The Good Man of Nanking

by John Rabe

  I am trying to obtain more precise data about the number of inhabitants left behind. There is now a rumor that the man who wanted to provide me “very precise” data, Mr. Wang Kopang—the ex-chief of police who resigned because he was not a military man and felt unequal to the task—has been arrested.

  Dr. Smythe calls to tell me that we have 60,000 sacks of rice in the city and another 34,000 sacks in Hsiakwan. That may well be enough. What we don’t have are mats for our temporary housing—thatched huts. The populace must be sheltered from the cold somehow.

  Here is an overview of the problems that the International Committee has to tackle:

  Finances

  Police

  Control of entrances

  Boundaries

  Number and location

  Soldiers and Military elements

  Removal orders and inspection

  Anticipation of flight

  Wounded

  Food

  Quantity

  Location and distribution

  Transportation

  Housing

  Survey

  Use and management of buildings

  public

  institutional

  vacant residential

  Mat sheds

  Utilities

  Water

  Light

  Telephone

  Sanitation and Health

  Extra latrines: disposal

  Garbage and refuse collection

  Medical

  The following is a list of members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone:

  The gentlemen whose names are in italics left Nanking before the siege.

  1 DECEMBER

  At 9:30 this morning I drive with Kröger and Sperling to the Ping Tsan Hsian, where the committee has gathered. We assign various tasks and put together a list of the people involved. Mayor Ma appears with his staff at the meeting and promises us 30,000 sacks of rice and 10,000 sacks of flour. Unfortunately we have no trucks for delivering these rations to the refugee zone. We can sell the rice and flour, but we have to fix the price. We will set up soup kitchens.

  Dugout No. 3 in our garden is finished, with iron plating for a roof and brickwork exits. This afternoon I receive 20,000 dollars from Garrison Headquarters as the first payment of the generalissimo’s promised 100,000-dollar donation. The answer to my question about when I can expect the rest: shrugs.

  John Rabe’s house in Nanking

  The office or “headquarters” of the International Safety Zone Committee in Nanking, Ninhai Lu 5, formerly the home of Minister Chang Chun, who made the house available to the German embassy, which then turned it over to John Rabe for his committee. The Chinese people in front are waiting for food or small sums of money distributed to the poor.

  Members of the International Safety Zone Committee

  Messrs. Fitch, Kröger, Dr. Smythe, Wang from the YMCA, and Riggs visit me in my new house at Ninhai Lu 5, where we want to open Committee Headquarters tomorrow. Dr. Smythe is so taken by the beauty of the house and its splendid furnishings, plus a shelter valued at 17,500 dollars, that he says that in the future he plans to call me simply Mr. John H. D. Rabe-Rockefeller.

  6 p.m. committee meeting. We will bear a tremendous responsibility if we first order the remaining populace of Nanking into the neutral zone and then later are turned down flat by the Japanese. A vote is taken, revealing that the majority of the members are in favor of going forward. The text of the announcement for people to move into the zone must be very carefully worded. We first want to ask the Chinese news agencies how many inhabitants are still left, meaning, we want to measure the barometric pressure of the Chinese mood.

  Dr. Rosen has received news via the Americans that National Group Leader and Party-Comrade Lahrmann did forward my telegrams to Hitler and Kriebel. Thank God! I’m certain now that help will come. The Führer won’t leave me in the lurch.

  Dr. Rosen asks the Germans to meet and discuss when people will have to board the Hulk.Herr Kröger, Herr Sperling, young Hirschberg, and Hatz, an Austrian engineer, all want to remain here to help me. Those under consideration for the Hulkinclude: Frau Hirschberg and daughter, who are already on board; plus Dr. Rosen, Hürter, and Scharffenberg, all three from the embassy; two sales clerks, Fräulein Neumann and a Russian woman whose name I don’t know; and the bookkeeper at Café Kiessling.

  Dr. Hirschberg has taken the ailing Chang Chun to Hankow, after I gave him some of my insulin supply. Dr. Hirschberg wants to return by airplane, he says, because we are in urgent need of doctors. I name (our Siemens assistant) Han, along with his friend Sung from the I-Ho-Tung Brick Works, to be food commissioner. Han simply beams: He’s never held such a high-ranking job in his whole life.

  2 DECEMBER

  Through the good offices of Pater Jacquinot16we have received the following telegram (in translation) from the Japanese officials:

  Telegram to Ambassy 17 Nanking, 1December 1937

  Your November 30th.

  Following for Nanking Safety Zone Committee:

  Japanese authorities have duly noted request for safety zone but regret cannot grant it. In the event of Chinese forces misbehavior towards civilians and or property cannot assume responsibility, but they themselves will endeavor to respect the district as far as consistent with military necessity.

  JACQUINOT

  According to radio reports, London regards this reply as a flat-out refusal. We are of a different opinion here. The answer is cleverly couched in diplomatic terms, leaving a backdoor open, but is generally favorable. We certainly do not expect the Japanese to assume responsibility for “misbehavior by Chinese forces.” The telegram’s last sentence: “The latter will attempt to respect the district . . . etc.” is very satisfactory.

  The following reply was telegraphed via the American embassy:

  Please transmit to Father Jacquinot Shanghai following message from International Committee for Nanking Safety Zone: Cordial thanks for your services. Committee appreciates Japanese assurance of endeavor to respect the district as far as consistent with military necessity. We have secured full agreement from Chinese military authorities for exact compliance with original proposal. Committee is therefore proceeding with work of organization and administration in safety zone and informs you refugees already entering. At proper time and after inspection Committee will formally notify both Chinese and Japanese authorities that Zone is in operation.

  Committee would ask you kindly to confer again with Japanese authorities pointing out that direct assurances from them to us would go still further to lessen the anxieties of distressed civilians, and respectfully requesting them to give us early notification to that effect.

  JOHN RABE, Chairman

  The return from Hankow of the German ambassador, Dr. Trautmann, and Dr. Lautenschlager, the secretary of the legation,18is cause for great surprise. When asked, Dr. Rosen explains that it has nothing to do with the work of the committee. In confidence, Dr. Rosen informs me that the ambassador did not fully agree with my telegrams to the Führer and Kriebel: In his opinion they were unnecessary! I will go see Dr. Trautmann tomorrow, since I have no time today. I assume his return has something to do with Germany’s attempt to be a mediator.

  We’re having great difficulty finding vehicles to transport the rice and flour placed at our disposal, some of which is stored outside the Safety Zone without anyone guarding it. We’re told that large quantities have already been removed by military authorities. Allegedly only 15,000 sacks of rice are still left of the 30,000 given us.

  Mayor Ma denies that the police have been instructed to leave the city with the military, as Dr. Rosen informed me after having overheard some remarks by the embassy police. At 8 p.m. a farewell dinner for Dr. Han Liwu. He is leaving for Hankow this evening with 14,000 crates of curios. He has to leave 1,000 crates behind because of insufficient cargo space. We are very sorry to see him go, for he is an extraordinarily competent man and a great help to
us.

  3 DECEMBER

  Dr. Rosen called on me to extend greetings from Dr. Trautmann, who returned to Hankow yesterday evening on the same customs cruiser that brought him here. The ambassador has in fact been to see the generalissimo with peace proposals, as Dr. Rosen admits after some hesitation. Understandably enough, I cannot get any details of these proposals out of Rosen, and won’t attempt to do so again. It suffices for me to know that such steps have indeed been taken. May they lead to good results! Dr. Rosen shows me another telegram that is actually intended for the ambassador, and reads as follows:

  Diplogerma Nanking

  from Hankow 2.12.—to Nanking 3.12.37

  Tokyo wires 30. 11. 37: To whatever extent possible, Japanese wish to spare the city, national government, lives, property, foreigners, as well as a peaceful Chinese populace. Japan hopes the Chinese government will act on the advice of the Great Powers and spare its capital the horrors of war. For military reasons a special Safety Zone for Nanking or its fortified area cannot be granted. The Japanese will issue an official explanation in this regard.

  SAUKEN

  Dr. Rosen has learned that no other embassies here received telegrams with similar contents. It is up to the committee to make use of this information without betraying who sent it. Rosen recommends that we approach Madame Chiang Kai-shek.

  Although General Tang, who is in charge of defending the city, promised us that all military personnel and installations would be kept out of the refugee zone, we now learn that three new trenches and/or foundations for antiaircraft batteries are being dug in the Zone. I inform General Tang’s emissaries that I will resign my office and disband the International Committee if work is not stopped at once. Written promises to respect my wishes are provided, but I am informed that carrying them out may take some time.

  4 DECEMBER

  Soldiers continue to build new trenches and install military telephones inside the Safety Zone. Air raids lasting for hours have begun again. My friend Kröger had business at the airport and was almost killed when several bombs landed not a hundred yards from him.

  The refugees have slowly begun to move into the Safety Zone. One small newspaper has repeatedly told the Chinese not to move into the “foreigners” refugee zone. These extortionists write that it’s the duty of every Chinese to face the dangers that a bombardment of the city may bring with it.

  5 DECEMBER

  By 8 a.m. there’s already trouble to disturb a lovely bright Sunday. My driver has left me in the lurch; first he has to be fetched, is given a dreadful dressing-down, answers back, is fired, apologizes, and is rehired. I believe this is the twenty-fifth time I’ve thrown him out and then rehired him!

  This pass permitted John Rabe to drive his car through the city.

  When I’m finally sitting in the car, the alarm sounds and bombs start dropping, but I have a pass that lets me drive around even after the second alarm. Besides which, there’s so much to do that you can hardly worry about bombs. That sounds very heroic, but luckily the bombs kept landing somewhere else.

  With the help of the American embassy we have finally received an official answer from Tokyo. The answer is somewhat more detailed, but is not all that much different from the reply wired to us several days ago by Pater Jacquinot, which is to say the Japanese refuse our proposal once again, but promise to respect the Zone if possible.

  Together with Dr. Bates and Sperling I pay a call on General Tang, who is in charge of the city’s defense, in order to get his consent to have all military personnel and establishments removed from the Zone at once. Imagine our amazement when General Tang tells us that this is quite impossible, that at best it will be another two weeks before the military can vacate the Zone. A nasty blow. It means that the Japanese condition that no Chinese soldiers are to be allowed in the Zone will not be fulfilled. For now at least we cannot even think of claiming to have a “Safety Zone,” at most it’s a “refugee zone.” The matter is discussed at a long committee meeting and a text prepared for release to the press, because if we don’t want to see our work destroyed, we dare not let the press learn the whole truth yet. . . .

  Meanwhile one bomb after another is falling. When it all gets too noisy, we pull our chairs away from the window. The city gates have been walled up; of the three gates only one half-panel is still open.

  We are feverishly trying to get rice and flour into the Zone. Flags marking its borders are being prepared, as well as wall posters intended to explain the Zone to those poor people outside, whose safety we unfortunately cannot guarantee.

  Dr. Rosen curses the Chinese military roundly for, as he describes it, having slunk into our Zone, because it’s safer next to all those vacant houses with German flags than it is outside the Zone. I can’t swear that it’s true. But the fact is that General Tang himself received us today in a house inside the refugee zone.

  CHAPTER 3

  WAITING FOR THE ATTACK

  6 DECEMBER

  THE LARGEST SHARE of the Americans who stayed behind are boarding an American warship today; the rest are ready to embark at any moment. Only the members of our committee refuse to board. Dr. Rosen has told me in strictest confidence that the peace proposal presented by Ambassador Trautmann has been accepted by Chiang Kai-shek. Dr. Rosen hopes that there will be peace before the Japanese can take Nanking.

  I had an interesting conversation with Colonel Huang. He is absolutely against the Safety Zone. In his opinion it demoralizes the troops in Nanking. “Every inch of soil that the Japanese conquer should be fertilized with our blood. Nanking must be defended to the last man. If you had not established your Safety Zone, people now fleeing into the Zone could have helped our soldiers.”

  What can you say to such monstrous views? And the man is a high official very close to the generalissimo! And so people who had to stay behind because they didn’t have the money to flee with their families and a few small possessions, the poorest of the poor, are supposed to pay with their lives for the military’s mistakes! Why didn’t they force the well-off inhabitants, those 800,000 propertied citizens who fled, to stay? Why is it always the poorest people who must forfeit their lives?

  We also got around to talking about the point in time when military personnel and installations are to leave the Safety Zone. At the very last moment and not a minute before, in his view; not until the battle is raging in the streets of Nanking.

  If those of us in Nanking want to be truly prepared, we must have rice, flour, salt and fuel, medicine, cooking utensils, and who knows what all besides, inside the Zone before the Japanese arrive. We have to arrange for doctors and nurses, for removal of waste and burials, for police and, if need be, police replacements; for it is highly probable that the police will depart along with the retreating Chinese troops, and then comes the critical moment when mob violence can be expected. Should we follow his example and make preparations for these things only at the last possible moment?

  I try to bring Mr. Huang around—to no avail. He is Chinese. What does he care about a few hundred thousand of his countryman? They’re poor, and so all they can do is die. We also discuss the problem of defending the city. General von Falkenhausen and all the German advisors have pointed out that this is hopeless. Of course, there must be a line of defense outside it. You can’t demand of a general who wants to save face that he simply surrender the city; but a battle at the walls, fighting in the streets, it’s insane, just ruthless mass murder! Nothing helps: My powers of persuasion aren’t good enough.

  Honor, Mr. Huang declares, demands that we fight to the last drop of blood! Well, let’s wait and see. Mr. Pai, the manager of electricity works, and Mr. Loh, his first engineer, wanted to hold out in Nanking until the last moment to keep the station running. And it is running. But who’s actually responsible, I don’t know. Messrs. Pai and Loh bolted long ago.

  7 DECEMBER

  Last night we heard a great many cars on the move, and at around 5 o’clock this morning a whole host of air
planes passed over just above our house; the generalissimo’s farewell salute. Colonel Huang, whom I called on yesterday, has departed as well—on the generalissimo’s orders!

  Only the very poor are still here, and we few Europeans and Americans who are determined to share our quarters, our so-called Safety Zone, with the poor.

  Poor people, with a few household goods and bedding, can be seen fleeing into the Zone from all directions. And they are not even the poorest of the poor, they’re the vanguard, the people who still have a little money and can pay for shelter with someone they may know inside the boundaries.

  Those who have nothing are yet to arrive. We’ll have to open the schools and universities for them, put them in mass shelters and feed them from great soup kitchens. We’ve been able at best to get a quarter of the food promised us into the Zone, because we don’t have enough vehicles, which are constantly being commandeered by the military.

  This morning two of our trucks were taken by the military. So far we’ve only got one of them back; the other, loaded with two tons of salt, has not been returned yet. We’re trying to chase it down. Another 20,000 dollars have been paid out by the generalissimo’s headquarters. With that we’ve received a total of 40,000, instead of the 100,000 promised us. We’ll just have to make do. The generalissimo probably doesn’t know that only part of the donation has been paid out, so you can’t really blame him.

  The city gates are to be closed tomorrow and the rest of the Americans put on board ship. I sent a telegram to Siemens today asking them to pay up any life insurance premiums that may be due.