If Hitler had survived World War II, he would almost certainly have faced the gallows, given the fate of high-ranking Nazis like Himmler, Göring, and Martin Bormann. So why wasn’t Emperor Hirohito of Japan charged as a war criminal after the war?
Hirohito, by being allowed to live, faced a far worse consequence than the Nazi high command.
The picture above was humiliating. MacArthur towered over the diminutive emperor.
Hirohito had the responsibility to surrender or watch millions of his people die as the Allies invaded. Afterward, he could not “honorably” kill himself as that would result in millions of his subjects following suit.
We have to remember that the culture of Japan expected failures of any magnitude to end with suicide. Those few Japanese soldiers who surrendered to the enemy during the war were ostracized when returning home. Surrender brought shame to the soldier and to his people.
Hirohito had to live with the shame of surrendering to the Americans, and that shame extended to the people who worshipped him.
After surrendering to the Allies, the title of emperor of Japan had very little meaning anymore. Hirohito had to live with that. His survival brought down his empire.