If you've studied World War II-era history for a minute or two,
you've probably asked yourself the following: Could you be a stalwart Nazi and a good bloke at
the very same time? Even if we were to ignore the famous Oskar Schindler, the answer is still "Yes,
to a degree." In this video, we delve into the story of another "good Nazi,"
John Heinrich Detlef Rabe, whose actions in China saved a whole lot of innocent lives.
Rabe
came out of his mumma in Hamburg, Germany, in November 1882. Becoming a businessman,
he travelled to China in 1908, and by 1910, Siemens AG had employed him as a clerk.
He worked for Siemens in various cities in China and ultimately ended up in Nanjing or,
as most know it, Nanking. Here, he was appointed managing director, and set up telephone and
electrical infrastructure. When the Nazi Party came to power, Rabe was all aboard that train,
serving as the Deputy Group Leader of the Nazi Party in Nanking.
In 1937, the fighting between China and Japan resumed with the Second Sino-Japanese War,
which some argue marked the true start of World War II. After capturing Shanghai in November 1937,
the Imperial Japanese Army seized Nanking in early December. During the Battle of Nanking, in which
some 100,000 Chinese and Soviets failed to defend Nanking from around 200,000 Japanese troops, the
Japanese bombed the city from the sky. These raids may not have succeeded in neutralising the Chinese
Air Force, as was intended, but they scared the hell out of the civilians living in Nanking.
All but 22 of the foreigners living in the city ran away. Rabe, of course, remained—despite the
enemy imploring him to leave. In response to a Japanese major asking Rabe to leave Nanking,
Rabe said, "If I had spent 30 years in Japan and were treated just as well by the Japanese people,
you can be assured that I would not leave the side of the people in Japan."
In fact, Rabe was so set on staying and helping the locals that he worked with 14 other foreigners
in Nanking to create the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone,
for which he was elected leader. The committee's other members included German, American, British,
and Danish businessmen, professors, missionaries, and doctors. Their game plan was to create and
manage a demilitarized safety zone in Nanking, an area of roughly five square kilometres or
two square miles, containing 25 refugee camps, the city's foreign embassies, and Nanking University.
According to one of Rabe's diary entries, collated in the 1998 biography The Good Man of Nanking,
"There is a question of morality here. I cannot bring myself for now to betray the trust these
people have put in me, and it is touching to see how they believe in me." Rabe even implored the
Führer for help in establishing the Safety Zone. In a telegram meant to be passed on to the Führer,
Rabe said, "Deputy Group Leader Nanking asks his Führer kindly to intercede with
the Japanese government to grant permission for a neutral zone for noncombatants."
While much of the Chinese military left the Nanking Safety Zone, there were still
Chinese troops in the area, the Japanese didn't wholly respect the foreign committee's wishes,
and Hitler didn't reply. As the Japanese raped and burned Nanking, killing as many as 300,000 Chinese
civilians, they made a number of incursions into the Safety Zone. This was after the remaining
Chinese troops were ordered out of the zone on the 1st of December 1937, properly demilitarising
it. Rabe addressed these incursions in letters to the Japanese Army and members of the Japanese
Embassy. On the 17th and 18th of December, he wrote, "[We] were totally surprised by the reign
of robbery, raping and killing initiated by your soldiers on the 14th. The sufferings and needs of
the 200,000 civilians for whom we are trying to care make it urgent that we try to secure action
from your military authorities to stop the present disorder among Japanese soldiers wandering through
the Safety Zone. Yesterday, in broad daylight, several women at the Seminary were raped right
in the middle of a large room filled with men, women, and children!" On other occasions, the
Japanese would enter the zone, drag a few hundred people out of it, and then rape and murder them.
Yet, despite these incursions, Rabe and the rest of the committee were able to stave the
Japanese off enough to allow between 200,000 and 250,000 civilians to escape Nanking and
the so-called Nanking Massacre. And Rabe didn't just write letters. On multiple occasions he
physically confronted the Japanese both inside and outside of the Safety Zone,
using his Nazi Party badge to chase them away. In late January the following year,
the Japanese forced the civilians remaining in the safety zone to return to their homes,
and all the zone's camps were closed by May 1938. Before that, in late-February 1938, Rabe left
Nanking for Shanghai, from where he travelled to Berlin. While Rabe may have been pressured
out of China, he was by no means finished with trying to protect Chinese civilians.
Back in Germany, he tried to educate people about what the Japanese were doing in Nanking, showing
photos and footage of the Nanking Massacre during his lectures. He even wrote to the Führer again,
sending supporting documentation that proved the atrocities of the Japanese. The beginning
of the letter read as follows: "Mein Führer! The majority of my friends in China are of the opinion
that you have not been provided a detailed report about the actual events in Nanking."
This time, Rabe got a response, though not the one he might have wanted. The Gestapo intercepted the
letter and arrested and interrogated him. They ultimately let him go but warned him never to
speak about Nanking again. If he wasn't such a devout Nazi, things might have gone differently.
Throughout the war, Rabe worked for Siemens and, through this, seemed to have avoided military
duty. When the Red Army took Berlin, effectively ending the war in Europe, the Soviet NKVD arrested
and interrogated Rabe, and then let him go. Next the British arrested and interrogated him, and
they also let him go. For all the good karma he'd accumulated in Nanking, life treated him pretty
terribly for a while after that. Post-World War II Siemens could only give Rabe so much work. Living
in West Germany, word got around that Rabe was a Nazi, and the authorities seized his work permit.
To get his permit back, Rabe had to undergo the Allied initiative of "de-Nazification."
Even though the Reich had been toppled, Rabe was reluctant to exorcise the Nazi within him.
He used the remainder of his cash fighting the system, to no avail. Rabe spent about a year
in prison and was released in June 1946, having been declared "de-Nazified." Back on the streets,
poor Rabe, along with his family, now lived on the edge of starvation.
Maybe he would have perished, had not karma finally caught up with him.
In 1948, the citizens of Nanking learned of Rabe's financial dilemma and raised $2,000 USD
(which equates to about $22,000 USD nowadays) to get him back on his feet. They also sent him
monthly food packages. At this point, Rabe was in his sixties, having spent half of his life in
China. While the people of Nanking may have spared Rabe and his family from starvation,
they couldn't do anything about the stroke he had in January 1950,
which killed him. He was buried in Berlin, but his tombstone was moved to Nanking in 1997—arguably
his true home, to which he never returned in life. Rabe's bravery has been honoured
in a number of ways since his demise, including in several feature films.
We're interested to know what you think, though. Had you heard of John Rabe before today? If so,
do you know of any other heroic things he got up to throughout his life? What do you think
you would have done in his situation during the Nanking Massacre? Lastly, do you think he
was a "good Nazi"? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.