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anyone who tried to defend themselves. They only had respect for us foreigners - but nearly
every one of us was close to being killed dozens of times. We asked ourselves mutually, “How
much longer can we maintain this “bluff ”?
On December 19, Rabe writes,
Six Japanese climbed over my garden wall and attempted to open the gates from the inside. When
I arrive and shine my fl ashlight in the face of one of the bandits, he reaches for his pistol, but his hand
drops quickly enough when I yell at him and hold my swastika armband under his nose. Then, on my
orders, all six scramble back over the wall. My gates will never be opened to riffraff like that. … The 300
to 400 refugees here in my garden - I no longer know how many there really are - Have used straw mats,
old doors, and sheets of tin to build huts for a little protection from the snow and cold.
And on January 30,
My car is stopped on Hankow Road by a group of about 50 Chinese, who asked me to rescue a
woman whom a Japanese soldier had led away to rape. … I fi nd the house completely looted, the fl oor
covered with all sorts of debris. In one of the open rooms is a coffi n on a bier, and in the room adjoining,
lying on a fl oor covered with straw and junk, I see the soldier, who is about to rape the woman. I manage
to pull the soldier out of the room and into the entryway. When he sees all the Chinese and my car, he
pulls away and disappears somewhere in the ruins of nearby buildings. The crowd stands at the door,
murmuring, but quickly disperses when I tell them to, so as not to attract more Japanese soldiers.
The 1,200-page diary was forgotten after the Second World War, but later resurfaced to furnish proof that the
atrocities at Nanjing did occur.
It is estimated that more than 250,000 were saved by the actions of Rabe and the other Safety Zone administrators,
who were subjected to constant threats and intimidation, including violence, from the Japanese.
The atrocities at Nanking set an example that left the Chinese population throughout China terrorized.
Meanwhile, the Kuomintang (KMT) and CCP joined to fi ght the common enemy, although the alliance began to
break down late in1938.
On February 28, 1938, Rabe left Nanjing, travelling to Shanghai and then on to Germany, where he worked to
alert the government and people to the events in China. He presented lectures in Berlin, showing photographs, reports
and an amateur fi lm of the Japanese violence. However, when he wrote to Hitler asking him to use his infl uence to
persuade the Japanese to end the atrocities, Rabe was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo (internal security police)
for three days. He was released from custody following intervention from Siemens but was barred from lecturing or
writing about the Rape of Nanjing again. He was, however, allowed to keep his documentary evidence, excluding the
fi lm, which was confi scated. Rabe continued to work for Siemens, which posted him briefl y to the relative safety of
Afghanistan.
In post-war Germany, Rabe was denounced for his Nazi Party membership and arrested fi rst by the Russians and
then the British. However, subsequent investigations exonerated him of any wrongdoing. Rabe was “de-Nazifi ed” by
the Allies in June 1946 but lived in poverty. Monthly food parcels and money sent from grateful colleagues in China
partly sustained his wife and him, but after the KMT was defeated by the CCP in 1949 the deliveries stopped.
At the war crime trials held in Tokyo from May 1946 until November 1948, the International Military Tribunal for
the Far East [IMTFE] convicted over 4,000 Japanese offi cials and military personnel. Of the 28 “class-A” defendants
brought to trial only two, General Matsui Iwane (the commander-in-chief of the Japanese forces responsible for the
Rape of Nanjing) and Hirota Koki (the Japanese foreign minister at the time), were convicted for the Nanking atrocities.
Both were sentenced to death and executed.
War crime trials were also held in Nanking, although only four Japanese Army offi cers, including Tani Hisao, a
lieutenant-general who personally participated in acts of murder and rape, were tried for crimes relating to the Nanjing
massacre. All four are sentenced were to death and executed.
In 1950, John Rabe died of a stroke.
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