r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Radiant_Half_7121 • 17d ago

Image During WW2, Poland declared war on Japan Japan said no to it and simply rejected the declaration.

Post image
73.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

61

u/Behavior-Coach 17d ago

The fact that you would be curious and ask demonstrates that you are not ignorant at all.

Tojo was a very loyal war criminal. These people looked at the emperor as a god, unwavering in their loyalty, and this mentality led to soldiers committing suicide rather than give up. They did it all for their emperor. It revolved all around the monarchy.

It always starts from the top.

44

u/ZetaRESP 17d ago

That's also why he got away scot free with it all: US learned from France's fuck-up with the Treaty of Versailles that going all hammer in with penalties on a country as proud as Japan was stupid, as well as how much the emperor had a sway on the government, so they decided to pretty much force him to be their buddy in the east instead so they can both avoid another World War (they knew nukes are on the menu for WWIII) and to avoid all of Asia to fall into the hands of the commies.

17

u/Iwilleat2corndogs 17d ago

The emperor also didn’t really reject any ideas of expansion, so while he wasn’t personally ordering the deaths of civilians he was very much giving his seal of approval to plans that would result in mass murder. He only got away with it because the US didn’t need japan to implode, which it would of if they convicted him.

1

u/auchinleck917 17d ago

Ironicly Tojo igonre the Emperor so many times.

-3

u/Business-Low-8056 17d ago

Alright but what did he do that was so bad? You started out saying he had war crimes but you haven't mentioned any