Tōjō Hideki (1884-1948), Japanese army general who served as the country’s prime minister from 1941 to 1944, during World War II (1939-1945).

Born in Tokyo, Tōjō was the son of an army general. He attended the Imperial Military Academy in 1905, and graduated from the Army Staff College at the top of his class in 1915. Tōjō served as a military attaché in Switzerland and Germany from 1919 to 1922. During the late 1920s he served in the Army General Staff, heading a section concerned with mobilization preparations for full-scale war.

In the early 1930s Tōjō became associated with the so-called Control Faction, a group of officers devoted to technological modernization of the army. As a result, leaders of an opposing faction assigned him to a series of minor posts. His fortunes changed after 1935 when he was sent to Manchukuo, a puppet state under Japanese control in the Manchuria region of China. He eventually became chief of staff of the Kwantung Army, the main Japanese military force in the area. While in Manchukuo, Tōjō worked with civilian official Kishi Nobusuke and industrialist Aikawa Yoshisuke to develop a defense-oriented, planned economy in Manchukuo.

Tōjō established a reputation as an efficient, decisive, and aggressive staff officer; his tough disciplinary policies earned him the nickname The Razor. He was called back to Tokyo in 1938 to serve as vice minister of war. An ardent supporter of a strong offensive in the Second Sino-Japanese War (see Sino-Japanese Wars), Tōjō was promoted to war minister in 1940. Tōjō became convinced that Nazi Germany would win the ongoing war in Europe, and in the fall of 1940 supported Japan’s signing of an alliance with Germany and Italy; the three countries became known as the Axis Powers. Tōjō advocated the expansion of Japan's power in East Asia through the deployment of Japanese troops to occupy northern Indochina (now Laos and Vietnam) and the establishment of a “co-prosperity sphere,” an autonomous political and economic bloc in greater East Asia under Japanese dominance.

As tensions with the United States mounted in 1941, Tōjō again took a hardline position. He opposed any compromise that might undermine Japan's position in East Asia or diminish its national prestige. By the fall of that year it appeared that Japan’s entry into World War II was inevitable. Tōjō, viewed as a man who could both represent military interests and keep the army under firm control, was named prime minister in October. In December 1941 his cabinet of civil and military officials decided to declare war on the United States and attack the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Although Tōjō never became a dictator like Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini, he assumed more and more authority as the war progressed. While retaining his position as war minister, he headed the Munitions Ministry in 1943 and took over as army chief of staff in 1944. He strengthened the powers of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, a body established in 1940 to convey governmental orders to the population. He also tried to bolster the wartime economy by tightening control over industrial production, increasing food production through a government rice purchasing system, expanding military conscription, mobilizing female workers, and bringing in forced labor from Korea and China.

In 1944 substantial Allied victories in the Pacific undercut Tōjō's political position. American forces captured the island of Saipan, putting Japan within reach of American long-range bombers. Forced to take responsibility for this setback, Tōjō resigned as prime minister in July 1944 and remained in retirement until the end of the war. When he learned in September 1945 that he was about to be arrested as a war criminal, he unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide. Convicted as a war criminal at the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo, he was executed by hanging in December 1948. Although Tōjō considered himself a dedicated soldier and patriot, he is remembered as the author of Japan's wartime disaster.