Hirohito delivered the 1945 surrender broadcast known as the Jewel Voice Broadcast.
Hirohito, posthumously referred to as Emperor Shōwa, was Japan’s emperor from 1926 until his death in 1989. On August 15, 1945, he addressed the Japanese population by radio and announced that Japan had accepted the Allied terms outlined in the Potsdam Declaration.
The broadcast followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet declaration of war against Japan, and intense debate within Japan’s wartime leadership. Hirohito intervened in the deadlocked decision and supported acceptance of the surrender terms, while the condition concerning the imperial institution remained a major concern.
Listeners recognized the emperor’s voice, but the archaic language and poor audio quality made the meaning difficult for many people to grasp immediately. Hirohito’s role in the surrender remains historically significant, although the broadcast itself announced acceptance of the Allied declaration rather than describing every legal detail of the later surrender ceremony.