Various duties, including military, civil, espionage, and counter-intelligence roles
Size
about 35,000 (c. 1945)
Part of
Home Ministry (Japanese home islands) Ministry of War (overseas territories)
Military unit
The Kempeitai (Japanese: 憲兵隊, Hepburn: Kenpeitai) was the military police of the Imperial Japanese Army. The organization also shared civilian secret police, espionage, and counter-intelligence roles within Japan and its occupied territories, and was notorious for its brutality and role in suppressing dissent. The broad duties of the Kempeitai included maintaining military discipline, enforcing conscription laws, protecting vital military zones, and investigating crimes among soldiers. In occupied areas, it also issued travel permits, recruited labor, arrested resistance, requisitioned food and supplies, spread propaganda, and suppressed anti-Japanese sentiment. At its peak at the end of World War II, the Kempeitai was an extensive corps with about 35,000 personnel.
Founded in 1881 during the Meiji era, the size and duties of the Kempeitai grew rapidly as Japanese militarism expanded. During World War II, the organization ran Japan's prisoner of war and civilian internment camps, known for their mistreatment of detainees, and also acted as a political police force in the military and occupied territories. It carried out torture, summary executions, and violent reprisals and massacres against civilians, as well as procuring comfort women and human test subjects for Unit 731. The Kempeitai was disbanded after the war, and many of its leaders were tried and convicted of war crimes.
While institutionally part of the Army, the Kempeitai also discharged limited military police functions for the Imperial Japanese Navy. A member of the Kempeitai corps was called a kempei (憲兵).
The Kempeitai (Japanese: 憲兵隊, Hepburn: Kenpeitai) was the military police of the Imperial Japanese Army. The organization also shared civilian secret...
The Kempeitai East District Branch was the headquarters of the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police, during the Japanese occupation of Singapore from...
political prisoners and people rounded up on trumped up charges by the Kempeitai. Prisoners were generally well fed on a diet of rice or wheat, meat, fish...
of military units. Kempeitai Auxiliary units consists of regional ethnic forces in occupied areas. Troops supplemented the Kempeitai and were considered...
development of biological weapons during World War II. It was operated by the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police. Japanese war crimes List of Japanese War...
Japanese Navy's military police, equivalent to the Imperial Japanese Army's Kempeitai. The original Tokkeitai was known as the General Affairs Section and concerned...
(Kōdōha) Japanese holdout Taiwan Army of Japan Control Faction (Tōseiha) Kempeitai Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff Air Service Marines Tokkeitai Fleet...
(Kōdōha) Japanese holdout Taiwan Army of Japan Control Faction (Tōseiha) Kempeitai Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff Air Service Marines Tokkeitai Fleet...
the Kempeitai and had no fear of being arrested for their loyalty was not in question to the occupation forces. These informers worked at Kempeitai screening...
General Affairs department of the Kempeitai, and year after that, in August 1937, became commander of the Kempeitai in the Kwantung Leased Territory....
blindfolded and beaten by civilians. He was then interrogated by the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police, who tortured McDilda in order to discover...
The film opens with the massacre of prisoners of war on Palawan by the Kempeitai, the Imperial Japanese military's secret police (though it was committed...
to them. The Commander of the 2nd Field Kempeitai unit was Lieutenant Colonel Oishi Masayuki. No 3 Kempeitai was commanded by Major-General Masanori Kojima...
was in full command of the Japanese Army's secret military police, the Kempeitai, which committed numerous war crimes on POWs and civilian internees and...
as the Imperial Young Federation and the "Political Department" of the Kempeitai. Amongst the himitsu kessha (secret societies), the Kokuryu-kai and Kokka...
(Kōdōha) Japanese holdout Taiwan Army of Japan Control Faction (Tōseiha) Kempeitai Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff Air Service Marines Tokkeitai Fleet...
(Kōdōha) Japanese holdout Taiwan Army of Japan Control Faction (Tōseiha) Kempeitai Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff Air Service Marines Tokkeitai Fleet...
under the grounds Asian agents would less likely to be arrested by the Kempeitai , the much feared Japanese military police. In 1944, about 90% of the...
and is best known for his roles as Dr. Johann Pryce in Hemlock Grove, Kempeitai Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido in The Man in the High Castle and recurring...
(Kōdōha) Japanese holdout Taiwan Army of Japan Control Faction (Tōseiha) Kempeitai Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff Air Service Marines Tokkeitai Fleet...
(Kōdōha) Japanese holdout Taiwan Army of Japan Control Faction (Tōseiha) Kempeitai Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff Air Service Marines Tokkeitai Fleet...
(Kōdōha) Japanese holdout Taiwan Army of Japan Control Faction (Tōseiha) Kempeitai Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff Air Service Marines Tokkeitai Fleet...
(Kōdōha) Japanese holdout Taiwan Army of Japan Control Faction (Tōseiha) Kempeitai Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff Air Service Marines Tokkeitai Fleet...
(Kōdōha) Japanese holdout Taiwan Army of Japan Control Faction (Tōseiha) Kempeitai Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff Air Service Marines Tokkeitai Fleet...
(Kōdōha) Japanese holdout Taiwan Army of Japan Control Faction (Tōseiha) Kempeitai Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff Air Service Marines Tokkeitai Fleet...
Global Information
Empire of Japan
Imperial Japanese Army