by John Rabe
Riebe did a fine piece of work in getting the power going again. Turbine II is running at full power (5,000 kW). He’s working on turbine III now. All we have are our old Borsig boilers that have been in constant use since being delivered six years ago. We couldn’t even get our renowned American boilers to fire up again.
We saw our Siemens searchlights shining again tonight. I had to establish some order while we were “boarding” the dugout. There’s a fat, well-fed telegraph operator from the Transocean News Agency who always takes the best middle seats from the women and children. I was forced to set him straight a bit. And in the fervor of the moment I ended up in groundwater and got the seat of my pants soaked.
As of this morning a huge sign in German, Chinese, and English adorns the entrance to the dugout. It reads:
A Bulletin for My Guests and Members of My Household:
Anyone using my bomb shelter must obey the rule giving the safest seats, meaning those in the middle of the dugout, to women and children— whoever they may be. Men are to make do with other seats or stand. Anyone disobeying this instruction may not use the dugout in the future.
JOHN RABE Nanking, 19 October 37
The fat telegraph operator took the message very much to heart!
20 OCTOBER
Herr Hoth from the German embassy is lying in Kulou Hospital. On a hunting trip in a sampan on the Yangtze, the man behind him put a load of buckshot in his calves. He was not given first aid until they were on board an English warship. The things that can happen to a person in war! In the calf of all places! I’ve been wondering whether I ought to award him the Order of the Garter for his ailing legs. I think I’ll do it!
21 OCTOBER, 9 : 15 A.M.
I’m on my way to the electricity works, when the ying bao—the alarm— sounds. I barely make it home in the car, and find everything in an uproar. The German-speaking officials at Shanghai Com-Sav Bank have received word that the Japanese have been dropping gas bombs along the highway to Nanking. We have no gas masks, only primitive muslin face masks. I check to see if all my guests are outfitted with the things. The women just have handkerchiefs or little towels. I screw up my courage.
22 OCTOBER
Herr Woltemade arrives at 8 a.m. He got to Nanking at one this morning, but rented a room at the Metropol Hotel rather than disturb me. The drive from Shanghai to Nanking took 18 hours. He had entrusted himself to the Central China Express Company, which promised to get him here in eight hours. The allegedly German chauffeurs of this company, however, are in fact out-of-work Jews, who maybe don’t know much about driving but are that much better at making money. The trip costs 75 dollars a person. One chauffeur’s behavior has been offensive, and the embassy wants to remove the swastika flag from his car, since a Jew has no right to fly it.4
24 OCTOBER
Evening brings news on the radio that the Japanese are said to have broken through the Shanghai front at Tazang. If it’s true, which we hope it isn’t, we shall soon be cut off entirely from Shanghai.
Hurrah! A letter has just arrived from Otto5 in Salem, dated 26 September: cheerful, without a care in the world. He’s busy harvesting plums and apples and is delighted that Otto Rabe, laboring member of the service corps, is soon to become a soldier.
25 OCTOBER
Our wounded Herr Hoth was a good sport about receiving his “bulletproof Order of the Garter,” that is, a white garter with an attached medal displaying two crossed rifles (from my little medal box) and the inscription honi soit qui mal y pense.I packaged it in a cigar box covered in blue silk and lined with white. It was a whopping success! Hoth almost laughed himself well again, and—what was not at all my intention—everyone says: Only Rabe could have come up with that!
26 OCTOBER
Herr Riebe has finished the job at the electricity works. He could have left for Changsha, but a telegram arrived from Shanghai: “Letter to follow— don’t rush the work!” In all my twenty-seven years with Siemens, I have yet to receive such a lovely telegram.
27 OCTOBER
The Japanese breakthrough at Tazang has now been confirmed by the Chinese. They have now retreated to their so-called “Hindenburg Line.”
Rabe’s dugout in his garden. The sign reads: OFFICE HOURS: FROM 9:00 P.M. TO 11:00 P.M.
28 OCTOBER
Alarm at 9:10 a.m., but a false one. Otherwise an active business day that was quiet until evening when something happened after all: Tsao, my rascal of a cook, was supposed to serve bread and cheese for supper, but had none, got scolded, became angry, and gave notice as of the first. He lost the battle, but saved face. Let him go—I don’t care! I won’t weaken, I want my cheese!
29 OCTOBER
Dr. Lautenschlager has returned from Peitaiho by way of Shanghai and has brought me the insulin that Mutti bought for me in Tientsin.
In a moment of some reasonableness, I wrote the following verses and have inscribed them on my heart:
To whom it may concern
Now’s the time and now’s the season:
Damn it man, do use your reason!
Crouching at your dugout door
Is witless foolishness and more!
First because the bombs that drop
Are known to travel from up top,
And that shrapnel from on high
Is said to hurt the stander-by.
Once it booms and it’s too late,
You tell yourself: Oh heck, I’ll wait,
There’s surely time enough to duck,
I only wanted one last look. . . .
Stuff and nonsense, Curly, think
A little faster, hero! Slink
Into your shelter there!
Reason calls you to beware!
6 NOVEMBER
Making my business rounds today, I came across some rather ugly news. A “nitchevo-mood” appears to be gradually spreading among the Chinese. Herr Riebe told me recently that the workers at the electricity works asked him directly whether a man wouldn’t be a lot better off if he became a Communist. And today a businessman told me in confidence that all educated Chinese believe that they ought to join the Bolsheviks.6
LATER
It’s amazing to read how bravely the Chinese army—and remember, they’re hirelings, because although Nanking declared a general draft, it was never set up of course—is fighting against well-disciplined Japanese troops in Shanghai. It’s true that only the best Nanking troops, trained by German advisors, were sent to Shanghai. Two-thirds of them are said to have fallen in battle already; but what can the best troops do without adequate equipment. The modern Japanese army, outfitted with heavy artillery, countless tanks, and bombers, is simply vastly superior to the Chinese.
7 NOVEMBER
Meals of late leave something to be desired. Chang, our number-one houseboy, has taken a three-day vacation. He sent a substitute to fill in while he’s gone, and to my inexpressible joy the man speaks classical, unadulterated Shanghai Pidgin English. The following conversation is taken from today’s breakfast:
MASTER: Boy! Ham and eggs taste all same like fish—how fashion can do?
BOY: Chicken no can help, Master. Present time no got proper chow. Only got fish.
MASTER: But butter taste all same. You thinkee cow all same chow fish?
BOY: My no savee, Master. My wanshee ask him.
In English:
MASTER: Boy! The ham and fried eggs taste like fish. Why is that?
BOY: The chickens can’t help it, Master. There’s no regular feed for them, so they get only fish.
MASTER: But the butter tastes of fish, too. Do you think the cow’s eating fish as well?
BOY: I don’t know, Master. I’ll have to ask it (i.e., the cow).
Well, I’m curious to know what the cow has to say! If the skillet were ever cleaned, maybe we’d get rid of that oily fishy taste. The entire population of my dugout is probably using just one skillet, meaning: mine.
Otherwise, no news.
8 NOVEMBER
Modern warfare is simply pandemonium on earth, and to think that what we’re experiencing here in China is child’s play compared to what a new world war would mean in Europe, from which heaven preserve us.
10 NOVEMBER
About nine Japanese airplanes are flying over the city. They’ve been under heavy fire, but without success. Except for Riebe, who’s standing at the gate to the school and scanning the sky through my Zeiss binoculars (factor of 18), I ordered everybody into the dugout the moment the roofs of nearby houses started rattling under the rain of flak fragments. I’m always happy when we all come out of these thunderstorms unharmed. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to get people to take cover in time. Since nothing has happened thus far, thank God, they’ve become careless and don’t think they’re in danger anymore, unless I go into a nice tirade now and then. Our dugout is getting terribly soggy. We’re having trouble keeping groundwater out. It requires hours of bailing.
German military advisors returning from the Shanghai front report that a number of lightly wounded (Chinese) soldiers are no longer under military discipline and are marauding behind the front lines; if you travel at night you need a Mauser pistol in your hand.
11 NOVEMBER
The bombs were like a hailstorm. Suddenly a whoop of joy from outside. The flak batteries have made a hit. The dugout empties out in no time. Everybody wants to see. The bomber breaks in two and plummets in a swirl of flames and smoke. We see two men, of what was perhaps a five- or seven-man crew, leap out of the fire and smoke. Without parachutes! Within 20 seconds there’s nothing left of the proud bomber but debris and corpses.
12 NOVEMBER
A German woman, whose name I don’t even know, called me on the telephone just now: “Ah, send your engineer at once! My sewing machine is broken!”
“My dear lady,” I reply, “this is Siemens, not Singer.”
“I know that,” she says, “I’ve already tried Singer, but he’s too stupid. Now I’m trying you. After all, it is an electricsewing machine!”
What am I supposed to do? I’ll send Sung, our telephone installer, over tomorrow. Business seems to be improving.
The sewing-machine woman calls again: She would prefer that I send the engineer in the afternoon, please.
14 NOVEMBER
Splendid sunny Sunday, and no bombs! Han says the Japanese don’t like to fly on Sunday. He doesn’t know why, either, maybe they want to rest. That reminds me of Young, who used to be our comprador in Tientsin; he was so lazy that we made him keep a diary listing the customers he’d called on and what shops he’d entered. Every Sunday his entry read: “Today being Holy Sunday. All day no business can be done!”
Rabe and an unidentified colleague watching Japanese aircraft overhead
Herr Riebe had hoped to leave for Hankow this morning, but the only places left on any of the Jardines steamers were in steerage. In his shoes I would have bought a seat in steerage and then I would have sat down in the 1st class salon and waited until the 1st officer provided me with suitable accommodations. The English always treat Europeans courteously.
15 NOVEMBER
A visit to the Communications Ministry convinced me that the government is about to retreat from Nanking. The corridors and offices there are full of trunks and boxes. They intend to move to Changsha on the upper Yangtze. I stop by the Railway Ministry and get one of the boys to tell me in confidence that they, too, will be packing tomorrow.
I have tea with the German ambassador and his wife, Frau Trautmann. There I meet General Speemann, who has just arrived from Tayuanfu. It appears that the Kutwowill first take the ladies and other valuables to Hankow, then return for the embassy staff and the rest of the Germans. The embassy has to leave the moment the Chinese government bolts, they say, because otherwise it would be left behind in enemy territory.
16 NOVEMBER
All day I have been firmly resolved to hold out here. But now I hear that Soochow is being badly plundered by defeated and retreating Chinese troops. That makes you stop and think. Besides which, people believe that Nanking will try to defend itself against the advancing Japanese, even if the city is shelled from the river by Japanese naval artillery.
On the other hand: What’s to become of all the many Chinese clinging to my coattails? Mr. Han asked for another advance. He wanted to send his wife and children as soon as possible via Tsinanfu to Tsingtao, where he has friends. But now he hears that the route is no longer open. The Chinese have blown up one of the railroad bridges outside Tsinan in order to slow the Japanese advance. Meaning that the Japanese will soon be, or already are, on the Yellow River. And now Han, too, will probably have to send his family to Hankow. He’s still waiting for another family of friends who are to join them. I hope he doesn’t wait too long.
There is no point in pursuing any kind of project whatever. No one is available to talk business. Everybody’s packing. But then so am I! I’ve already packed up the books I’ve written. And next come my suits, then the silver. How strange it all sounds! The few remaining items can be quickly thrown into a trunk, then you just paste an address on it. I’m going to withdraw money from the bank, since I’ve been advised I’ll need cash. The banks will be closing, too, in any case.
17 NOVEMBER
There was heavy traffic on the main road all night: car after car, trucks, even tanks. All rumbling ponderously past. The government has begun its evacuation. Word is that Mr. Lin Sen, the president of the Chinese Republic, has already left. I’m worried about Han’s family. They have to leave, as soon as possible.
Hundreds upon hundreds of rickshas piled high with baggage are on the road to Hsiakwan, their Chinese owners alongside, all trying to make it to safety on the few steamers still sailing upriver. Several columns of new recruits were a pathetic sight: all in more less ragged civvies, each with a bundle on his back and a rusty rifle in hand.
I have now also learned why the Japanese were able to advance so quickly of late. Outside Soochow about 5,000 soldiers of the Chang Hsueliang (the Northern Troops) refused to obey orders. They say Chiang Kai-shek himself took one of his crack regiments to Soochow and disarmed the whole mutinous bunch. The marshal doesn’t have an easy time of it. A tip of the hat, just to the sheer energy! Now that the marshal has personally intervened, the Chinese front is said to be holding again. The Japanese have skirted around the “Hindenburg Line,” however, so it’s been lost, which also probably means the end of that lovely defense strategy drawn up by General von Falkenhausen.
18 NOVEMBER
There was no Nanking edition of the China Presstoday. The printers have probably all fled. Day and night a steady stream of rickshas, carts, wagons, cars, and trucks, all piled high with baggage, rolls out of the city, mostly in the direction of the river, since the vast throng is trying to flee upriver to Hankow and beyond. At the same time many regiments of new soldiers are arriving in the city from the north. It would appear, then, that the plan is stubbornly to defend the city. Many of the soldiers look awfully wretched. Entire columns arrive without any footwear. They all march by in total silence, an endless mute procession of weary figures.
Yesterday I felt much the way Mutti felt recently when she was in Peking helping Gretel and Willi7pack up. I wandered from room to room trying to choose the things I wanted to pack and store on board the Kutwo. And as I did it came to me how very much our hearts hang on such things.
Every bag and trunk had to be brought down from the attic, and then we packed for a good part of the night. At 10 o’clock this morning the first six trunks were ready and could be sent down to the harbor in two mashaws,8 at 5 dollars a piece. Our boy Tung took charge of transporting them. The launch is scheduled to leave the Chung Shang Mato wharf for the Kutwoat 11 o’clock.
This afternoon Herr Siegel from Kunst & Albers arrived with
a truck and was able to fetch 3 more trunks, as well as 5 pieces of baggage that belong to Rilz the teacher and that were stored here with me when Rilz was transferred to Spalato.
When Tung our office boy had not returned by 7 in the evening, I drove out to Hsiakwan, pulling up just in time for the arrival of the launch that was scheduled for 11 this morning. When they started loading the baggage it turned into a general mess. To keep both baggage and boys from falling into the water I had to intervene with a loud shout of “Stop!” Result: a hell of a row with one of the boys, who assaulted me with the following response:
“Shegoan—out of my way! You have no say here. I am carrying the carpet of his excellency the ambassador, and it comes first!”
He didn’t get any farther than that, because I simply shouted him down.
By 8 o’clock most of the 600 pieces of baggage that had been assembled on the pier were successfully loaded on the launch. After 20 minutes in the dark and by a driving rain, and after finally sorting out and delivering on board the various ladies with their babies and then the baggage, we were all swearing like sailors. Exhausted and drenched to the bone, I arrived home at 9, and then we went on packing and packing until after midnight, as much as the trunks could hold.
From the Diary of Horst Baerensprung 9 (excerpt)
“The fleeing army stealthily bore naught but its honor and the weapons of war”—those verses kept coming to my mind as I watched those endless columns in the rain. From a suburb of Nanking, I watched for almost seven hours as troops passed along the rutted muddy road. One company after the other. Even most of the officers were on foot, only a few rode drenched and matted Mongolian ponies. The rain whipped at them mercilessly, incessantly, and most soldiers carried umbrellas made of simple oilpaper. The clouds hung so low that you could almost grab hold of them. The Purple Mountain and Lion Hill, the hallmarks of Nanking, were lost in thick fog. The weather had a good side however: No air raids were to be expected.