Prince Kotohito was born in Kyoto on November 10, 1865 as the sixteenth son of Prince Fushimi Kuniye. His father was the twentieth head of the Fushimi-no-miya, one of the four shinnōke, branches of the Imperial Family which were eligible to succeed to the throne if the main line should die out. Since the infant mortality rate in the main imperial household was quite high, Emperor Kōmei, the father of Emperor Meiji, adopted Prince Kotohito as a potential heir. Prince Kotohito was thus the adopted brother of Emperor Meiji and a great uncle to both Emperor Shōwa and his consort, Empress Kōjun. Prince Kotohito was initially sent to Sambō-in monzeki temple at the age of three to be raised as a Buddhist monk, but was selected in 1872 to revive the Kan'in-no-miya, another of the shinnōke households, which had gone extinct upon the death of the fifth head, Prince Naruhito.
Marriage and family
On December 19, 1891, Prince Kotohiko married :ja:載仁親王妃智恵子|Sanjō Chieko, a daughter of Prince Sanjō Sanetomi. The couple had seven children: five daughters and two sons.
On December 1, 1931, Prince Kan'in became Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff, replacing General Kanaya Hanzo. During his tenure, the Imperial Japanese Army committed many war crimes against Chinese civilians including the Nanking massacre and the systemic use of chemical and bacteriological weapons. Chemical weapons, such as tear gas, were used only sporadically in 1937, but in the spring of 1938, the Imperial Japanese Army began full-scale use of sneeze and nausea gas, and from summer 1939, mustard gas was used against both Kuomintang and Communist Chinese troops. Prince Kan'in transmitted to the Army the emperor's first directive authorizing the use of chemical weapons on July 28, 1937. He transmitted a second order on September 11 authorizing the deployment of special chemical warfare units to Shanghai. On April 11, 1938, Directive Number 11 was issued in his name, authorizing further use of poison gas in Inner Mongolia. Kan'in, among others within the army, opposed Prime Minister Yonai Mitsumasa's efforts to improve relations with the United States and the United Kingdom. He forced the resignation of War Minister GeneralHata Shunroku, thus bringing down the Yonai cabinet in July 1940. The Prince was a participant in the liaison conferences between the military chiefs of staff and the second cabinet of Prince Konoe Fumimaro. Both he and Lieutenant General Hideki Tojo, the newly appointed War Minister, supported the Tripartite Pact between the Empire of Japan, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy.
Final years and death
Kan'in retired as Chief of the General Staff on October 3, 1940 and was succeeded by Sugiyama Hajime. He remained a member of the Supreme War Council and a senior advisor to the emperor on army matters. Field Marshal Prince Kan'in died in Odawara, Kanagawa at the Kan'in summer residence, possibly due to an infection caused by inflamed hemorrhoids on May 21, 1945 and was accorded a state funeral. The Prince was a strong supporter of State Shinto; with Kiichiro Hiranuma he set up the Shintoist Rites Research Council to research all ancient Shinto rites and practices. Other associates were Kuniaki Koiso, Lieutenant General Heisuke Yanagawa, who directed the Taisei Yokusankai and Chikao Fujisawa, member of the Diet of Japan, who proposed a law that Shinto should be reaffirmed as Japan's state religion. His only son, Prince Kan'in Haruhito, succeeded him as the seventh and last head of the Kan'in-no-miya household.
