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The Nanking Massacre Massacre victims on the shore of Yangtze River with a Japanese soldier standing nearby
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese:	南京大屠殺
Simplified Chinese:	南京大屠杀
Transliterations Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin: Nánjīng Dàtúshā
Japanese name
Kanji:	南京事件 南京大虐殺
Transliterations - Traditional Hepburn: Nankin Jiken Nankin Daigyakusatsu

Nanking Massacre v • d • e
Battle of Nanking (1937)  · Nanking Safety Zone The International Committee for Nanking Safety Zone  · Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal International Military Tribunal for the Far East Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall
Historiography of the Nanking Massacre
Nanking Massacre controversy Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre Contest to kill 100 people using a sword
Films
The Truth about Nanjing (in production) City of Life and Death (2009) John Rabe (2009) Nanking (2007) Tokyo Trial (2006) Don't Cry, Nanking (1995) Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre (1994) The Battle of China (1944)
Books
Tokyo (2004) American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking (2000)  · The Good Man of Nanking (1998) The Rape of Nanking (book) (1997)

The Nanking Massacre, commonly known as the Rape of Nanking and known in Japan as the Nanjing Incident, refers to a six-week period following the capture of Nanking, then capital of the Republic of China, on December 9, 1937. International military tribunals convened at the end of World War II determined that, during this period, the Imperial Japanese Army committed atrocities such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians rising to the level of war crimes. These findings and other allegations are disputed by some Japanese historians and government officials who claim that the entire incident has been grossly exaggerated or even fabricated for the purposes of political propaganda. As a result of the ongoing controversy over Japanese efforts to deny, explain away or minimize the scale of the atrocities, the incident remains a stumbling block in Sino-Japanese relations as well as the relations of other countries, especially East Asian ones, with Japan.

Estimates of the death toll vary widely. Aside from the absence of accurate, comprehensive records of the killings, other contributors to the wide variance in estimates of the death toll include differences in definition of the geographical area, time period and nature of the killings to be counted. The Nanking Massacre can be defined narrowly to count only those killings happening within the Nanking Safety Zone, more broadly to include killings in the immediate environs of Nanking, or even more broadly to include the six counties around Nanjing, known as the Nanjing Special Municipality. Similarly, the time period of the massacre can be limited to the six weeks following the fall of Nanking or it can be defined more broadly to include killings from the time the Japanese Army entered Jiangsu province in mid-November until late March 1938. Variations in estimates based on the nature of the killings revolve around the question of whether the killings of captured Chinese soldiers and suspected guerrillas constituted legitimate executions.

The International Military Tribunal of the Far East estimated 260,000 casualties; China's official estimate is 300,000 casualties, based on the evaluation of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal, while a few historians believe upwards of 340,000. Japanese historians estimate the death toll much lower, in the vicinity of 100,000-200,000. A minority claim 40,000 or even deny that a widespread, systematic massacre occurred at all, claiming that there were a small number of deaths that were either justified militarily, accidental or isolated incidents of unauthorized atrocities. These denialists claim that the characterization of the incident as a large-scale, systematic massacre was fabricated for the purpose of political propaganda.^[1][2]

While the Japanese government has acknowledged atrocities were committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after the fall of Nanking,^[3] some Japanese have argued that the death toll was military in nature and that no such civilian atrocities ever occurred. Denial of the massacre, and a divergent array of revisionist accounts of the killings, has become a staple of Japanese nationalist discourse.^[4] In Japan, public opinion of the massacres varies, and very few deny the occurrence of the atrocities outright.^[4] These recurring attempts by massacre denialists to write a revisionist history of the incident have created controversy that periodically reverberates in the international media, particularly in China and other East Asian nations.^[4][5]

Contents 1 Military situation 1.1 Relocation of the Chinese capital 1.2 Strategy for the defense of Nanking 2 Approach of the Japanese army 2.1 Atrocities on the march to Nanking 2.2 Flight of Chinese civilians 2.3 Establishment of the Nanking Safety Zone 2.4 Prince Asaka appointed as commander 3 Battle of Nanjing 3.1 Siege of the city 3.2 Demand for surrender 3.3 Assault on the city 3.4 Retreat of the Chinese troops 3.5 Massacre on the shores of the Yangtze 3.6 Fall of Nanking 3.7 Pursuit and "mopping-up" operations 4 Japanese atrocities 4.1 Rape 4.2 Execution of Chinese POWs 4.3 Killing of Chinese civilians 4.4 Theft and arson 5 The Nanking Safety Zone and the role of foreigners 6 Recall of Matsui and Asaka 7 Death toll estimates 7.1 Range and duration 7.2 Various estimates 8 Judgments 8.1 Conviction and trial of offenders 8.2 Compensation for victims 9 Memorials 9.1 Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall 9.2 Photograph exhibit 9.3 John Rabe House 10 Controversy 10.1 Cold War 10.2 Debate in Japan 10.2.1 1970s 10.2.2 Japanese history textbooks 10.2.3 1980s 10.2.4 Denial by Japanese government officials in the 1990s 10.3 Apology and condolences by the prime minister and emperor of Japan 10.4 Contemporary denialists in the Japanese government 11 Legacy 11.1 Sino-Japanese relations 11.2 As a component of national identity 11.3 Japan 11.4 China 12 In the media 12.1 Novels 12.2 Non-fiction 12.3 Films 12.4 TV series 12.5 Records 13 See also 14 References 15 Further reading 16 External links

[edit] Military situation

Following the Mukden Incident in 1931, Japan began its invasion of Manchuria, China. Because the Communists and the Kuomintang (KMT) were engaged in the Chinese Civil War they were distracted from mounting a concerted defense against the Japanese who swiftly captured major Chinese cities in the northeast. In 1937, however, the Chinese communists and nationalists agreed to form a united front. The KMT then formally started an all-out defense against the Japanese threat. It is likely that China fielded the largest army in the world at the time in terms of troop numbers. However, the Chinese army was poorly trained and equipped: some regiments were armed primarily with swords and hand grenades and few had anti-tank weaponry.

Nonetheless, in August 1937, the Japanese army was met with strong resistance and suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Shanghai, making it clear that conquest of China would take years rather than months. The Battle of Shanghai was bloody as both sides faced attrition in urban hand-to-hand combat.

By mid-November the Japanese had captured Shanghai with help of naval bombardment. The General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo initially decided not to expand the war due to heavy casualties incurred and the low morale of the troops. However, on December 1, headquarters ordered the Central China Area Army and the 10th Army to capture Nanking, then the capital of the Republic of China.

[edit] Relocation of the Chinese capital

After losing the Battle of Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek knew the fall of Nanking would be simply a matter of time. Chiang Kai-shek and his staff such as Chen Cheng realized that he could not risk annihilation of their elite troops in a symbolic but hopeless defense of the capital;therefore, so in order to preserve these forces for future battles, most of them were withdrawn. Chiang Kai-shek's strategy was to follow the suggestion of his German advisers to draw the Japanese army deep into China utilizing China's vast territory as a defensive strength. Chiang planned to fight a protracted war of attrition by wearing down the Japanese in the hinterland of China.^[6]

Leaving General Tang Shengzhi in charge of the city for the Battle of Nanking, Chiang and many of his advisors flew to Wuhan until the battle, then to Chongqing, which became China's capital for the next seven years.

[edit] Strategy for the defense of Nanking

In a press release to foreign reporters, General Tang Shengzhie announced the city would not surrender and would fight to the death. General Tang Shengzhi gathered about 100,000 soldiers, mostly untrained, including a few defeated troops from the Shanghai battlefield, to defend the capital. He also placed troops at the port to prevent people from fleeing Nanjing, as instructed by Chiang Kai-shek's general headquarters. The defense force blocked roads, ruined boats, and burnt nearby villages, preventing many citizens from evacuating.

The Chinese government left Nanking on December 1, and the president left on December 7, leaving Nanjing to an International Committee led by John Rabe.

The defense plan fell apart from the very beginning because the defenders were overwhelmed by Chinese troops fleeing from previous defeats such as the Battle of Shanghai, and these troops just wanted to escape to safer ground and refused to obey any orders.

[edit] Approach of the Japanese army

[edit] Atrocities on the march to Nanking

Although the Nanking Massacre is generally described as happening in the six-week period after the fall of Nanking, the atrocities committed by the Japanese army were not limited to that period. Many atrocities were reported to have been committed as the Japanese army advanced from Shanghai to Nanking.

Perhaps the most notorious atrocity was a killing contest between two Japanese officers reported in the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun and the English language Japan Advertiser. The contest was covered much like a sporting event with regular updates on the score over a series of days.^[9][10] In Japan, the veracity of the newspaper article about the contest was the subject of ferocious debate for several decades starting in 1967.^[11]. This "contest" is regularly presented as historical fact, for example, in an exhibit at the Nanking Massacre Memorial. The historicity of the event remains disputed in Japan. In 2000, Bob Wakabayashi concurred with the Japanese scholars who had argued that the contest was a concocted story, with the collusion of the soldiers themselves for the purpose of raising the national fighting spirit.^[12]

[edit] Flight of Chinese civilians

As the Japanese army drew closer to Nanking, Chinese civilians fled the city in droves. The people of Nanking fled in panic not only because of the dangers of the anticipated battle but also because they feared the deprivation inherent in the scorched earth strategy that the Chinese troops were implementing in the area surrounding the city.^[13]

On July 31, the GMD had issued a statement that they were determined to turn every Chinese national and every piece of their soil into ash, rather than turn them over to the opponent. The Nanking garrison force set fire to buildings and houses in the areas close to Xiakuan to the north as well as in the environs of the eastern and southern city gates.^[14] Targets within and outside of the city walls—such as military barracks, private homes, the Chinese Ministry of Communication, forests and even entire villages—were burnt to cinders, at an estimated value of 20 to 30 million (1937) US dollars.^[15][16][17]

[edit] Establishment of the Nanking Safety Zone

Many westerners were living in the city at that time, conducting trade or on missionary trips. As the Japanese army began to launch bombing raids over Nanking, all of them except 22 people fled to their respective countries.^{[citation needed]} Siemens businessman John Rabe, a German, stayed behind and formed a committee, called the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. Rabe was elected as its leader, in part because of his status as a member of the Nazi party and the existence of the German-Japanese bilateral Anti-Comintern Pact. This committee established the Nanking Safety Zone in the western quarter of the city. The Japanese government had agreed not to attack parts of the city that did not contain Chinese military forces, and the members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone managed to persuade the Chinese government to move all their troops out of the area.

On Dec.1, 1937, Nanking Mayor Ma Chao-chun ordered all Chinese citizens remaining in Nanking to move into the “Safety Zone” and then fled the city.

It is said Rabe rescued between 200,000 - 250,000 Chinese people.^{[18] [19]}

[edit] Prince Asaka appointed as commander

On December 2, emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) appointed one of his uncles, Prince Asaka, as commander of the invasion. It is unclear whether this gave Asaka, a member of the imperial family, command authority over general Iwane Matsui, who was officially the commander in chief; however it is clear that, as the top ranking officer, Asaka had authority over division commanders, lieutenant-generals Kesago Nakajima and Heisuke Yanagawa. Asaka's position in the chain of command is significant because Matsui became incapacitated by illness and Asaka was at least nominally in command of the Japanese military forces at Nanking in the period during which the atrocities occurred.

[edit] Battle of Nanjing

[edit] Siege of the city

On December 7, the Japanese army issued a command to all troops, advising that because occupying a foreign capital was an unprecedented event for the Japanese military, those soldiers who "[commit] any illegal acts", "dishonor the Japanese Army", "loot", or "cause a fire to break out, even because of their carelessness" would be severely punished.^[20]

The Japanese military continued to move forward, breaching the last lines of Chinese resistance, and arriving outside the walled city of Nanjing on December 9.

[edit] Demand for surrender

At noon on December 9, the military dropped leaflets into the city, urging the surrender of Nanking within 24 hours, promising annihilation if refused.^[21][22]}} The Japanese awaited an answer. When no Chinese envoy had arrived by 1:00 p.m. on December 10, General Matsui Iwane issued the command to take Nanking by force. On December 12, after two days of Japanese attack, under heavy artillery fire and aerial bombardment, General Tang Sheng-chi ordered his men to retreat. What followed was nothing short of chaos. Some Chinese soldiers stripped civilians of their clothing in a desperate attempt to blend in, and many others were shot by their own comrades as they tried to flee.^[15]

[edit] Assault on the city

On December 9, after occupying the nearby countryside and demanding a surrender (which was refused), the Japanese troops under Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko (filling in for General Matsui who was incapacitated due to illness) launched a massive assault on the city. The Japanese army mounted its assault on the Nanking walls from multiple directions. The SEF’s 16th Division attacked three gates on the eastern side, the 6th Division of the 10A launched its offensive on the western walls, and the SEF’s 9th Division advanced into the area in-between.^[23]

Prince Asaka allegedly issued an order to "kill all captives," thus providing official sanction for the atrocities which took place during and after the battle.^[24] Some authors record that Prince Asaka signed the order for Japanese soldiers in Nanjing to "kill all captives"^[25] Others claim that lieutenant colonel Isamu Chō, Asaka's aide-de-camp, sent this order under the Prince's sign manual with the Prince's knowledge or assent.^[26] However, even if Chō took the initiative on his own, Prince Asaka, who was nominally the officer in charge, gave no orders to stop the carnage. General Matsui did not arrive in the city until well after the killing had begun but also gave no orders to end the atrocities.

While Prince Asaka's responsibility for the Nanking Massacre remains a matter of debate, another sanction for the massacre and the crimes committed during the invasion of China might be found in the ratification, made on August 5, 1937 by Emperor Hirohito, of the proposition of the Japanese army to remove the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisoners.^[27]

[edit] Retreat of the Chinese troops

Low morale, troops in open flight, and an overwhelming enemy superiority in numbers caused the Chinese commanders to order a retreat across the Yangtze River by the evening of December 12. On the evening of December 12, garrison commander, Tang Shengzhi, escaped from the city through the Yijiang Gate on the northern side of the city walls—the only gate that was available as an escape route then—without officially announcing any intention of surrendering the city to the Japanese military authorities.^{[citation needed]}

Many orders given during the battle contradicted those of headquarters, and many more orders were simply ignored. The resulting chaos, compounded by the inadequacy of pre-battle preparations, gave Chinese soldiers little chance to escape the oncoming onslaught of the Japanese army.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Massacre on the shores of the Yangtze

On December 13, a large number of refugees tried to escape from the Japanese by trying to cross the Yangtze River. They were trapped on the east bank because no transportation was available; many of them tried to swim across the river. Meanwhile, the Japanese arrived and fired at the people on the shore and in the river.^{[citation needed]} A Japanese soldier reported that the next day he saw an uncountable number of dead bodies of adults and children covering the whole river. He estimated that more than 50,000 people had been killed.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Fall of Nanking

On the 13th of December, the 6th and the 116th Divisions of the Japanese Army were the first to enter the city, facing little military resistance. Simultaneously, the 9th Division entered nearby Guanghua Gate, and the 16th Division entered Zhongshan and Taiping Gate. That same afternoon, two small Japanese Navy fleets arrived on both sides of the Yangtze River. Nanking fell to the Japanese by nightfall.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Pursuit and "mopping-up" operations

Japanese troops pursued the retreating Chinese army units, primarily in the Xiakuan area to the north of the city walls and around the Zijin Mountain in the east. Although the popular narrative suggests that the final phase of the battle consisted of a one-sided slaughter of Chinese troops by the Japanese, some Japanese historians maintain that the remaining Chinese military posed a serious threat to the Japanese. Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, SEF commander, told a war correspondent later that he was in a very perilous position when his headquarters was ambushed by Chinese forces that were in the midst of retreating from Nanking east of the city. On the other side of the city, the 11th Company of the 45th Regiment encountered some 20,000 Chinese military soldiers who were making their way from Xiakuan.^[28]

The Japanese army conducted its mopping-up operation both inside and outside the Nanking Safety Zone. Since the area outside the safety zone had been almost completely evacuated, the mopping-up effort was concentrated in the safety zone. The safety zone, an area of 3.85 square kilometers, was literally packed with the remaining population of Nanking. A number of Chinese soldiers in civilian clothes were hiding among the civilians in the Safety Zone;the Japanese military leadership estimated the number of such soldiers at about 20,000. They learned that anti-aircraft artillery positions remained intact within the safety zone, and that numerous plain-clothed soldiers were found concealing their weapons.^{[citation needed]}

Some Japanese historians argue that, if such soldiers had found an opportunity to assault the Japanese, the safety zone would have become a battlefield. They assert that, in this eventuality, the resulting military action would have endangered the safety of innocent civilians. For this reason, the Japanese army leadership assigned sections of the safety zone to some units to separate the plain-clothed soldiers from the civilians.^[29]

[edit] Japanese atrocities

Eyewitness accounts of Westerners and Chinese present at Nanking in the weeks after the fall of the city state that over the course of six weeks following the fall of Nanking, Japanese troops engaged in rape, murder, theft, and arson. Some accounts came from foreigners who opted to stay behind in order to protect Chinese civilians from certain harm, including the diaries of John Rabe and Minnie Vautrin. Others include first-person testimonies of the Nanking Massacre survivors. Still more were gathered from eyewitness reports of journalists, both Western and Japanese, as well as the field diaries of certain military personnel. An American missionary, John Magee, stayed behind to provide a 16 mm film documentary and first-hand photographs of the Nanking Massacre.

A group of foreign expatriates headed by John Rabe had formed the 15-man International Committee on November 22 and drew up the Nanking Safety Zone in order to safeguard the lives of civilians in the city, where the population ran from 200,000 to 250,000. Rabe and American missionary Lewis S. C. Smythe, the secretary of the International Committee, who was also a professor of sociology at the University of Nanking, recorded atrocities of the Japanese troops and filed reports of complaints to the Japanese embassy.

[edit] Rape

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East stated that 80,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly.^[31] A large portion of these rapes were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped.^[32] The women were often then killed immediately after the rape, often through mutilation, including breasts being cut off;^[33] or stabbing by bamboo (usually very long sticks)^[34], bayonet, butcher's knife^{[citation needed]} and other objects into the vagina. There are also claims of Japanese troops forcing families to commit acts of incest.^[35] It has been claimed that sons were forced to rape their mothers, fathers were forced to rape daughters. One pregnant woman who it is claimed was gang-raped by Japanese soldiers gave birth only a few hours later; although the baby appeared to be physically unharmed (Robert B. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun). Monks who had declared a life of celibacy were, according to some claims, forced to rape women.

Pregnant women were a target of murder, as they would often be bayoneted in the stomach, sometimes after rape. Tang Junshan, survivor and witness to one of the Japanese army’s systematic mass killings, testified:

The seventh and last person in the first row was a pregnant woman. The soldier thought he might as well rape her before killing her, so he pulled her out of the group to a spot about ten meters away. As he was trying to rape her, the woman resisted fiercely...The soldier abruptly stabbed her in the belly with a bayonet. She gave a final scream as her intestines spilled out. Then the solder stabbed the fetus, with its umbilical cord clearly visible, and tossed it aside.^[36]

[edit] Execution of Chinese POWs

On August 6, 1937, Hirohito had personally ratified his army's proposition to remove the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisoners. This directive also advised staff officers to stop using the term "prisoner of war".^[37]

Immediately after the fall of the city, Japanese troops embarked on a determined search for former soldiers, in which thousands of young men were captured. Many were taken to the Yangtze River, where they were machine-gunned. What was probably the single largest massacre of Chinese troops occurred along the banks of the Yangtze River on December 18 in what is called the Straw String Gorge Massacre. Japanese soldiers took most of the morning tying all of the POWs hands together and in the dusk divided them into 4 columns, surrounded them in a semicircle and opened fire. Unable to escape, the POWs could only scream and thrash in desperation. It took an hour for the sounds of death to stop, and even longer for the Japanese to bayonet each individual. Most were dumped into the Yangtze. It is estimated that at least 57,500 Chinese POWs were killed.

The Japanese troops gathered 1,300 Chinese soldiers and civilians at Taiping Gate and killed them. The victims were blown up with landmines, then doused with petrol before being set on fire. Those that were left alive afterwards were killed with bayonets.^[38]

Massacre denialists would later argue that it was permissible under international law to execute soldiers out of uniform as "illegitimate combatants" and that these executions should therefore not be counted as part of the massacre death toll.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Killing of Chinese civilians

Thousands were led away and mass-executed in an excavation known as the "Ten-Thousand-Corpse Ditch", a trench measuring about 300m long and 5m wide. Since records were not kept, estimates regarding the number of victims buried in the ditch range from 4,000 to 20,000. However, most scholars and historians consider the number to be more than 12,000 victims.^[39]

The Japanese officers turned the act of murder into sport. They would set out to kill a certain number of Chinese before the other. Young men would also be used for bayonet training. Their limbs would be restrained or they would be tied to a post while the Japanese soldiers took turns plunging their bayonets into the victims' bodies.

The sheer volume of murdered civilians posed a formidable logistical challenge when it came to disposing of the bodies. Many Chinese were conscripted into "burial teams", an experience they would later recall as horrifically traumatic.[40]

Prisoners being buried alive[41]

[edit] Theft and arson

One-third of the city was destroyed as a result of arson. According to reports, Japanese troops torched newly-built government buildings as well as the homes of many civilians. There was considerable destruction to areas outside the city walls. Soldiers pillaged from the poor and the wealthy alike. The lack of resistance from Chinese troops and civilians in Nanjing meant that the Japanese soldiers were free to divide up the city's valuables as they saw fit. This resulted in the widespread looting and burglary.^[42]

[edit] The Nanking Safety Zone and the role of foreigners

The Japanese did respect the Zone to an extent; no shells entered that part of the city leading up to the Japanese occupation except a few stray shots. During the chaos following the attack of the city, some were killed in the Safety Zone, but the atrocities in the rest of the city were far greater by all accounts.

The Japanese soldiers committed atrocities in the Safety Zone that were part of the much larger Nanking Massacre. The International Committee appealed a number of times to the Japanese army, with John Rabe using his credentials as a NSDAP member, but to no avail. From time to time the Japanese would enter the Safety Zone at will, carry off a few hundred men and women, and either summarily execute them or rape and then kill them.^{[citation needed]}

Before the normalization of relations between China and the West, the Westerners who remained behind in Nanjing to run the Nanking Safety Zone were vigorously criticised by the Chinese government. For example, a group of researchers at Nanjing University in the 1960s condemned the members of the Western community in Nanjing for turning a blind eye to the Japanese atrocities in the city, and misused the primary sources to suggest that the Westerners had cooperated in the Japanese slaughter of Chinese. As Chinese concerns about "American Imperialism" diminished, and as Japan became the target of official vitriol (partly at least because of the highly politicised and contentious issue of Japanese textbooks), views in China dramatically changed. Westerners were now depicted as active resistors rather than active collaborators.

[edit] Recall of Matsui and Asaka

While General Matsui was not present during the beginning of the atrocities due to illness, he was aware of what his men were doing in the city, as were members of the Japanese foreign service who had followed the army into the city. Word of the atrocities began to trickle out of Nanking, and growing pressure was placed on the Imperial government to recall the commanding officers of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force.^{[citation needed]}

In February 1938, with Nanking destroyed, both Prince Asaka and General Matsui were recalled to Japan. Matsui returned to retirement, but Prince Asaka remained on the Supreme War Council until the end of the war in August 1945. He was promoted to the rank of general in August 1939 but held no further military commands. ^[24]

After the establishment of the “weixin zhengfu” (the collaborating government) in 1938, order was gradually restored in Nanking and atrocities by Japanese troops lessened considerably.

[edit] Death toll estimates

Estimates of the total death toll of massacred Chinese vary. The issues involved in calculating the number of victims are largely based on the debatees' definitions of the geographical range and the duration of the event, as well as their definition of the victims.

According to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, estimates made at a later date indicate that the total number of civilians and prisoners of war murdered in Nanking and its vicinity during the first six weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000. These estimates are borne out by the figures of burial societies and other organizations, which testify to over 155,000 buried bodies. These figures do not take into account those persons whose bodies were destroyed by burning, drowning, or other means.^[43] The extent of the atrocities is debated between China and Japan, with numbers^[44] ranging from some Japanese claims of several hundred,^[45] to the Chinese claim of a non-combatant death toll of 300,000^[46] A number of Japanese researchers consider 100,000–200,000 to be an approximate value.^[47] Other nations believe the death toll to be between 150,000–300,000^[48] and another estimate of the civilian toll (excluding soldiers and POWs) is about 40,000-60,000, which corresponds to the figures from three sources; one is the Red Army's official journal of the time, Hangdibao and another is that of Miner Searle Bates of the International Safety Zone Committee, and the third is the aforementioned figure written by John Rabe in a letter ^[49]. The casualty count of 300,000 was first promulgated in January 1938 by Harold Timperley, a journalist in China during the Japanese invasion, based on reports from contemporary eyewitnesses. Other sources, including Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking, also conclude that the death toll reached 300,000. In December 2007, newly declassified U.S. government documents revealed an additional toll of around 500,000 in the area surrounding Nanking before it was occupied.^[50]

[edit] Range and duration

The most conservative viewpoint is that the geographical area of the incident should be limited to the few km² of the city known as the Safety Zone, where the civilians gathered after the invasion. Many Japanese historians seized upon the fact that during the Japanese invasion there were only 200,000–250,000 citizens in Nanking as reported by John Rabe, to argue that the PRC's estimate of 300,000 deaths is a vast exaggeration.

However, many historians include a much larger area around the city. Including the Xiaguan district (the suburbs north of Nanjing city, about 31 km² in size) and other areas on the outskirts of the city, the population of greater Nanjing was running between 535,000 and 635,000 civilians and soldiers just prior to the Japanese occupation.^[51] Some historians also include six counties around Nanjing, known as the Nanjing Special Municipality.

The duration of the incident is naturally defined by its geography: the earlier the Japanese entered the area, the longer the duration. The Battle of Nanking ended on December 13, when the divisions of the Japanese Army entered the walled city of Nanking. The Tokyo War Crime Tribunal defined the period of the massacre to the ensuing six weeks. More conservative estimates say the massacre started on December 14, when the troops entered the Safety Zone, and that it lasted for six weeks. Historians who define the Nanking Massacre as having started from the time the Japanese Army entered Jiangsu province push the beginning of the massacre to around mid-November to early December (Suzhou fell on November 19), and stretch the end of the massacre to late March 1938.

[edit] Various estimates

Japanese historians, depending on their definition of the geographical and time duration of the killings, give wide-ranging estimates for the number of massacred civilians, from several thousand to upwards of 200,000.^[52] Chinese language sources tend to place the figure of massacred civilians upwards of 200,000.^[52]

A 42-part ROC documentary produced from 1995 to 1997, entitled An Inch of Blood For An Inch of Land^[53] (一寸河山一寸血), asserts that 340,000 Chinese civilians died in Nanking City as a result of the Japanese invasion, 150,000 through bombing and crossfire in the five-day battle, and 190,000 in the massacre, based on the evidence presented at the Tokyo Trials.

[edit] Judgments

[edit] Conviction and trial of offenders

Shortly after the surrender of Japan, some primary offenders were put on trial by the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, including Tani Hisao (the lieutenant general of the 6th Division of the Japanese army in Nanking) and General Iwane Matsui (the Japanese commanding general in Nanking).

Among the members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone who took the witness stand were Robert Wilson, Miner Searle Bates and John Magee. George A. Fitch, Lewis Smythe and James McCallum filed affidavits with their diaries and letters.

Another piece of evidence submitted to the tribunal was Harold Timperley's telegram regarding the Nanking Massacre which had been intercepted and decoded by the Americans on January 17, 1938.

One of the books by Hsü, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, was also adduced in court.

At trial, Matsui went out of his way to protect Prince Asaka by shifting blame to lower ranking division commanders. ^[54] Matsui was convicted, sentenced to death, and executed in 1948. Generals Hisao Tani and Rensuke Isogai were sentenced to death by the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal.^[54]

Organized and wholesale murder of male civilians was conducted with the apparent sanction of the commanders on the pretext that Chinese soliders had removed their uniforms and were mingling with the population. Groups of Chinese civilians were formed, bound with their hands behind their backs, and marched outside the walls of the city where they were killed in groups by machine gun fire and with bayonets. --- From Judgment of the International Military Tribunal

General Matsui Iwane[55]

General Hisao Tani[56]

However, many military leaders who were guilty of the Nanking Massacre were not tried and the Chinese people have often expressed the opinion that the 1945 War Crimes trials did not mete out full justice to the perpetrators of the atrocities Prince Kan'in, who was chief of staff of the Army during the massacre, had died before the end of the war, in May 1945.

On May 1, 1946, SCAP officials interrogated Prince Asaka, who was the ranking officer in the city at the height of the atrocities, about his involvement in the Nanjing Massacre and the deposition was submitted to the International Prosecution Section of the Tokyo tribunal. Asaka denied any massacre of Chinese and claimed never to have received complaints about the conduct of his troops.^[57] Whatever his culpability may have been, Asaka was not prosecuted before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for prosecution at least in part because under the pact concluded between General MacArthur and Hirohito, the Emperor himself and all the members of the imperial family were granted immunity from prosecution.

[edit] Compensation for victims

In 1972, the Chinese government renounced its demand for war reparations from Japan in a joint statement between China and Japan. However, some Chinese victims have brought lawsuits seeking compensation, but the Japanese government refuses to pay any compensation, based on the 1972 Joint Statement. In recent years, several Japanese Prime Ministers have offered informal oral apologies (“remorse”), but the Chinese government still insists on a formal and official apology which has not been forthcoming.

[edit] Memorials

[edit] Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall

In 1985, a memorial hall was built by the Nanjing Municipal Government in remembrance of the victims and to raise awareness of the Nanking Massacre. It is located near a site where thousands of bodies were buried, called a "pit of ten thousand corpses," or "wan ren keng."

[edit] Photograph exhibit

In 1995, Daniel Kwan held a photograph exhibit in Los Angeles titled, "The Forgotten Holocaust".

[edit] John Rabe House

In 2005, John Rabe's former residence in Nanjing was renovated and now accommodates the ""John Rabe and International Safety Zone Memorial Hall", which opened in 2006.

[edit] Controversy

China and Japan have both acknowledged the occurrence of wartime atrocities. Disputes over the historical portrayal of these events continue to cause tensions between Japan on one side and China and other East Asian countries on the other side.

[edit] Cold War

Before the 1970s, China did relatively little to draw attention to the horrors of Nanking. In her book "Rape of Nanking", Iris Chang asserted that the politics of the Cold War encouraged Mao to stay relatively silent about Nanking in order to keep a trade relationship with Japan. In turn, China and the United States of America occasionally used Nanking as an opportunity to demonize one each other.

For example, during the Korean War, the Communist Chinese used records of the International Committee members in an attempt to arouse patriotism against the United States. In the propaganda campaign many missionaries were stigmatized as Americans who sacrificed Chinese people's lives to protect their property, who guided the Imperial Army of Japan into the city and who cooperated with the Japanese troops to round up prisoners of war in the refugee camps.

The Americans simply preferred not to make the citizens of a Communist country sympathetic and were also committed to the inclusion of the Emperor and his family in a reconstructed and now pro-western Japan.

[edit] Debate in Japan

The major waves of Japanese treatment of these events have ranged from total cover-up during the war, confessions and documentation by the Japanese soldiers during the 1950s and 60's, minimization of the extent of the Nanjing Massacre during the 70's and 80's, official distortion and rewriting of history during the 80's, and total denial of the occurrence of the Nanjing Massacre by some government officials in 1990.^[58]

[edit] 1970s

Interest in the Nanking Massacre waned into near obscurity until 1972, the year China and Japan normalized diplomatic relationships.

The debate concerning the killings and rapes took place mainly in the 1970s. During this time, the Chinese government's statements about the event were attacked by the Japanese because they were said to rely too heavily on personal testimonies and anecdotal evidence. Aspersions were cast regarding the authenticity and accuracy of burial records and photographs presented in the Tokyo War Crime Court, which were said to be fabrications by the Chinese government, artificially manipulated or incorrectly attributed to the Nanking Massacre.^[59]

During the 1970s, Katsuichi Honda wrote a series of articles for the Asahi Shimbun on the atrocities (such as the Nanjing Massacre) committed by Japanese soldiers during World War II called "Chūgoku no Tabi" (中国の旅, "Travels in China"). The publication of these articles triggered a vehement response from Japanese right-wingers regarding the Japanese treatment of the war crimes.

The denial movement began with two controversial yet influential articles: an article by Shichihei Yamamoto, "Reply to Katsuichi Honda";^[60] (2) an article by Akira Suzuki, "The Phantom of The Nanjing Massacre". ^[61]

[edit] Japanese history textbooks

On June 12, 1965, an author of the school textbook, Professor Saburō Ienaga, sued the Ministry of Education.^[62] He claimed that he suffered through his experience that the government's allegedly unconstitutional system of textbook authorization made him change the contents of his draft textbook against his will and violated his right to freedom of expression. This case was ultimately decided in Ienaga's favor in 1997.^[62]

In 1982, the Ministry of Education embarked on a campaign to reframe the presentation of the history of World War II in history textbooks. History textbooks were reworded to substitute "advancing in and out of China" instead of "aggression" during the Sino-Japanese War. The Nanjing Massacre was characterized as a minor incident which was sparked by the frustration of Japanese soldiers by strong resistance from the Chinese Army. This move sparked strong protests from other Asian countries.

Besides total denial, another line of Japanese thought insisted that the scale of the Nanjing Massacre had been exaggerated by the Chinese. This view was expounded by Hata Ikuhiko in his book "Nanjing Incident" ^[63]. Hata asserted that the number of victims in the Massacre was between 38,000-42,000. He also argued that the killing of surrendered or captured soldiers should not be considered as "Massacre". This book is now considered as the official authoritative history text on the issue by the Japan Ministry of Education.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] 1980s

Masaaki Tanaka's book "Fabrication of Nanjing Massacre" not only denied the Nanjing Massacre occurred but laid the blame for the Sino-Japanese war on the Chinese Government.^[64]

The Japanese distributor of The Last Emperor (1987) edited out the stock footage of the Rape of Nanking from the film.^[65]

[edit] Denial by Japanese government officials in the 1990s

A number of Japanese cabinet ministers, as well as some high-ranking politicians such as Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, have made comments denying the atrocities committed by the Japanese Army in World War II. Some subsequently resigned after protests from China and South Korea.

[edit] Apology and condolences by the prime minister and emperor of Japan

On August 15, 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the Surrender of Japan, the Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama gave the first clear and formal apology for Japanese actions during the war. He apologized for Japan's wrongful aggression and the great suffering that it inflicted in Asia. He offered his "heartfelt" apology to all survivors and to the relatives and friends of the victims. That day, the prime minister and the Japanese Emperor Akihito pronounced statements of mourning at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan. The emperor offered his condolences and expressed the hope that similar atrocities would never be repeated.

[edit] Contemporary denialists in the Japanese government

In 2007, a group of around 100 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmakers again denounced the Nanjing Massacre as a fabrication, arguing that there was no evidence to prove the allegations of mass killings by Japanese soldiers. They accused Beijing of using the alleged incident as a "political advertisement".^[66]

[edit] Legacy

[edit] Sino-Japanese relations

The memory of the Nanking Massacre has been a stumbling block in Sino-Japanese relations since the early 1970s. Bilateral exchanges on trade, culture and education have increased greatly since the two countries normalized their bilateral relations and Japan is now become China’s most important trading partner. ^[67]. Trade between the two nations is worth over $200 billion a year. Despite this, many Chinese people still have a strong sense of mistrust and animosity toward Japan that originates from the memory of Japanese wartime atrocities such as the Nanking Massacre and is strengthened by their perception that Japan is unwilling to admit to and apologize for these atrocities.^[68]

Takashi Yoshida describes how changing political concerns and perceptions of the "national interest" in Japan, China, and Western countries, have shaped collective memory of the Nanking massacre. He asserts that, with each passing decade, the event has acquired different meanings to different people.^[69]

[edit] As a component of national identity

Takashi Yoshida asserts that, "Nanjing has figured in the attempts of all three nations [China, Japan and the United States] to preserve and redefine national and ethnic pride and identity, assuming different kinds of significance based on each country's changing internal and external enemies."^[70]

[edit] Japan

In Japan, Nanjing touches upon national identity and notions of "pride, honor and shame." Yoshida argues that "Nanjing crystallizes a much larger conflict over what should constitute the ideal perception of the nation: Japan, as a nation, acknowledges its past and apologizes for its wartime wrongdoings; or . . . stands firm against foreign pressures and teaches Japanese youth about the benevolent and courageous martyrs who fought a just war to save Asia from Western aggression."^[70] Accepting the "orthodox" position can be viewed in some circles in Japan as "Japan bashing" (in the case of foreigners) or "self-flagellation" (in the case of Japanese).

[edit] China

In China, the Communist Party has turned to history as a means of shoring up its legitimacy, especially since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. The Nanjing Incident has emerged as a fundamental keystone in the construction of the modern Chinese national identity.^[71] A refusal to accept the "orthodox" position on Nanjing can be construed as an attempt to deny the Chinese nation a legitimate voice in international society.

[edit] In the media

[edit] Novels

• Chad, Meira, A Choice of Evils (London: The Orion Publishing Company, 1996)
• Hayder, Mo. Tokyo (novel)
• West, Paul. The Tent of Orange Mist (1995)

[edit] Non-fiction

• Nankin Jiken Gyakusatsu no kozo (南京事件―「虐殺」の構造) by Ikuhiko Hata ISBN 4121007956, ISBN 4121907957
• The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang (1997)

[edit] Films

• The Battle of China (1944) a documentary film by American director Frank Capra includes footage of the Nanking massacre from the "Magee film".

• Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre (1995), by Chinese director Mou Tun Fei, recreates the events of the Nanking Massacre and includes original footage of the massacre from the "Magee film".

• Don't Cry, Nanking aka (Nanjing 1937) (1995) directed by Wu Ziniu is a historical fiction centering around a Chinese doctor, his Japanese wife, and their children, as they experience the siege, fall, and atrocities of Nanking.

• Tokyo Trial (2006) is about the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.

• Nanking (2007) another documentary film, directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, makes use of letters and diaries from the era as well as archive footage and interviews with surviving victims and perpetrators of the massacre.

• The Truth about Nanjing (2007) a Japanese-produced documentary denying that any such massacre took place.

• The Children of Huang Shi (2008), covers part of the massacre.

• City of Life and Death (2009) directed by Lu Chuan, a dramatization of the rape of Nanking in 1937.

• John Rabe (2009) directed by Florian Gallenberger, a Sino-German co-production about the life of John Rabe, featuring Ulrich Tukur in the title role and Steve Buscemi in a supporting role.^[72]

[edit] TV series

• War and Destiny (2007) a story about life in Nanking up until and during the Japanese invasion. The atrocities are significantly toned down compared to historical records.

[edit] Records

In December 2007, the Chinese government published the names of 13,000 people who were killed by Japanese troops in the Nanking Massacre. According to Xinhua News Agency, it is the most complete record to date.^[73] The report consists of eight volumes and was released to mark the 70th anniversary of the start of the massacre. It also lists the Japanese army units that were responsible for each of the deaths and states the way in which the victims were killed. Zhang Xianwen, editor-in-chief of the report, states that the information collected was based on "a combination of Chinese, Japanese and Western raw materials, which is objective and just and is able to stand the trial of history."^[73] This report will form part of a 28-volume series about the massacre.^[73]

[edit] See also

2005 anti-Japanese demonstrations Alleged fabrication of the Nanking Massacre Chiang Kai-shek History of the Republic of China Changde chemical weapon attack Death Railway Historical revisionism Imperial Japanese Army Isamu Chō Japanese human experimentation on the Chinese Japanese militarism Japanese nationalism Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform Japanese war crimes Kaimingye germ weapon attack Nanking (a documentary film)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nanjing Massacre Japanese apologies Manila Massacre Nanking Safety Zone Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall Masanobu Tsuji Sanko sakusen Shantung Incident Shiro Azuma Sook Ching Massacre Unit 100 Unit 731

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

Askew, David. "The International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone: An Introduction" Sino-Japanese Studies Vol. 14, April 2002 (Article outlining membership and their reports of the events that transpired during the massacre) Askew, David, "The Nanjing Incident: An Examination of the Civilian Population" Sino-Japanese Studies Vol. 13, March 2001 (Article analyzes a wide variety of figures on the population of Nanjing before, during, and after the massacre) Bergamini, David, "Japan's Imperial Conspiracy," William Morrow, New York; 1971. Brook, Timothy, ed. Documents on the Rape of Nanjing, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999. ISBN 0-472-11134-5 (Does not include the Rabe diaries but does include reprints of "Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, Kelly and Walsh, 1939".) Chang, Iris, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, Foreword by William C. Kirby; Penguin USA (Paper), 1998. ISBN 0-14-027744-7 Hua-ling Hu, American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin, Foreword by Paul Simon; March 2000, ISBN 0-8093-2303-6 Fogel, Joshua, ed. The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. ISBN 0-520-22007-2 Fujiwara, Akira "The Nanking Atrocity: An Interpretive Overview" Japan Focus October 23, 2007. Galbraith, Douglas, A Winter in China, London, 2006. ISBN 0-099-46597-3. A novel focussing on the western residents of Nanking during the massacre. Higashinakano, Shudo, The Nanking Massacre: Fact Versus Fiction: A Historian's Quest for the Truth, Tokyo: Sekai Shuppan, 2005. ISBN 4-916079-12-4 Higashinakano, Kobayashi and Fukunaga, Analyzing The 'Photographic Evidence' of The Nanking Massacre, Tokyo: Soshisha, 2005. ISBN 4-7942-1381-6 Honda, Katsuichi, Sandness, Karen trans. The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame, London: M.E. Sharpe, 1999. ISBN 0-7656-0335-7 Hsū Shuhsi, ed. (1939), Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone (reprinted in Documents on the Rape of Nanjing Brook ed. 1999) Kajimoto, Masato "Mistranslations in Honda Katsuichi's the Nanjing Massacre" Sino-Japanese Studies, 13. 2 (March 2001) pp. 32–44 Lu, Suping, They Were in Nanjing: The Nanjing Massacre Witnessed by American and British Nationals, Hong Kong University Press, 2004. Murase, Moriyasu,Watashino Jyugun Cyugoku-sensen(My China Front), Nippon Kikanshi Syuppan Center, 1987 (revised in 2005).(includes disturbing photos, 149 page photogravure) ISBN 4-88900-836-5 (村瀬守保,私の従軍中国戦線) Qi, Shouhua. "When the Purple Mountain Burns: A Novel" San Francisco: Long River Press, 2005. ISBN 1-59265-041-4

Rabe, John, The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe, Vintage (Paper), 2000. ISBN 0-375-70197-4 Robert Sabella, Fei Fei Li and David Liu, eds. Nanking 1937: Memory and Healing (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002). ISBN 0-7656-0817-0. Takemoto, Tadao and Ohara, Yasuo The Alleged "Nanking Massacre": Japan's rebuttal to China's forged claims, Meisei-sha, Inc., 2000, (Tokyo Trial revisited) ISBN 4-944219-05-9 Tanaka, Masaaki, What Really Happened in Nanking: The Refutation of a Common Myth, Tokyo: Sekai Shuppan, 2000. ISBN 4-916079-07-8 Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi "The Nanking 100-Man Killing Contest Debate: War Guilt Amid Fabricated Illusions, 1971–75",The Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol.26 No.2 Summer 2000. Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi The Nanking Atrocity, 1937-1938: Complicating the Picture, Berghahn Books, 2007, ISBN 1-845451-80-5 Yamamoto, Masahiro Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity, Praeger Publishers, 2000, ISBN 0-275-96904-5 Yang, Daqing. "Convergence or Divergence? Recent Historical Writings on the Rape of Nanjing" American Historical Review 104, 3 (June 1999)., 842-865. Yoshida, Takeshi "A Japanese Historiography of the Nanjing Massacre", Columbia East Asian Review, Fall 1999. (A much longer and more detailed version of this article is in above in the work edited by Joshua Fogel) Young, Shi; Yin, James. "Rape of Nanking: Undeniable history in photographs" Chicago: Innovative Publishing Group, 1997. Zhang, Kaiyuan, ed. Eyewitnesses to Massacre, An East Gate Book, 2001 (includes documentation of American missionaries M.S. Bates, G.A. Fitch, E.H. Foster, J.G. Magee, J.H. MaCallum, W.P. Mills, L.S.C. Smyth, A.N. Steward, Minnie Vautrin and R.O. Wilson.) ISBN 0-7656-0684-4 Analyzing the “Photographic Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre "[6]"

[edit] External links

• BBC News: Scarred by history: The Rape of Nanjing
• BBC News: Nanjing remembers massacre victims
• "Denying Genocide: The Evolution of the Denial of the Holocaust and the Nanking Massacre," college research paper by Joseph Chapel, 2004
• English translation of a classified Chinese document on the Nanjing Massacre
• Genocide in the 20th Century The Rape of Nanking 1937-1938
• Japanese Army's Atrocities — Nanjing Massacre — Contains archived documents including photos and maps.
• Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing by Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, & Cha Ruizhen
• Kirk Denton, "Heroic Resistance and Victims of Atrocity: Negotiating the Memory of Japanese Imperialism in Chinese Museums"
• The Nanjing Incident: Recent Research and Trends by David Askew in the Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, April 2002
• Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall
• 1937 Nanking Massacre Nanking Massacre website including articles and photos
• Never Forget — Historical Facts of Nanjing Massacre.
• 'No massacre in Nanking,' Japanese lawmakers say
• War and reconciliation: a tale of two countries
• Online documentary: The Nanking Atrocities — Comprehensive account of the Nanjing Massacre.
• Princeton University's exhibit on the massacre — Student-run event. Contains a gallery of the atrocities.
• Rape of Nanking Original reports from The Times
• WWW Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre
• The Rape of Nanking — Nanjing Massacre — English Language Edition. Two hour web documentary.
• USSPanay.org Webpage about the evacuation of Nanking and the Panay Incident
• (Japanese) Japanese soldiers in Nanjin, 1937-1938