The Good Man of Nanking

by John Rabe

  DOCUMENT 17

  From the Japan Advertiser, 7 December 193713

  Sub-Lieutenants in Race

  to Fell 100 Chinese

  Running Close Contest

  Sub-lieutenant Toshiaki Mukai and Sub-lieutenant Takeshi Noda, both of the Katagiri unit at Kuyung, in a friendly contest to see which of them will first fell 100 Chinese in individual sword combat before the Japanese forces completely occupy Nanking, are well in the final phase of their race, running almost neck to neck. On Sunday when their unit was fighting outside Kuyung, the “score,” according to the Asahi,was: Sub-lieutenant Mukai, 89, and Sub-lieutenant Noda, 78.

  Contest to Kill First 100 Chinese

  with Sword Extended When Both

  Fighters Exceed Mark

  The winner of the competition between Sub-Lieutenant Toshiaki Mukai and Sub-Lieutenant Iwao Noda to see who would be the first to kill 100 Chinese with his Yamato sword has not been decided, the Nichi Nichireports from the slopes of Purple Mountain, outside Nanking. Mukai has a score of 106 and his rival has dispatched 105 men, but the two contestants have found it impossible to determine which passed the 100 mark first. Instead of settling it with a discussion, they are going to extend the goal by 50.

  Mukai’s blade was slightly damaged in the competition. He explained that this was the result of cutting a Chinese in half, helmet and all. The contest was “fun,” he declared, and he thought it a good thing that both men had gone over the 100 mark without knowing that the other had done so.

  Early Saturday morning, when the Nichi Nichiman interviewed the sub-lieutenant at a point overlooking Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s tomb, another Japanese unit set fire to the slopes of Purple Mountain in an attempt to drive out the Chinese troops. The action also smoked out Sub-Lieutenant Mukai and his unit, and the men stood idly by while bullets passed overhead.

  “Not a shot hits me while I am holding this sword on my shoulder,” he explained confidently.

  DOCUMENT 1814

  Letter from the Representatives of the District Superintendents and Camp Managers of the Nanking Safety Zone to John Rabe

  Dear Mr. Rabe:

  We have the honor to transmit to you the following resolutions which were passed on February 15th by the Sixth Joint Meeting of the Superintendents of the Nine Districts and the Managers of the Twenty-five Refugee Camps of the Nanking Safety Zone.

  To extend to Mr. John H. D. Rabe, Chairman of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, a vote of thanks for his valuable services in connection with the organization and administration of the Zone and of the relief work which was followed upon its establishment. We would assure Mr. Rabe of our deep appreciation of his efforts on behalf of the people of this city. His name will ever be held in grateful remembrance among us.

  It was further resolved that a copy of the above resolution should be sent to Messrs. Siemens China Company and to the German Embassy, that they also might be made aware of the Nanking Community’s gratitude for Mr. Rabe’s presence and work among us during this time of crisis.

  The undersigned were also instructed by the above mentioned Meeting to convey to Messrs. Siemens China Company the earnest desire of the District Superintendents and Camp Managers to have you continue, if possible, your residence in Nanking and your services as Chairman of the International Committee. Though the need for the Zone as a place of special refuge has of course ceased to exist, nevertheless the need for relief among the people is as great as ever, or even greater, and it is with reference to this work that the Superintendents and Camp Managers would like to have your services continue. The proposed departure of so tried and true a friend as you have been is indeed to us a cause for deep regret.

  We therefore earnestly trust that Messrs. Siemens China Company will give favorable consideration to our desire that you should be permitted to continue your good work here in Nanking, and we hope that with their concurrence you yourself will decide to remain among us for a least some time longer. But if this should not be possible, we will still look forward to your early return to Nanking and to a renewal of that constant association with you which has meant so much to us during these recent months.

  Believe us, with gratitude and affection,

  Sincerely yours,

  Representatives of the District Superintendents

  and Camp Managers of the Nanking Safety Zone

  J. M. TONG, Y. S. SHEN, HSÜ CHUAN-YING, FRANCIS F. J. CHEN

  DOCUMENT 19

  Declaration of the Members of the

  Committee of the International Safety Zone

  The resident members of the International Committee for a Safety Zone in Nanking (now become Nanking International Relief Committee), desire to express our hearty appreciation of the services of Mr. John H. D. Rabe, who has served as our Chairman during three critical months. Mr. Rabe’s leadership in difficult tasks of benevolence has been fearless and gentle. It will long be remembered among the entire population of Nanking, and among great numbers connected with them by ties of blood and of interest. Our Chairman has combined most splendidly the qualities of effective effort in a large enterprise, with those of close personal sympathy and care for individuals in need.

  Among the Chinese community there is grateful recognition of this unselfish service. Among the foreign community there has been set a lasting example of devotion to human welfare transcending commercial duty and national interests. The Siemens China Company, which Mr. Rabe has so ably represented in Nanking, is held in heightened respect because of its contribution to a great public service through the recent work of our Chairman. Likewise the whole standing of German enterprise and of the German community in China has been brought new honor through the well-deserved reputation of Mr. Rabe.

  Nanking, February 21, 1938.

  Signed with personal affection and regard:

  We, the remaining non-official foreign residents of Nanking, desire to associate ourselves with the expressions of the International Committee as to Mr. Rabe and his services:

  DOCUMENT 2 0

  Letter from Ernest H. Forster

  (Written in German) to John Rabe

  Nanking, 22 February 1938

  Dear Herr Rabe:

  I do not wish to let the opportunity pass to express to you my deepest thanks for everything that you have done here in Nanking over the last few months. It often happens that there is a gulf between commercial people and missionaries that cannot and is not easily bridged; but that bridge is the love of God, Who reveals Himself through our love for our neighbors. And through your selfless devotion to the plight of all classes, you, Herr Rabe, have revealed that love in rich measure during these difficult times. I would like to thank you as well for the precious friendship that you showed me as a newcomer in Nanking. I hope that you and Frau Rabe will have a safe trip back to Germany and a refreshing vacation in your homeland, and then a happy reunion with us here in Nanking.

  God be with you!

  Yours sincerely ERNEST H. FORSTER

  DOCUMENT 2 1

  Report of the Nanking Office of the German Embassy

  to the Foreign Ministry, 26February 1938

  The local representative of Siemens China Co., Herr John H. D. Rabe (Party Member), left a few days ago for Shanghai in order, after a short stay there, to return home on a well-deserved vacation.

  As I have frequently reported before, Herr Rabe has done meritorious service as the chairman of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, risking his life and personal safety for thousands of poor refugees, and by his energetic actions has enhanced the regard in which the German cause is held overseas. Both foreigners and Chinese alike appreciate the fact that German businessmen have shown that they not only stand in the front ranks when it comes to doing good deeds during peacetime, but also at the risk of their own lives have proved their solidarity with China even in its terrible need as it battles for its honor and freedom.

  In a touching farewell ceremony, both foreign and Chinese me
mbers of the International Committee expressed their gratitude to Herr Rabe and presented him with warmly felt resolutions, of which I enclose a copy. On the day following the Führer’s recent important speech, a Chinese physician asked Herr Rabe to tell the Germans that the Chinese are not and do not wish to become Communists. That they are simply a peaceable nation that wishes to live in quiet cooperation with all other nations, and that China needs the continuing friendship of Germany.

  Herr Rabe can presumably be reached in Berlin through the Siemens-Schuckert Works, and he would like to call on the Foreign Ministry and asks especially to meet with Bohle, head of the foreign section of the NSDAP.

  Because of poor postal connections with Hankow, I am sending this report directly to the Foreign Ministry. The embassies in Hankow and Tokyo as well as the consulate general in Shanghai will receive carbon copies.

  ROSEN15

  AFTERWORD

  John Rabe’s Last Years

  HE HAD KEPT A diary for decades. It was his passion. He took pleasure in recording what he had experienced and observed so that he could understand it better. He could, as is surely obvious by now, write clearly and tell a story well. But after the Gestapo confiscated his Nanking diaries, the pleasure he once took in writing was apparently lost. Or perhaps he also thought it was too risky to put to paper what he was now thinking.

  Since throughout the war, the only task assigned to him by his company was the job of looking after Siemens employees in foreign internment camps, he had plenty of leisure time to make a clean copy of what he had written in Nanking: seven not especially large volumes, covering the period from September 1937 to April 1938, intended as reading for his wife—and thus full of many remarks about the family and household problems—and interspersed with newspaper clips, letters, invitations, and documents that he had pasted into it. He gave these volumes the title: Enemy Pilots over Nanking.

  And then he condensed it all into two volumes, a total of 800 pages titled Bombs over Nanking—From the Diary of a Living Buddha.The text is much the same as that found in the seven family diaries written for his wife. Bombs over Nankingalso contains newspaper clips, letters, telegrams, minutes of Safety Zone Committee meetings, and a list of more than 400 cases of atrocities by the Japanese military. These two diaries contain an uninterrupted documentation of the bombardment of Nanking, the founding and work of the Safety Zone Committee, and those war crimes of which the committee was aware. This book is a selection of all the important entries in this work by John Rabe.

  He did not begin his last diary until 24 April 1945. It is written in his fine hand and begins as if it were a direct continuation of Bombs over Nanking: descriptions of looting, rapes, arrests, people driven from their homes, executions. Not as bad as in China, but bad enough.

  While on a visit to the Siemens Works he was arrested by the Soviets and kept locked up in a nearby house with other detainees. He was not subjected to a third-degree interrogation. The food and treatment were good, as he himself notes, but of course he did not like being under arrest. He was interrogated by a major whom he calls “Föderoff.” There are claims that he was also received by Marshal Zhukov, but they are incorrect.

  The Soviets asked him about his life in considerable detail, and he had to sign his statement as taken down by the Russians and give his word of honor to help the Soviets “restore order in Berlin.”

  He was then released, but they also ordered him to provide them with the names of all Siemens employees who had ever worked in the Soviet Union. “A difficult task,” John Rabe writes. “I don’t know how I’m going to carry it out.” A colleague took over the job for him.

  In Rabe’s last diary, Hitler and the other leading National Socialists are mentioned only occasionally. He had come to his conclusions about them. He had written them off, they no longer interested him.

  The Russians were followed by the British, who took over the sector in the northwest of Berlin. The military government hired John Rabe as its chief translator, but in August 1945, after only a few weeks, they tossed him out again because former party members were not allowed to work for them. He was now earning nothing and was burdened by the worry that as a former party member he would not be hired by Siemens, either.

  He was often ill—heart problems, high blood pressure, and his old diabetes. The doctors blamed the eruption of a skin condition on a deficient diet. And yet he often had to work helping dismantle the heavy machinery at the Siemens Works.

  The German Denazification Panel would not denazify him. As an intelligent man, he (1) should not have joined the party and (2) upon returning home in 1938, should have seen National Socialism for what is was and resigned at once.

  He was finally denazified, however, on appeal, and his firm rehired him, but once again did not give him a position or real responsibility.

  In 1934, he had written a lovely book, a bound manuscript of 215 pages titled A Quarter Century with Siemens Company in China,which contained old photographs of Peking and was dedicated to Carl-Friedrich von Siemens. It can still be found in the Siemens Archive. Rabe never wrote a single angry or critical word about his firm; but it is difficult to understand why they treated him as they did.

  Upon his return to Berlin—after years of successfully managing one of the most important branches of Siemens China Company in Nanking; after serving as the mayor of Nanking who, in the unanimous opinion of both Germans and other nationals, saved its 250,000 inhabitants in a catastrophic situation, acting as manager, diplomat, negotiator, and chairman of the International Safety Zone Committee and, last but not least, providing splendid proof of his courage in many dangerous situations—he was given only a subordinate position in the personnel department.

  He was never assigned tasks commensurate with his abilities. Why not? We can only guess. Because his education had stopped with the equivalent of a high-school diploma, because he was not an academic? Because he had not been part of the home team in the Berlin central office? Because people never forgot that he had stayed behind in Nanking, instead of representing the interests of Siemens China Company in Hankow? Surely the firm could have given him an appropriate position in China or Hong Kong after he was called back from Nanking. At one point there were hints from the Shanghai office that pointed in that direction, but then nothing more was heard of it. Why?

  The Siemens Archive provides ample information about the excellent reviews given Rabe’s work from 1911 to 1913. But it is silent about this question. After his diaries became public knowledge, the firm commissioned a Chinese artist to create a bronze bust of John Rabe, which was placed outside its new branch in Nanking in October 1997.

  When they were bombed out of their apartment in Berlin-Wilmersdorf in 1943, John Rabe and his wife moved into one room of their son-in-law’s apartment in Siemensstadt. John Rabe lived in this room until his death. They went hungry, and were perhaps not as clever as others who knew how to make better use of the black market for their needs.

  When potatoes fell from a Soviet truck one day and John Rabe managed to pick two of them up off the street, it was an event that he considered worth recording in his diary. They made soup out of ground acorns his wife had gathered in the fall, and when the acorns ran out, they ate nettles, which according to Rabe tasted as good as other salad greens.

  He did not complain, but remembered that others had things as bad or perhaps even worse. After beginning his diary with such élan, he then had to explain why later on he did not touch it for weeks, even months. “We have suffered hunger and more hunger,” he wrote in the spring of 1946. “I didn’t have much of anything else to report, which is why I stopped making diary entries.”

  He traded a Chinese carpet and his antique Chinese wooden figurines, including a Kuanyin, the goddess of mercy, for some potatoes. The cellar in his bombed-out building in Wilmersdorf was broken into and everything of value stolen—by his fellow Germans.

  Early in 1947, he was pensioned off at age 65, but to augment his small pension
he continued to work part-time for Siemens.

  In Nanking he had once noted in a moment of depression: “Here I went and did the right thing, and now the company doesn’t like it. What a mess! I truly am a ‘Lame Jack’!”—or, as he might also have put it, a raven [German: Rabe] of bad luck.

  “I am so tired,” he writes in 1947. And again: “The ‘living Buddha for hundreds of thousands’ in Nanking, and a pariah, an outcast here! That would soon cure you of any homesickness.”

  He had resigned himself to his fate.

  And then the Chinese military mission in Berlin found his address and saw to it that he got some extra food. Madame Chiang Kai-shek had her secretary inform him that she would be happy to help him out because of the great things he had done in Nanking. The Chinese offered him an apartment and a pension if he were willing to resettle in China. All he had to do was to be a witness for the prosecution at the Tokyo war crimes tribunal. John Rabe declined. In a message he left for his grandchildren, he explained: “I didn’t want to see any Japanese hang, although they deserved it. . . . There must be some atonement, some just punishment; but in my view the judgment should be spoken only by their own nation.”1

  The wife of the American missionary W. P. Mills, who was still in Nanking, learned of Rabe’s address as well. She sent him CARE packages. John Rabe went on working part-time for Siemens, he lived in poverty, but he no longer had to go hungry.

  On 5 January 1949, John Rabe suffered a stroke while working at Siemens. He died that same evening. In attendance at his grave were his wife, his children, and a few friends.