Hotsumi Ozaki

was a Japanese journalist working for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, communist, Soviet intelligence agent, and advisor to Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe. The only Japanese person to be hanged for treason (under the provisions of the Peace Preservation Law) by the Imperial Japanese government during World War II, Ozaki is well known as an informant of the Soviet agent Richard Sorge.

Biography Ozaki was born in what is now the town of Shirakawa, Gifu, and a descendant of a samurai family. His family relocated to Taiwan when he was a youth, and he grew up in Taipei. Growing up in Taiwan left Ozaki with a deep respect and affection for Chinese culture; he was very fond of the island where he had spent his childhood. Ozaki's father worked for the Japanese colonial government and taught his son that as Japan was the most advanced of the Asian nations it had a special "civilizing mission" - not only in Taiwan, but in all of Asia. Ozaki was brought up bilingual, and had an education steeped in the classics of both Japanese and Chinese literature in order to better understand China. He returned to Japan in 1922, and enrolled in the Legal department of Tokyo Imperial University. He reached a turning point in the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, wherein extreme right-wing groups engaged in vigilante killings of ethnic Koreans and left-wingers with impunity, amidst rumors that these groups were looting. Ozaki was greatly upset at the way that the government tolerated these killings It was a great shock to him to hear Chinese demonstrators shout "Expel Japan!" and "Boycott Japanese goods!". In 1932, Ozaki covered the First Battle of Shanghai, and was shocked to see Japanese soldiers execute Chinese POWs on the streets of Shanghai on the grounds that Chinese were mere "ants", not human beings, an event that deeply traumatized him. After his return to Japan, he moved back to Tokyo in 1934 where he linked up with Sorge.

By writing books and articles Ozaki established himself as an expert in Sino-Japanese relations. Thus he was recruited by Ryūnosuke Gotō in 1937 to join the Shōwa Kenkyūkai, a think tank established by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe. From 1938, he was invited by Konoe to become a member of his inner circle, or "Breakfast Club", of select members with whom he would confer on current events each week over breakfast. Ozaki, therefore, was in a position to participate in the making of decisions he was supposed to uncover.

Post-war legacy

After the war, Hotsumi Ozaki became viewed as a martyr. Annual visits to the tombs of Hotsumi Ozaki and Richard Sorge have been made since 1975. However, there is no monument to Hotsumi Ozaki.

In the arts No Regrets for Our Youth is a Japanese film loosely based on Ozaki, written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. In the 2003 film Spy Sorge, directed by Masahiro Shinoda and based on the life of Richard Sorge, Ozaki is played by Masahiro Motoki. Kinoshita Junji, A Japanese Called Otto オットーと呼ばれる日本人. This play, centered on Ozaki, was first performed in 1962 and has been produced in Japan a number of times since, most recently in 2008. An English translation by Lawrence Rogers was published in Patriots and Traitors: Sorge and Ozaki: A Japanese Cultural Casebook, Merwin Asia, 2009.