Tetsuzan Nagata
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Tetsuzan Nagata | |
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14 January 1884 – 12 August 1935 | |
Lieutenant General Nagata Tetsuzan |
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Place of birth | Suwa, Nagano, Japan |
Place of death | Tokyo, Japan |
Allegiance | Empire of Japan |
Rank | lieutenant general |
Commands | Imperial Japanese Army |
Tetsuzan Nagata (永田 鉄山 Nagata Tetsuzan?); (14 January 1884 - 12 August 1935) was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, famous as the victim of the Aizawa Incident of 1935.
Nagata was born in Suwa city in Nagano Prefecture. He graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in October 1904, and from the War College in November 1911. He served as military attaché to several Japanese embassies in Europe, including Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany both before and during World War I.
On Nagata’s return to Japan in February 1923, he was assigned to the Army General Staff, where he served as administrator of various departments. Promoted to colonel in March 1927, he received command of the 3d Infantry Regiment, and was promoted to major general, and commander of the 1st Infantry Division in 1932.
Nagata was considered a leading member of the moderate Toseiha military faction, led by Kazushige Ugaki, and specialist on Germany.
Nagata was responsible for planning Japan's national mobilization strategy, to put both the military and the civilian economy on a total war footing in times of national emergency. His ideas earned him the violent animosity of the radical Kodaha faction within the army who charged him with collusion with the zaibatsu.
Nagata died in August 1935 (the Aizawa Incident), assassinated by Lieutenant Colonel Saburo Aizawa with a sword, for supposedly putting the Army "in the paws of high finance". Nagata was posthumously promoted to lieutenant general, and his assassin was shot by firing squad.