Tetsuzan Nagata

In this Japanese name, the family name is "Nagata".
Tetsuzan Nagata

Lieutenant General Tetsuzan Nagata
Native name 永田 鉄山
Born 14 January 1884
Suwa, Nagano, Japan
Died 12 August 1935 (aged 51)
Tokyo, Japan
Allegiance Empire of Japan
Service/branch Imperial Japanese Army
Years of service 1904 – 1935
Rank Lieutenant General (posthumous)

Tetsuzan Nagata (永田 鉄山 Nagata Tetsuzan, 14 January 1884 – 12 August 1935) was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, famous as the victim of the Aizawa Incident of 1935.

Biography

Nagata was born in Suwa city in Nagano Prefecture. He graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy at the top of the list in October 1904, and from the Army Staff College in November 1911. He served as military attaché to several Japanese embassies in Europe, including Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany both before and during World War I.

On Nagata's return to Japan in February 1923, he was assigned to the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff, where he served as administrator of various departments. Promoted to colonel in March 1927, he received command of the IJA 3rd Infantry Regiment, and was promoted to major general in 1932, and became the commander of the IJA 1st Infantry Brigade in 1933.

Nagata was considered a leading member of the moderate Tōseiha political faction within the military, and was also regarded as an expert on Germany.

Nagata was responsible for planning Japan's national mobilization strategy as Chief of Mobilization Section, Economic Mobilization Bureau, Ministry of War, to put both the military and the civilian economy on a total war footing in times of national emergency. His ideas earned him the violent animosity of the radical Kōdōha faction within the army who charged him with collusion with the zaibatsu.[1]

Nagata was murdered in August 1935 (the Aizawa Incident), by Lieutenant Colonel Saburo Aizawa with a sword, for supposedly putting the Army "in the paws of high finance". Nagata was posthumously promoted to lieutenant general, and his assassin was shot by firing squad.

Notes

  1. Sims, Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868–2000

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