Toshio Ōtsu (, 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 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. Prior to this he was Governor of

Saitama Prefecture is a Landlocked country, landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (January 1, 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 Square kilometre, km2 ( ...

(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 The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

. After the defeat of the

Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, 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 12, 1946, he was taken to Krasnaya Rechka prison near

Khabarovsk Khabarovsk ( ) is the largest city and the administrative centre of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia,Law #109 located from the China–Russia border, at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, about north of Vladivostok. As of the 2021 Russian c ...

. 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