by John Rabe
12 DECEMBER
I FULLY EXPECTED the Japanese to have quietly taken the city, but that turns out not to be the case. All over our Zone you still see Chinese troops with yellow armbands and armed to the teeth with rifles, pistols, and hand grenades. Contrary to all agreements, the police are also armed with rifles instead of pistols. It looks as if both the military and the police are no longer obeying General Tang’s orders. Under such circumstances, there’s no hope of clearing them out of the Zone. At 8 a.m. the bombardment resumes.
At 11 o’clock Lung and Chow arrive and ask us, on behalf of General Tang, to make a last attempt at establishing a three-day armistice.
During these three days the defending forces are to depart, and then the city will be handed over to the Japanese. We put together a new telegram for the American ambassador, then a letter that General Tang must send us before the telegram can be sent, and lastly rules of conduct for the intermediary who, under cover of a white flag, is to deliver a letter concerning the armistice to the commander of the Japanese forces.
Sperling volunteers to play the role of intermediary. We wait all afternoon for the return of Lung and Chow, who are supposed to get the necessary letter from General Tang. Finally, at around 6 o’clock, Lung appears and declares that unfortunately our efforts have been in vain. It’s too late for an armistice now, the Japanese are at the gates.
I don’t take it too tragically, am not even sad it turned out this way, because I wasn’t very pleased with the idea from the start. It’s transparently clear that General Tang wanted to conclude an armistice without the generalissimo’s consent. Under no circumstances was the word “surrender” to be mentioned in the message to the Japanese. And above all, the proposal for an armistice was to be worded so that it would be viewed as having come from the International Committee. In other words: General Tang wanted to hide behind us, because he anticipated and feared severe censure from the generalissimo or the Foreign Ministry in Hankow. He wanted to put all responsibility on the committee, or perhaps its Chairman Rabe, and I didn’t like that in the least!
6:30 P.M.
Uninterrupted artillery fire from Purple Mountain. Thunder and lightning around the hill, and suddenly the whole hill is in flames. They have set fire to some houses and a powder magazine. An old adage says: When Purple Mountain burns, Nanking is lost. To the south, you can see Chinese civilians fleeing through the streets of our Zone, trying to reach their lodgings. They are followed by various units of Chinese soldiers, who claim that the Japanese are hot on their heels. Not true! You only have to watch the way they’re running—the last ones are actually strolling casually through the streets—to know that they’re not being driven before the enemy.
We determine that the troops at the South Gate or in Goan Hoa Men came under heavy enemy artillery fire, panicked, and ran. The farther they got into the city, the calmer they became, and what was originally a mad flight turned into a casual stroll. But there can no longer be any doubt that the Japanese are at the gates and that the final push is about to start.
Together with Han, I head for home and make emergency preparations there in case we’re shelled or bombed—which is to say, I order both my valise with the most necessary toiletries and the indispensable medical bag with my insulin, bandages, etc. taken out to the new dugout, which seems somewhat safer than the old one. I stuff my fur coat with an emergency ration of medicine and instruments in case I have to abandon house and grounds.
I stop to consider for a moment. What else might I take along? I run through the rooms, carefully looking at everything, as if saying goodbye to all this precious stuff. There were a couple of photographs of my little grandchildren—into the bag! So now I’m armed and ready. I am fully aware that there’s nothing to laugh about at the moment; but all the same, my gallows humor gains the upper hand.
Shortly before eight o’clock Colonels Lung and Chow arrive (Ling has marched off by now) and ask if they can take shelter in my house. I agree. Before Han and I left for home, these two gentlemen deposited 30,000 dollars in the committee’s safe.
8 P.M.
The sky to the south is all in flames. The two dugouts in the garden are now filled to the brim with refugees. There are knocks at both gates to the property. Women and children plead to be let in. Several plucky fellows seeking shelter on my grounds climb over the garden wall behind the German School.
And I can’t listen to their wailing any longer, so I open both gates and let everyone in who wants in. Since there’s no more room in the dugouts, I allocate people to various sheds and to corners of the house. Most have brought their bedding and lie down in the open. A few very clever sorts spread their beds out under the large German flag we had stretched out in case of air raids. This location is considered especially “bombproof”!
The entire horizon to the south is a sea of flames. And there’s one hell of a racket. I put on my steel helmet and press one down over the locks of the good Mr. Han, since neither one of us is about to go into the dugout now. There isn’t room for us anyway. I run through the garden like a watchdog, moving from group to group, scolding here and calming there. And in the end they all obey my every word.
Shortly before midnight, there’s a dreadful boom at the main gate, and my friend Christian Kröger from Carlowitz & Co. appears.
“Good Lord, Krischan! What are you doing here?”
“Just checking to see how you’re doing!”
He reports that the main street is strewn with bits of uniform, hand grenades, and all sorts of other military equipment cast aside by the fleeing Chinese troops.
“Among other things,” Krischan says, “someone has just offered me a usable bus for 20 Mex.20dollars. Do you think we ought to take it?”
“Lord, Krischan. You can’t be serious!”
“Well,” Krischan says, “I’ve told the man to stop by the office tomorrow sometime.”
Around midnight the noise abates somewhat, and I lie down to sleep. To the north the splendid Communications Ministry building is burning.
Every joint in my body hurts. I’ve not been out of these clothes for 48 hours. My guests are settling in for the night as well. Around 30 people are asleep in my office, three in the coal bin, eight women and children in the servant’s lavatory, and the rest, over a hundred people, are in the dugouts or out in the open, in the garden, on the cobblestones, everywhere!
At nine o’clock Lung told me in confidence that General Tang had ordered the Chinese retreat for between nine and ten. Later I hear that General Tang actually broke away from his troops at eight o’clock and went by boat to Pukou. At the same time Lung told me that he and Chow have been left behind to care for the wounded. He pleaded with me to help him. The 30,000 dollars in the safe is to be used solely for that. I gladly accept the gift and promise to help him; the agonies of the wounded, who are without any kind of medical help, are indescribable.
13 DECEMBER
The Japanese took control of several city gates last night, but have yet to advance into the center.
Upon arrival at committee headquarters, it takes us ten minutes to found a branch of the International Red Cross, whose board of directors I join. Our good John Magee, who has been mulling over the same idea for weeks now, is chairman.
Three of us committee members drive out to military hospitals that have been opened in the Foreign Ministry, the War Ministry, and the Railway Ministry, and are quickly convinced of the miserable conditions in these hospitals, whose doctors and nurses simply ran away when the shelling got too heavy, leaving the sick behind with nobody to care for them. We get a goodly number of these employees back, because they screw up their courage again when they see the big Red Cross flag—someone quickly located one—flying above the Foreign Ministry hospital.
A main street in Nanking, strewn with the military equipment that fleeing Chinese troops had cast aside when the Japanese entered the city
The dead and wounded lie side by side in the driveway leading up t
o the Foreign Ministry. The garden, like the rest of Chung Shan Lu, is strewn with pieces of cast-off military equipment. At the entrance is a wheelbarrow containing a formless mass, ostensibly a corpse, but the feet show signs of life.
We drive very cautiously down the main street. There’s a danger you may drive over one of the hand grenades lying about and be blown sky-high. We turn onto Shanghai Lu, where several dead civilians are lying, and drive on toward the advancing Japanese. One Japanese detachment, with a German-speaking doctor, tells us that the Japanese general is not expected for two days yet. Since the Japanese are marching north, we race down side streets to get around them and are able to save three detachments of about 600 Chinese soldiers by disarming them. Some of them don’t want to obey the call to throw down their weapons, but then decide it’s a good idea when they see the Japanese advancing in the distance. We then quartered these men at the Foreign Ministry and the Supreme Court.
Two of us committee members drive on ahead and near the Railway Ministry we come across another group of 400 Chinese soldiers, whom we likewise persuade to lay down their weapons.
Shots are fired at us from somewhere. We hear the whistle of bullets, but don’t know where they’re coming from until we discover a mounted Chinese officer fooling around with his carbine. Maybe he didn’t agree with what we were doing. I must admit: From his point of view, perhaps the man was right, but we couldn’t do anything else. If it had come to a battle here in the streets bordering the Zone, fleeing Chinese soldiers would no doubt have retreated into the Safety Zone, which would then have been shelled by the Japanese and perhaps even totally destroyed because it was not demilitarized.
And we still had the hope that these fully disarmed troops would face nothing worse than being treated by the Japanese as prisoners of war. I don’t know what happened to the officer who shot at us. But I did see our auto mechanic, Herr Hatz, an Austrian, grab his carbine away from him.
Returning to headquarters, I find a great throng at the entrance. Unable to escape by way of the Yangtze, a large number of Chinese soldiers have found their way here while we were gone. They all let us disarm them and then vanish into the Zone. Sperling stands at the main entrance with an earnest, stern look on his face and his Mauser pistol—without any bullets in it, by the way—in his hand and sees to it that the weapons are counted and placed in neat piles, since we plan to hand them over to the Japanese later on.
It is not until we tour the city that we learn the extent of the destruction. We come across corpses every 100 to 200 yards. The bodies of civilians that I examined had bullet holes in their backs. These people had presumably been fleeing and were shot from behind.
The Japanese march through the city in groups of ten to twenty soldiers and loot the shops. If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it. They smash open windows and doors and take whatever they like. Allegedly because they’re short of rations. I watched with my own eyes as they looted the café of our German baker Herr Kiessling. Hempel’s hotel was broken into as well, as was almost every shop on Chung Shang and Taiping Road. Some Japanese soldiers dragged their booty away in crates, others requisitioned rickshas to transport their stolen goods to safety.
Mr. Forster joins us on a visit to his mission’s Anglican church on Taiping Road. Two grenades exploded in one of the houses beside the church.
A coolie leading his old, blind mother to safety. Rabe cut this photograph from a newspaper and pasted it into his diary.
The houses themselves have been broken into and looted. Forster surprises some Japanese soldiers who are about to steal his bicycle but vamoose when they spot us. We stop a Japanese patrol, and point out to them that this is American property and ask them to order the looters to leave. They simply smile and leave us standing there.
We run across a group of 200 Chinese workers whom Japanese soldiers have picked up off the streets of the Safety Zone, and after having been tied up, are now being driven out of the city. All protests are in vain.
Of the perhaps one thousand disarmed soldiers that we had quartered at the Ministry of Justice, between 400 and 500 were driven from it with their hands tied. We assume they were shot since we later heard several salvos of machine-gun fire. These events have left us frozen with horror.
We may no longer enter the Foreign Ministry, where we took wounded soldiers. Chinese doctors and nursing personnel are not allowed into the building, either.
We manage quickly to find lodging in some vacant buildings for a group of 125 Chinese refugees, before they fall into the hands of the Japanese military. Mr. Han says that three young girls of about 14 or 15 have been dragged from a house in our neighborhood. Doctor Bates reports that even in the Safety Zone refugees in various houses have been robbed of their few paltry possessions. At various times troops of Japanese soldiers enter my private residence as well, but when I arrive and hold my swastika armband under their noses, they leave. There’s no love for the American flag. A car belonging to Mr. Sone, one of our committee members, had its American flag ripped off and was then stolen.
We have been under way without rest since six this morning, trying to gain exact information about these depredations. Han doesn’t dare leave the house. The Japanese officers are all more or less polite and correct, but the behavior of some of the rank and file is disastrous. Meanwhile these people are dropping propaganda material from airplanes announcing that the civilian population will be treated humanely in all respects.
Exhausted and despairing, we return to our committee headquarters at Ninhai Lu 5. There are dangerous shortages at several places in the city. We use our own cars to deliver sacks of rice to the Ministry of Justice, where several hundred people have nothing to eat. I have no idea what the people inside the Waichiaopu,21with all those wounded, are living off. Seven gravely wounded people have been lying in the headquarters courtyard for hours now and can finally be transported by ambulance to Kulou Hospital, among them a child who was shot in the lower leg: a lad of ten, maybe, who makes not a sound despite his pain.
15 DECEMBER
At 10 a.m. we are paid a visit by naval Lieutenant Sekiguchi. We give him copies of the letters we have sent to the commanders of the Japanese army.
At 11 o’clock we receive Mr. Fukuda, the attaché of the Japanese embassy, with whom we discuss the details of our agenda. Mr. Fukuda agrees that it is obviously both in our interest and that of the Japanese authorities to have the electricity works, waterworks, and telephone system repaired as quickly as possible. And we, or I, can be of help to him.
Mr. Han and I are well acquainted with how these three facilities function, and I have no doubt that we can get engineers and workers to get them running again. At Japanese military headquarters, located in the Bank of Communications, we again meet with Fukuda, who is very helpful as a translator during our meeting with the current commandant.
Since we could not establish contact with the Japanese commandant yesterday, 14 December, we gave Mr. Fukuda a letter addressing the issue of what to do with the disarmed Chinese soldiers. It reads:
The International Committee for Nanking Safety Zone is very much perplexed by the problem of soldiers who have thrown away their arms. From the beginning the Committee strove to have this Zone entirely free of Chinese soldiers and up to the afternoon of Monday, December 13, had achieved considerable success in this respect. At that time several hundred soldiers approached or entered the Zone through the northern boundary and appealed to us for help. The Committee plainly told the soldiers that it could not protect them. But we told them that if they abandoned their arms and all resistance to the Japanese, we thought the Japanese would give them merciful treatment. . . .
The Committee fully recognizes that identified soldiers are lawful prisoners of war. But in dealing with those disarmed soldiers, the Committee hopes that the Japanese Army will use every precaution not to involve civilians. The Committee further hopes that the Japanese Army will in accordance with the recognized laws of
war regarding prisoners and for reasons of humanity exercise mercy toward these former soldiers. They might be used to good advantage as laborers and would be glad to return to civilian life if possible.
Most respectfully yours,
JOHN RABE, Chairman
In reply to this letter and our letter to the commandant of 14 December, we have now received from the latter the following recorded minutes.
Memorandum
Of Interview with Chief of Special Service Corps (Bank of Communications, noon, December 15, 1937)
Translator: Mr. Fukuda.
Members of Committee present:
Mr. John Rabe, Chairman,
Dr. Smythe, Secretary
Dr. Sperling, Inspector-General
Must search the city for Chinese soldiers.
Will post guards at entrances to Zone.
People should return to their homes as soon as possible; therefore, we must search the Zone.
Trust humanitarian attitude of Japanese Army to care for the disarmed Chinese soldiers.
Police may patrol within the Zone if they are disarmed excepting for batons.
The 10,000 tan22of rice stored by your committee in the Zone you may use for refugees. But Japanese soldiers need rice, so in the Zone they should be allowed to buy rice. (Answer regarding our stores of rice outside of Zone, not clear.)
Telephone, electricity and water must be repaired; so this p.m. will go with Mr. Rabe to inspect and act accordingly.
We are anxious to get workers. From tomorrow will begin to clear city. Committee please assist. Will pay. Tomorrow want 100 to 200 workers.
As we were about to say goodbye to the commandant and Mr. Fukuda, General Harata entered and immediately expressed a desire to become acquainted with the Safety Zone, which we show him on a driving tour. We make an appointment for this afternoon to visit the electricity works in Hsiakwan.
Unfortunately I miss our visitors in the afternoon because a column of Japanese soldiers wants to lead away some former Chinese soldiers who have thrown away their weapons and fled into our Zone. I give my word that these refugees will do no more fighting, which is enough to set them free. No sooner am I back in my office at Committee Headquarters, than my boy arrives with bad news—the Japanese have returned and now have 1,300 refugees tied up. Along with Smythe and Mills I try to get these people released, but to no avail. They are surrounded by about 100 Japanese soldiers and, still tied up, are led off to be shot.