Kōtarō Nakamura

Kotaro Nakamura (Japanese中 村 孝 太郎, born August 28, 1881 in Ishikawa Prefecture, Empire of Japan, † August 29, 1947 ) was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army and Defense Minister.

Life

Nakamura Kotaro was born on August 28, 1881 in Ishikawa Prefecture. After the visit of cadet schools in his youth, he graduated in June 1902 from the 13th class of the Army Officer School with the rank of second lieutenant of infantry. He later attended, among others, Terauchi Hisaichi and Umezu Yoshijiro, the army high school, from which he graduated in 1909. Subsequently, he held various administrative posts in the Army General Staff, in which he was ordered over his entire military career over again. In the years 1920 and 1921 he was a Japanese military attaché in Sweden. After his promotion to colonel in August 1922 he commanded until August of the following year, the 67th regiment, before he served until July 1927 as Adjutant in the Army General Staff.

He left with his promotion to Major General, out of this post and was commanding general of the 39th Infantry Brigade. In August 1929 he moved to the post of Chief of Staff of the Chosen Army in annexed by Japan Korea. Between December 1930 and February 1932, he was head of the personnel department in the War Office, before he took over the command of the garrison army China. Two months later he was promoted to lieutenant general, the usual rank for the commander of the Japanese army. After a brief period as commanding general of the 8th Division Nakamura was from December 1935 to February 1937 Deputy Inspector General of Military Training. On 2 February 1937, the new Prime Minister Hayashi Senjūrō ​​appointed him as army minister in his cabinet, but it already replaced on February 9, again by Hajime Sugiyama.

He then served as commander of the Ostdistriktarmee and reached in June 1938 to the rank of full general. Then he was up in July 1941 commander of the Chosen Army. From December of the year to May 1, 1943, he was again commander of the Ostdistriktsarmee, between the two commands he had been a member of the Supreme War Council. Due to health problems he resigned in May 1943 from active military service and died on 29 August 1947.