Why during WW2 when Japan surrendered General Tojo was executed yet Emperor Hirohito was allowed to live?
It was an accommodation on the part of the Allies to get Japan to surrender. The public dictum at the time was that Japan had to surrender unconditionally, like Germany. But Japanese culture at the time could not suffer any harm coming to their emperor, whom the held in godlike awe. Privately and quietly, the Allies passed the word through neutral channels that if Japan surrendered, the emperor could keep his throne as long as he played no part in the government or administration of postwar Japan. That led Emperor Hirohito to finally announce that the country had to “bear the unbearable” and surrender “unconditionally” — which it really wasn’t.
