The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 5 | Issue 6 | Jun 04, 2007

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Enshrinement Politics: War Dead and War Criminals atYasukuni Shrine

Akiko Takenaka

Enshrinement Politics: War Dead and WarCriminals at Yasukuni Shrine

Akiko Takenaka

This article examines the role of military,emperor and government in the enshrinementof Japan’s war dead from 1868 to 2007. Belowalso find an Asahi Shimbun editorial reflectingon the constitutional and political issues ofenshrinement.

Yasukuni Shrine visit at the New Year in the early postwaryears

Yasukuni Shrine has been at the center ofrepeated domestic and internationalcontroversies since then Prime MinisterNakasone Yasuhiro’s official visit on August 15,1985. The shrine made headlines again onMarch 29, 2007. A l l major Japanesenewspapers headlined a report on releasedNational Diet Library documents, whichrevealed the active involvement of the Japanesestate in the enshrinement of the war dead at

Yasukuni. Particularly problematic wereexchanges regarding the enshrinement of theClass-A war criminals that took place betweenYasukuni Shrine and the War Victims’ ReliefBureau (Hikiage Engo-kyoku) of the thenHealth and Welfare Ministry. Making sense ofthe issues at stake requires understanding theprocess of enshrinement both at the height ofempire and during the US occupation and itsaftermath.

At the International War Crimes Tribunalsconducted from May 1946 to November 1948,twenty-five Japanese military and politicalleaders were charged with Class-A war crimes,or crimes against peace, of whom seven wereexecuted in Sugamo Prison on December 23,1948. At the time, these deaths seemedunrelated to Yasukuni Shrine: formerly anational sanctuary that enshrined as deities themilitary dead from 1853 to 1945, Yasukuni wasreborn during the occupation as a religiousins t i tu t ion in accord wi th the 1947constitution’s separation of religion and state.The situation changed on April 19, 1979, whenmajor newspapers reported that, during theenshrinement ritual preceding the 1978 fallfestival, Yasukuni Shrine had quietly enshrinedfourteen Class-A criminals, including the seventhat were executed, five that died while servingtheir sentences, and two that died before thefinal trial. Ever since, state involvement inYasukuni affairs, particularly visits by primeministers on or around August 15th, the date ofJapan’s surrender, has come under domesticand international scrutiny. Prime ministersOhira Masayoshi and Suzuki Kantaro paidtribute at Yasukuni after the Class-Aenshrinement became public, in 1979 and 1982

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respectively. But it was Nakasone’s visit thatcaptured international attention. In contrast tohis predecessors, Nakasone signed the guestregister as Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro,and made an offering of flowers purchased withpublic funds. Article 20 of the JapaneseConstitution, which guarantees freedom ofreligion, forbids the state and its organs fromparticipating in religious activity. Article 89forbids public support for religious institutions.Nakasone had violated both: Article 20 by thevisit, and Article 89 by making an offeringusing public funds.

Between 2002 and 2006, Prime MinisterKoizumi Jun’ichiro repeatedly visited the shrinein the face of domestic and internationalprotests, ultimately provoking multiple lawsuitsin Japan and severely straining Japan’srelations with China and Korea.

Koizumi visits Yasukuni, August 15, 2006

Demonstrators hold candlelight vigil outsideYasukuni, August 11, 2006

Koizumi’s visits prompted several Dietmembers to ask the National Diet Library,which serves as a research organ for theJapanese Diet, to compile material concerningpostwar interaction between the Health andWelfare Ministry and Yasukuni Shrine. Among808 new documents released, 179 hadpreviously been held by the shrine and 94 bythe former Health and Welfare Ministry. Tobetter understand the role of the Health andWelfare Ministry, particularly its War Victims’Relief Bureau, in the enshrinement, it is helpfult o r ev i ew the changes i n Yasukun ienshrinement procedures made following theAsia-Pacific War.

Prior to Japan’s defeat and occupation, the wardead were enshrined in Yasukuni according tothe following procedure: (1) for each death, themilitary determined whether a person wasqualified to be enshrined based on how he had

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died, and compiled a list of eligible dead (to beeligible, one needed to have died in battle, orfrom wounds or sickness suffered while onactive duty); (2) the list of names waspresented to the Emperor for final approval; (3)enshrinement took place at Yasukuni at theshokon ceremony preceding the biannualshrine festivals.

Emperor paying tribute at Yasukuni, 1935

Head priest calling in the spirits of war dead at shokonceremony, 1935

Only a fraction of the war dead were enshrinedin this way, however. Of the 2,342,341 thatwere enshrined at Yasukuni for sacrificing theirlives in the conflict that lasted from September1931 to Augus t 1945 , on ly 251 ,135enshrinements were completed by April 1945,the last ceremony before the end of the war. In

other words, almost ninety percent of the Asia-Pacific War dead were enshrined after the war,through a process that differed from thatduring the war in rituals that solidified therelationship between the military and theemperor.

Bereaved family members at shokon ceremony, 1935

Palanquin procession carrying the spirits into the mainshrine, 1935

Soon after the start of the Occupation, formermembers of the military received a new mission– to take care of the war dead. On December 1,1945, the Army Ministry was reorganized toform the First Ministry for the Demobilized(Dai-ichi fukuin-sho), the Navy Ministry wasconverted into the Second Ministry for the

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Demobilized (Dai-ni fukuin-sho). On June 15,1946, the two merged to form the Agency forthe Demobilized (Fukuin-cho), the predecessorof the War Victims’ Relief Bureau. This Bureau,headed until 1970 by influential figures of theformer military, was responsible for providinginformation about the war dead to YasukuniShrine to assure their enshrinement.

Information sheet sent from War Victims’ Relief Bureau toYasukuni Shrine

Like the military previously, the Bureaudetermined eligibility for enshrinement.Eligibility was determined in accordance withthe War Victims’ Relief Law (Izoku engo-ho). Ifa death was deemed to have occurred onofficial duty (komu-shi) according to the Law,one was eligible for enshrinement. This was atactic by the Bureau to increase enshrinement,thereby solidifying the relationship betweenbereaved families and the LDP, by makingeligible all whose families qualified forpensions. In practice, as long as the dead hadnot been court-martialed or executed by theJapanese military for desertion or otherdishonorable acts, they were considered tohave died on official duty, hence eligible forenshrinement.

Unlike the high profile wartime enshrinementceremonies that involved the entire nation,including inviting bereaved family members ofthose that were being enshrined in a particularceremony to attend Yasukuni in person, and

through live radio broadcasts of the ceremonythroughout Japan and the colonies andoccupied areas, postwar enshrinementsreceived little attention. That is, with theexception of a particular enshrinement thatinvolved fourteen men charged with Class-Awar crimes in the Tokyo Trials. And that onlyafter the fact. Their inclusion among thehonored dead at Yasukuni – in particular,wartime Prime Minister Tojo Hideki and sixothers that were hung – has been central to thecriticisms surrounding prime ministerial visitsto Yasukuni . Whi le state employees’involvement in a public capacity in Yasukuni, areligious institution, is itself a violation ofarticles 20 and 89 of the Constitution, the bulkof the domestic and international criticismshave centered on the symbolic significance ofthe presence of these war criminals.

On January 25, 1956 the Health and WelfareMinistry issued “Prospectus on Cooperation forEnshrinement Affairs at Yasukuni – FormerArmy Related (Kyu-rikugun kankei: YasukuniJinja goshi jimu ni taisuru kyoryoku yoko)”[National Diet Library (NDL) document filenumber 184]. A series of documents followed inthe following months, which instructed allprefectures to cooperate with Yasukunienshrinement, and outlined the Ministry’s plan,together with the shrine, to concludeenshrinement of all war dead in three years.According to these documents, a series ofmeetings subsequently took place between theMinistry and Yasukuni officials at the shrine toestablish criteria for enshrinement. It wasduring these meetings that the war criminalswere included in groups to be considered forenshrinement on a case-by-case basis. (Thedecision is first noted on June 4, 1957 [NDLdocument file number 212], and repeatedlyappears in subsequent documents underca tegory o f g roups to cons ider f o renshr inement . Other groups underconsideration included military relatedpersonnel that committed suicide at the end ofthe war, those who died of accidental deaths

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during training, etc.)

The earliest mention of Class-B and -C warcriminals in the released documents is April 9,1958. Class-B criminals were convicted of warcrimes and Class-C criminals of crimes againsthumanity. These were soldiers, police andauxiliaries, many of them of low rank, whowere convicted of committing war atrocities onthe front lines and in prison camps during thewar. In the course of the discussion ofenshrinement, the Health and Welfare Ministryrequested that the war criminals be enshrinedin small groups in order to avoid attractingattention, to which the shrine responded thatthey would consult with their representatives.Also in this document, Class-A criminals weredismissed as “not part of the Relief Bureaumatters” [file number 232]. The enshrinementof Class-B and -C criminals was completed by1966. While it is well known that there werefourteen Class-A criminals that were enshrined,the number of B and C criminals cannotpresently be documented. Even the numberthat were executed varies according to sources.BC kyu senpan saiban (Iwanami shinsho, 2005)by historian Hayashi Hirofumi, lists the numberof confirmed executions as 934. This is not,however, definitive as countries other than theUnited States, Great Britain and Australia havenot made all the trial documents public.Moreover, the total does not include executionsconducted in Russia and the People’s Republicof China. In addition, around 130 more diedwhile serving their sentences. It is not clearhow many of them were enshrined in Yasukuni.The only document included in the releasedmaterial that notes the number of warcriminals to be enshrined is dated February 8,1966. It lists 12 Class-A criminals and 82 Class-B and -C criminals who were declared eligiblefor enshrinement. [file number 302]

According to the above document, at leasttwelve of the Class-A criminals had beencleared for enshrinement by February 9, 1966.(The number cited here is twelve rather than

fourteen; it presumably does not include thetwo that died before the final trial.) The finaldecision on the enshrinement of the twelve wasmade during a meeting between the shrine andthe Ministry on January 31, 1969. The meetingminutes notes that the enshrinement will not bemade public, and the enshrinement notificationwill be sent directly from the shrine to thefamilies. [file number 309] On June 25, 1970,however, the decision was reversed. [filenumber 313] It was not until 1978 that theactual enshrinement took place. Since the June25 entry is the last in the released documentsregarding Class-A war criminals, it is still notclear exactly how the Class-A criminals came tobe enshrined, or whether and how the shrineand the state interacted in the process that ledto enshrinement after 1970.

One notable factor is the appointment of newYasukuni head priest Matsudaira Nagayoshi inJuly 1978, following the death of head priestTsukuba Fujimaro, who had strongly opposedthe enshrinement of Class-A criminals. Shortlyafter his appointment, Matsudaira, who hadpublicly called for reversing the verdicts of theTokyo War Crimes Tribunal to restore Japan’snational spirit, added the war criminals’ namesto the already completed list of names thatwere to be enshrined during the fall 1978ceremony. Matsudaira’s eagerness to enshrinethe fourteen is demonstrated in his latercomment reflecting back on the enshrinementas “the one act of my entire life that I can beproud of.” He went on to explain that he hadproceeded with the enshrinement as a way todiscredit the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.

The Japanese state has always deniedinvolvement in the postwar enshrinementprocess, insisting that it merely fulfills requestsfor information from the shrine. Even after therelease of these documents, the state’s positionhas not changed, as can be seen in PrimeMinister Abe Shinzo’s comment: “I don’t see aproblem [from the viewpoint of separation ofstate and religion]. It was the shrine that

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performed the enshrinement, and I believe theHealth and Welfare Ministry was only providinginformation [about the war dead] that wasrequested of them.” (Asahi shimbun, March 29,2007) It is hardly news that the Ministry hadbeen supplying Yasukuni with names and othernecessary information about the war dead. Forits part, Yasukuni has used its relationship withthe Ministry to evade sole responsibility for theenshrinement – insisting that it only enshrinesafter the Ministry provides the necessaryinformation. This insistence begs the question:if the enshrinement of the war criminals wassomething to be proud of, as Matsudairaasserts, why did the shrine secretly enshrinethem, and why has the shrine, as well as thegovernment, dodged responsibility ever since?

Attempts made to solve the controversiessurrounding Yasukuni Shrine include proposalsto remove the names of the seven war criminalsthat were executed in 1948 (the issue of Class-B and –C war criminals was not addressed) andcalls to build a new non-religious nationalmemorial. The former stalled when the familyof former Prime Minister Tojo Hideki refused tosign a petition – previously signed by familymembers of the other six – to remove the sevennames from Yasukuni. The shrine, too, hasvehemently opposed the removal, explainingthat, unlike an ordinary shrine, where each godhas its own seat (za), Yasukuni gods all occupya single seat. Therefore, it is impossible toseparate one from another once enshrined.

Tojo on trial

While no progress has been made towardestablishing a national memorial since 2002, itsrealization could resolve the internationalconflict that springs from state officials payingtribute to convicted war criminals among theenshrined. Yet a new national memorial will notsolve the root problem, which is the officialJapanese attitude toward war responsibility andwar crimes. Many, particularly internationalcritics, have pointed out that the heart of theYasukuni problem is the Japanese government’sglorification of its military past and reluctanceto accept responsibility for its wartime deeds.State patronage of Yasukuni is intimatelyrelated to LDP efforts to revise the Constitutionin order to strengthen Japan’s war-makingpowers. But simple removal of the physicalstructure of Yasukuni, or disenshrinement ofthe war criminals, will not resolve the Yasukuniproblem. Let me explain. Many Japanese whoare critical of the war and of Japanese warcrimes, focus their criticisms on the shrineitself, including state involvement in the shrine,and the failure of the state to adequatelyprovide apology and reparations to Asianvictims of Japan’s wartime aggression and warcrimes. In the process, like the new postwargeneration of nationalists who currently leadthe LDP, they fail to question the warresponsibilities of the Japanese people,including their parents and grandparents – or,even themselves, for their reluctance to initiate

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a sincere dialogue on making amends. Theultimate solution to the problems associatedwith Yasukuni Shrine and crimes of war canonly be resolved when both state and peopleaccept responsibility and act to put the darkepisodes of the war behind them throughsincere apologies, reparations, and educationof the next generat ions of Japanese.Examination of the war experiences of othernations who waged aggressive and colonialwars past and present make clear just howdifficult such self-reflection can be. Yet thestakes are high for a Japan which hasconstructed a postwar identity as a promoter ofinternational peace, and whose economic andpolitical future will hinge in no small part on itsability to come to terms with China, Korea andother rising Asian powers that once werevictims of Japanese colonialism and war.

The documents released by the National DietLibrary are available here:www.ndl.go.jp/jp/data/publication/document2007.html

Several newspapers provided brief summariesof enshrinement-related entries in the releaseddocuments on March 29, 2007, including:Mainichi Shimbun, “Yasukuni Jinja: Goshimeguri kyu koseisho to no yaritori nama namashiku”Yomiuri Shimbun, “Yasukuni goshi, kyukoseisho ga sekkyoku kan’yo... Kokkai toshokanga shiryo kokai”

Who Enshrines? The Japanese Governmentand Yasukuni

Asahi Shimbun editorial

The National Diet Library recently releaseddocuments that recorded the process of howwar criminals were memorialized at YasukuniShrine after World War II.

The documents highlight the deep involvementof the former Health and Welfare Ministry, inother words the government , in theenshrinement process. After the war, theministry took over operating the shrine fromformer imperial military and naval forces.

According to internal Yasukuni Shrinedocuments, the following events took place:

In April 1958, six years after Japan regainedsovereignty through the San Francisco PeaceTreaty, the ministry's repatriation relief bureauand shrine officials met in an office at theshrine. Ministry officials suggested that theshrine consider discreetly enshrining Class-Band Class-C war criminals in a manner thatwould not result in inconveniences afterdeliberating each case.

In a meeting held in September 1958, theenshrinement of former Prime Minister TojoHideki and other Class-A war criminals wasdiscussed. At that time, the ministry suggestedthat as a first step Class-B and Class-C warcriminals executed overseas be honored in anunostentatious manner.

The ministry and Yasukuni Shrine frequentlyheld such meetings and decided to firstenshrine Class-B and Class-C war criminals in1959. In a meeting in 1969, they also approvedthe enshrinement of Class-A war criminals.

What is remarkable is that the two parties paidthe closest attention to trying to make thingsmove forward as quietly as possible. Inparticular, when it came to Class-A warcriminals who were held liable for takingleading roles in the war, the parties evenagreed on "no outside announcements."

They were probably afraid of being criticizedfor justifying the war and muddying the issue ofresponsibility by enshrining such people.

The government has claimed that it does not

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know anything about the process or thereasoning behind enshrining Class-A warcriminals at Yasukuni Shrine. On Thursday,Prime Minister Abe Shinzo said, "I think theformer Health and Welfare Ministry submittedinformation because it was asked for it." Hestressed that Yasukuni made the decision onenshrinements.

Yet the newly released documents describe indetail how the ministry and the shrine workedclosely together on the matter. It may be thatthe shrine honored the war criminals, but it isundeniable that the government's intentionswere strongly reflected in the decision.

Relationships akin to the prewar "state-runshrine" era have dragged on for many yearseven after the war. That is not permissible inlight of the constitutional separation of politicsand religion.

We opposed former Prime Minister KoizumiJun’ichiro 's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, and onereason was that the pilgrimages likely violatedthe principle of the separation of the state andreligion. We do not believe the relationshipbetween the government and the shrine stillcontinues to the extent that it used to, but it isnecessary to clearly draw a line, consideringsuch past relations.

We have been calling for a national, non-denominational memorial. Everyone, includingthe emperor and the prime minister, would beable to pay their respects to war victims atsuch a place without any discomfort. Therecent news highlights the need for such afacility.

The revealed documents are certainlyimportant, yet it is a shame that records around1978 are missing--the year the Class-A warcriminals were honored. Those documentsshould also be made public.

This article appeared in the IHT/Asahi Shimbunon March 31, 2007.

Akiko Takenaka teaches architectural historyand theory in the Department of the History ofArt at the University of Michigan. She is theauthor (with Laura Hein) of “Exhibiting WorldWar II in Japan and the United States since1995,” in Pacific Historical Review 76.1(February 2007), 61-94 and “Architecture forMass-Mobilization: The Chureito MemorialConstruction Movement, 1939-1945,” in AlanTansman ed., The Culture of Japanese Fascism(Duke University Press, forthcoming). She iscurrently working on a book manuscript on thehistory and politics of Yasukuni Shrine(tentatively titled Yasukuni: Nation, Violence,Memory).

She wrote this article for Japan Focus. Postedon June 7, 2007.

A selection of Japan Focus articles on YasukuniShrine and Japanese war memory includes:

Takahashi Tetsuya, Yasukuni Shrine at theHeart of Japan’s National Debate: History,M e m o r y , D e n i a l(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2401)

Takahashi Tetsuya, The National Politics of theY a s u k u n i S h r i n e(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2272)

Utsumi Aiko, Yasukuni Shrine Imposes Silenceo n B e r e a v e d F a m i l i e s(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2216)

Mark Selden, Nationalism, Historical Memoryand Contemporary Conflicts in the Asia Pacific:the Yasukuni Phenomenon, Japan, and theU n i t e d S t a t e s(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2204)

John Breen, Yasukuni Shrine: Ritual and

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M e m o r y(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2060)

Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun, YasukuniShrine, Nationalism and Japan's InternationalR e l a t i o n s

(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/1918)

Andrew M. McGreevy, Arlington NationalCemetery and Yasukuni Jinja: History, Memory,a n d t h e S a c r e d(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/1786)