Why was Hirohito a tyrant?

Answer 1

It's because he got too caught up in his own nationalistic ideas that Japan was number one during WWII. At the time Tojo didn't look at it as being bad or evil. He thought he was reuniting the continent of Asia into one country whether the countries in Asia disagreed or not and that was his vision and goal. He was a very proud individual who loved his country to the fullest. Not just Tojo but many other Japanese soldiers and patriotic fanatics thought that Japan was invincible because they took over Manchuria. Yet, in reality Japan got beaten down by the Allied forces really bad especially when they dropped the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's when Tojo lost his perception on the Japanese military strength and Japan surrendered.

Answer 2

First of all, we must clarify that Imperial Japan didn't have a Western-style dictator. Imperial Japan was a totalitarian state, but it was ruled by an oligarchy whose head was Hirohito... and, in that sense, we could say he was a "tyrant".

In the words of Professor Herbert P. Bix (author of "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan", winner of the Pulitzer Prize), Hirohito was the "final arbiter" of conflicts among the members of the oligarchy. It was the Emperor who appointed and dismissed the Prime Minister, the rest of the Cabinet, the Chiefs of Staff... and it was he who could impose a solution when it was not possible to reach consensus within the oligarchy. Hirohito was not a Western-style dictator like his Axis counterparts Hitler and Mussolini, but he played an active role in Japan's politics during the war and he had broad powers in his oligarchy. Also, after the war he tried to continue exercising political influence.

Hirohito can be considered a tyrant in that sense, but not as Western-style dictators.

Books like the above-cited "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" by Herbert P. Bix, or "The People's Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy" by Kenneth J. Ruoff are very helpful on this matter.

Answer 3

Tojo, as the ruler of Imperial Japan (bearing in mind that Emperor Hirohito was only the symbolic ruler, and Tojo actually ran the government) had the final responsibility for the many terrible war crimes committed by Imperial Japan during WW II, which included millions of civilian deaths, the abuse of prisoners of war, etc.

Answer 4

He was not the dictator of Japan. He was just the Prime Minister of Japan.

Answer 5

Hitler committed suicide (Germany). Mussolini was lynched by his own people (Italy). Hirohito couldn't be touched (without starting another war), so Tojo was hanged in his place (Japan).

Answer 6

His own nation sentenced him to death by hanging at the Far East Military Tribunal in 1948. That should really say something about what the Japanese as a whole thought of him.