In 1945, after the Japanese Emperor saw no hope of victory and submitted instruments of surrender to various countries to announce surrender, the world anti-fascist war came to an end, but the end of the war did not mean the end of the crime. At that time, in order to bring these war executioners to justice, after two and a half years of trial at the International Tribunal for the Far East, 7 Japanese Class A war criminals were finally hanged.
Among them, the demons who originally swung their swords at countless unarmed people changed the appearance of the past to show off their martial prowess, and their ugly state was frequent, and even some people were full of tears, and some people struggled for 12 minutes and 30 seconds. So who are the people who reveal this ugliness? Which 7 people got the punishment they deserved? What heinous crimes have these 7 people committed?
According to Article 10 of the Potsdam Proclamation signed by China, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union on July 26, 1945, "We have no intention of enslaving the Japanese nation or destroying its country, but shall be punished by law for war criminals." At the Tokyo International Tribunal the following year, countries came together to sentence these criminals.
Among them, for the sake of its own post-war interests, the United States has obstructed in every way when other countries sentence Japanese war criminals who have not harmed the interests of the United States, and even set up many obstacles for this purpose by exploiting loopholes in relevant regulations. Originally, Emperor Hirohito of Japan, who initiated this war of aggression, was almost sent to court-martial at the suggestion of Mei Ruxuan, but Emperor Hirohito finally escaped under the protection of the U.S. government and MacArthur.
In the Nanjing Massacre, one of the major events dealt with in this trial, the court spent more than three weeks for this purpose, listened to the testimony of more than 10 Chinese and foreign witnesses, and reviewed more than 100 written documents. During this period, mei Ruxuan unfolded in front of everyone one by one when the Japanese Kou used torture and killing methods such as caesarean section, beheading, burning, digging hearts, crushing, and other cruel killing methods on the Chinese people in Nanjing, as well as the fact that they did not even let go of the crying children, all the people present were stunned.
However, for these crimes, Matsui Ishigen, the main culprit in this matter, said with great concern that he was very sorry to hear these news, and that he only heard about these faults after this incident. At that time, he was recuperating in Suzhou, 140 kilometers away from Nanjing, and he did not know about it, and afterwards he also set up a relevant organization to deal with the personnel involved. In addition, he also said falsely, "I don't want to turn Nanjing into a bloody battlefield, and I am very remorseful for these things." "But soon, Matsui Ishigen's ugly face to escape the trial was debunked by the ironclad evidence provided by our country.
In addition to Matsui Ishigen, Hideki Tojo, who had been influenced by the spirit of Japanese militarism and the so-called Bushido spirit since childhood, was also pressed to the court. As early as after the Japanese occupation of northeast China, Hideki Tojo was also promoted to "chief of staff of the Kwantung Army", and during his two years in office in tohoku, he constantly promoted the so-called "maintenance of law and order" and slaughtered and brutalized the people of northeast China. In 1937, Hideki Tojo's all-out plan to invade China was approved by the Japanese government. Subsequently, the ecstatic Hideki Tojo commanded the Japanese Kou to launch the "July 7 Incident" at the Lugou Bridge on the southern outskirts of Beiping, thus setting off an all-out war of aggression against China.
Even at the end of the invasion of China, which he personally planned and initiated, Hideki Tojo still had no intention of repenting, and in mid-August 1945, in order to speed up Japan's surrender, the United States destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with two atomic bombs and warned Japan that it must surrender unconditionally. But Hideki Tojo, who knew of this, wrote in his diary that "the purpose of the Great East Asian War was for the stability and self-preservation of the East Asian region." In order to achieve this goal, even if the lives of many soldiers and the happiness of all the people are sacrificed, they will not hesitate. ”
During the nearly two years of interrogation from November 1946 to April 16, 1948, Hideki Tojo refused to admit to the crimes he had committed, for which he provided nearly 50,000 words of confessions, and racked his brains to remove all the things he had done, but all this did not cover up his crimes.
Among them, Hideki Tojo participated in the "ruling faction" as early as 1929, and this organization was established from the beginning to study how to invade and occupy northeast China by force and its strategic deployment. In addition to Hideki Tojo, there were also Itagaki Seishiro, Kenji Doihara, Akira Muto, and others who were also executed this time, and at the same time, their plans for invading China can even be traced back even to earlier, so the crimes of these people cannot be said to be difficult to describe.
At the end of 1948, for two and a half years, Mei Ruzhang, a Chinese judge who represented 40,000,Chinese people, together with his Chinese compatriots who had traveled with him, constantly searched for the crimes committed by these war criminals in China, and finally reached an agreement among these judges of different countries. On November 12, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East announced that seven Class A war criminals, namely Kenji Toihara, Hideki Tojo, Seishiro Itagaki, Ishigen Matsui, Hiroshi Hirota, Shotaro Kimura, and Akira Muto, were sentenced to death by hanging.
At 9 p.m. on December 21, the seven people who were about to be executed simultaneously received news that the 23rd would be the day of execution. Suddenly, all 7 of them showed a stunned expression, and Hideki Tojo made two requests after a long time of stunned. The first is "I hope to eat Japanese rice again and drink Japanese sake again." The second is to say goodbye to the prison teacher again.
It is worth mentioning that as early as 1945, when the Japanese Emperor announced his surrender, Hideki Tojo had foreseen his fate and began to prepare for his own death. After instructing his family, he sent his two daughters with him back to the hometown of his wife, Katsuko Tojo.
Hideki Tojo then hid in his home and burned the letters and notes from the early years of the war, which took him 3 days to deal with. During this period, Hideki Tojo also deleted and revised a suicide note, leaving it in his desk.
In addition, earlier, Hideki Tojo asked his neighbor, who was a doctor, to draw a circle with a pen on the part of his chest facing the heart. After taking a shower every day, Hideki Tojo would use a charcoal pen to color the mark to prevent himself from shooting at this position when something happened.
On September 11, 1945, three army green jeeps parked in front of Hideki Tojo's house, along with several American journalists. Realizing that something was wrong, Hideki Tojo pulled the trigger on his mark as the U.S. troops knocked on his door and was about to go upstairs.
However, because of the recoil of the gun, Hideki Tojo shot the bullet that was supposed to be right in the heart when he shot the bullet at himself, so although the blood gushed out in large quantities, it was not immediately killed. MacArthur, who knew the news, believed that Hideki Tojo could not be allowed to die like this, so he immediately had Hideki Tojo sent to the hospital, and after months of treatment and conditioning, Hideki Tojo, whose body had recovered, was transferred to Sugamo Prison in Tokyo.
But the unbelievable thing is that during his 3 years in prison, Hideki Tojo converted to Buddhism. The religious life in prison made him seem to change his appearance, so much so that some people in prison even called him "little monk".
It is for this reason that on the 21st, when he learned that he would be hanged in two days, he offered to meet The Imprisoned Teacher Hanayama Nobukatsu, a former Buddhist monk. In addition to Hideki Tojo, the other six also talked to the prison teacher all night long, and some people in this final conversation told their regrets about starting this war, and some people were reluctant to talk about their wives and children.
The last minute and second passed, and these war criminals who had once joked about the lives of Chinese on the battlefield and wantonly spread wilderness on the land of China were now facing their own deaths, but they were acting in such a way that it was ironic.
Fearing that the seven war criminals committed suicide before hanging, the seven were held in the same cell from the time the sentence was pronounced, and each room was illuminated by strong light. The outside is guarded by an officer and eight U.S. gendarmes, and every day there are nurses who measure their blood pressure and respiratory pulse specifically to prevent them from getting sick.
On December 22nd, the last days are coming, and from 7 o'clock in the morning, Tokyo is on alert. Although the entire execution was carried out in secrecy in order to ensure that the execution was not disturbed by unexpected factors, the tense atmosphere made people in Tokyo feel that the day was special.
At 5 p.m. on the 22nd, all seven war criminals ate their last meal before execution in their respective prisons. However, except for Hideki Tojo, who had taken two hasty bites, no one else was in the mood to glance at the rice with fish and meat in front of him.
At 11:30 p.m., the 7 people were first pressed into a small Buddhist hall upstairs, where the Japanese monk sat in the final "prayer", while Hideki Tojo, who had died once but did not die, took a big breath, his face was pale, his lips were constantly trembling, and even on his short beard, there was a white snot.
At 11:40, the 7 Class-A war criminals were divided into two groups and pressed to the execution ground, and the members of the Allied Committee against Japan, the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China, appeared as witnesses, of which the Chinese delegation was led by General Shang Zhen.
In order to embolden the war criminals who were about to be hanged, after the identification, the American gendarmes even prepared red wine for each person. The first criminals to take to the gallows were Matsui Ishigen, Kenji Doihara, Hideki Tojo, and Akira Muto. In order to prevent them from struggling too ugly with their hands on the rack during the execution, the gendarmes also tied their handcuffs tightly to their thighs with ropes.
At 23:58, the execution order was issued after the chief executioner reported to the prison officer that the preparations for the execution of the death penalty were ready. The first to be executed was Kenji Doihara, and without him noticing, the executing gendarmes put a black cloth over his head, and then another gendarme tied his body around his neck. After the chief executive, Cornemis, pressed the firing button, Kenji Doihara struggled for 7 and a half minutes before losing his breath.
The remaining six were also hanged in this way, but unlike the others, Hideki Tojo reacted more violently than the others. At first, Hideki Tojo tried his best to hide his emotions, but when he walked up the steps of the 13-step gallows, his feet were constantly trembling, and even after standing still, he was trembling and could not stand upright.
When he, like Kenji Toihara and the others, was pressed by the chief executive button and his feet were in the air, the imminent danger of death made Hideki Tojo no longer be able to suppress his fear, and he screamed and drooped at the moment when he felt weightless.
Then began to struggle left and right, and even incontinence of bowel movements, and after 12 minutes and 30 seconds, Hideki Tojo completely stopped moving. When the medical examiner removed his body from the gallows and lifted the black hood covering his head, his face was a mixture of snot and tears.
After the hanging, the bodies of the seven were secretly transported out of Tokyo's Sugamo Prison and sent to the Kubosan Crematorium in Yokohama for cremation. It is said that when the 7 people were cremated, the director of the crematorium at that time secretly stole some of the ashes of the 7 people, offered them with incense candles, and confiscated them after being discovered by American soldiers. After that, the U.S. military secretly threw their ashes into the Pacific Ocean in order to prevent the Japanese from worshipping these Japanese war criminals.
On the day after the execution of the seven people, Shanghai, Paris, Tokyo and other major cities in the world published this very pleasant news. As these war criminals were duly punished, the thousands of Chinese heroes who died in China's eight-year War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, as well as the people of all countries in the world who died fighting for it in this war, finally received some comfort in heaven.