The diaries of this unlikely and unsung hero only became publicknowledge in the late 1990s, when they were published in Germany.
A film about a member of the Nazi party who saved thousands ofChinese during the massacre in Nanjing recently opened in Germany. TheBBC’s Zoe Murphy looks at the possible impact this unlikely hero’sstory may have on Sino-Japanese relations.
On Christmas Eve in 1937, German businessman John Rabe (pictured right) visited the mortuary in China’s then capital, Nanjing.
He later described in his diary the charred body of a civilian manwhose eyes had been gouged out, and a boy of perhaps seven, whosecorpse was punctured with bayonet wounds.
“I wanted to see these atrocities with my own eyes, so that I canspeak as an eyewitness later,” he wrote. “A man cannot be silent aboutthis kind of cruelty!”
The Second Sino-Japanese War was raging.
Japanese troops had stormed the capital, carrying out massexecutions and raping tens of thousands of local women and girls, in asix-week orgy of violence that became known as the Rape of Nanjing.
Risking his life, Rabe remained in China and, along with a handful ofWesterners, set up a “safety zone” in Nanjing that is thought to haveprevented the massacre of more than 200,000 Chinese during one of thebloodiest episodes of the Japanese invasion.
As Germany and Japan were allies, Rabe used his Nazi party membershipto do all he could to protect civilians in the zone – including 650sheltering refugees in his own house and garden.
With a flash of his swastika armband and through sheer force ofpersonality, he intervened in acts of looting and attempted rape by theJapanese troops.
The diaries of this unlikely and unsung hero only became publicknowledge in the late 1990s, when they were published in Germany. Theyhave now been made into a film, simply titled John Rabe.