Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender in his 1945 radio address.
Hirohito, posthumously referred to in Japan by his era name Shōwa, was emperor from 1926 until his death in 1989. During World War II, he was the constitutional and symbolic head of the Japanese Empire.
His recorded address was broadcast on August 15, 1945, after Japan’s government accepted the Potsdam Declaration. It followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union’s entry into the war against Japan.
The broadcast was historically unusual because it was the first time the Japanese public had heard the emperor speak directly over the radio. The recording used formal language and indirect wording, requiring announcers to explain that Japan had indeed surrendered.
Hirohito remained emperor after the war under Japan’s new constitution, which came into force in 1947. His role during the war and the extent of his political responsibility remain subjects of historical debate, but the 1945 broadcast is a clearly documented milestone in the surrender process.