Memorial Hall of compatriots killed in Nanjing by the Japanese invasion of China
As we all know, the influence of the Nanjing Massacre in the international arena is not as great as that of the Jewish Massacre. But what is less well known is that in 1938-1947, the Nanjing Massacre was more influential in Western countries than the Jewish Holocaust. It was not until the founding of New China in 1949, especially in the 1960s, that a fundamental change took place. It was not until 1983 that the investigation and study of the Nanjing Massacre was resumed in China, and in 2014, the National Day of Commemoration was established, which became an international day of remembrance. This requires an understanding of the international propaganda history of the Nanjing Massacre.
On December 15, 1937, the Chicago Daily News first reported on the Nanjing Massacre
First, foreign media first reported on the Nanjing Massacre
On December 15, 1937, the first page of the Chicago Daily News in the United States first publicly reported on the Nanjing Massacre, and the term "Nanjing Massacre" was the first to be used. "When we left Nanjing, the last scene we saw was a group of three hundred Chinese executed in an orderly manner in front of the city wall on the river, where the bodies were knee-high." On December 17, New York Times reporter Tillman M. Du Yu sent a special message from the warship "Aohu" that the massacre of civilians is extremely common. On Wednesday (December 15), foreigners walked around the city and found dead civilians on every street. Some of them are elderly men, some women, some children." "The Japanese looting has reached the level of looting the whole city. Almost every house was broken into by Japanese soldiers, and they often grabbed things at will under the eyes of officers. The Japanese also forced Chinese to pick up the items they had stolen." Lu Dongpinghui compiled "Nanjing Massacre: Eyewitness Reports of British and Americans", Hongqi Publishing House, 1999, pp. 74, pp. 86-87.
Although these foreign media reports are relatively fragmented, they have not attracted enough attention in the international community. But let the world see the truth of the Nanjing Massacre for the first time, and reach a consensus among international public opinion on the fact of the Nanjing Massacre.
Leader of the Chinese War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression - Chiang Kai-shek
Second, Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang led the first wave of international propaganda for the Nanjing Massacre
At present, scholars generally believe that at the end of January 1938, Chiang Kai-shek learned the truth of the Nanjing Massacre. His diary wrote on January 22, 1938: "The murder and adultery of the Wokou in Beijing were not over, and Hegu was in a quagmire and in a dilemma, and the suffering of my compatriots was extremely high." On March 5, 1938, Jiang wrote in his diary: "The enemy army slaughtered all the strong men near Nanjing, and the pain was extreme. ”
This quickly provoked the vengeful anger of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang. The Sino-Soviet Air Force and later the Sino-US Joint Air Force began to bombard the Japanese forces in Nanjing, and the guerrillas behind enemy lines of the Nationalist forces around Nanjing, the New Fourth Army and the third-party armed forces also continued to harass the Japanese army. At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the organization of the foreign propaganda department and the political department of the Military Commission to go all out to expose and publicize the truth of the Nanjing Massacre to the world.
During the War of Resistance, under extremely difficult circumstances. The International Propaganda Department of the Nationalist Government sent self-taken photographs of the atrocities taken by officers and men of the Japanese army as ironclad evidence of the massacre to various newspapers and periodicals at home and abroad, and played a great propaganda role. In March 1938, the organization sent four international friends to Tokyo, Japan, to secretly publicize the truth of the Holocaust to the Japanese people. At the same time, the International Propaganda Office learned that Tian Bolie had written the English book "What War Means: The Atrocities of the Japanese Army in China", and immediately sent personnel to visit. On the one hand, he supported Tian Bolie's plan to publish in the United Kingdom, and hoped that he would go to the United States to publish the book. On the other hand, the purchase of the book from another Chinese the copyright of the translation and the purchase of the original English manuscript of the book. Tian Bolie agreed indignantly and gave a copy of the original English manuscript to the International Publicity Office. In mid-June, the International Propaganda Department invited Guo Moruo, director of the Third Political Department of the Central Military Commission, to write a preface to the Chinese translation. In order to publish this book quickly and expand its influence. Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Quartermaster Department of the Central Military Commission to allocate special funds for publication and printing, which was strongly supported by the "Sweeping Newspaper" newspaper. After the publication, the International Propaganda Office decided to publish it under the name of "Hankou National Publishing House", and the translator signed Yang Ming. On the eve of the first anniversary of the July 77 War of Resistance in July 1938, almost at the same time that the English version of the book was published in London, it was officially published; the first batch of 10,000 copies. As of September 20 of the same year, a total of 60,000 copies of the book had been printed. After the Nationalist government moved west to Chongqing, the book was reprinted again, with a total print run of 100,000 copies. The book was also translated into Japanese and published under the title "So-called War", and the first issue of the book featured a preface written by the famous Japanese anti-war writer Kazuo Aoyama, accompanied by photographs of The atrocities committed by the Japanese army, and distributed 10,000 copies in Hong Kong, Shanghai and overseas.
In addition, in January of that year, Tian Bolie, together with the American pastor George Feige, edited the video footage of the Massacre taken by the Reverend John Maggie in Nanjing. The United States and Britain also managed to screen the documentary "Nanjing Atrocities Documentary" exposing the Nanjing Massacre, which became one of the ironclad evidence of the Nanjing Massacre.
In order to expose the atrocities of the Japanese invasion of China to the whole world, the Committee for the Study of International Studies organized a well-known expert Xu Shuxi to write three English works exposing the atrocities of the Japanese invasion of China, namely: The War Conduct of the Japanese, A Digest of Japanes War Conduct and Documentations of the Theory Nanking Safety Zone, Limited (Nanjing Safety Zone Archives). These three English works became the most important treatises exposing the atrocities of the Japanese invasion of China and were the most important treatises on the Nanjing Massacre at that time. The International Propaganda Office published it quickly and widely distributed it in Western countries, playing an important role in the foreign propaganda of The Chinese War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and exerting considerable influence.
It is worth noting that on 15 November 1938, the cargo ship HMS Dalfram sailed into Pier 4 of the Port of Cambera, New South Wales, Australia. Word spread among dockers: the ship would be loaded with pig iron from a nearby steel mill at the port of Cambera and shipped to Japan. And these pig iron will be used to make guns, cannons, ammunition, and used in Japan's war of aggression against China.
Organized by the local dockers' union, the South Coast Union, 180 dockworkers at Port Cambera refused to ship pig iron to the Dalfram, and the crew of the Dalfram subsequently joined the strike. Under pressure from the Australian government, mining giant Rio Tinto and the Japanese government, the striking workers persisted for 10 weeks, and finally succeeded in forcing the Australian government to announce that it would no longer export pig iron to Japan. The righteous act of the strike of the workers in port Cambera was aided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the National Government; it helped them to persist to the end.
This incident quickly caused great repercussions in the United States, Canada, European Chinese and overseas Chinese and local people. Various countries launched a huge demonstration in support of China's resistance to Japanese aggression and against Japan's atrocities. This has created a wave of sympathy and assistance to China in its fight against the tyranny in the Western world. It has greatly damaged the international image of the Japanese government, and Japan's diplomacy has also fallen into a more isolated situation. Formed the first wave of international spread of the Nanjing Massacre.
At this time, although Germany adopted a policy of persecution of Jews, it did not carry out mass murder. With the outbreak of the Soviet-German War in 1941, Germany began a large-scale "purging" of European Jews. However, due to the relative secrecy, and the outside world pays more attention to the war in Europe. Therefore, it was not until January 1945, after the Soviet Union liberated Auschwitz, that the massacre and atrocities were made public. It has attracted the attention of the whole world. With the defeat of Germany, the world began to study the Holocaust of the Jews in World War II. But the influence and intensity are not as good as the Nanjing Massacre.
After the war, the Nationalist government investigated the Nanjing Massacre
Third, before and after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Nationalist Government made a preliminary investigation into the Nanjing Massacre
As early as February 1944, the Nationalist government in Chongqing was preparing to liquidate Japanese fascist crimes after the war. The Enemy Crime Investigation Committee and the War of Resistance Loss Investigation Committee were set up successively to investigate the Nanjing Massacre.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Nationalist government also made nanjing; in addition to intensifying the propaganda of the Nanjing Massacre, it also comprehensively opened up the study and investigation of the Massacre. Chiang Kai-shek issued a proclamation calling on the citizens of the capital to present to the government in the form of a letter the pain of persecution by the Japanese army. Jiang explicitly mentioned the "massacre" in his announcement. The proclamation said: "Looking back at the beginning of the War of Resistance, the enemy launched a fierce offensive against our capital, and during the period of the fall, the enemy, in addition to carrying out massacres, repeatedly exploited traitors and hypocrites to exploit and exploit, enslave and oppress, and did everything to the extreme, while my compatriots were in a dark and painful situation, which lasted for eight years,...... The families of the soldiers and civilians who were martyred under the massacre of the enemy have not been satisfied for a day, and the remaining responsibilities have not been exhausted for a day. ...... All my compatriots, who have experienced the tragedy of the massacre of the day and under the oppression of the enemy and the violence of the enemy and the hypocrites, have suffered all kinds of perversions, and Yu is willing to know in detail the facts and the mastermind of the massacre and oppression,...... Once ascertained to be true, they shall be sentenced to trial separately for war crimes..." (JoongAng Daily, December 21, 1945)
Later, Chiang Kai-shek summoned Chen Yuguang, president of Jinling University in Nanjing, and ordered him to promote the investigation of the Nanjing Massacre. From 1946 to 1949, the Nanjing authorities of the Nationalist government set up three special investigation agencies.
1. "Nanjing Committee for investigating enemy crimes"
The agency was the first to be formed. By February 1946, more than 500 documents had been obtained, involving 295882 kinds of crimes such as massacre, injury, rape, robbery, sabotage, and compulsory service committed by the Japanese army in Nanjing.
2. "Nanjing Anti-Japanese War Loss Committee"
The organization's investigation found that during the Japanese occupation, All kinds of property lost in Nanjing were equivalent to 2 trillion yuan in legal tender.
3. "Nanjing Massacre Enemy Crime Investigation Committee"
The agency's task is to collect evidence of the Holocaust "for dedication to the Tribunal of the Far East". Through its investigation, it was found that there were 2784 cases of corroboration in the massacre, including 1159 shootings, 667 assassinations, 315 mass killings, 136 burnings, 19 rapes and then killings, and 19 explosions.
In 1947, the Nationalist government designated December 13 as the "Anniversary of the Loyalty of Kyo City", and held its first public ceremony on December 13 of the same year. In particular, on March 10, 1947, the Military Tribunal for the Trial of War Criminals of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense announced in the "Judgment on the Case of Gu Shoufu War Criminals", "The captured soldiers and civilians were collectively shot by the Japanese army with machine guns and burned the corpses to exterminate the traces, including Shan Yaoting and more than 190,000 people." In addition, there were sporadic massacres, and more than 150,000 of their bodies were buried by charitable institutions. The total number of victims reached more than 300,000." It is based on the Enemy Crime Investigation Committee, the Anti-Japanese War Loss Investigation Committee, the Nanjing Enemy Crime Investigation Committee, the War Criminals Handling Committee, and the Military Tribunal for the Trial of War Criminals established by the National Government of Chongqing in February 1944 before the victory of the War of Resistance. After three years, testimony and evidence were widely collected among the public, and the final nanjing massacre case file was formed, "counting a total of 2784 cases with confirmed witnesses". Among them, "886 cases of murder by the Japanese army are recorded." It can be said that the results of the investigation are serious and the evidence is conclusive. It also laid the foundation for the final academic community to determine that the number of victims of the Nanjing Massacre was "more than 300,000".
Unfortunately, with the defeat of the Kuomintang civil war, the investigation was forced to be suspended, and it failed to leave sufficient original materials for future generations. After chiang kai-shek and the Kuomintang defeated Taiwan, the National History Museum in Taipei, the Academia Sinica, and the taiwanese historical circles never interrupted the study and propaganda of the Nanjing Massacre. However, with the signing of the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty in 1952, the Nationalist government was subject to the threat of the United States and the confrontation between the two sides of the strait. Forced to abandon its claims against Japan, the study and propaganda of the Nanjing Massacre was weakened. Coupled with its remoteness, its propaganda is difficult to have an important impact on the international community. When moving to Taiwan, a large number of historical materials were lost; resulting in irreparable losses in the study of the Nanjing Massacre.
Fourth, after the founding of New China, the "rumors" and "strange theories" of the Nanjing Massacre under the influence of politics
After the founding of New China in 1949, due to the manipulation of the United States after the war, the Japanese government illegally signed a "peace treaty" with the so-called Taiwan authorities to implement a policy of hostility toward New China. Therefore, after the 1950s, the Nanjing Massacre entered the history textbook. For example, the 1950 party history textbook "History of China's New Democratic Revolution (First Draft)" and the 1957 "Human-Taught Edition" secondary school textbook "Chinese History" volume 4 have content about the Holocaust. Since then, the textbooks of "Modern Chinese History" compiled by various colleges and universities have also been devoted to the Nanjing Massacre. However, due to the recent outbreak of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea and the construction of New China, the domestic investigation of the Nanjing Massacre basically continued the results of the Nationalist Government's investigation and did not restart the investigation. External propaganda is also subject to long-term blockade.
However, in the 1960s, the propaganda of sino-Soviet "hostilities" and "joint resistance to the Soviet Union" and "Nanjing Massacre" was completely swayed by politics. Amid slogans such as "opposing the United States supporting and arming Japan," there were even rumors in China that "opposing the United States supporting and arming Japan," and even rumors appeared that the Nanjing Massacre was "the United States and Chiang Kai-shek jointly smeared the military discipline of the Japanese army." The "Nanjing Massacre" is often combined with "US imperialism." The most typical case is that european and American friends who had rescued refugees were accused of "naming American devils and Japanese devils executing", such as Professor Peter Of jinling University, who was slandered as "participating in the massacre in Nanjing at that time." While spreading pro-Japanese ideas to his classmates at JinDa, he colluded with the Japanese Kou and handed over a large number of Chinese refugees to the Japanese Kou in the name of "recruiting people to work", so that the Japanese Kou massacred en masse" ("Jinling University's Complaint against US Imperialism", People's Daily, January 31, 1951); in fact, during the Nanjing Massacre, Mr. Beders participated in the protection of Chinese refugees in the Nanjing International Safety Zone. He was one of the initiators and organizers of the Nanjing International Safety Zone Committee, and later served as a member and chairman of the Nanjing International Relief Committee; he protected countless Chinese in Nanjing. In 1946, he testified before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East against the numerous crimes committed by the Japanese army in the city of Nanjing. He was one of the most important witnesses to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and the Nanjing Massacre Trial.
In the early 1970s, China was motivated by political considerations for establishing diplomatic relations with Japan and the United States and resisting the Soviet Union. He gave up his claims against Japan and deliberately downplayed the Nanjing Massacre and other atrocities of the Japanese invasion of China. For example, Mei Ruxuan's article "On the Incidents of Gu Shoufu, Matsui Ishigen and the Nanjing Massacre" was accused of inciting "ethnic hatred" and "advocating war revenge".
Coupled with the impact of successive movements, a large number of victims of the Nanjing Massacre and the sites of the martyrs of the Nanjing Defense War were completely destroyed; the survivors of the Massacre and the veterans of the Nanjing Defense War were persecuted again. This caused irreparable losses to the study of the Nanjing Massacre. It can be said that the Nanjing Massacre was a forgotten or deliberately erased history in China for a long time!
1993 Oscar-winning film Schindler's List
Just when the country was in the dark of the "Cultural Revolution", after the war, the United States, Britain, France and other Western countries sympathized with Jews, as well as Germany, Italy's defeated countries, out of repentance of world war II crimes, and strived to regain international acceptance. Full support for the Restoration, but because the Jews are busy with the Restoration. Research into the Holocaust stalled for nearly 20 years. Until the "Six-Day War" in the Middle East in 1967, Israel won a complete victory. After a thorough foothold in the Middle East, it began to take advantage of the sympathy of the Western world and the support of the United States and Britain for global strategic considerations, as well as the support of the Jews around the world. Fully promote the investigation, research, protection and publicity of the history of the Jewish Holocaust, and soon the influence will exceed that of the Nanjing Massacre. By the 1990s, more than 170 Jewish Holocaust films had emerged internationally. It played a vital role in the global dissemination and promotion of the history of the Holocaust of Jews in World War II, and quickly became a research hotspot in the international academic community.
Fifth, the rise of Japan's right-wing has promoted the restart of investigation and research on the Nanjing Massacre in China
In 1982, there was a textbook tampering incident in Japan, which claimed that the Cause of the Nanjing Massacre was "the stubborn resistance of the Chinese army." Since 1983, the Nanjing Municipal CPC Committee and the Nanjing Municipal Government have been directly responsible for the establishment of the "Nanjing Massacre" history, the establishment of the "Nanjing Massacre" leading group and the "Nanjing Massacre" historical materials editorial committee, and the first cultural relics census since 1949; after four years of efforts, finally built the Nanjing Massacre Compatriots Memorial Hall, set up 13 monuments, and published many supporting books. At the same time, after in-depth investigation and research, a public announcement with a new connotation was formed, that is, the number of victims of the Nanjing Massacre was more than 300,000.
In the 1990s, a large number of first-hand archives and documentary materials about the Nanjing Massacre emerged at home and abroad, such as the statistics of the Mantetsu Archives on the burial of red swastikas in the Liaoning Provincial Archives, the materials on the atrocities of the Japanese army invading China in Nanjing, the records of the burial of the red swastika in and around Nanjing collected by the Shanghai Archives, the literature on the Nanjing Massacre collected by the Yale Society College Library in the United States, and the testimonies of the newly discovered survivors of the Nanjing Massacre; A number of influential foreign diaries, such as The Diary of Weitlin, have also been discovered and officially published. However, at this time, China was busy with reform and opening up, and there was a strong demand for economic cooperation with Japan. Therefore, attention, publicity and research are not enough, and they have not had an important impact in the world.
Zhang Chunru is a tombstone for ms. Zhang Chunru
Sixth, Zhang Chunru ignited the second wave of propaganda of the Nanjing Massacre
Until 1997, the "angel of justice" Zhang Chunru turned out to be born. Finally, the truth of the Nanjing Massacre was once again pushed to the center of global public opinion and academic circles.
Zhang Chunru is a native of Huai'an, Jiangsu Province. A Chinese-American journalist who was influenced by his father in 1994 and began collecting historical materials after seeing photographs of the Nanjing Massacre for the first time. In December 1997, "Nanjing Massacre: The Forgotten Catastrophe of World War II" was published, which occupied the New York Times bestseller list for more than ten weeks, sensationalized the world, and once again gave the international community a comprehensive understanding of the truth of the Nanjing Massacre during World War II. In August 1999, "The Nanjing Massacre: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II" was filmed on an American television program; it caused a major reaction in the United States.
However, due to the long-term collection of evidence of the Nanjing Massacre, he was shocked by the shocking truth. She suffered from severe depression, coupled with long-standing threats and harassment by the Japanese right; she committed suicide in the United States on November 9, 2004. In 2008, the documentary "Nanjing Havoc", which he filmed with his book, was released worldwide. On November 9, 2019, Zhang Chunru Park was unveiled in San Jose, USA. On the low wall of the park is engraved Zhang Chunru's famous saying, "Words are the only carrier for preserving the essence of the soul."
In addition, it should be noted that Zhang Chunru's works have been controversial in the field of history, the main controversy is that Zhang Chunru was born as a social and political journalist; he lacked basic historical research and research ability. In collecting evidence of the Holocaust; no in-depth research, dialectics. In particular, the failure to comprehensively study the authoritative experts and historical works of Japanese historians has led to the defects in the scientific and rigorous nature of his works. But she opened a new era of comprehensive research on the history of the Nanjing Massacre and dissemination. He has made outstanding contributions to the study, protection, and dissemination of the Holocaust. Since then, the study of the Nanjing Massacre has gradually attracted attention in international public opinion and historical circles, and a large number of domestic and foreign data collections and monographs have been published. Including Japanese historians with conscience, they also made important contributions to the study of the historical truth of the Nanjing Massacre. Since Professor Tomoo Tomio, a pioneer in the history of the Nanjing Massacre in Japan, Ms. Matsuoka Kane, Mr. Katsuichi Honda, and Mr. Higashi Shiro, a veteran of the invasion of China, etc. In particular, Mr. Katsuichi Honda, a well-known reporter of Japan's "Asahi Shimbun," was the first reporter in Japan to stand up and comprehensively cover and expose the Japanese army's crimes of invading China. It caused a shock in Japan.
However, subject to various factors such as politics, coupled with busy economic construction, propaganda efforts are still insufficient and there are many problems in history education. Until the past decade or so, the Japanese government and society have shifted seriously to the right. In particular, in 2012, the Japanese government unilaterally declared the "nationalization" of China's Diaoyu Islands in spite of cross-strait opposition. The emergence of domestic elites has triggered an unprecedented crisis in Chinese society in the study of the history of the Nanjing Massacre and propaganda. In 2014, the Nanjing Massacre National Memorial Day was established, which pushed the research and publicity of the Nanjing Massacre to the national level, which quickly attracted unprecedented attention from the international community. This played a major role in the study, protection and publicity of the Nanjing Massacre. But it should be noted that due to the gap of forty or fifty years, there is still a huge gap with the influence, research and protection of the Holocaust in World War II.