Hata is known as a strong opponent of the attempts by some Japanese nationalists to revise Japan's wartime history in a way that he deems ideologically biased. Hata, whom the "Wall Street Journal" described as an advocate of the "we-did-wrong view" of Japanese history, has expressed grave concern about the advent of new historical revisionists seeking to apologize for Japan's wartime aggressions and absolve former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. In 1995 Hata stepped down from a government commission on the construction of a new war museum near Yasukuni Shrine in fear that the project would be used to glorify Japan's wartime actions. He favors the de-enshrinement of war criminals from Yasukuni Shrine and is also a critic of Yūshūkan, a museum near the shrine, for its nationalist-inspired portrayal of Japanese history. While he has been strongly critical of efforts by Japanese nationalist groups to alter history textbooks, Hata also agreed to testify for the Ministry of Education against left-wing historian Saburō Ienaga who believed that his textbook was being censored by the Japanese government. Hata has supported the work of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, despite noting that the textbook which the Society had authored "was colored more strongly by nationalism than others".