Kiichiro Hiranuma

A politician with a judicial bureaucratic background. Born in Okayama Prefecture as the son of a samurai of the Tsuyama domain. After graduating from the law department of the Imperial University in 1888 (Meiji 21), he became a judge, headed the Tokyo Court of Appeals, and then became a prosecutor. He took a strict stance against political parties, and in 1907 (Meiji 40), many party politicians were indicted in the Nitto Scandal. In 1911, he became Vice Minister of Justice in the Saionji Kinmochi cabinet, and served as Prosecutor General and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In 1923 (Taisho 12), he became Minister of Justice in the second Yamamoto Gonbei cabinet, but was shocked by the Toranomon Incident in December of the same year, and in May of the following year, he founded Kokuhonsha, an imperial-centered training group. The Kokuhonsha was attended by influential people such as army and navy generals, high-ranking judicial bureaucrats, the Privy Council, and the House of Peers, and Hiranuma built a hidden influence in the political world. He became the vice-president of the Privy Council in 1925, and attacked the government on the financial panic and the London Naval Treaty issues, undermining the foundations of party cabinets. After the outbreak of the Manchurian Incident in 1931, calls for a Hiranuma Cabinet spread among the right wing and the military, but Genro Saionji avoided this. When he became the president of the Privy Council in 1936, he dissolved the Kokuhonsha and aimed to take over the government. In January 1939, he formed a cabinet after the first Konoe Fumimaro cabinet, and struggled to establish a Japanese-German military alliance, but when the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was signed, he resigned en masse, leaving behind a "complicated and strange" statement. He subsequently served as Minister of State in the second and third Konoe Cabinets, and during the Pacific War, as one of the senior statesmen, he was involved in plots to overthrow the Tojo Hideki Cabinet. At the Imperial Conference to decide on the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration just before Japan's defeat, he opposed the Army's four-condition proposal, and insisted that the peace condition be limited to the preservation of the national polity. After the war, he was sentenced to life imprisonment as a Class A war criminal at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and died of illness while serving his sentence in August 1952. He remained single all his life.

[Yuji Odabe]

"Hiranuma Kiichiro Memoirs Compilation Committee ed. Hiranuma Kiichiro Memoirs" (1955, Gakuyo Shobo)" ▽ "Iwasaki Sakae, "Biography Series 268: Hiranuma Kiichiro Biography - Biography of Hiranuma Kiichiro" (1997, Ozorasha)" ▽ "Mikuriya Takashi supervised, "Biography Series 26: Hiranuma Kiichiro" (2007, Yumani Shobo)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

司法官僚出身の政治家。津山藩士の子として岡山県に生まれる。1888年（明治21）帝国大学法科卒業後、判事となり、東京控訴院部長を経て検事に転じた。政党勢力に対して峻厳(しゅんげん)な方針をとり、1907年（明治40）の日糖疑獄では多数の政党政治家が起訴された。1911年西園寺公望(さいおんじきんもち)内閣の司法次官となり、検事総長、大審院長を歴任。1923年（大正12）第二次山本権兵衛(やまもとごんべえ)内閣の法相となるが、同年12月の虎の門事件(とらのもんじけん)に衝撃を受け、翌1924年5月、皇室中心主義の修養団体、国本社(こくほんしゃ)を結成する。国本社には陸海軍将官、高級司法官僚、枢密院、貴族院などの有力者が参集し、平沼は政界に隠然たる勢力を築いた。1925年枢密院副議長となり、金融恐慌問題、ロンドン軍縮条約問題では政府を攻撃し、政党内閣の基盤を掘り崩した。1931年（昭和6）の満州事変勃発(ぼっぱつ)後、右翼や軍部の間から平沼内閣を求める声が広まったが、元老西園寺はこれを忌避していた。1936年枢密院議長になると国本社を解散し、政権担当を目ざした。1939年1月第一次近衛文麿(このえふみまろ)内閣の後を受けて組閣、日独軍事同盟の成立に苦心したが、独ソ不可侵条約の締結によって「複雑怪奇」の声明を残して総辞職した。以後、第二次、第三次近衛内閣の国務相を務め、太平洋戦争期には重臣の一人として東条英機(とうじょうひでき)内閣の倒壊工作にも関与した。敗戦直前のポツダム宣言受諾をめぐる御前会議では、陸軍側の4条件案に反対し、和平条件を国体護持のみに絞ることを主張した。戦後、極東国際軍事裁判でA級戦犯として終身禁錮を宣告され、昭和27年8月、服役中に病死。終生、独身であった。

［小田部雄次］

『平沼騏一郎回顧録編纂委員会編『平沼騏一郎回顧録』（1955・学陽書房）』▽『岩崎栄著『伝記叢書268　平沼騏一郎伝――伝記・平沼騏一郎』（1997・大空社）』▽『御厨貴監修『歴代総理大臣伝記叢書26　平沼騏一郎』（2007・ゆまに書房）』

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