When one thinks of the Second World War, many would remember the horrifying amount of war crimes that occured throughout the conflict. The war installed the fear of mass civil casualties during a large-scale war. The Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis killed six million people, comprised of Jews and other undesireables.
Due to such staggering amounts of mass murders perpetrated by this regime built on hatred, the Nazis have stapled themselves as the most infamous part of history. Media has also spread the Nazis everywhere, from movies to games. But there was one aspect largely forgotten during WW2 and is rarely brought up again, and that is the militant Japanese Empire. A member of the Axis alliance and the main opposing player to the Allies in the Pacific Theatre, Japan has also been consumed by large waves of nationalism and militarism. They operate similarly to the Nazis: they believe themselves to be the superior race and would commit nightmarish acts against those of lower kin. They have committed their own fair share of war crimes, and some could argue that they were more brutal. Rather than the systematic killing used by the Third Reich, the Japanese massacred entire populations. The most infamous was before WW2, in the Nanjing Massacre, an event that has plagued China with trauma, even today.
But the Nanjing Massacre had an unlikely savior. This man singlehandedly saved around 250,000 Chinese citizens from the Japanese onslaught. Often remembered as the Oskar Schindler for China, his humanitarian efforts were rarely brought up ever again until Chinese writer Iris Chang finally put him in the spotlight after the publication of her book, The Rape of Nanking. In this article we will be discussing about the life of John Rabe, this unsung hero, and delve into the horrors of the Nanjing Massacre.
EARLY LIFE OF JOHN RABE
John Heinrich Detlef Rabe was born in Hamburg on November 23rd 1882. The German Empire was slowly rising to glory after their victory in the Franco-Prussian, placing the country into a wave of optimism and nationalism. But Rabe was different. Ever since he was a young boy, Rabe felt a growing desire to escape Germany and explore the world. This was further backed up by the harrowing news of his father’s death. The young Rabe wanted a breath of fresh air away from Germany. And so he did. After completing his apprenticeship, Rabe flew to Africa and stayed at the Portuguese colony of Lourenacois Marques, located in modern-day Mozambique. Rabe was planning to stay long term while he also pursued a career in business. Unfortunately an outbreak of malaria forced Rabe to return to Germany after three years of stay.
Back in Hamburg, Rabe met his old crush Dora, and was excited to hear that she was attracted to him. The two quickly fell in love, and became a happy young couple. This could’ve been the end of the story for Rabe, staying in Germany having a happy life. But the adventurer inside him never ceased from his heart. Three years in Africa did not satisfy him. So, in 1908, Rabe presented Dora with a plan: they would move to China. Dora surprisingly agreed and the couple flew to Shanghai. They were about to enter a new chapter in their lives. In 1909, the couple finally married, and in 1910, Rabe was able to acquire a job in the Siemens AG’s branch offices in Beijing. Siemens was a German multinational company, the largest industrial manufacturing company in Germany. Rabe got a position as a clerk, and slowly climbed up through the ranks, quickly becoming a successful businessman.
REVOLUTIONS AND WARS
During Rabe’s stay at China, the country was suffering a massive crisis. Empress Cixi of the Qing dynasty had died in Beijing, with a power vacuum left on the throne. Cixi had been ruling China since 1875, and her death had put Qing China into instability. The boy Emperor Puyi was installed on the throne, but of course that did not solve anything. On October 10th, 1911, the Xinhai Revolution began as cities like Wuchang exploding into a frenzy of revolution. Multiple groups also revolted throughout China. Lasting until February of 1912, boy Emperor Puyi was forced to abdicate in the previous month. The Xinhai Revolution ended Qing rule in China, and the country was quickly declared the Republic of China under Yuan Shikai. But this period of stability would not last long, since WW1 was about to occur.
But first I must explain to you a history of China’s greatest enemy: the Empire of the Rising Sun, the Empire of Japan. Let’s backtrack to the 1800s. For centuries Japan had been isolated from the rest of the world. Nobody was allowed in or out of the country. Ruled by a military government called the shogunate, life in Japan was very strict. Until in 1853, when the United States of America approached the island country with ships full of cannons. Commodore Matthew C. Perry negotiated with Japan to open trade. The Japanese then reluctantly agreed. But this opening of the country’s isolationism allowed changes to be made. The shogunate was overthrown and the Emperor’s power was restored. Thus came the Meiji Government, led by the fierce Emperor Meiji. Meiji wanted to modernoze Japan, since it was considered “300 years behind the rest of the world.” He and his government drafted the Meiji Constitution, based off of Western constitutions, and established the position of Prime Minister. Within just a span of decades, Japan became a regional power that matched directly with China. As China degraded, Japan strengthened. It all culminated in 1894, when the First Sino-Japanese War broke out. In April 1895, Japan declared victory and the Korean peninsula was transferred to Japan. A massive humiliation for China. In 1897, the German Empire exploited China’s weakness by seizing the port of Qingdao, establishing German Shandong. And Japan was not just humiliating China. Japan won the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and proved to the West that an Asian nation can defeat a European power.
When WW1 rolled in, China held resentment to Japan and desired to obtain lost territory from Japan, specifically to reclaim Korea and Taiwan. In 1914, Japan joined the Allies and cooperated with Britain to kick the Germans from Shandong. Japan joined the Allies on the condition that China was denied entry into the war. The Allies agreed on this condition. China was now officially reduced into a shadow of its glory. After the war, Shandong and South Manchuria were given to Japan, and the Rising Sun gobbled more territory in Oceania after claiming some German colonies there as well.
The Republic of China was successful only for a few years, since the death of Yuan Shikai in 1916 disunited China yet again in 1919, starting the Warlord Era, competing nation states in the north constantly at skirmishes with each other. In 1919, the Chinese government expelled Germans from the country, including John and Dora Rabe, but before the year ended, foreign help was required to help maintain the country, so the couple was allowed back in.
A NAZI IN CHINA
The Warlord Era ended when nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek managed to unify the country by force in 1928. The new ROC government established their capital at Nanking. Economy boomed, infrastructure stabilized, and for once most of the population is happy. Rabe was also successful in his career, becoming the managing director of Siemens’ China division. John and Dora then moved to permanently settle in Nanking in 1931. The Nanking Era of China would soon end in the same year, however.
Over the course of the 1920s, Japan had been hit hard by the Great Depression, and thus gave rise to militarism. The military was slowly rising to power yet again, and eventually it had more power than Emperor Hirohito and the government. The Japanese military was now calling the shots, and, using a terrorist attack (which may or may not be a false-flag operation) as a pretext, invaded Manchuria on September 18th. The outcome was a Japanese victory, establishing the puppet government of Manchukuo led by our good friend, Emperor Puyi. China brought this situation to the League of Nations. The League of Nations, for those who don’t know, is the precursor to the United Nations. Set up after WW1, it was meant to be an international body of peacekeeping. But it was extremely ineffective, and its members are always at odds. When the League condemned Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, Japan left the League, and tensions increased.
In Nanking, Rabe was becoming a very important foreigner by 1934. Using the wealth he has accumulated from his job, he created a German school on his property and gave himself the title of chairman. But through this, Rabe would be exposed to the happenings in Germany at the time. He would make contact – for the very first time – to the Nazi Party. In 1933 the previous year, Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party managed to seize control of the country and abolished the fragile Weimar Republic. Hitler became Germany’s chancellor and an infallible leader. Rabe was immediately hooked with Nazism. Despite being in China, thousands of miles away from the Fatherland, he wholeheartedly supported the Nazi ideology. Rabe spoke the following regarding the Nazi regime:
“I believe not only in the correctness of our political system but, as an organizer of the party, I am behind the system 100%.”
It is worth mentioning that Rabe had spent decades in China at this point. He had many Chinese friends and employees alike. Yet he joined a regime that considered the Chinese to be lower in the hierarchy. The best theory proposed by historians follow that Rabe was unaware of Nazism’s racist policies. Rabe only joined for the “socialism” part in Nazism. He had multiple employees and was a figure in economy, so it comes off naturally that he wanted equality to his workers. Regardless the reason, Rabe became the greatest cheerleader of the Nazi Party. He quickly became the leading figure for the Nazi Party in Nanking.
But Rabe’s acceptance of Nazism coincided with one of the most horrific atrocities of history. We have finally stepped onto the danger zone and are now going to delve into the Nanjing Massacre.
SECOND SINO-JAPANESE WAR AND NANJING MASSACRE
On July 7th 1937, a skirmish occured between Chinese and Japanese forces near the border of Manchukuo. It was ordinary for both sides to clash, since many border skirmishes have occured before. This particular skirmish took place in the Marco Polo Bridge, but there was something interesting about this encounter with the Imperial Japanese Army. The skirmish became a battle, the battle became an invasion, and the invasion became war. Japan had just declared war to China, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War, which some people consider the true start of WW2. This war would make the previous Sino-Japanese War like a playground. The IJA steamrolled through China, attacking the coastal areas of the country and setting up a collaborationist government in the north. The IJA claimed Shanghai and decimated the Chinese military. Japan’s ultimate target would be Nanking, the capital.
The Japanese released their inner demons in their advance from Shanghai to Nanking. War crimes were committed in every village they saw. According to a Japanese journalist, the reason the IJA was advancing quickly was because soldiers were authorized to burn, loot, and rape as they wished. The most notorious atrocity committed by the Japanese was the killing contest between two Japanese officers. The contest was a race between two Japanese officers to see who could kill 100 people first using just a sword. This was reported back to Tokyo and treated like a sporting event. The newspapers kept scores for the officers so the Japanese public could see who was winning. This was what seperated the Nazis from the Japanese. While the Nazis carried out the Holocaust in secrecy, the Japanese were open to the crimes they committed.
Knowing the horrors of the IJA, the Chinese garrison forces set fire to buildings and houses. Targets within and outside of the city were burned. Military barracks, private houses, forests, villages, and the Chinese Ministry of Communication were all destroyed to prevent the IJA from obtaining resources or valuable information.
As bombers began raining down on Nanjing, John and Dora, along with their children, fled from the city with other Westerners flocking out of the city and into the safety of the Peitaho district. But the Rabe family was not the type to walk away from danger that easily. Rabe felt a sense of duty for his Chinese employees, and so on September 21st, John and Dora returned to Nanking. By October, only a handful of Westerners remained in the city. As the IJA were converging outside the city, Rabe called some foreigners to his property. 14 arrived, one of them would become Rabe’s best friend, American doctor Robert O. Wilson. “We have to do something,” Rabe said. Eventually after much discussion, the Westerners came up with a solution to save the citizens from the Japanese: the Nanking Safety Zone.
The Nanking Safety Zone was a two and a half square mile of neutrality in Nanking. Rabe’s house and his German school was a part of the Safety Zone. The Westerners formed the International Commitee for the Nanking Safety Zone as the governing body maintaining the Zone. White flags were flown across the Zone as a symbol of neutrality. The Zone was meant to harbor any Chinese civillians seeking safety. Do note that Rabe had not seen any of the horrors perpetrated by the IJA. As word reached the IJA, the Japanese sent Major Oka to reason with Rabe. The conversation, based on Rabe’s account, went like this:
Oka: “Why in the devil did you stay? Why do you want to involve yourself in our military affairs? What does all this matter to you? You haven’t lost anything here!”
Rabe: “I have been living here in China for over 30 years. My kids and grandchildren were born here, I am successful here. If I had spent 30 years in Japan and were treated just as well by the Japanese people, you can be assured that, in case of an emergency, such as the situation China faces now, I would not leave the side of the Japanese people.”
There was something about Rabe’s statement that touched the Japanese Major’s soul. Rabe had a sense of loyalty to the Chinese. Feeling touched, Oka agreed for Rabe to stay in the Zone, but did not reveal to the German businessman what the IJA would do to the Chinese. As winter approached and the IJA was ever closer, the Commitee plastered posters of the Zone throughout Nanking, in hopes to attract as many Chinese citizens to shelter in the Zone as possible. Rabe desperately telegrammed to Hitler himself to acknowledge the neutrality of the Zone. At this point, Germany and Japan were allied due to their membership in the Anti-Comintern Pact. No response was received from Germany.
Rabe took drastic measures to make sure the Japanese did not attack the Zone. He draped the walls of the Zone with Nazi flags, painted swastikas, and wore his Nazi uniform. On December 1st, the Mayor of Nanjing, Ma Chaochun, transferred power to the Commitee and fled the city. The bombardments increased and on December 11th, shelling of the city began. The IJA had arrived. The last groups of Chinese civillians poured into the Zone, clinging desperately with their lives to Rabe and his fellow Commitee members. A quarter of a million people (250,000) all entered into the Zone, cramming themselves to get some room to sleep. The Zone was not expected to hold that many people, yet it was still successful. Rabe had not seen such harrowing sights as this massive wave of humans in his property. Rabe saw outside the Zone to see the ashes of burning buildings in the night. His sleep was interrupted by screams of help and desperation from the citizens. Rabe tried to calm the crowd down, stating that everything was going to be okay and that he believed the IJA would not attack the Zone. But his words were drowned by gunfire from outside. The night was going to be a long one. And Rabe would suffer more after he realized what happened outside the Zone in the next day.
THE RAPE OF NANKING
*Contains disturbing images and descriptions. Please read with caution.
In the morning of December 14th, Rabe awakened to an eerie silence outside the Zone. Rabe didn’t know how to react. Thinking the conflict was over, he wore a metal helmet and bravely ventured out of the Zone and into the cold, empty streets of Nanking. All he saw was rubble. There was nobody. It was a haunting sight. But as he went deeper into the city, he finally saw why the screaming stopped. The streets of the city was filled with corpses. Corpses brutally mutilated. And they weren’t soldiers. They were civillians. There were women and children among the piles of bodies. They lay lifeless, shot to death by the Japanese. Bodies of women lay mutilated, their vaginas stabbed by bayonet spears.
Rabe was horrified by the sight. He finally understood why the Chinese were so afraid. Why they were so desperate to enter the Zone. Turning a corner, Rabe found a group of Japanese soldiers – the only signs of life he has encountered thus far. The soldiers were breaking into a German cafè, looting anything inside. Rabe shouted at them to stop. The soldiers laughed. They were amused by this German trying to stop them from looting a simple cafè. They didn’t harm Rabe, but they burned down the cafè afterwards. Rabe was traumatized. He did not want to stay in the city much longer, fearing for his safety and for his mental health after witnessing such traumatic scenes. On his way back to the Zone, Rabe met with 400 Chinese soldiers, unarmed, wounded, and tired, trying to retreat. Rabe approached the exhausted soldiers, who grew pitiful after seeing them cut off from safety. He persuaded the soldiers to seek refuge in the Zone. When the soldiers had their doubts, Rabe told them that he had struck an agreement with the Japanese and they wouldn’t attack the Zone. That night, within the walls of the Zone, Rabe received a message from Japanese diplomat Katsuo Okazaki, who was informed by some Japanese soldiers that Rabe was taking in soldiers into the Zone. Okazaki told Rabe that if this were true, then the soldiers must be handed over to the IJA to be arrested and captured as prisoners of war. Rabe argued that the soldiers were unarmed and wounded. However, Okazaki was insistent that the soldiers be expelled from the Zone, assuring Rabe that no harm would come to the soldiers. Rabe knew very well that these were lies, but he was unable to do anything else, so he agreed.
Over the next few days, the Zone was visited by Japanese officers who were tasked with taking soldiers from the Zone. They operated a thorough investigation on all the Chinese people in the Zone, to see if any soldiers were disguising as civillians. Their main method for detecting soldiers was to look for callouses on hands from firing rifles. This was unreliable, however. Many innocents were mistakened as soldiers using this method, and to Rabe’s horror, thousands of Chinese were dragged away from the Zone, seperated from their weeping families. The captured Chinese civillians were marched hopelessly into the river. There, the Japanese machinegunned the prisoners, and dumped their bodies into the river below. It was Rabe’s firsthand account of the atrocities committed by the IJA.
And this was not their only crimes. Remember the “first to kill 100 people” contest that started between two Japanese officers during their march to Nanking? Well, both have surpassed the 100 mark. One killed 105 people, while another killed 106. They were so caught up in battle that they forgot to track who got the most kills first. So as a tie breaker, they decided to start another contest, this time to kill 150 people.
Around 20,000 people were raped by the Japanese Army during the Nanjing Massacre. And worse of all, age was not an issue. Women, children, the elderly, all were raped and brutally mutilated by Japanese officers going house to house, searching for their next victims. On 19th December, James M. McCallum reported that:
“I know not where to end. Never I have heard or read such brutality. Rape! Rape! Rape! We estimate at least 1,000 cases a night and many by day. In case of resistance or anything that seems like disapproval, there is a bayonet stab or a bullet…. People are hysterical… Women are being carried off every morning, afternoon and evening. The whole Japanese army seems to be free to go and come as it pleases, and to do whatever it pleases.”
The doctor Robert O. Wilson also reported to his family about the rapes in two letters. It reads as follows:
“The slaughter of civilians is appalling. I could go on for pages telling of cases of rape and brutality almost beyond belief. Two bayoneted corpses are the only survivors of seven street cleaners who were sitting in their headquarters when Japanese soldiers came in without warning or reason and killed five of their number and wounded the two that found their way to the hospital. Let me recount some instances occurring in the last two days. Last night the house of one of the Chinese staff members of the university was broken into and two of the women, his relatives, were raped. Two girls, about 16, were raped to death in one of the refugee camps. In the University Middle School where there are 8,000 people the Japs came in ten times last night, over the wall, stole food, clothing, and raped until they were satisfied. They bayoneted one little boy of eight who [had] five bayonet wounds including one that penetrated his stomach, a portion of omentum was outside the abdomen. I think he will live.”
Rabe also made several comments about the rapes. On December 17th, he wrote in his diary:
“Two Japanese soldiers have climbed over the garden wall and are about to break into our house. When I appear they give the excuse that they saw two Chinese soldiers climb over the wall. When I show them my party badge, they return the same way. In one of the houses in the narrow street behind my garden wall, a woman was raped, and then wounded in the neck with a bayonet. I managed to get an ambulance so we can take her to Kulou Hospital … Last night up to 1,000 women and girls are said to have been raped, about 100 girls at Ginling College…alone. You hear nothing but rape. If husbands or brothers intervene, they’re shot. What you hear and see on all sides is the brutality and bestiality of the Japanese soldiers.”
Rabe sat inside the Zone, stunned for words. He continued to call the Japanese officers to stop. He continued to telegram Germany to make Japan stop. Both pleas were met with deaf ears. Mounting reports of rape and violence was all that he could hear listening to the outside world. Just before Christmas of 1937, something in Rabe snapped. He had enough. He had been isolated from the rest of the world, trapped with hundreds of thousands of lives under his roof in a burning hellscape, and he had done nothing about it. He had denied access to some Chinese into the wall before the Japanese came to the Zone, he had allowed the Japanese to search the Zone and kill thousands. Today, he was not going to stand idly by. This is where the inspiring part of Rabe’s life began. He did something so stupid, yet so courageous, that day. He wore his metal helmet, exited from the Zone and into the dangers of the city, with nothing but his will. He wore his Nazi uniform and began his mission: to save as many citizens still remaining in the city as possible. He was unarmed, by the way. And he knew what would happen if he crossed the Japanese: he would end up like one of the corpses in the streets. He knew the Japanese did not want to protect him. After all, he only made a deal with politicians, not the soldiers. In short, Rabe knew the risks he was takong, yet he ignored them.
Day by day, Rabe would prowl the streets, listening for any screams of help, any shout of rape. He would also follow any telltale signs of anybody in danger. He would follow these screams until he arrived at the assaulting soldiers. He would storm right in front of them and show the Japanese his Nazi armband. He would get mad at the Japanese soldiers and give them a brutal dressing down. He would continue to show the Nazi symbol in front of their faces. Surprisingly, it worked. There was something about an angry German barking orders at the soldiers that sent them running away. The German language was always compatible for arguments. After the cowardly soldiers have fled, Rabe would take the victims of their assault into his car and instruct the driver to take them to the Zone. He continued to do this every single day. Again and again, he waited in the streets until he heard screams, where he would jump into action and scare the Japanese away. There were multiple times Rabe could’ve been killed. Yet it was almost as if Rabe was given protection from above. In Europe, the Nazi swastika became a symbol of fear and hatred. In Nanking, the Nazi swastika became a symbol of hope and light.
John and Dora would organize fun events within the Zone itself. They wanted the Chinese within the Zone’s walls to be happy. The couple organized birthday parties for children, sing songs together, and celebrate the birth of newborns into the Zone, welcoming them into a patch of safe haven in the middle of hell. Many boys born within the Zone would be given the name John, as a reminder to the man that had protected them from the demons outside. Doctor Wilson, who prior to this was an anti-Nazi, felt respect for Rabe. Wilson never understood how Rabe could be such a good man despite being in a party built on hate. And now we come to the dilemma of Rabe. It was his Nazi membership that gave him authority over the Japanese soldiers. If John Rabe never joined the Nazi Party, he would have likely been chased out of the city by the IJA, and many more would die to the Massacre.
After six long, nightmarish weeks, the Japanese finally established control over the city. The IJA marched into the Zone, not to drag away people, but to inform Rabe that the Battle of Nanking was over, and that the Zone would be dismantled. A new puppet government was set up, and the rapes stopped. Today, the death toll of the Massacre is widely regarded as between 100,000 to 300,000. POWs were decapitated with swords, doused in petrol and set ablaze, or bombed with landmines. Less than a month after the Zone was dismantled, Rabe received a call from Siemens, ordering him to return to Germany for his own safety. Before he left for the Fatherland, he packed as many images and films of the Massacre as possible, promising Wilson and the others that he would spread the message of the Rape of Nanking to Europe. Looking back at the city, he stepped onto the plane with Dora, and flew back to Germany at last.
AFTERMATH
Back in Germany, Rabe showed the images and films he took of the Massacre to the public. He presented them in lectures in Berlin to show to the German people of the horrors of the Japanese Empire. Rabe wrote to Hitler, asking him to use his power to stop the Japanese from committing anymore violence throughout their war with China. Instead of a reply from the Führer, he was met with the Gestapo outside his house. He was subsequently arrested by the Gestapo for annoying their Japanese ally. Imprisoned, he was only released with the help of Siemens’ CEO. Due to his criminal status in Nazi Germany however, he had to be demoted by the company to a lowly clerical position. Withim the next few years, Rabe would struggle to make ends meet. He and Dora would be crippled with financial instability. Siemens AG told Rabe that their branch in Afghanistan would be a much safer position for him to be in, but he continued to work for the company’s Berlin headquarters.
After WW2 ended in mid-1945 and the Axis Powers soundly defeated, including Japan, which was hit with a hell load of napalms and two atomic bombs, Rabe would not be in a safe position. Due to his Nazi membership, he was eligible to be captured by the Allies. Rabe was arrested by the Soviet NKVD, then transferred to the British Army. Both let him go after intense questioning and interrogation. He continued to work for Siemens, although he earned little with his current position. He was later called by the Allies yet again for his Nazi membership, losing the work permit he obtained in the British Zone of Occupation in Germany. In his trial, his good friend Doctor Wilson defended Rabe and presented the Allies with his entire heroic tale in Nanking. He was only sentenced with imprisonment for one year, until he was released again and officially “de-Nazified.” Although, he depleted all of his savings to pay for this legal battle.
Unable to work still and bankrupt, Rabe and his family survived in a single-room apartment by selling pieces of Chinese art. But it was still not able to solve their food shortages. His family ate off of wild seeds, his children eating dry soup and simple bread until running out of that measly supply as well. The only thing that kept them going were parcels of food and money plastered with Chinese handwriting. Their return adress was always Nanking. The mayor of Nanking paid Rabe a visit to Germany and bought large sums of food for the Rabe family. The Rabes continued to receive monthly supplies, with John sending letters expressing his gratitude.
Finally, Rabe’s chapter ended on January 5th 1950. The 68-year old Rabe died from a stroke. In 1997, most likely due to the resurgence of the topic regarding the Rape of Nanking, Rabe quickly came to be known to the West. His tombstone was moved to Nanking, where it is honored by the Chinese to this day, with the descendants of the 250,000 people he saved smiling at his grave. In 2005, Rabe’s former house in Nanking was fully restored and now becomes the John Rabe and International Safety Zone Memorial Hall.
To give a comparison, Oskar Schindler, who was also a humanitarian saving Jews in the Holocaust by recruiting them into his munitions factory. Actually, he closely mirrored Rabe, in that he was a former Nazi, was a businessman, fell to poverty after the war, and received supplies from the Jews he saved. Schindler saved 1,200 people from the Nazis, while Rabe saved 250,000 from the Japanese. Schindler is no doubt a hero, but Rabe was something more. He was a superhero fighting evil, and a savior.
Sources: Wikipedia – John Rabe Wikipedia – Second Sino-Japanese War Wikipedia – 1911 Revolution (Xinhai Revolution) https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/the-nazi-leader-who-in-1937-became-the-oskar-schindler-of-china/251525/ https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/nanjing-atrocities
Videos: https://youtu.be/80_r0VuB_wo https://youtu.be/TRNfOmV5AZA