Toshio Shiratori

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Toshio Shiratori (1887-1949) was the Japanese ambassador to Italy from 1938 to 1940, advisor to the Japanese foreign minister in 1940, and one of the 14 Class-A war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni.

He served as Director of Information Bureau under the Foreign Ministry from 1929 to 1933. He was appointed ambassador to Italy, serving from 1938 to 1940, and became adviser to the foreign minister in 1940. He was an advocate of military expansionism, counseling an alliance between Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan to facilitate world domination.

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East found him guilty of war crimes. He was sentenced to imprisonment for life for waging wars of aggression, and war or wars in violation of international law. He died in prison.

He was one of the fourteen Class-A war criminals controversially enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine in 1978. A memo from Emperor Hirohito, disclosed in 2006, revealed that he stopped visiting Yasukuni Shrine because of the enrollment of the war criminals, stating "they even enshrined Matsuoka and Shiratori".