Araki, Sadao

Born May 26, 1877; died Nov. 2, 1966. Japanese military and political figure; a general from 1933. Headed the grouping of the “young officers,” which was tied in with the concerns of Kukhara, Nakajima, and others.

Araki was war minister from 1931 to 1934, and from 1938 to 1939 he was minister of education. He was one of the chief leaders and ideologists of Japanese imperialist aggression and the imposition of fascism on the country from the 1920’s to the 1940’s. In 1948 he was sentenced by the International Military Tribunal to life imprisonment. He was released in 1955 because of the state of his health.