Hideki Tojo Biography (1885–1948) Japanese general, statesman, and prime minister (1941–4), born in Tokyo, Japan. He attended military college, became military attaché in Germany (1919), served in Manchuria as chief-of-staff (1937–40), and during World War 2 was minister of war (1940–1) and premier. Convinced Japan must fight the USA, he planned the war strategy originating with the attack on Pearl Harbor, seeing Japan as a liberating force in Asia against Western domination. Arrested in 1945, he attempted to commit suicide, but was hanged as a war criminal.
Tojo wasn't just a "war leader", though on the "wrong" side - someone who was looking after the interests of his country. He was much worse - someone cut from the same cloth as the Nazis. It is often forgotten that Japanesehad their own interpretation of the Ubermensch, and to that end, the Japanese were just as genocidal, and just as liberal with their policies of racial purity as the Nazis. Tojo was one of the key instigators of the sterilization of "inferiors".
