was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1937 to 1939 and from 1940 to 1941. He presided over the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 and breakdown in relations with the United States which eventually culminated in the Second World War's expansion to the Asia-Pacific theater. Konoe also played a central role in transforming Japan into a totalitarian state by pushing through the State General Mobilization Law and establishing the Imperial Rule Assistance Association.
Born in Tokyo to a prominent aristocratic family, Konoe graduated from Kyoto University and took up his father's seat in the House of Peers in 1916. He was a member of the Japanese delegation at the Paris Peace Conference following World War I, and served as president of the House of Peers from 1933 to 1937. In June 1937, Konoe became prime minister of Japan on the recommendation of his mentor Saionji Kinmochi. When the Marco Polo Bridge Incident took place a month later, he oversaw an escalation of tensions with China which ultimately culminated in the Second Sino-Japanese War. During the early years of the conflict, Konoe's government presided over numerous victories against Chinese forces as well as the widespread perpetration of war crimes (including the Nanjing Massacre). In 1938, he enacted the State General Mobilization Law which massively expanded the government's control over Japanese civilians in order to place the country on a war footing. In January 1939, Konoe resigned as the Japanese military proved unable to achieve a decisive victory in China.
After resigning as Japan's head of government, Konoe served as chairman of the Privy Council until being once again appointed prime minister in July 1940. Later that year, he founded the Imperial Rule Assistance Association and oversaw the signing of the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. During his second premiership, Konoe also presided over the Japanese invasion of French Indochina, the formal recognition of Wang Jingwei's puppet government in Nanjing and the conclusion of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact. Despite attempting to resolve growing tensions with the United States, a rigid timetable imposed by the military on the negotiations and Konoe's own inflexibility set the two countries on the path to war. Politically isolated, Konoe resigned as premier in October 1941 and was replaced by Hideki Tojo. Six weeks later, the Pacific War broke out after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Konoe remained a close advisor to Emperor Hirohito until the end of World War II and played a key role in the fall of the Tōjō Cabinet in 1944. At the start of the Allied occupation of Japan in August 1945, he briefly served as a minister in the cabinet of Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni, but came under suspicion of war crimes. On 16 December 1945, Konoe committed suicide by ingesting cyanide before he could be arrested by the authorities.
Early life Fumimaro Konoe (often Konoye), was born in Tokyo on 12 October 1891 to the prominent Konoe family, one of the main branches of the ancient Fujiwara clan. This made the Konoe "head of the most prestigious, and highest ranking noble house in the realm." They had first become independent of the Fujiwara in the 12th century, when Minamoto no Yoritomo divided the Fujiwara into the Five Regent Houses (go-sekke). Japanese historian Eri Hotta described the Konoe as "First among the go-sekke"; Fumimaro would be its 29th leader. While the average height of Japanese people at that time was around 160 cm (5 ft 3 in), Konoe was over 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) tall.
Konoe's father, Atsumaro, had been politically active, having organized the Anti-Russia Society in 1903. Fumimaro's mother died shortly after his birth; his father then married her younger sister. Fumimaro was misled into thinking she was his real mother, and found out the truth when he was 12 years old after his father's death.
Upon his father's death in 1912, Fumimaro not only inherited his father's aristocratic title of kōshaku (duke or prince)Although – in accordance with the system adopted by the Japanese imperial government from the Meiji period through the end of WWII – the official English translation of Konoe's title was "prince", the title of kōshaku () was actually a closer equivalent to "duke". but also his debt. Thanks to the financial support of the zaibatsu Sumitomo, which he received throughout his career, and the auction of Fujiwara heirlooms, the family was able to become solvent. Fumimaro's younger brother, Hidemaro Konoye, later became a symphony conductor and founded NHK Symphony Orchestra.樂評人 David Hall 在他的權威著作 "The record book : a music lover's guide to the world of the phonograph" ( 1943年版), 曾經對近衛秀磨這一款錄音有以下之評語:
After graduating from Taimei Elementary School, he went on to study at Gakushuin, which was an institution to educate the children of the children of Japan's nobility. He was inspired by Inazo Nitobe, the dean of the First Higher School. Uncharacteristically for someone from a high-ranking aristocratic background, he chose to study at the First Higher School for university preparatory education, instead of staying at Gakushuin. Upon graduating in 1912, he proceeded to study philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University, where he again studied together with his former peers from Gakushuin.『第一高等学校一覧 自大正元年至大正2年』第一高等学校、1912年、303頁。 Konoe subsequently transferred to the law department of Kyoto Imperial University. One of his professors was the Marxist economist Hajime Kawakami. Under Kawakami's influence, Konoe became interested in socialism as a student and wrote a Japanese translation of Oscar Wilde's "The Soul of Man Under Socialism."
While in Kyoto, Konoe met the genrō Saionji Kinmochi and became his protégé. After graduation, Fumimaro turned to Saionji for advice about starting a political career, and worked briefly in the home ministry before accompanying his mentor to Versailles as part of the Japanese peace delegation.
In December 1918, ahead of the peace conference, Konoe published an essay entitled . In this article, he argued that western democracies were supporting democracy, peace, and self-determination only hypocritically, while actually undermining those ideals through racially discriminatory imperialism. He attacked the League of Nations as an effort to institutionalize the status quo: colonial hegemony by the western powers. This essay became known to American journalist Thomas Franklin Fairfax Millard who translated it and wrote a rebuttal in his journal, Millard's Review of the Far East. Saionji considered Konoe's writing reckless, but, after it became internationally read, Konoe was invited to dinner by Sun Yat-sen. Sun admired Japan's quick modernization; at the dinner, they discussed pan-Asian nationalism.
During the Paris Peace Conference, Konoe was one of the Japanese diplomats who proposed the Racial Equality Proposal for the Covenant of the League of Nations. When the Racial Equality Clause came up before the committee, it received the support of Japan, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, and China. However, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson overturned the vote, declaring that the clause needed unanimous support. Konoe regarded the rejection of the Racial Equality Clause as a significant setback and a reflection of discriminatory attitudes toward Japan.Macmillan, Margaret Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, New York: Random House, 2007, p. 317
Upon his return to Japan he published a booklet where he described his travels to France, Britain and the U.S. Konoe noted how he was angered by rising anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States and how the US government discriminated against Japanese immigrants. He also described China as a rival to Japan in international relations.
House of Peers
In 1916, while at university, Fumimaro took his father's seat in the House of Peers, upper house of the Imperial Diet. After his return from Europe he was aggressively recruited by the most powerful political faction of Japan's budding Taishō democracy of the 1920s: the kenkyukai, a conservative, militaristic faction, led by Yamagata Aritomo and generally opposed to democratic reform. In September 1922, he joined them.
The opposing faction was the seiyukai, led by Hara Takashi, which drew its strength from the lower house. Eventually the seiyukai was able to gain the Aritomo's support, and Hara Takashi became prime minister in 1918. Konoe believed the House of Peers should stay neutral in factional party politics, lest a partisan-seeming peerage have their privileges restricted. He therefore supported Takashi's seiyukai government, as did most of the kenkyukai.
However, by 1923, the seiyukai had split into two factions and could no longer control the government. During the premiership of Kato Komei and his party, the kenseikai, Konoe supported universal male suffrage to forestall serious curtailment of the noble privileges. Konoe believed universal male suffrage was the best way to channel popular discontent and thereby reduce the chance of violent revolution. As the house of peers became allied with different political factions in the lower house, Konoe left the kenkyukai in November 1927.
Like his position in regard to the nobility, he believed that the emperor should not take political positions. In his eyes, a political emperor would diminish the imperial prestige, undermine the unifying power of the throne, expose the emperor to criticism, and potentially undermine domestic tranquillity. His greatest fear in this period of rapid industrialization would become the threat of left-wing revolution, facilitated by the petty factionalism of Taishō democracy's political factions. He saw the peerage as a bulwark of stability committed to tranquillity, harmony, and the maintenance of the status quo. Its function was to restrain the excesses of the elected government, but its power had to be used sparingly.
Alliance with Home Ministry The Japanese home ministry was extremely powerful, in charge of the police, elections, public works, Shinto shrines, and land development. The home ministry was also abused to influence elections in favour of the ruling party. Despite having once believed it to be beneath the dignity of a nobleman, Konoe entered into an alliance with important home ministry officials. The most important among these officials was Yoshiharu Tazawa, whom he met after he became the managing director of the Japan Youth Hall (Nippon Seinenkan) in 1921. Konoe and his allies saw the influence of local meiboka political bosses as a threat to Japan's political stability. Universal suffrage had opened the vote to the undereducated peasantry, but local bosses, using pork-barrel politics, manipulated their influence on the government. These officials also shared Konoe's concern about party influence within the home ministry, which had seen great turnover mirroring the political upheaval occurring in the Diet. Konoe's association with the youth hall began two months after the publication of an article in July 1921, where he stressed education of the electorate's political wisdom and morality, and lamented that education only taught youth to accept ideas passively from their superiors. The Youth Corps (Seinendan) was thereafter created to foster a moral sense of civic duty among the people, with the overall purpose of destroying the meiboka system.