Emperor Hirohito: life of the week

While most of the other surviving Axis leaders were put on trial after World War II, Japan's Emperor Hirohito never faced justice, and indeed continued to reign until his death in 1989. To this day, debates continue about how far he was personally responsible for Japanese aggression in the 1930s and 40s. And in today's Life of the Week episode, we explore these arguments and chart Hirohito's life in the company of Dr. Christopher Harding of the University of Edinburgh. He was speaking to Rob Attar.

Compared to the other wartime leaders such as Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Hirohito still seems to be something of an obscure figure. Why do you think that is? I think of all the wartime leaders, probably Hirohito is the hardest actually to describe straightforwardly as a leader. He was in this, I think, quite strange position under Japan's constitution where he reigned, but he didn't actually rule. So there's this odd thing.

Um, Japan's constitution sort of dates from the late 19th century where If you drew a picture of it, you know, a kind of childlike picture with arrows pointing in various directions, you'd have the cabinet, the diet, the military, the judiciary all essentially pointing upwards to Hirohito as the emperor at the top. But the Japanese emperor was also believed to be descended from the gods and it was far, far beneath him to be involved in the everyday nitty-gritty of running the country. So technically he was in charge of everything.

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