Heisuke Yanagawa
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Heisuke Yanagawa (柳川 平助 Yanagawa Heisuke, October 2, 1879 – January 22, 1945) was a Japanese soldier and politician. During his career, he attained the posts of Division Commander and Vice-Minister of War, becoming Lt Gen in December 1931. He became involved in more political and theoretical activities. He retired on September 26, 1936.
He was a right-wing military politician; during military service Lieutenant-General Yanagawa rose to the post of Division Commander. One of his first political actions was membership in the Kodaha Faction, under the lead of General Sadao Araki and Jinsaburo Mazaki and Hideyoshi Obata. This was the radical Army grouping opposed to Toseiha Faction, under the guidance of Kazushige Ugaki and his own partidaires; later the group represented a moderate wing in the Army. Later two factions combined in the Imperial Way Faction and he was a member of its leadership cabinet previously and in thePacific War Period.
Yanagawa Heisuke led one of the troops in the Nanjing Massacre, he was known as the Masked Shogun, since he was one of the few commanders that was actually repelled by the Nanjing Massacre.
Yanagawa was a radical defender of State Shintoism doctrine along with General Kuniaki Koiso, restoring the Preliminary Misogi Rite, along with Kiichiro Hiranuma and his creation of the Shintoist Rites Research Council and Chikao Fujisawa as a member in the Diet, proposed a law that Shinto should be reaffirmed as the state religion, as in past times. He was a leader in the Taisei Yokusankai(Imperial Rule Assistance Association) group.
Under the political patronage of Baron Hiranuma, with support from the zaibatsu groups, he took over the Justice Ministry from Akira Kazami, a figure of the Fumimaro Konoye group; another government post was as Vice-Minister of War. During this post in government he led the Keishicho (Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department).
He retired from active military and political service in 1936, but maintained his ideological post in the Kodoha government movement for the rest of wartime.
