartime prime minister who was executed in 1948 as a war criminal for crimes against peace, have been donated by family members to a Tokyo library and made available to the public, Kyodo News have learned.
The documents including handwritten notes and letters gifted to the National Diet Library include Tojo's personal thoughts and criticisms of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, established by the Allies to try Japanese war criminals between 1946 and 1948.
The records were donated between May and June by the families of Tojo's second and third daughters and can be viewed upon request.
Tojo wrote about his interrogation by U.S. Chief Prosecutor Joseph Keenan, describing the questioning as "a last opportunity" to call for justice and saying he felt he was "walking into battle."
Yuta Okubo, an assistant professor at Kanazawa University who is responsible for managing the documents, said, "There is an abundance of handwritten records which are extremely valuable for analyzing Tojo's movements during the Tokyo trial."
The donation comes as Japan marks the 80th anniversary of the start of the Tokyo tribunal.
In diary entries and notes written between Jan. 2 and Feb. 14, 1948, Tojo wrote, "Although Japan was defeated in war, was that destiny? But my heart fills with joy at the thought that this is a last opportunity to proclaim that Japan's actions were grounded in the justice of self-preservation and authority."
He called the tribunal a "victor's justice," expressing disdain for being unable to "fully voice my beliefs due to various imposed restrictions."
"I am not interested (in the ruling). I fear the Buddha and Yama much more than the court," he said, referring to the King of Hell in Buddhist mythology.
While Tojo refrained from naming names, he criticized a certain defendant for acknowledging before the international tribunal the existence of a "military clique," or a group of military leaders blamed for driving Japan into war, in an apparent attempt to please the prosecution.
Tojo also condemned another for trying to curry favor with the prosecution by converting to Christianity.
He flatly denied that Emperor Showa, then known as Hirohito, was responsible for the outbreak of the Pacific War in an entry titled "On responsibility for the war and the emperor," expressing his opinions to defense attorney Ichiro Kiyose.
