Why was Emperor Shōwa never prosecuted for war crimes like other heads of state post WWII?

by Rumbuck_274

So it's a fairly well known fact that for the most part, post WWII there was a good bout of witch hunting going on, leaders that had dubious responsibility for the actions of their subordinates were punished, at times,for things such as simply not stopping the horrid actions of their subordinates.

However, and correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm Australian, so the view I've been taught may likely be skewed, but from what I've been taught, pretty much the entire Second Sino-Japanese War, the atrocities that occurred there,and further the expansion of the Japanese Empire and the atrocities during WWII, were done "for the Emperor" and it was believed that what was being done,was being done at his will and with his express permission.

Now, the topic of why the Emperor's location was never revealed and a Nuclear Blast dropped on him has been done to death,as it would have essentially martyred him in the eyes of the Japanese people and likely strengthened their resolve.

However, why, after the war, like in a lot of wars, why was he not deposed, tried,and likely executed in disgrace and likely with no honour? It would likely have not been an"honourable" death to be hanged/shot/etc.

I mean, there is a strong history of Monarchs being executed for their actions in war, and essentially in Europe at Nuremberg the leaders of the Nazi regime were being torn apart.

But yet, Emperor Shōwa got away essentially scott free and continued to rule until his death in 1989. sure, his empire was heavily sanctioned,bit he was still Emperor and faced no recourse for his actions.

CheloniamydasRC

Three points:

  1. Head of state is a technical term, not the same as 'political leader'. Hitler was dead at the end of the war and unable to be tried. Mussolini, head of the Fascist government, was dead at the end of the war. King Victor Emmanuel III was head of the Italian State defected to the Allies in 1943, and he was not prosecuted, though he did abdicate. None of the leading figures in his government were prosecuted. Tojo Hideki as head of the Japanese wartime government was tried in Tokyo along with several other political leaders. The failure to prosecute the Japanese emperor can be questioned, but it was not anomalous in the circumstances of the time.
  2. The Tokyo Trial prosecuted Japanese leaders on charges of waging aggressive war and authorizing and/or ordering war crimes (acts of brutality against local inhabitants in occupied territories and POWs). The verdict noted the scale of war crimes committed in the Japanese empire, but it sentenced to death only those who had played a direct role in committing or failing to report atrocities. It stopped short of applying to all defendants a general responsibility for all the crimes committed by Japanese military personnel, even though the prosecution had argued this. The perpetrators of individual crimes were being dealt with in separate trials that ran from 1945 to 1951 (5700 defendants altogether, about 4600 of whom were found guilty.) The Tokyo defendants who were found guilty only of waging aggressive war received prison sentences, not the death sentence. The claims (often made) that the Emperor had expressly instructed the commission of war crimes are based on a tendentious reading of the evidence. The political and constitutional role of the Emperor meant that even his responsibility for the decision to attack Pearl Harbor is debatable. There is no way that he took a direct hand in the commission of atrocities. Although we would like to hold national leaders responsible for actions done in their name, courts and public opinion have generally been unwilling to make, say, the U.S. President responsible for rapes committed by American soldiers in Okinawa.
  3. The decision not to prosecute the Emperor or to force his resignation was political. MacArthur believed that the presence of the Emperor as head of state would help keep Japan stable while he implemented post-war reforms.