SNA (Tokyo) — For a short period in 1939-1940, little-known Imperial Army General Nobuyuki Abe took over leadership of the nation just as World War II broke out in Europe. Abe kept Japan out of the war but was unable to establish a firm political foundation for his government.

Transcript

On August 30, 1939, Nobuyuki Abe became prime minister of Japan.

Although he was an Imperial Army General, his appointment to the top office was unexpected. He was little known within senior political circles.

Two days after he became premier, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, starting World War II. This development explained to leaders in Tokyo why Germany had betrayed its 1936 commitments to Japan and signed its nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union.

Abe’s view was clear that Japan should not take sides in the European conflict. He adopted a position of neutrality and non-intervention, arguing that there was no need to further antagonize the Anglo-American Powers.

It soon became clear that the Abe Cabinet, which possessed only a narrow political base, had trouble governing. Its initiatives for various reforms, particularly its scheme to create a new Ministry of Trade, ran into fierce bureaucratic opposition and were withdrawn.

In foreign policy, too, the Abe government made no progress.

Abe believed that his highest priority must be to bring the war in China to an acceptable conclusion, but the situation on the ground put that goal out of reach. The Chinese nationalist forces even launched military offensives at this juncture, showing no indication that they had been defeated.

Negotiations with the United States to establish a new trade treaty also went nowhere.

Japan remained entirely isolated among the Great Powers.

When the civilian politicians in the House of Representatives passed a no confidence resolution against the Abe Cabinet at the end of the year, the prime minister’s first inclination was to meet this challenge head on and to call a general election.

But Abe soon found that, even among conservatives and his military colleagues, there was little support for his continued leadership. He therefore resigned and left office on January 16, 1940, after a term of only 140 days.

Abe remained a senior political and military figure throughout the Pacific War, serving, for example, as the last Governor-General of Korea. After Japan’s defeat, he was arrested by US forces on suspicion of war crimes, but was released without charges. He died of natural causes in 1953.

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