Japanese army general. Born in Ishikawa on 24 November 1875, Abe Nobuyuki was trained as an artillery officer. As the commander of the 3rd Field Artillery Regiment between 1918 and 1919, Colonel Abe took part in the Siberian Intervention. Promoted to lieutenant general in 1927, Abe held several important posts, including vice war minister (1928–1930), deputy war minister (1930), commander of the 4th Division (1930–1932), and commander in chief of the Taiwan garrison (1932–1933). Promoted to full general in 1933, Abe served as a member of the Military Council until his retirement in 1936.

When Baron Hiranuma Ki'ichiro resigned as prime minister in the political crisis following the surprise conclusion of the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact in August 1939, Abe was appointed prime minister. Abe tried to change the course of national policy in the direction of rapprochement with Britain and the United States, but in January 1940, army hard-liners brought about the collapse of the cabinet. Thereafter Abe held diplomatic assignments, including a term as ambassador to the Republic of China (April–December 1940), as a minister of the House of Peers (May 1942–February 1946), and as the last Japanese governor general of Korea (July 1944–September 1945, while retaining his seat in the House of Peers). Abe died in Tokyo on 7 September 1953.

Tohmatsu Haruo

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Further Reading
Conroy, Hilary, and Harry Wray, eds. Pearl Harbor Reexamined: Prologue to the Pacific War. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990.; Morley, James William. The China Quagmire: Japan's Expansion on the Asian Continent, 1933–1941. New York: Columbia University Press, 1943.; Morley, James William. Deterrent Diplomacy: Japan, Germany, and the USSR, 1935–1940. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976.; Shillony, Ben-Ami. Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.