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THE GOOD MAN OF NANKING: The Diaries of John Rabe, by John Rabe
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The Good Man of Nanking is a crucial document for understanding one of World War II's most horrific incidents of genocide, one which the Japanese have steadfastly refused to acknowledge. It is also the moving and awe-inspiring record of one man's conscience, courage, and generosity in the face of appalling human brutality.
Until the recent emergence of John Rabe's diaries, few people knew abouth the unassuming hero who has been called the Oskar Schindler of China. In Novemgber 1937, as Japanese troops overran the Chinese capital of Nanking and began a campaign of torture, rape, and murder against its citizens, one man-a German who had lived in China for thirty years and who was a loyal follower of Adolph Hitler-put himself at risk and in order to save the lives of 200,000 poor Chinese, 600 of whom he sheltered in his own home.
- Sales Rank: #982991 in Books
- Published on: 2000-03-14
- Released on: 2000-03-14
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x .65" w x 5.24" l, .66 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
Amazon.com Review
In November 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army took Nanking (Nanjing), the capital of China and home to 1.3 million people, and began an orgy of murder, rape, and looting. By the time discipline was restored two months later, hundreds of thousands of Chinese were dead, with hundreds of thousands more homeless, starving, and traumatized. The Rape of Nanking, as it is commonly known, still causes international controversy, as Japanese politicians refuse to apologize unequivocally to China and school textbooks continue to misrepresent the events.
Like Oskar Schindler of Schindler's List, John Rabe was an enterprising and fundamentally decent German businessman caught up in war. Head of the Nanjing branch of Siemens, the German electronics firm, he had lived and worked in China for almost 30 years. Rather than flee from the threatened city, he stayed to organize a safety zone as refuge of last resort for Chinese civilians. The Good Man of Nanking is his firsthand description of the terrible events and his ultimate success in saving perhaps a quarter of a million lives. The diary format provides a forum for the extraordinary power and immediacy of John Rabe's words, including his gallows humor, placing the reader there in Nanking as the bombs explode and the Japanese soldiers begin their massacres. Rabe's trials were not over when he returned to wartime Germany; diary entries that he wrote during the occupation of Berlin by the Soviet army form a fascinating coda to this book. --John Stevenson
From Publishers Weekly
Considered the Oskar Schindler of China, Rabe was a German businessman who saved the lives of 250,000 Chinese during the infamous siege of Nanking. But Rabe was also a member of the Nazi party and a man whose motto was "Right or wrong-my country." This gaping paradox adds a fascinating complexity to his newly translated diaries, which primarily focus on the six-month Nanking siege in 1937 and 1938. When the Japanese air raids began over Nanking?where Rabe was regional director of the German industrial giant Siemens?Rabe's wife, along with most foreigners, evacuated the city. But Rabe stayed to protect his Chinese staff and co-workers; as he put it, "I cannot bring myself for now to betray the trust these people have put in me." As the magnitude of the Japanese assault became apparent, Rabe, along with American doctors and missionaries, created an International Committee whose purpose was to set up a Neutral Zone where Chinese civilians could take refuge. Six hundred of the poorest Chinese were soon living in Rabe's own house, symbolically protected by an enormous canvas painted with a swastika; thousands more took shelter in the arbitrary Neutral Zone that Rabe continually begged the Japanese to respect. Lacking food and medical supplies, Rabe was mobilized to continue his good works by the atrocities he witnessed; his descriptions of the sadistic rapes, torture and slaughter perpetrated by Japanese soldiers are chillingly vivid. Similar in some ways to Giorgio Perlasca, the Italian fascist businessman who helped save Budapest's Jews (Enrico Deaglio's The Banality of Goodness, Forecasts, June 1), Rabe was a complicated figure whose ultimate reasons were very matter-of-fact: "You simply do what must be done."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Joining the ever-growing shelf of World War II memoir literature, this carefully edited book recounts the wartime experiences of an obscure German businessman who is now known as the "Oskar Schindler of China" and revered as a saint by the Chinese. Rabe (1882-1949) lived in China for almost 30 years, most notably as the director of the Siemens branch in Nanking during the infamous 1937 siege. Working closely with American friends, he organized an International Safety Zone that offered relative security to 250,000 Chinese during the brutal Japanese occupation. This book, based on a journal he kept then, describes his rescue efforts as well as the atrocities he observed. Called back to Germany shortly thereafter, he was arrested by the Gestapo and forbidden to speak of his experiences. The editor, a friend who first met Rabe in China in the early 1930s, explains the general political and military background and, more importantly, summarizes the political information that was available to Rabe himself. Recommended for academic and informed lay readers.AMarie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
111 of 115 people found the following review helpful.
And it never happened...
By Yesm
First and foremost, one should question the reason why a book is written. Is there a hidden agenda? When dealing with a sensitive subject such as Nanking, it is best to keep an eye open for any biased style that could be behind the book.
This was written by someone who was present at the time the Japanese occupied Nanking. That someone was a man named John Rabe. He was a German businessman who was a manager of a Siemans company branch, and was warned by his superiors to leave Nanking at once. However he didn't heed their warning and decided to stay at his home because he felt that he would've abandoned his 30 years with the company and his Chinese staff members and helpers whom he called his extended family if he did. So John Rabe would stay to witness and document all that happened in Nanking in his personal diaries.
The book gives some background on Rabe, a little bit about the war, his role at Nanking in establishing an "International Safety Zone" for what grew to save the lives of 250,000 Chinese civilians. The book closes with period where he finally goes home to his native Germany. Sadly enough, he dies in poverty though he was promised a fortune if he testified in the War Crime Tribunal against the Japanese army. But he declinded because he thought if anyone should punish those who participated in the slaughter at Nanking, it "should be the Japanese goverment itself."
While in Nanking, Rabe writes candidly not from reflection years later, but with the clarity of the events happening daily. He sees and documents:
- women being indiscriminately raped. Even 60 year old women were raped. After being raped, they were often killed with bayonettes slashing their throats or stabbed into their abdomens. Sometimes pregant women were killed and their fetus ripped out. There were also cases of soliders ramming bottles and other objects into the women's vaginas. If a woman wasn't singlehandly raped by one soldier, there were groups of soldiers who would often take turns raping a woman.
- ordinary civilians being killed, despite claims that only Chinese soldiers were to be killed. Whole families were often massacred and babies were not spared.
- groups of people being machine gunned at a time, and when the Japanese soldiers thought it would rouse too much suspicion from Rabe, they began to use quieter methods such as using bayonettes.
- live Chinese men being tied to poles and their bodies used for bayonette practice
- whole families or groups of people being locked inside a house and burned to death.
- individuals being doused with gasoline and set afire
- numerous ponds in Nanking being contaminated with decomposing bodies and streets were littered with bodies. Rabe and another organization, had to plead and ask permission from the Japanese soldiers in order for them to bury the bodies themselves.
- even those who were of a very peaceful and harmless nature were murdered. Monks and abbots of a nearby Buddhist monestary were killed; thier bodies dumped into a pit.
Despite some of the cases above, Rabe spares many gruesome details. He just writes the facts and often leaves out any personal feelings towards the Japanese. It would be easy to assume he is a neutral man without wanting to harbor any bad feelings towards anyone. That was his intention. Rabe also writes with a style that is the modesty of someone who wouldn't know how important his diaries would be. For instance, he writes "Everyone thinks I'm a hero, and that can be very annoying; for I can see nothing heroic about me or within me." Rabe didn't intend for this diaries to be published. In fact, his diaries were left to his family after his death, and they even considered throwing them away because of all the "bad things it contained." He hoped above all that international relations would improve.
John Rabe presents the unbiased truth of what happened at Nanking. He even states himself that it "is not his intention to engage in anti-Japanese propaganda, nor arouse pro-Chinese sentiments." Readers should also take this position. Books like this are meant to describe history as how it happened. He documents events with accuracy of time, location, and description of incidents. He was there and witnessed events with his own eyes. This book gives an unbiased look and is a good book for anyone who is willing to submerge themselves into a world of hostility that was Nanking in 1937-38.
65 of 67 people found the following review helpful.
Real-life accounts
By Luke
It's embarassing how some Japanese reviewers, like Hiromi below, still would pretend that the Nanking massacre never happened. Reading the diaries, Rabe actually himself revealed he saved Chinese many times from certain death; his own courtyard is a haven for fleeing refugees. He mentions first-hand many times indiscriminate killings, gang-rapes, and the havoc witnessed by not just himself, but also by the majority of the Westerners remaining in the city who had to intervene personally to save lives. He sees bodies of civilians lying everywhere, often disbowelled, including children, often left to rot. He documents that he wants to remain as an "eyewitness" to these atrocities (check out the appendix, for instance). The only way to counteract these lies is to read the book itself, and to determine yourself the integrity of some Japanese reviewers who so-called "read" the book. Don't just take my word for it - read the book. Highly recommended.
42 of 42 people found the following review helpful.
Nanking's Nazi Buddha
By john purcell
John Rabe was a German businessman, living and working in Nanking when the Japanese invaded and conquered the city in 1937. Rabe had lived in China for 30 years and had risen to the position of senior agent for the German conglomerate, Siemens. He was tasked with selling industrial equipment to the Chinese government, enabling the construction and maintenance of electrical, water, phone, and health care facilities.
As it became clear that Nanking would fall quickly to the invading Japanese army, most Westerners, including Rabe's wife, left for Hong Kong or other safer locations. Rabe chose to stay in Nanking, feeling it his duty to look out for the interests of Siemens and its local stafff. Realizing that Nanking was essentially indefensible and that the Japanese army was bent on ruthless behavior, Rabe and some others, mostly American missionaries, formed an organization to protect refugees and non-combatants.
Rabe was named the head of this International Committee and set out to build international support for the formation of a refugee zone. Ultimately more than 200,000 residents of Nanking were housed in this refugee zone, including about 600 on the grounds of Rabe's own home. Rabe fought the good fight with building support for the zone, communicating regularly with all the embassies and officials, even writing to Hitler at one point. Many attribute the International Committee's work with saving thousands of Chinese lives.
This book is primarily Rabe's diaries. He made entries nearly every day during the 4 months in 1937-1938 that he was in Nanking under Japanese domination. Some additional information to explain the historical context is provided by the author. Rabe quit writing diaries during the war, then restarted with the fall of Berlin.
Rabe spares no detail to describe the inhumane behavior of the Japanese army in Nanking, often including officers. The most horrible rapes, tortures, and murders became commonplace. Japanese soldiers raped young girls with their parents watching, then murdered the lot with bayonets. Nearly every building was looted several times, then frequently burned with the inhabitants inside.
Since Japan and Germany were already allied at this time, Japanese soldiers would give Rabe himself some respect, especially when he waved his Nazi armband and flew his Nazi flag. The other Westerners suffered more, as the Japanese showed no respect for the American or British flags or embassies.
Like many Germans living abroad in the 1930's, Rabe was a Nazi party member. He seems unaware of Nazi atrocities or vile actions, and joined the party primarily because doing so enabled German government financial support for a school that he helped establish in China.
The parallels to Oskar Schindler are clear. Both were party members who accomplished great humanitarian goals in a difficult time. One could draw the distinction that unlike Rabe, Schindler was aware of Nazi atrocities and probably benefited financially from his wartime activities.
Rabe came to regret his Nazi party membership upon his return to Germany. As a party member, after the war he was generally unable to work. At times, the Siemens corporation and individual excecutives would do small favors for Rabe. Very late in his life, he was de-Nazified.
Rabe also had terrible timing; he left war-torn China and made his home in Berlin, suffering under Russian atrocities and near-starvation starting in 1944. Ironically Rabe had been briefly imprisoned and questioned by the Gestapo after he wrote another letter to Hitler about Japanese behavior in China. Rabe received some aid from the Chinese Nationals when Madame Chang Kai Shek heard of his predicament in Berlin.
Overall, this is a very good read. The diary style is a little unusual, as Rabe was clearly writing for himself and his family, and not the general public. He is an excellent author with a keen sense of humor and his role in extraordinary times. The last part of the diaries, set in Berlin under Russian occupation show Rabe depressed and afraid, not knowing how he will support his family.
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