By 1945, as Japan’s military position became hopeless, the slogan of “the annihilation of the entire nation” appeared in newspapers and the Japanese people prepared for the worst.
Drawing on an essay by Sukehiro Hirakawa, this article examines the fundamental difference between Emperor Showa, who overcame Army opposition, accepted the Potsdam Declaration, and personally announced the end of the war, and Hitler, who sought to drag the German people to destruction with him.

June 23, 2020
People began to argue, “Japan cannot win, but it cannot be defeated, because Japan will never surrender,” and phrases such as “the annihilation of the entire nation” began to appear in newspapers.
The people prepared themselves for the worst.
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
Was Emperor Showa Japan’s Hitler?
Once the decision to go to war had been made, I think it was only natural that the people supported the prosecution of the war.
Although they regarded it as a reckless war, and precisely because such anxiety weighed so heavily upon them, Japan’s irresistible advances at the beginning of the war brought them all the greater joy.
When the Army and Navy achieved brilliant victories during the opening stages of the Greater East Asia War, the people were beside themselves with delight.
They received words of Imperial commendation from His Majesty.
Japan, however, was inferior in national strength, and once the tide of war had turned against it, there was no longer any opportunity to regain victory.
Toward the end of the war, even children such as myself spoke with wishful dependence upon others, wondering whether our ally Germany might develop some new weapon capable of miraculously reversing the situation.
By 1945, cities large and medium-sized throughout Japan were being burned to the ground one after another in air raids.
People began to argue, “Japan cannot win, but it cannot be defeated, because Japan will never surrender,” and phrases such as “the annihilation of the entire nation” began to appear in newspapers.
Note 11
The people prepared themselves for the worst.
Because they had been driven into such desperate circumstances, defeat was regrettable, but the Imperial Rescript ending the war was welcomed with gratitude in the sense that their lives had been saved.
It was only natural that Emperor Showa, who overcame the Army’s opposition and decided to accept the Potsdam Declaration, should have received the gratitude of the people.
Emperor Showa was a sovereign who had resolved that peace must be restored for the sake of the Japanese people, even if he himself were to face the most severe punishment.
As for the circumstances by which Japan had been drawn into the war, Emperor Showa did not exercise his sovereign authority beyond the proper limits of a constitutional monarch, but he had consistently expressed doubts about the military’s policy of expansion.
Regarding the opening of war against the United States and Britain, Emperor Showa felt, “How could this ever have been Our will?”
It was for that reason that he resolved to deliver the Imperial broadcast himself.
Hitler was not a leader who would consider surrender.
Hitler, one might say, attempted to compel the German people to perish together with him.
He maintained that if the Germanic people were to lose the war, they would not deserve to continue existing.
Hitler’s words, “Everything, or else death,” were also celebrated in wartime Japan.
The Führer’s speeches, described as thunderous orations, were compulsory listening in Germany and were also broadcast in allied Japan.
Perhaps because of the shortwave transmission, Hitler’s voice rose and fell in great waves.
An old-system high school student said, “At least I understood ‘ganz oder gar nicht,’” although whether he really did, I do not know.
All I could understand was the thunderous applause.
By the spring of 1945, however, when Nazi Germany was collapsing completely, we middle-school students said:
“We are fortunate not to be Germans.
Had we been in Berlin, we would have been dragged onto the battlefield as members of the Hitler Youth and killed.”
To be continued.