Nanjing Massacre

The Nanking Massacre (simplified Chinese: 南京大屠杀; traditional Chinese: 南京大屠殺, pinyin: Nánjīng Dàtúshā; Japanese: 南京大虐殺, Nankin Daigyakusatsu), also known as the Rape of Nanking and sometimes in Japan as the Nanking Incident (南京事件, Nankin Jiken), refers to the widespread atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in and around Nanking (now called Nanjing), at that time the capital of China, after it fell to Japanese troops on 13 December, 1937.

After the capture of Shanghai in October 1937, the Japanese army moved north and captured Nanking in the Battle of Nanking, on 13 December, 1937. By then the Chinese Nationalist army had fled the city and the Japanese entered the city virtually resistance free. More than 300,000 Chinese civilians had been killed. The time period of the massacre is not clearly defined, though the period of unruly carnage lasted well into 6 weeks after, until early February 1938.

As the term "Rape of Nanking" suggests, rape occurred after Nanking was captured. In addition to rape, war crimes committed during this episode include looting, arson and the killing of civilians and prisoners of war. It is not known how many Nationalist soldiers were trapped within the walled city and disguised themselves as civilians, but a large number of deaths also occurred to women and children. The extent of the atrocities is debated, with numbers ranging from the present Chinese Communist Party's claim of a non-combatant death toll of 300,000, to the claim of the Japanese army at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East that the death toll was military in nature, and that there were no organized massacres or atrocities carried out on civilians. In the death sentence against the commander of the Japanese army in Nanking, General Matsui Iwane, the number was set at 100,000.

The event continues to be a source of controversy between China and Japan. In Japan, opinion among the public is divided, with some sentiment, especially among conservatives, that the Nanking Massacre has been exaggerated (if not fabricated) as a diplomatic weapon directed against Japan despite eyewitness accounts and videos taken by Europeans on site. Some Japanese historians continue to maintain the Nanking Massacre is propaganda on the part of the Chinese Communist Party, although most Japanese people have now recognized that the atrocities did in fact occur. In China, however, the event is a major focal point of Chinese nationalism. Any attempts to question the Massacre's authenticity are considered historical revisionism, and as such, continue to generate anger and resentment.

Events leading to the Massacre

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 the reality of Japanese advances. However, in 1937, following the Xi'an Incident, the Chinese communists and nationalists agreed to form a united front. The KMT then formally started an all-out defense against the Japanese threat. 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. Despite their difficulties, it is likely that China fielded the largest army in the world at the time in terms of troop numbers. Following the Battle at Marco Polo Bridge, which formally started the Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese were swift in capturing major Chinese cities in the northeast.

The Massacre is considered to be the most infamous event in the Japanese invasion of China. In August of 1937, the Japanese army faced strong resistance and suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Shanghai, effectively destroying the possibility of conquering China in three months. The Battle in Shanghai was bloody as both sides faced attrition in urban hand-to-hand combat. Many historians today believe that the traumatic situation in Shanghai nurtured some of the psychological conditions for Japanese soldiers to later march on Nanking. By mid-November the Japanese had captured the city with help of naval bombardment. The General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo 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.

After losing the Battle of Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek knew the fall of Nanking would be simply a matter of time. Leaving General Tang Shengzhi in charge of the city for the Battle of Nanking, Chiang and many of his advisors flew to Chongqing, which became China's capital for the next seven years. Although walls of defense were constructed, they were never effectively used. In the absence of an organized retreat, the situation before the Japanese entered Nanking was chaotic. On December 13, the Japanese entered a city virtually free of any military resistance.

Japanese atrocities begin

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Heaps of dead bodies wait for disposal on the wharves of Hsiakwan (Xiaguan), the port suburb north of Nanking. (photographed by Murase Moriyasu, of the 17th Motorized Company of the Supply and Transport Regiment.)

Eyewitness accounts from the period state that over the course of six weeks following the fall of Nanking, Japanese troops engaged in an orgy of rape, murder, theft, and arson. The most reliable 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 Massacre survivors. Still more were gathered from eyewitnesses 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 16mm film documentary and first-hand photographs on the Massacre.

Immediately after the city's fall, a group of foreign expatriates headed by John Rabe 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. It is likely that the civilian death toll would have been much higher had this refugee zone not been formed. Rabe and another 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 constantly filed reports of complaints to the Japanese embassy.

The site of some of the most gruesome atrocities committed during the ordeal was the Nanking hospital. Bandages were torn from the flesh of the wounded, casts were smashed with clubs, and nurses were repeatedly raped.

Rape

Thirty girls were taken from language school last night, and today I have heard scores of heartbreaking stories of girls who were taken from their homes last night--one of the girls was but 12 years old....Tonight a truck passed in which there were eight or ten girls, and as it passed they called out "Ging ming! Ging ming!"--save our lives. (Minnie Vautrin's diary, Dec. 16, 1937)

It is a horrible story to relate; I know not where to begin nor to end. Never have I heard or read of such brutality. Rape: Rape: Rape: We estimate at least 1,000 cases a night and many by day. In case of resistance or anything that seems like disapproval there is a bayonet stab or a bullet. (James McCallum, letter to his family, Dec. 19, 1937)

Historians estimate that 20,000 (and sometimes up to 80,000) women from as young as seven to the elderly were raped. Rapes were often performed in public during the day, and often in front of spouses or family members. A large number of them were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door to door for young girls, with many women taken captive and then gang-raped, and then killed immediately after rape, often by mutilation. According to testimonies, other women were forced into military prostitution as comfort women. There are even stories of Japanese troops forcing families to commit acts of incest: sons were forced to rape their mothers, fathers were forced to rape daughters. One pregnant woman who was gang-raped by Japanese soldiers gave birth only a few hours later; miraculously, the baby was perfectly healthy (Robert B. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun). Monks who had declared a life of celibacy were forced to rape women for the amusement of the Japanese. Instances of Chinese men forced to commit sex with corpses were heard of during the occupation. Any resistance would be met with instant shootings. While the rape peaked immediately following the fall of the city, it continued for the duration of the Japanese occupation.

Murder

The slaughter of civilians is appalling. I could go on for pages telling of cases or rape and brutality almost beyond belief. Two bayoneted cases are the only survivors of seven street cleaners who were sitting in their headquarters when Japanese soldiers came in without warning or reason and killed five of their number and wounded the two that found their way to the hospital. (Robert Wilson, letter to his family, Dec. 15)

They not only killed every prisoner they could find but also a vast number of ordinary citizens of all ages.... Just day before yesterday we saw a poor wretch killed very near the house where we are living. (John Magee, letter to his wife, Dec. 19)

They [Japanese soldiers] bayoneted one little boy, killing him, and I spent an hour and a half this morning patching up another little boy of eight who had five bayonet wounds including one that penetrated his stomach, a portion of omentum was outside the abdomen. (Robert Wilson, letter to his family, Dec. 18)

Immediately following the fall of the city, Japanese troops embarked on a frenzied search for former soldiers, in which thousands of young men, civilian or otherwise, were captured. Many were taken to the Yangtze River, where they were machine-gunned so their bodies would be carried down to Shanghai. Thousands were led away and mass-executed in excavations known as "Ten Thousand Corpse Ditches". Others were reportedly used for live bayonet practice. Decapitation was a popular method of killing, while more drastic practices include burning, nailing to trees, or hanging by their tongues. Some people were beaten to death. The Japanese also summarily executed many pedestrians on the streets, mainly on pretext that they might be disguised soldiers in civilian clothing.

Women and children were not spared of the horrors of the massacres. Witnesses recall Japanese soldiers throwing babies into the air and catching them with their bayonets. Pregnant women were often the target of murder, as they would often be bayoneted in the belly, sometimes after rape. Many women were first brutally raped then killed.

Theft and arson

It is estimated that over one-third and as much as two-thirds 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 not only the wealthy but the poor as well. Japanese soldiers were given a free hand immediately following the fall of the city. This resulted in the widespread looting and burglary. General Matsui Iwane was given an art collection worth $2,000,000 that was stolen from a Shanghai banker. To aid the Japanese war effort, soldiers collected every bit of metal including hinges on doors following the United States embargo on scrap metal.

Death toll estimates

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In January 17, 1938, Foreign Minister Koki Hirota in Tokyo relayed the following message to his contacts in Washington, DC, a message that American intelligence intercepted, deciphered, and later translated into English on February 1, 1938. "Since returning (to) Shanghai a few days ago I investigated reported atrocities committed by Japanese army in Nanking and elsewhere. Verbal accounts (of) reliable eye-witnesses and letters from individuals whose credibility (is) beyond question afford convincing proof (that) Japanese Army behaved and (is) continuing to behave in (a) fashion reminiscent (of) Attila (and) his Huns. (Not) less than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians slaughtered, many cases (in) cold blood."

There is debate as to the extent of the war atrocities in Nanking, especially regarding estimates of the death toll. The issues involved in calculating the number of dead lay in defining the geographical range and time period of killing as well as the question of what "type" of killing is to be included in the definition of the term "massacre".

Geographical extent and the killing duration

On one side is the view that the geographical area of the incident should be limited to the few square kilometers of the city known as the Safety Zone, where the civilians congregate. Many Japanese historians seized upon the fact that during Japanese invasion there were only 200,000–250,000 citizens in Nanjing as reported by John Rabe, to argue that the CCP's estimate of 300,000 deaths is a vast exaggeration.

However many historians include a much larger area around the city. The Xianquan area is the suburbs of Nanjing city (which is about 66 miles), and including that region the combined population of suburban and urban Nanking runs to some 535,000 and 635,000 just prior to the Japanese occupation.[1] Because the entire Jiangsu province fell under the administration of Nanking, some historians also include six xian (counties) around Nanking starting from Suzhou, at the western edge of Jiangsu province, known as the Nanjing Special Municipality.

The period of the massacre, hence, is naturally defined by the geography of the massacre. 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 then defined the period of the massacre to the ensuing 6 weeks. Conservative estimates say the massacre started from December 14, when the troops entered the Safety Zone, and that it lasted for 6 weeks. Those 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. As a result, the number of people killed swells significantly.

Prisoners of war debate

Another point of debate is the question of whom to count as the victims of Japanese atrocities. Historians agree that the Japanese army indiscriminately killed many civilians in Nanking city, and that these should be counted in the death toll of the massacre. Over the course of the campaign through China, the Japanese army did not take prisoners of war and summarily executed Chinese soldiers during or after combat. Moreover, the army executed plain-clothed guerilla combatants who were hiding among civilians. It is unclear how many innocent civilians were wrongly accused of being guerilla combatants and were dispatched in this manner.

To make matters more difficult, archival evidence such as burial records only state the body count and not which type of group to which each body belonged. Therefore, it provides no means to distinguish whether bodies were the result of "legitimate" or "illegitimate" killing. Many different categories of varying legitimacy exist: soldiers killed during combat, surrendered soldiers summarily executed after the battle, plain-clothed guerilla combatants, plain-clothed soldiers hiding among civilians, civilians wrongly suspected of being guerrila combatants, or those bystanders attacked during the period of indiscriminate killing, rape and looting (which all the scholars deem to be illegitimate).

Various estimates

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East or the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal, stated the death toll of the Nanking Massacre as ranging between 200,000 and 300,000. The death toll of 300,000 is the official estimate engraved on the stone wall at the entrance of the "Memorial Hall for Compatriot Victims of the Japanese Military's Nanking Massacre" in Nanjing.

In 1947 at the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal, the verdict of Lieutenant General Tani Hisao, the commander of the 6th Division quoted the figure of more than 300,000 death tolls. Apparently this estimate was made from burial records and eyewitness accounts. It concluded that some 190,000 were illegally executed at various execution sites and 150,000 were individually massacred. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated in its judgment that "over 200,000" or "over 100,000" civilians and prisoners of war were murdered during the first six weeks of the Japanese occupation. That number was based on burial records submitted by two charitable organizations, the Red Swastika Society and the Chung Shan Tang (Tsung Shan Tong), the research done by Smythe and some estimates given by survivors.

At the Tokyo Tribunal of War Criminals, the Nanking Massacre death toll was presented either as "more than 200,000" or "more than 100,000".

Modern historians like Kasahara Tokushi at Tsuru University and Fujiwara Akira, a professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University, take into account the entire Nanjing Special Municipality, which consisted of the walled city and its neighboring six counties, came up to an estimate approaching or over 200,000. Other Japanese historians, depending on their definition of the geographical and time duration of the killings, place the death toll on a much wider scale from 40,000 to 300,000. In China today most estimates of the Nanking Massacre range from 200,000 to 400,000, with no notable historian going below 100,000.

Historiography and debate

Presently China and Japan have acknowledged the existence of war atrocities. However, disputes over the historical portrayal of events has been at the root of continuing political tensions between China and Japan.

Widespread atrocities committed by the Japanese in Nanking were first reported to the world by the Westerners residing in Nanking city's Safety Zone. For instance, on January 11, 1938, a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, Harold Timperley, apparently tried to cable a similar estimate but was censored by the Japanese authorities in Shanghai because his report said that "not less than 300,000 Chinese civilians" were slaughtered in cold blood in "Nanjing and elsewhere." His message was relayed from Shanghai to Tokyo to be sent out to the Japanese Embassies in Europe and the United States. Also, dramatic reports by American journalists of Japanese brutality against Chinese civilians, in addition to the Panay incident which also occurred after the occupation of Nanjing, helped turn American public opinion against Japan and, in part, led to a series of events which culminated in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

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Two Japanese sublieutenants, Toshiaki Mukai and Tuyoshi Noda said to be competing with each other to see who could kill one hundred Chinese first. The bold headline said, "Contest to Kill First 100 Chinese with Sword Extended When Both Fighters Exceed Mark — Mukai Scores 106 and Noda 105"

Post-1972 Japanese interest

Interest in the Nanking Massacre did not renew until 1972, the year China and Japan normalized their relationship. In China, to foster the newly found friendship to Japan, the Communist Government under Mao Zedong ostensibly suppressed the mention of the Nanking Massacre from public discourse and the media, which the Communist Party directly controlled. Therefore, the entire debate on the Nanking massacre during the 1970s took place in Japan. In commemoration of the normalization, one major Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, ran serialized articles titled "Chugoku no Tabi" ("Travel to China"), written by journalist Katsuichi Honda, which detailed the atrocities of the Japanese Army within China, including the Nanking Massacre. In the series, Honda mentioned an episode in which two officers competed to slay 100 Chinese with their swords. The truth of this incident is hotly disputed and critics seized on the opportunity to imply that the episode, as well as the Nanking Massacre and all its accompanying articles, were largely falsified. This is regarded as the start of the Nanking Massacre controversy in Japan.

The debate concerning the occurrence of killings and rapes took place mainly in the 1970s, during which Chinese official statements about the event came under attack because they relied heavily on personal testimonies and anecdotal evidence. Also coming under attack were the burial records presented in the Tokyo War Crime Court, which were said to be fabrications by the Chinese side of the debate.

The Ienaga textbook incident

The controversy flared up again in 1982 when the Ministry of Education censored any mention of the Nanking Massacre in a school textbook. The reason given by the ministry was that the Nanking Massacre was not a well-established historical event. The author of the textbook, Professor Saburō Ienaga, sued the Ministry of Education in an extended case that was eventually won by the plaintiff in 1997.

Also, a number of cabinet ministers as well as some high-ranking politicians made comments denying atrocities committed by the Japanese army in the World War II and were subsequently forced to resign after protests from China and South Korea. In response, a number of journalists and historians formed the Nankin Jiken Chōsakai (Nanjing Incident Research Group). The research group collected large quantities of archival materials as well as testimonies from both Chinese and Japanese sources. A competing group with a revisionist bent was headed by Masaaki Tanaka. However, the debate ended in the collapse of the revisionist side. In his presentation of the denial argument, Tanaka presented the diary of General Iwane Matsui. It was revealed that Tanaka altered, deleted or even added his own writing in nearly 600 places to support his contention that the Nanjing Massacre had never occurred. The falsification was discovered by historian Yoshiaki Itakura. Itakura himself was much closer to the revisionist side, but he severely criticized Tanaka's distortion. Moreover, Japanese imperial army records, as well as a number of personal records by Japanese soldiers reporting the killings and rapes, made denial impossible in the public forum. One Japanese veteran group for army officers attempted to disprove the massacre by conducting a survey among the members who participated in the Nanjing campaign but their attempt ended up as proving the existence of the massacre beyond doubt.

Chinese and international historiography

On the Chinese side, the public perception of the Nanking Massacre and Japan itself turned around after first Deng Xiaoping and then Jiang Zemin became the heads of state. Historically, Chinese nationalism and the legitimacy of the communist government are defined by their struggle against the Japanese aggressor and their eventual victory. Since the 1980s China began to openly cover reports and encourage research of the Massacre by scholars, as well as building the Nanking Massacre Memorial Hall at Jiangdong Gate to commemorate victims in 1985.

The controversy was related outside Japan by some journalists who followed the domestic debate but interest in the West remained muted until the publication of The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang in 1997. Even though the standard of historical research was described as highly flawed by both sides of the debate in Japan, it did bring the controversy to a much wider Western audience. Chang made public the diaries of Minnie Vautrin and John Rabe, leading to their eventual dissemination to the public. John Rabe's diaries were first published in German in 1997 and then translated into English in 1998.

Current situation in Japan

In Japan, as far as Japanese academics are concerned, the controversy over the existence of atrocities ended in the early 1990s. Both sides accept that killings did occur; however, disagreement exists over the actual numbers, which depends on the standard of inclusion of archival or anecdotal evidence, definition of the period of the massacre, as well as geographical coverage.

Currently, no notable group, including right-wing nationalists, deny the occurrence of the killings and the debate has shifted mainly to the death toll, to the extent of rapes and civilian killings (as opposed to POW and suspected guerrillas) and to the appropriateness of using the word "massacre". Apologists insist that burial records from the Red Swastika Society and the Chung Shan Tang (Tsung Shan Tong) were never cross-examined at the Tokyo and Nanjing trials, arguing therefore that the estimates derived from these two sets of records should be heavily discounted. They also admit that personal records of Japanese soldiers do suggest the occurrence of rapes, but insist that this does not determine the extent of rapes. Moreover, they regard personal testimonies from the Chinese side to be propaganda. They also point out that there are no documented records of the rapes, unlike the burial records that exist and document the killings, and therefore argue that the assertion of mass rape is unsubstantiated. They further insist that the majority of those killed were POWs and "suspected guerrillas", which they consider to be legitimate killing, so that the use of descriptive word "massacre" is inappropriate.

However, within the public the debate still continues. Those downplaying the massacre have most recently rallied around a group of academic and journalists associated with the Society for the Creation of New Textbooks. Their views are often shared in publications associated with right-wing publishers such as Bungei Shunjū and Sankei Shuppan. In response, two Japanese organizations have taken the lead in publishing material detailing the massacre and collecting related documents and accounts. The Study Group on the Nanjing Incident, founded by a group of historians in 1984, has published the most books responding directly to revisionist historians; the Center for Research and Documentation on Japan's War Responsibility, founded in 1993, has published many materials in its own journal. Like the academics, the general Japanese public are also divided in their opinions of the Massacre. While young Japanese were now taught that atrocities did occur, many continue to believe that the Massacre is hugely exaggerated in both scale and number by Chinese politicians using it as an offensive charge to scupper Japan's reputation in the world community. As such some continue to question the veracity of the Massacre's evidence, as seen in proliferation of private websites set up for nationalistic purposes. Other Japanese severely criticize this attitude and urge widespread admission of Japanese war crimes by active compensation of war victims.

The Society for the Creation of New Textbooks produced history textbooks for junior high school and submitted them to the Ministry of Education. The Ministry ordered corrections in 137 places. After the corrections, the book passed the 2001 inspection. This has again caused fury from Korea and China, both sides demanding reinspection. The book was published and wrongly appeared to be a best-seller, because of the systematic distribution of most of the 750,000 copies by the Society for the Creation of New Textbooks. However the 2002 rate of adoption of this textbook in schools was only 0.039%.

In October 2004, the Japanese manga comic book "Kuni ga Moeru" or "The Country is Burning" by Hiroshi Motomiya was suspended from the manga anthology Weekly Shonen Jump because it "depicted the Nanking Atrocities as 'real.'" Certain Japanese politicians and civilians wanted the manga censored or removed because they claimed that the incident never occurred and there was no proof of it. "Kuni ga Moeru" is a historical fiction about a Japanese bureaucrat during the Showa Era (1926-1989). The controversy arose when the author copied a photograph from the time, emphasizing the Japanese uniforms on the soldiers. these politicians claim the photo's authenticity cannot be verified and thus incited cries that the author distorted the history. Additionally, nationalist comics denying the occurrence of this and other Japanese war crimes have been published in Japan and are enjoying a large readership^[2].

External links

Never Forget - Historical Facts of Nanjing Massacre.
Online documentary: The Nanking Atrocities, Timothy Takemoto — Comprehensive account of the Nanjing Massacre including photos, video clips, interviews, and documented materials.
Nanjing Massacre Memory Hall
An English translation of a classified Chinese document on the Nanjing Massacre
Princeton University's exhibit on the massacre — Contains a gallery of the atrocities.
Japanese Army's Atrocities - Nanjing Massacre — Contains archived documents including photos and maps.
WWW Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre
Research Institute of Propaganda Photos (Machine translation of Japanese site)
A Japanese Historiography of the Nanjing Massacre — Details the transpirations of history revisionism in the Japanese media, research done by Columbia University.
New Research on the Nanjing Incident — Detailed article by David Askew Discussing New Research on the Massacre and its Victims
Refutation by Tanaka Masaaki
The Nanking Atrocities by S. Raines & J.P. Banas — Warning, there are many explicit photos
Genocide in the 20th Century The Rape of Nanking 1937-1938
One final victim of the Rape of Nanking? — Iris Chang
CNN news: For Chinese, 1937 not far away
Japan Today - New evidence of Rape of Nanking atrocity