At the end of 1937, Nanjing completely fell, and the large-scale invasion of the Japanese army brought great disaster to the city, and the former bustling streets were littered with corpses and blood.
In this inhumane massacre, a German named John Rabe put up a Nazi Party flag and began to do whatever it took to save the survivors in the midst of this unsightly disaster.
In the first two months of the fall of Nanking, the number of refugees hosted by Rabe's family reached 250,000, during which time he witnessed the atrocities of the Japanese army.
He wanted to publish all the photos and notes recording the atrocities of the Japanese army as evidence after the end of the One-Day War, and tell the world about the ugly face of the Japanese army.
But what Rabe did not expect was that later he not only did not have the opportunity to speak out for the people of Nanjing, but even his own life was extremely embarrassing, and he could not even eat.
When the Nanjing government and citizens learned of his plight, they immediately raised hundreds of millions of yuan and raised enough food to send to Rabe, which slightly improved Rabe's life.
So how did he save countless people in the Nanjing Massacre? Why was he persecuted and embarrassed in his later years? What was his end?
The Japanese invaded, and Rabe decided to stay in Nanjing
Born on November 23, 1882 in Hamburg, Germany, Johann Rabe began to live wandering and begging for a living after graduating from junior high school because of the loss of his father at an early age and the poverty of his family, unable to support Rabe's education.
He wandered in Africa for a while, arrived in Beiping at the age of 26, set foot on Chinese soil for the first time, and has lived in China for more than 30 years.
At the beginning of his arrival in China, he first worked in the Chinese office of Siemens AG of Germany, and it was not until 1931 that he was transferred to Nanjing, became the head of Siemens' Nanjing office, and rented No. 10 Xiaotaoyuan on Guangzhou Road as his residence.
The building is a Western-style brick and wood building with a red tile roof, milky white doors and windows, and a small garden behind it, which is connected to Jinling University.
Through the large lifting windows, the sun shines all the way to the living room, standing on the small attic on the second floor, you can also overlook the red brick and blue tiles of the entire city of Nanjing.
Here, Rabe spent 7 years of stable life, his daughter who works in Peiping often brings his granddaughter to visit him, for his granddaughter Ursula, the grandfather's house is a happy paradise.
But all this was soon broken by the shameless invaders.
After the "Lugou Bridge Incident", the Japanese army burned and plundered chinese soil one after another, and soon after, the flames of war burned to the city of Nanjing.
The Japanese army "dropped" countless shells over the city of Nanjing, the buildings in the city were blown up, innocent people were killed in the war, the Nanjing government and the masses protested to the Japanese army, wanting to get back a "justice", but there is no strong strength to support, their demands in the eyes of the Japanese army seem to be nothing more than an insignificant thing.
Countless foreign expatriates immediately withdrew from Nanjing, leaving only the natives and the people of Nanjing who had no money to flee, praying every day that the Japanese army would not bomb again.
Japanese aircraft bombed Nanjing
At that time, Rabe was on vacation in Beidaihe, and after learning about this incident, he no longer had the heart to vacation and hurried to Nanjing.
What he didn't expect was that it usually only took 40 hours to travel, but this time it took him 10 and a half days. As soon as he hurried into his office, he received a withdrawal notice from the German Embassy: the Japanese army was going to strengthen its bombing, and foreigners were requested to evacuate Nanjing urgently.
On September 21, 1937, Rabe watched the embassy send him another notice, and he was in a struggle, as long as he left here, he could be completely rescued, but this meant that he could only watch the people of Nanjing being displaced and tragically killed at the hands of the Japanese.
As a loyal Christian, Rabe is not someone who would risk his life rashly. However, in the face of moral problems, Rabe's heart could not let go of the people in Nanjing to escape for their lives.
Atrocities of the Japanese army
In this time of crisis, he resolutely made a major decision to stay in Nanjing and do his best to rescue the Chinese people.
Do your best to save 250,000 innocent people
After making up his mind, Rabe never thought of leaving Nanjing again. He personally built an air raid shelter in the courtyard of his home, then found a canvas of 6 meters in length and 3 meters in width, painted the Nazi Party flag on it, and propped it in the courtyard to warn the Japanese that this was the territory of the Germans and not to be easily invaded.
Rabe himself thought it was ridiculous, and when he first arrived in Nanjing, in order to solve the problem of his children's education, he decided to build a school and make himself the principal.
However, in order to become a rector, he must first "join the party", and rabe became a member of the Nazi party because of this.
Originally, he was also very disdainful of what the Nazi Party had done, but he did not expect that the most disdainful identity had become the "protective umbrella" for him and the tens of thousands of people in Nanjing.
Rabe's Nazi flag
Since then, Rabe's small Taoyuan No. 10 courtyard has become a refuge for countless refugees, known as the "Siemens Refugee Shelter".
Relying on his nazi party status, he searched everywhere in the city of Nanjing, which had been bombed by the Japanese army and destroyed, to rescue the people who had fallen into ruins. Nearby residents heard the sound of Japanese bombers and took refuge.
The cramped air raid shelter was full every time, according to Rabe himself: "It's like a sardine in a can." ”
Due to the large number of people who came to take refuge, Rabe always followed the principle of giving priority to women and children, and he always let the elderly, children and women hide in the safest place in the bomb shelter, and men could only use seats or standing positions on both sides.
Due to the large number of people who came to take refuge, Rabe rebuilt two more bomb shelters.
In November 1937, in order to reduce the harm caused by the war, the chairman of Jinling University proposed to set up a refugee area in Nanjing to focus on protecting those refugees who did not have asylum. Rabe was elected as chairman of the International Committee for the Nanjing Safety Zone.
The fall of Nanjing under the lens of an American priest
On just 3.86 square kilometres, a total of 25 refugee shelters have been set up, and Rabe's house is one of them. Since then, Rabe has spared no effort to accommodate all the refugees he can take in.
In December 1937, with the withdrawal of the Nanjing government, the city of Nanjing completely fell into the hands of the Japanese army, and an unprecedented massacre was carried out in the city.
They robbed, burned, and raped the city of Nanjing, committing all kinds of evil deeds, and without restraint, they were creating bloodshed every day.
Innocent people died tragically at their hands, and in the face of external rebukes and protests, they did not think so, and this group of "executioners" regarded the massacre as a game, a kind of fun, and also launched a "hundred-man chopping game" in the city of Nanjing.
They lifted their heads with blood-stained hands and triumphantly showed people their "booty", guns in their hands somehow facing the next unarmed populace.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been shot, buried alive, burned... More than 20,000 women were raped and killed by the Japanese army, and one-third of the city was burned by the Japanese, and the smoke in the city was filled with gunfire. At this time, the crowd began to frantically pour into the safety zone, and at its peak, Rabe's home contained more than 600 people, including 302 men, 300 women, and 126 children under the age of 10.
However, the security zone is not always safe, and the Japanese army often forcibly enters the security zone to search in the name of searching Chinese soldiers, and Rabe has to stay at home at all times to avoid the Japanese army from entering.
But when he wasn't home, the situation got so bad that the notices posted on the gates didn't work as they should, and most of the Japanese soldiers climbed the wall into the courtyard, but fortunately didn't cause any casualties.
During this period, Rabe also rescued several Kuomintang generals and pilots, and successfully sent them out of Nanjing. Under Rabe's protection, all the refugees who took refuge here survived, and not a single one was harmed.
Rabe is also very happy to be able to save so many people: "I got a christmas gift that I could not have expected, that is, the lives of more than 600 people. ”
On the occasion of the New Year in 1938, refugees from Rabe's family lined up in the courtyard to thank him and gave him a large piece of red silk that read: You are a living bodhisattva for hundreds of thousands of people.
According to statistics, in the months of the Japanese invasion of China, the security zone sheltered nearly 250,000 refugees, and tens of thousands of women survived.
During the period of rescuing refugees, Rabe often recorded all the evil deeds of the Japanese army, during which he recorded more than 500 tragedies, and he wrote in his diary on December 14: "When driving through the city, every one or two hundred meters passed, the bodies of some civilians would be crushed, and they were all shot from the back by the Japanese soldiers while fleeing." ”
If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Rabe couldn't believe that this was something that humans would do, and he took the camera every day to photograph and record the atrocities of the Japanese army, and he thought that even if he tried his best to protect the refugees one day, he must be a witness to all these atrocities of the Japanese army.
But what he did not expect was that it was these notes and photographs that caused Rabe's unfortunate life in his later years.
Should be recalled to the country, and his old age is embarrassing
In February 1938, after Rabe's diabetes was getting worse and he had run out of medicines he had taken with him, he received news that the German government had recalled him.
After returning to Germany, Rabe was awarded the Order of merit of the Red Cross by the German government and was also awarded the Silver Medal of Merit for The Merit of The German Overseas Chinese, but he never forgot that China was suffering an unprecedented atrocity.
From May 2 to 25, 1938, in just 23 days, Raabe gave a total of 5 large-scale speeches, in which he made public the photos and notes in his hands, exposing the actions of the Japanese army to the German people, hoping to attract the attention of the international community and exert pressure on the Japanese army through the condemnation of the international community.
On June 8 of the same year, he also sent "Führer" Hitler 22 photographs detailing the time, place and subject of the shooting, as well as a 260-page report.
However, he never imagined that Hitler had already sided with the Japanese army, and that his revelations were not only not made public, but that he was arrested by the Gestapo and ordered to remain silent about what had happened in Nanjing before he was released.
Although his diary was returned, some of the photographs were lost, and he never found a voice for China. He had applied to quit the Nazi Party but was rejected, and he could only continue to live with this identity that he hated.
Rabe's later years did not go well, with his home in Berlin blown up in 1943 and arrested by the Soviets and then the British two years later for his Nazi party status, and he was released on bail in June 1946 after presenting a large body of evidence in China about his contributions to Nanjing.
At this time, Rabe was 63 years old, already an old man with half-white hair, and his family of six had no source of income, often could not even fill their stomachs, and could only rely on noodle soup made of wild vegetables and acorns to survive.
After learning of the hardships of the life of the former "benefactor", the people of Nanjing set up a solicitation committee to rescue Rabe in 1948.
Although the people of Nanjing, who had just recovered from the war, were still unable to take care of themselves, they still reached out to help, and they had money to donate money and materials to support Rabe's life.
Soon after, the appeal committee raised $100 million in legal tender, converted it into $2,000, and sent it to Rabe. However, at that time, even if there was money in Berlin, it was not necessary to buy food, and the mayor of Nanjing, Shen Yi, hurriedly bought a large amount of milk powder, sausages, jams and other foods from Switzerland to deliver to Rabe, and since then, she has sent a bag of food to Rabe every month.
Germany in the last century
Rabe, who had been treated unfairly from the Nazi Party in Germany, never imagined that he would once again feel the warmth of China in his lifetime. However, Rabe still did not survive the trials of the times, and died of illness on January 5, 1950.
There was only one line written on his tombstone: a good man, an indomitable man— John Rabe.
Since then, Rabe's name has disappeared from the eyes of everyone, until 1996, at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Conference held in New York, USA, a woman took out a 2,000-page "Rabe Diary" that held the Nanjing Massacre, only to reveal the truth of the Japanese invasion of China that year, this lady is Rabe's granddaughter Ursula, and John Rabe's name also appeared in people's vision again.
After more than half a century, the truth of the Nanjing Massacre was finally made public, and the hero who unfortunately died in the storm of the times also received the dignity and treatment he deserved.
It is worth mentioning that Thomas Rabe, the grandson of John Rabe, asked the Chinese Embassy in Germany for help in March 2020, saying that he and his family were suspected of being infected with new crown pneumonia, but there was no effective medicine in Germany.
The Nanjing government, which learned of this incident, raised 30,000 masks, 620 bottles of anti-epidemic drugs and more than 200 sets of protective clothing to send to Germany in a short period of time, and conveyed to him the cordial condolences of the Nanjing government and people.
Don't forget the national shame, and don't forget these heroes who helped China in times of crisis!