by John Rabe
At the conclusion of his speech, the general asked if we had anything to add ourselves. Out of a personal distaste for the strange methods of his “address,” I refrained from saying anything in my capacity as senior foreign representative present, but my American colleague, Mr. Allison, asked for a copy of the text of the speech, whereupon all of a sudden the speech was declared to be entirely improvised, the very same speech the general had just read word for word, spectacles perched on his nose and holding his paper to one side now and then for better light, while Attaché Fukuda had stammered his translation from another Japanese copy! During the tea that followed I asked the Japanese deputy general consul, Mr. Fukui, when we might finally be able to count on visiting Dr. Günther, a citizen of the Reich, at the cement works in Kiangnan about 12 miles outside the city. Mr. Fukui replied that according to Major Hungo there were some 3,000 Chinese soldiers in the area; it was therefore too dangerous. I could not refrain from asking whether these 3,000 soldiers were dead or alive.
Of course this was yet another very lame excuse, for that same day Sindberg, a Dane who lives at the cement works with Dr. Günther, arrived in the city without a scratch, as he has often done before. Along with the attempt to prevent us from having a look at what crimes the Japanese troops have committed outside the city, the refusal to allow this official trip may also be connected with the fact that representatives of the Japanese Onoda Cement Works have already expressed some interest in the Kiangnan works, which have only recently been completed, but not yet transferred to a Chinese company. The German engineer and the Dane are therefore currently looking after the interests of the Danish firm that built the plant and the German firm that supplied the equipment.
My American colleague, Mr. Allison, who speaks Japanese, asked the general whether the officers of the American gunboat Oahumight be permitted on land to visit the embassy, something that has thus far been denied both them and the English. The general said to Major Hungo and Attaché Fukuda that he could see no reason why that shouldn’t be possible, whereupon the two pulled him to one side for whispered conversation, and in the end the decision was that “the military” could not permit it! This example shows how higher Japanese officers defer to younger officers, and also how things are proceeding without any real planning, in matters great and small.
In general, daily life here is made absurdly difficult. Buying coal for the kitchen stove involves bureaucratic stupidity of the sort that in the old days used to be the subject of our humor magazines, and the purchase balloons into a major act of state. I had to provide exact information as to coal yard, truck, route traveled, and required amount of coal. Finally in possession of a large permit, the American embassy truck was able to drive off. Since the designated gate had been closed by Japanese soldiers, the driver wanted to use the next one, but that was impossible without a new permit. Moreover, General Consul Fukui demanded that because this was an American truck, it first be driven back to the American embassy instead of delivering the coal directly to me!
To return to the Major General Amaya’s speech, the conclusion to be drawn from it is that Chinese resistance to the Japanese must have rattled them a good deal. Surely it is self-evident to patriots like the Japanese that after years of suffering and constant humiliation, a nation will resist foreign intruders. But in their overweening blindness, the Japanese have never been able to see this. About two years ago, the Japanese assistant foreign minister for Manchukuo, Mr. Ohashi, one of those chiefly to blame for the current war, told me that two Japanese divisions could hold the main Chinese army in check!
The general’s admission in regard to the unusual insecurity felt by his officers and even his general staff clearly shows what a very different picture these gentlemen originally had of their stroll through China. Quite out of place was the general’s attempt to shift the blame to foreigners for the failure of the Nanking populace to show enthusiasm for the Japanese, especially when one recalls that the foreigners who remained behind in Nanking chose to place a German, indeed a functionary of the NSDAP, at their head, making Herr John H. D. Rabe their leading figure. And though by “a certain nation” the general may have been referring to the Americans, they have worked in close cooperation with those Germans who remained behind. Without the brave intervention of the Germans and Americans, the bloody culpability of the Japanese would have been considerably worse, so that they should have every reason to be most grateful to these foreigners.
A few days ago, Herr Rabe offered Mr. Hidaka of the Japanese embassy his personal assistance and that of his coworkers to find some solutions to all the problems regarding Nanking’s civilian population, but the Japanese think they can do everything better by themselves. And yet one can look to the future only with apprehension when one recalls that from 28 January to 8 February Japanese have committed over 170 violent crimes, i.e., mostly rapes and robberies of even paltry amounts of money from the defenseless poor. As I write this, Herr Rabe calls to report that yesterday an old married couple and two other civilians were shot and killed by Japanese soldiers for no plausible reason.
Granted, one can well understand that the Japanese, who until now have been able to keep their actions in this country from the public, are upset that precise details have been revealed here and that these play havoc with their claim of having brought light and order to a chaotic China whose populace could not contain its jubilation over it all. In contradiction to the fears of the foreigners, the Chinese in fact maintained model discipline under the pressure of several air raids a day, followed by actual fighting in the streets, and except for a few isolated incidents respected foreign flags, whereas the Japanese, even long after Nanking had become a quiet military base, swooped down over everything, including German and other foreign property—murdering, burning, violating.
As a result of changes in the leadership of German foreign policy, the Japanese apparently—judging from radio reports—have set great hopes on an endorsement of their China policy; but perhaps they have failed to note that the very man who created the Anti-Comintern Pact might have something to say about how the Japanese have violated its high ideals. Given the poor postal connections with Hankow, I am presenting this report directly to the Foreign Ministry.
ROSEN
7 FEBRUARY
After first gathering up the remnants of discarded uniforms and equipment lying about in the streets, the Japanese have now set fire to all the wrecked cars that are strewn about—having first removed any valuable parts.
Dr. Hsü arrives with news that the Japanese shot and killed four Chinese near Lotus Lake last night. Cause: An old man evidently wanted to fetch a ricksha he had hidden near his house. When his wife and two other relatives hurried out to assist him, they, too, were cut down.
This morning, led by two workers for the Red Swastika Society, Mr. Sone and I visited a somewhat out-of-the-way field in the vicinity of Sikiang Road, where the bodies of 124 Chinese have been fished out of two ponds, all of them shot, about half of them civilians. The victims had all had their hands tied, were then mowed down by machine guns, doused with gasoline, and set on fire. But when the burning took too long, the half-burned bodies were simply tossed into the ponds. Another pond nearby is said to contain 23 corpses, just as all the ponds in Nanking have been similarly contaminated.
Mills and I are joined by the daughter and sisters of the Chinese woman who was shot, and we drive to the scene of the crime, very close to Major Haub’s former residence, to verify in person Dr. Hsü’s report about the murder of four people.
Out in an open field we found three corpses, that of a woman, lying right beside that of two men, and the body of another man about ten yards away. Between the bodies lay an improvised litter, that is, a plank suspended on ropes from two poles, which the two men—whom the old man’s wife had called—intended to use to remove the body of her husband. And once again these are very poor people: farmers, who owned a small plot, part of which they had already plowed. Their wretched clay h
uts were empty. According to the daughter, the mother had carried circa ten dollars, their entire fortune, on her person. Nothing was found among her clothes, however. Mills and I were profoundly shocked. I pressed ten dollars into the daughter’s hand, who kept bowing but never shed a tear, so that she would at least have the money. Before we drove home, the murdered woman’s sisters threw a handful of dirt on each of the bodies.
The Japanese army attempted to destroy the evidence of the slaughter by wholesale burning of bodies.
Chinese families had meager means with which to transport their injured to the hospital or their dead for burial. This woman is being carried in a basket strung from a pole.
8 FEBRUARY
At 8 o’clock this morning, the women and girls are all standing in crowded rows along the middle path in our garden. It is the only open spot left in the garden. They wait patiently until I finish breakfast and am about to set out for committee headquarters. As I come outside they all fall to their knees and cannot be persuaded to get up from the cold cement path until I have given the following speech, translated by Liu the chauffeur, whom they trust implicitly.
The Japanese and the Autonomous Government Committee have publicly announced that you must leave the refugee camps, the Zone, today. I personally have nothing against your remaining here. I shall not chase you away! But what can I, a single foreigner, do if the Japanese soldiers march in here and force you to leave my house and my garden? You must realize that my own power is too small to protect all of you in the long run.
Nevertheless, I will try to prevent the Japanese from entering. Please let me go to the German embassy now to speak to its representatives.
“Ta meo banfang,” Liu calls out. “There’s nothing you can do. He knows no other solution.” At that, they all sit down on the ground and let me go.
I had intended to drive to the Japanese embassy this morning with Dr. Bates and take one of the Japanese officials out to the murder site in Pei Tse Ting. When I see about 200 Japanese soldiers deployed not far from my house, I fear that the military intends to clear the Zone by force. So I quickly drive to the American embassy to mobilize all the foreigners to stand guard at the camps and then go see Dr. Rosen at the German embassy, who is more than willing to drive back with me to observe any forcible entry of my grounds and buildings by the Japanese. Thank God nothing happens! The deployment of Japanese troops was for a passing Japanese general!
After a quiet chat at my house, we went to the American embassy to talk with Mr. Allison about how the Japanese had not attacked the Zone, and then five of us—Dr. Rosen, Mr. Smythe, Sperling, Jimmy Wang, and I—drove out to the murder site in Pei Tse Ting. In the meantime, the four bodies had been wrapped in mats and lay ready to be buried on a little nearby hill. Jimmy hunted up a Chinese man from the neighborhood, who gave us the following account of the incident:
The corpses of a family slain by a Japanese soldier. The only survivors of this family of thirteen were two girls, aged eight and four, who hid under blankets beside the body of their mother for two weeks and lived from rice crusts left in a pan. (See Pastor Magee’s report, p. 281: Document 16, Case No. 5.)
The old Chinese man, allegedly trying to rescue his ricksha, had in fact been trying to bring two chairs from a thatch hut to his house. It was on account of these two chairs, looted or bought cheaply somewhere, that the Japanese soldiers shot him. He lay gravely wounded in the field. When his wife (or sister?) came to his aid with two male relatives, hoping to take him away, they were all shot.
9 FEBRUARY
The Japanese embassy invited us to a concert yesterday evening. Dr. Rosen declined flat-out to take part. Our committee made the best of a bad situation!
Military Band Concert at the Japanese Embassy,
3p.m., 8February 1938
Programme:
Conductor: S. Ohonuma.
It was a tall order to expect men who have been walking in the morning among Chinese murdered by Japanese soldiers to sit that same afternoon among those soldiers and enjoy a concert, but anything is possible in this dishonest world. So as not to lose face that’s been lost often enough and for the sake of famous East Asian courtesy, we committee members appeared almost to a man!
Scharffenberg and Hürter, Allison, the American consul, and the English representative Jeffery were also on hand, and he and I patiently let ourselves be photographed with a cute geisha between us for the Domei.49
Mr. Fukui asks me to visit him this morning at the Japanese embassy in regard to my request for permission to travel to Shanghai and back. Presumably he wants to lay it upon my soul yet again that in Shanghai I am allowed to report only good things about the Japanese. If he thought I would contradict him, he’s got his head screwed on wrong; but he doesn’t, anymore than I do. He’s sees through me well enough to know that I’ll give him all the false promises he wants to hear. Whether I pay them any mind later on is another matter. I’m sure he doesn’t believe that himself. To judge from the company’s most recent letter, a return here is out of the question, but I’ll keep that to myself for now.
And now comes the huge job of closing up shop. Chang, our houseboy, just shook his head dubiously when I said that I would have to go to Germany and needed crates.
“Wooden?” Chang asks. “There’s not enough wood even for coffins.”
Despite everything, I shall try to drum up a few boards. All our furniture and the office setup will have to remain behind. Nobody knows what will become of it all. I’m saddest about the oil paintings; but what’s a man to do?
10 FEBRUARY
Fukui, whom I tried to find at the Japanese embassy to no avail all day yesterday, paid a call on me last night. He actually managed to threaten me: “If the newspapers in Shanghai report bad things, you will have the Japanese army against you,” he said.
According to him, Kröger has had some very bad things to say. As proof of Kröger’s bad attitude, he specified a long telegram from London that, so it’s believed, came from Hong Kong and is being attributed to him.
In reply to my question as to what I then could say in Shanghai, Fukui said, “We leave that to your discretion.”
My response: “It looks as if you expect me to say something like this to the reporters: ‘The situation in Nanking is improving every day. Please don’t print any more atrocity stories about the vile behavior of Japanese soldiers, because then you’ll only be pouring oil on a fire of disagreement that already exists between the Japanese and Europeans.’ ”
“Yes,” he said, simply beaming, “that would be splendid!”
“Fine, then give me an opportunity to speak with your General Amaya and Major Hungo, who is said to speak excellent German, so that I may discuss these matters with them in person. I am very much in favor of at last establishing a better relationship and friendly cooperation between the Japanese military and our committee.
“Why do you refuse entry visas to the foreign doctors and nurses that we’ve asked to help staff Kulou Hospital? Why can’t we ship any food here from Shanghai? Why do you forbid us to visit the Red Cross hospital in the Foreign Ministry, for which our committee is providing the food?”
His answer: shrugs and the repeated statement, “If you report bad things, you will annoy the Japanese military and will not be allowed to return to Nanking!”
To my inquiry about whether I might take a Chinese servant with me on the trip, his answer is: “Yes, but he definitely may not return to Nanking!”
From a Report of the Nanking Office of the German Embassy (Rosen) to the Foreign Ministry
10 February 1938
Re: Film documentary of the atrocities of Japanese troops in Nanking
During the Japanese reign of terror in Nanking—which, by the way, continues to this day to a considerable degree—the Reverend John Magee, a member of the American Episcopal Church Mission who has been here for almost a quarter of a century, took motion pictures that eloquently bear witness to the atrocities committed by the Japane
se.
Mr. Magee, who has asked that his name be mentioned only in strictest confidence, has worked to find a place for Chinese refugees in the home of a German advisor. He is more open to things German than most of his colleagues are, primarily because his late sister was married to an Austrian diplomat. It is characteristic of his selfless and well-meaning intentions that he is not interested in gaining any commercial advantage from his footage, and that he has offered the embassy a copy of it if we will cover the cost of having it made by the Kodak office in Shanghai, from where it can then be sent by secure mail to the Foreign Ministry. Enclosed is a description, in English, of the events chronicled in various segments of the footage. These present, as does the film itself, such shocking documentary evidence that I would like to request that the film, along with a word-for-word translation of the descriptions, be shown to the Führer and Reich Chancellor.
One will have to wait and see whether the highest officers in the Japanese army succeed, as they have indicated, in stopping the activities of their troops, which continue even today. General Amaya conjures up memories of the Russo-Japanese war, and indeed at that time there was a spirit of true discipline and self-denial in the Japanese officers corps. Troops will always be the image of their officers.
A younger officers corps that has grown up glorifying political murder and for which the geisha trade seems more important than the old virtues of the samurai can demand nothing better of its rank and file than what has taken place here in Nanking. If Japan wishes to bring light to the East, it must first shed light in all the darkest corners of its own nation and do some serious housecleaning.
The expenses associated with the acquiring of this film will be presented by the embassy in Hankow in reference to this report.