In this dimly lit hut on December 23, 1948, a prisoner in his sixties, wearing heavy shackles, nervously walked to the high thirteen-story execution table.
According to the description of the on-site executives, his face was pale, the corners of his mouth twitched, his legs trembled, and he was almost suffocated by great fear, and the steps that could have been completed in a few seconds seemed to have become the whole of his life.
Walking up the steps, what awaits Hideki Tojo will be the gallows of death. As a Class A war criminal who launched the war of aggression against China, the crimes he committed are too numerous to mention. And it is unbelievable that the products operated by his son are so popular in the Chinese market.
Although Hideki Tojo, a Japanese war criminal who invaded China, tried to commit suicide unsuccessfully, he still had to bear the heinous crimes he committed in the end. It was one afternoon in early September 1945, outside a villa outside Tokyo, and reporters from all over the world were waiting for this momentous news to be revealed.
They are witnessing the judgment of history, which reveals the crimes of a madman and declares to the world that there is no escape from sin.
On the other hand, MacArthur, the commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in Japan, immediately sent troops to arrest Hideki Tojo. And this villa is the residence of Hideki Tojo. At about four o'clock in the afternoon, more than thirty heavily armed American gendarmes arrived.
The captain of the gendarmerie knocked on the door, and at the same time, the gendarme next to him pointed a gun at the door.
I'll be ready and open the door to you. However, in the blink of an eye, the gendarmerie, who were waiting outside, heard a loud gunshot coming from inside the house.
The gendarmes rushed into the room with lightning and saw Hideki Tojo lying in a chair, bleeding profusely from his chest, unconscious. "Stop! The captain of the gendarmerie shouted, his voice echoing through the empty room.
On the lawn outside the house, there is a figure that has been ignored by both the gendarmes and the journalists. A woman with a hoe pretending to loosen the soil, her hands clasped together in her heart and silently prayed that she was Katsuko Tojo, the wife of the person who was to be captured.
Her prayer was puzzling, not for her husband's safe return, nor for his escape from his predicament, but for his martyrdom. Regrettably, Hideki Tojo did not get his wish.
The photographer began to swing Hideki Tojo's body around the room, intending to capture the precise moment of his death. According to the Japanese journalist at the time, Hideki Tojo once said: "I hope to die immediately, but it seems that it will take time."
My war against China is just, I am not wrong, and I will not accept the judgment of the victors. ”
Some journalists have already released reports of his death by suicide. In order to ensure the precise authenticity of the news, some reporters even tried to hasten his death by flipping his body.
Hideki Tojo screamed loudly in pain and kept **. So, did he really succeed in committing suicide?
Although Hideki Tojo attempted suicide, the main reason for his unsuccessful failure was that he failed to shoot himself in the heart. In fact, the reporters who tried to hasten his death at the time did not realize that they were flipping his body and instead helped him avoid congestion in his lungs.
After the captain of the American gendarmerie saw that Hideki Tojo had not breathed for a long time, he began to direct the soldiers to carry him to the car and take him to the hospital for emergency treatment. Hideki Tojo was in danger of losing too much blood when an American soldier with the same blood type selflessly donated blood twice to save his life.
For this notorious sinner, someone reached out to help, and one can't help but wonder. However, the soldier's reply was: "I can't let him die easily, because in the war, I have to settle accounts with him for the injuries I have suffered." ”
Although Hideki Tojo attempted suicide, all forces cast contemptuous glances at him.
Hideki Tojo failed to commit suicide and was ridiculed as a "stupid" by **
In October 1945, Hideki Tojo was imprisoned in the Omori Prisoner of War. According to Life magazine, he was snubbed in the shelter, with whom no one wanted to have dinner, walk, play chess or even make small talk.
At the end of the year, he was secretly transferred to a Japanese prison. In early May 1946, he was tried in public by the Far Eastern Military Tribunal.
The court listed 55 counts of Japanese Class-A war criminals, and Hideki Tojo alone committed 54 counts. All the war criminals present avoided him, because his crimes made him the target of public criticism.
Faced with ironclad evidence, Hideki Tojo still wanted to struggle, but it was all in vain.
On December 26, 1947, there was a crowd outside the courtroom to see how Hideki Tojo, a man of the most heinous crimes, defended himself in the face of the facts. What is shocking is that his defense draft is 200,000 words long, full of distorted logic and reversal of black and white, trying to portray the crimes he committed as great feats.
He spent nearly three days reading the defense, which was still full of clichés that "Japan was not an aggressor, and that it was waging war to help Asians build a better homeland."
The Asahi Shimbun expressed strong contempt for his defense that day, calling it "shameless."
If those relatives who lost loved ones in the war were present and heard his remarks reversed black and white, I think they might be so angry that they would just stand up. Although a military tribunal sentenced Hideki Tojo to death and hanged him in mid-November 1948, no one would consider him innocent. ”
When Hideki Tojo learned of his sentence to be hanged, he felt as if the strength in his body had disappeared in an instant, and he took off his headphones with trembling hands and looked anxiously towards the audience, as if looking for his family.
On the night of December 22, 1948, after the execution officer gave the order, Hideki Tojo stepped up several steps and walked to the execution platform.
Accompanied by the personnel, he was put on a black harness, and then a thick noose was tightly wrapped around his neck, and he already felt the breath of death. Everyone present was frightened by the scene in front of them, and Hideki Tojo was even more distraught, and his legs trembled incessantly.
After repeatedly confirming that the noose was tightly wrapped around his neck, the pedals under his feet were immediately removed, and Hideki Tojo was suspended in the air, his expression began to distort.
Hideki Tojo, one of the most notorious figures in history, died in agony and struggle. He once encouraged Unit 731 to conduct virus research and experiment with Chinese.
With the constant help of his classmates, in 1935, at the age of half a hundred, he created his own army, the Kwantung Army, and served as the commander of the military police of this unit.