Kiichiro Higuchi

Kiichiro Higuchi (Japanese樋 口 季 一郎; born August 20, 1888 in Minami- Awaji, Japan, † October 11, 1970 ) was a lieutenant general of the Imperial Japanese Army.

Life

Born in Minami- Awaji Awaji -shima on Higuchi was the eldest of nine children of his parents. When he was eleven years old, his parents were divorced and he was raised by his mother's family. He joined in 1908 the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1918 and the Imperial Japanese Army Academy from. First, he was sent as military attaché to Poland. Since he was able to speak fluent Russian, he later became the Kwantung Army in Manchuria assigned to serve as a possible contact officer to the Soviet authorities. There he became a close confidant of generals Ishiwara Kanji and Anami Korechika.

From 1933-1937 he was commander of the 41st Infantry Regiment, and from 1935-1937 he served as Chief of Staff of the 3rd Division. As part of a military delegation, he visited in 1937 the German Reich.

In the 1971 posthumously published memoirs Higuchi is alleged that he had granted entry to Manchukuo while stationed in Harbin, during which he had been promoted also to Major General, 20,000 waiting on the Manchurian - Soviet border Jews as part of the fugu plan. This figure is, however, likely to be a bug which came into being during the processing of the publisher. The present research assumes that no more than 5,000 Jews during the period 1938-1941, when the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, this escape route for European Jews locked, have crossed the Soviet- Manchurian border.

The end of 1938 Higuchi was recalled to Japan and served briefly in the Imperial Japanese General Staff before he was appointed commanding officer of the 9th Division. 1942 followed in the wake of his transfer to the 5th Regional army in the field Sapporo promoted to lieutenant general. With this he took part in the invasion of the Aleutian Islands, including the catastrophic running landings on Attu and Kiska Iceland. In 1943, he served there until the reconquest of the islands by the United States as administrator of the occupied territories. He then organized as commander of the Northern District Army to defend the northern Japanese islands against an expected U.S. invasion. For this reason he had fortifications on Schumschu, create the Kuril Islands and the Karafuto Prefecture.