15 Facts About Mamoru Shigemitsu

Mamoru Shigemitsu was a Japanese diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs three times during and after World War II and as Deputy Prime Minister.

Mamoru Shigemitsu was born in what is part of the city of Bungo-ono, Oita Prefecture, Japan.

Mamoru Shigemitsu graduated from the Law School of Tokyo Imperial University in 1911 and immediately entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mamoru Shigemitsu lost his right leg in the attack and walked with an artificial leg and cane for the rest of his life.

Mamoru Shigemitsu later became ambassador to the Soviet Union, and in 1938, he negotiated a settlement of the Russo-Japanese border clash at Changkufeng Hill.

Mamoru Shigemitsu then became Japan's ambassador to the United Kingdom during a period of deteriorating Anglo-Japanese relations, most notably the Tientsin incident of 1939, which pushed Japan to the brink of war with the United Kingdom.

Mamoru Shigemitsu was highly critical of the foreign policies of Yosuke Matsuoka, especially the Tripartite Pact, which he warned would further strengthen anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States.

In China, Mamoru Shigemitsu argued that the success of the proposed Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere depended on the equal treatment of China and the other Asian nations by Japan.

Mamoru Shigemitsu was thus foreign minister during the Greater East Asia Conference.

However, the tribunal was extremely lenient on the grounds that Mamoru Shigemitsu had regularly opposed Japanese militarism and protested the POWs' inhumane treatment.

Mamoru Shigemitsu was sentenced to seven years in prison, the lightest punishment that was handed down to anyone convicted at the trial.

The cabinet continued after the merger of the party and the Liberal Party as the Liberal Democratic Party in 1955, and Mamoru Shigemitsu continued to hold the post of Deputy Prime Minister of Japan until 1956.

Mamoru Shigemitsu concurrently served as Foreign Minister from 1954 to 1956.

Mamoru Shigemitsu travelled to Moscow in 1956 in an attempt to normalize diplomatic relations and to resolve the Kuril Islands dispute.

In January 1957, a year after his visit to the Soviet Union, Mamoru Shigemitsu died of myocardial infarction at 69 in his summer home in Yugawara, Kanagawa.