John Rabe
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John Rabe (November 23, 1882 – January 5, 1950) was a German businessman whose Nanjing Safety Zone sheltered some 200,000 Chinese from slaughter during the Nanjing Massacre.
Born in Hamburg, Germany, Rabe pursued a career in business and went to Africa for several years. In 1908 he left for China, and in 1910 he began work for the Siemens AG China Corporation in Beijing and later Nanjing.
On November 22, 1937, as the Imperial Japanese Army advanced on Nanjing, Rabe, along with other foreign nationals, organized the International Committee and drew up Nanjing Safety Zone to provide Chinese refugees with food and shelter upon the impending Japanese slaughter. He explained his reasons thus: "..there is a question of morality here.. I cannot bring myself for now to betray the trust these people have put in me, and it is touching to see how they believe in me." The zones were located on all of the foreign embassies and at Nanjing University. Rabe also opened up his properties to help 650 more refugees. The following massacre would kill hundreds of thousands of people, while Rabe and his zone administrators tried frantically to stop the atrocities. Although he tried to appeal to the Japanese by using his Nazi membership credentials, this had little effect.
On February 28, 1938 Rabe left Nanjing, traveling to Shanghai and then back to Germany. He showed films and photographs of Japanese atrocities in lecture presentations in Berlin and wrote to Hitler to use his influence to persuade the Japanese to stop any more inhumane violence. Instead, Rabe was detained and interrogated by the Gestapo. Due to the intervention of Siemens AG, he was released. He was allowed to keep evidence of the massacre, excluding the film, but was not allowed to lecture or write on the subject. Rabe would continue working for Siemens, which posted him briefly to the safety of Afghanistan. Until 1945 Rabe worked in the Berlin headquarter of the company.
After the war, Rabe was denounced for his Nazi Party membership and arrested by the Russians first and then by the British. However, investigations exonerated him of any wrongdoing. He was formally declared "de-Nazified" by the Allies in June 1946 but thereafter lived in poverty. Rabe was partly supported by the monthly food and money parcels sent by the Chinese government for his actions during the Rape of Nanjing.
In 1950, Rabe died of a stroke. In 1997 his tombstone was moved from Berlin to Nanjing where it received a place of honour at the massacre memorial site.
His war-time diaries are published in English as The Good German of Nanking (UK title) or The Good Man of Nanking (US title) (original German title: Der gute Deutsche von Nanking).
[edit] References
- Erwin Wickert (editor). (1998). The Good German of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe, Knopf. ISBN 037540211X
- Original German: (1997). John Rabe. Der gute Deutsche von Nanking. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart. ISBN 3421050988
- http://www.john-rabe.com
- Fall 2006 NPR program about Rabe: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6415407
