The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe

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Summary: And it never happened...
Review: 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.

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Summary: New York Times, Dec. 9, 1937 by Hallett Abend, February 28
Review: Foreign military observers remaining in Nanking are amazed by the extent of the Chinese destruction of everything within the zones they still control. Most of this destruction is said to be purposeless, serving no military use for the advantage of the Chinese or to the disadvantage of the Japanese except to force invaders to use tents instead of billeting in buildings........ "Not since the armies of Genghis Khan turned the sites of once-populous cities of China into grazing lands has there been any such systematic destruction as that going on in the lower Yangtze area at the hands of the Chinese themselves," a neutral military observer told the writer. "Japanese aerial bombings and artillery fire have been destructive in comparatively narrow ranges, mostly military objectives, but all such damages combined will not equal one-tenth the destruction achieved by the Chinese armies. From the way the Chinese are behaving you would think they did not expect to recover any semblance of control in this part of China in the next century. You would think they were laying waste land belonging to some bitter foe. "It is incredible that they are adopting this 'scorched earth' policy against forces which must certainly be only temporary invaders and are not going to attempt to colonize Chinese soil. What is being destroyed represents the savings of thrifty generations of hard-working Chinese. "Those who advocate the policy of frenzied destruction of towns, cities and country side do not pause to think that they are utterly wiping out hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of accumulated wealth and that this property, if not destroyed, could have been taxed by the Chinese Government at no distant future, thereby helping the nation to refinance its rehabilitation. This rich area, which had been one of the most thickly populated in the world, will need vast sums to rebuild what is vanishing in flames." The only acceptable explanation seems to involve the ancient Oriental idea of "saving face," the Chinese believing they enchance their prestige if their retreat leaves only a barren wilderness of smoking ruins for the invaders to occupy. This policy ignores the welfare of millions of Chinese who have fled from this fighting zone. How the millions of refugees are to be fed and housed through the Winter is a serious problem because their own government cannot do anything for their relief.

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Summary: The nuclear bombs were the punishment from GOD
Review: I was shocked by the book's truth and began to understand that the 2 nuclear bombs were the punishment from GOD, the trash japs deserved the 2 bombs and they will get more such punishments if they deny this

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Summary: Rabe acctually revealed no massacre witnessed.
Review: It is hard to believe that some people really think this book is an evidence of the "Nanking Massacre". Have they really read this book carefully, they should have reached a different conclusion. I gave 3stars to this book because I think John Rabe wrote this diary quite honestly..... maybe too honest to propagate the Japanese Army's "atrocities".
Essencially, there are no massacre actually witnessed by those "objective" westerners. They admited that all the atrocities they sited in the Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone was second-hand hearsay except a few first-hand ones.
They admitted that only few killngs they really witnessed were "lawful executions".
They witnessed no civilian killings.
They did, however, use confusing words when they discribed the "atrocities". When the city gates were captured on 12 Dec. they saw the Chinese soldiers took their uniforms off and wore civilian clothes to disguise as civilians then hid themselves in the Safety Zone. The Committee insisted to call those plain-clothes snipers "civilians". Breaching all of the requirements as a lawful conbatant in the Hague Code concerning War on Land, these snipers should be regarded as war criminals, not civilians.
The Committee must have known the inconsistensy of their theory.
According to the Documents, they clearly stated that "when [the Japanese] troops entered the city [on 12 Dec], [they] had nearly all the civilian population gathered in a Zone in the city". And that number was 200,000, which never dropped after that day but even increased to 250,000 in a few weeks.
This means, the Committee was in the recognition that the civilian population in Nanking was intact throughout the Japanese occupation and the security of the city was restored by the Japanese Army so the returning of the people, who fled away before the capture of the city, began soon.
If you still think that Nanking Massacre was witnessed by those westerners after reading this book, you had better ask yourself if you are really not biased. After all, the words of the Chancellor of the German embassy, Scharffenberg, was right. He told the German Embassy in Hankow, "...one can clealy see that the Chinese, once left to depend solely on the Japanese, immediately fraternize. And as for all these [Japanese Army's] excesses, one hears only one side of it."
That should be regarded as real objective observation.

Rating:
Summary: the truth
Review: It is hard to believe that some people really think this book is an evidence of the "Nanking Massacre". Have they really read this book carefully, they should have reached a different conclusion. I gave 3stars to this book because I think John Rabe wrote this diary quite honestly..... maybe too honest to propagate the Japanese Army's "atrocities".
Essencially, there are no massacre actually witnessed by those "objective" westerners. They admited that all the atrocities they sited in the Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone was second-hand hearsay except a few first-hand ones.
They admitted that only few killngs they really witnessed were "lawful executions".
They witnessed no civilian killings.
They did, however, use confusing words when they discribed the "atrocities". When the city gates were captured on 12 Dec. they saw the Chinese soldiers took their uniforms off and wore civilian clothes to disguise as civilians then hid themselves in the Safety Zone. The Committee insisted to call those plain-clothes snipers "civilians". Breaching all of the requirements as a lawful conbatant in the Hague Code concerning War on Land, these snipers should be regarded as war criminals, not civilians.
The Committee must have known the inconsistensy of their theory.
According to the Documents, they clearly stated that "when [the Japanese] troops entered the city [on 12 Dec], [they] had nearly all the civilian population gathered in a Zone in the city". And that number was 200,000, which never dropped after that day but even increased to 250,000 in a few weeks.
This means, the Committee was in the recognition that the civilian population in Nanking was intact throughout the Japanese occupation and the security of the city was restored by the Japanese Army so the returning of the people, who fled away before the capture of the city, began soon.
If you still think that Nanking Massacre was witnessed by those westerners after reading this book, you had better ask yourself if you are really not biased. After all, the words of the Chancellor of the German embassy, Scharffenberg, was right. He told the German Embassy in Hankow, "...one can clealy see that the Chinese, once left to depend solely on the Japanese, immediately fraternize. And as for all these [Japanese Army's] excesses, one hears only one side of it."
That should be regarded as real objective observation.

Rating:
Summary: Real-life accounts
Review: 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.

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Summary: Rabe was the agent for the Chinese Nationalist Party
Review: Rabe was awarded by the Chinese Nationalist Party for his contribution to this forged holocaust in Nanking.

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Summary: Japnese Nationalism never died
Review: Unbelievable.
I thought the Japanese people where peace loving pacifists now.
I was wrong.
The hate coming against this book is mindboggling considering it's a journal and not a political manifesto.
Those who criticize this diary are revealing themselves.
Racist and Nationalistic fanatics as in times of old.
The mistake of leaving Hirohito in power has born it's fruit.