This chapter shows that wartime Asahi Shimbun editorials lavishly praised Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō and even described Yasukuni Shrine as the “spiritual homeland” of the Japanese people.
By contrasting this with the paper’s postwar stance of treating Tōjō only as a symbol of Class-A war criminals and continuously condemning visits to Yasukuni, it exposes what the author presents as the hypocrisy of Asahi Shimbun’s historical posture.

2019-04-15
But what if one looks at Asahi Shimbun’s wartime editorials?
There appears an astonishing editorial.
This is the chapter I published on 2018-04-23 under that title.

But what if one looks at Asahi Shimbun’s wartime editorials?
There appears an astonishing editorial.
This is the chapter I published on 2018-04-23 under that title.
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.

Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō highly praised.

The latter half of the previously cited editorial at the outbreak of war highly praises the words of Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō.
And not only there.
In an editorial titled “The Prime Minister Reveals His Conviction of Certain Victory” (January 29, 1943), it says the following.

—Even while warning that the Prime Minister must not relax his vigilance, the fact that his sortie itself displayed a grand and fearless confidence, declaring that “herein lies precisely our greatest point of advantage,” is believed to be grounded in the nation’s path of absolute, thorough, self-sacrificing resolve as described above, and it must be said that this is what has most strengthened the people’s spirit and renewed their sense of inspiration.
And furthermore, when the Prime Minister continued, saying, “Surely this year is the very year that should be called the decisive phase in which the great war gains won during the past year and more must be further expanded and the conditions for our certain victory still more firmly established,” and emphasizing that “the Empire, by tightening still further its cooperation with its allied nations, and by advancing in ever greater offensives against America and Britain in concert with them, will finally cause America and Britain to lose their ability to carry on the war and abandon their will to continue it, thereby swiftly achieving the objectives of the war,” this, like the substance of the Foreign Minister’s speech, fully expressed an irreversible conviction of certain victory and cannot but stir the nation to deep emotion and rising determination.—

Asahi Shimbun praised Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō’s words to the extent of saying that they “cannot but stir the nation to deep emotion and rising determination.”
And yet after the war, even after the end of the GHQ occupation, the name “Hideki Tōjō” appears in Asahi Shimbun only as the representative symbol of Class-A war criminals.

An astonishing editorial.

Speaking of Class-A war criminals, postwar Asahi Shimbun has continuously published strong arguments opposing visits by public officials to Yasukuni Shrine, where they are enshrined.
But what if one looks at Asahi Shimbun’s wartime editorials?
There appears an astonishing editorial.

…If an emergency should arise, to repay the Emperor’s grace with one’s death is a tradition of our national spirit, and the great spirit of dying for the nation is the very foundation of national morality.
These loyal souls who died for the nation shall leave their illustrious names forever imperishable, and to receive for all time the special grace of the Imperial House is truly a supreme honor.
The sole wish of the warrior departing for the front is to return in triumph to the shrine of Yasukuni.
The farewell greeting exchanged by comrades on the battlefield is the hope of meeting again at Kudanshita.
For the bereaved families who have offered their fathers, sons, husbands, and brothers to the nation, if they visit the shrine of Yasukuni, their longed-for reunion can be fulfilled.
Yasukuni Shrine is at once the object of reverence by which the loyal spirits who protected the nation are eternally remembered, and also the spiritual homeland of each and every Japanese citizen.
It is precisely for this reason that the Grand Festival of Yasukuni Shrine is a great national ceremony.
(April 25, 1942, Imperial visit to Yasukuni Shrine.)

This passage too should be rendered into modern Japanese and included as reference material in social studies textbooks for high school students.