Toshio Ōtsu ( ja, 大津敏男, October 26, 1893 – December 27, 1958) was the last Director of the Japanese Sakhalin (1943 – November 11, 1947) and the first and only governor of the mainland Japanese Karafuto Prefecture. After the end of his tenure, the prefecture was abolished with the incorporation of Karafuto into the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. Prior to this he was Governor of

Saitama Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (1 January 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 km2 (1,466 sq mi). Saitama Prefecture borders Tochigi Prefecture ...

(1942–1943). As prefectural governor he held the status of a first rank counselor and had the right to meet with the emperor. He was a graduate of the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

. After the defeat of the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he was initially placed under house arrest by the Red Army. However, soon after the arrival of Dmitrii Kriukov, the new civil administrator of Sakhalin and the Kuriles, in late September 1945, Ōtsu agreed to administer southern Sakhalin on behalf of the Soviets. On January 12th 1946 he was taken to Krasnaya Rechka prison near

Khabarovsk Khabarovsk ( rus, Хабaровск, a=Хабаровск.ogg, r=Habárovsk, p=xɐˈbarəfsk) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative centre of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia,Law #109 located from the China ...

. After his release, Ōtsu returned to Japan and in 1951 became the second head of Zenkoku Karafuto Renmei, an association of former residents of Karafuto.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Otsu, Toshio 1893 births 1958 deaths Governors of Saitama Prefecture Directors of the Karafuto Agency People of the Kwantung Leased Territory Japanese Home Ministry government officials University of Tokyo alumni People from Fukuoka Prefecture Siberian internees