Saburō Aizawa
Saburō Aizawa was a Japanese military officer of the Imperial Japanese Army who assassinated Tetsuzan Nagata in the Aizawa Incident in August 1935. Aizawa was later court-martialed and executed for this murder.
Biography
Saburō Aizawa was born on 6 September 1889 in Sendai, the eldest son of Hyonosuke Aizawa, a former court clerk and notary of the Sendai Domain, and his wife Makiko. Aizawa attended junior high school in Iwate Prefecture before attending the regional military school of the Imperial Japanese Army in Sendai and graduating on 28 May 1910. Aizawa served in many positions and was promoted numerous times during the 1910s and 1920s, reaching the rank of lieutenant-colonel by the early 1930s.Aizawa was a staunch supporter of the Kōdōha, the radical militarist political faction of the Imperial Japanese Army in opposition to the moderate Tōseiha during the Gunbatsu period. By mid-1935, Aizawa despised Major General Tetsuzan Nagata, the de facto leader of the Tōseiha, whose ideas earned him the violent animosity as "chief villain" of the Kōdōha. Nagata's national mobilization strategy of preparing both the military and civilian economy for total war offended the Kōdōha, who perceived it as collusion with corrupt party politics and the zaibatsu. Aizawa's behavior became noticeably erratic and he was stationed in Japanese Taiwan. In July 1935, Nagata's political manoeuvres led to the forced retirement of Jinzaburō Masaki, the Inspector-General of Military Training, who was a leading member of Kōdōha and Aizawa's friend.