The Forgotten Hero of Nanking

By now, just about everyone on the face of this planet has heard the story of Oskar Schindler, whose exploits during WWII were immortalized in the 1994 movie 'Schindler's List'. The movie, in turn, had been based on the novel 'Schindler's Ark', by Australian author Thomas Keneally. So far, so good.

But stop. The factual authenticity of the original book has been in hot dispute, almost from the very start. It won a Booker Prize in 1982, but it did so in the category of fiction. Even Schindler's own wife had little praise for her husband. Historians with expertise in the era have even weighed in, stating that some of the feats described were highly improbable, even impossible. Schindler was a real person, yes, and he may have done some of the things attributed to him, however the overall story, as described in the book and movie, is under serious dispute.

The good news is that, even if Schindler's sainthood is in question, there is another unsung hero whose efforts to save other people has never been in doubt. That man is John Rabe, a Seimen's employee who had been working as director of the company's local branch in Nanking, China when the second world war broke out.

Rabe had been born and raised in Germany, but moved to China in 1908, where he later sought out employment with Seimens. At the time, Germany and China enjoyed excellent relations. China, in fact, had a certain hold on the German popular imagination. Chinese culture, Chinese art, everything Chinese was definitely in vogue. Many Germans who grew up in the era would end up with a life-long fascination for all things Chinese.

Rabe was no exception. He believed in the old German-Chinese alliances. The German government's sudden switch of allegiance to China's upstart neighbor, Japan, blindsided him. Throughout the ordeal that was to come, he would never quite accept the fact that Germany had simply tossed China to the wayside. He was certain that the Fuhrer would intercede on China's behalf, once word reached Berlin of the situation in Nanking.

Sadly, Rabe had spent the better part of almost three decades outside of the Fatherland, and seemed to be somewhat out of touch with the political winds that were blowing though Germany. Even though he had joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party, and would remain loyal to it until the end of war, his enchantment with it seemed to be based more on the ideas of equality for all, than on blood-and-steel.

He was also a man who genuinely cared for his Chinese employees and their families, refusing to abandon them as the Japanese Imperial Army drew inexorably closer to Nanking. How could he, when they depended on him so entirely? When they looked to him as a protector? He decided to organize what would later be called the Nanking Safety Zone, gathering as many local Chinese under its protection as possible.

All the while, waiting for Berlin to intercede on China's behalf... .

It would be a long wait for something that never happened.

For six weeks the Japanese Imperial Army occupied Nanking, slaughtering, murdering, brutally sodomizing and raping. From mid-December through the end of January, they worked their way through the city, and the only place of relative safety was the safety zone John Rabe struggled to defend. He hung out swastikas, and wore his NSDAP uniform when engaging in confrontations with Japanese soldiers who threatened his beloved compound. Strangely, it worked. Berlin had not raised a finger to help him, despite his desperate wires to the Fatherland, but the Japanese Imperial Army seemed to hesitate when confronted with an enclave under the protection of the German swastika.

The true horror of what happened in Nanking, now Nanjing, during those six weeks in the winter of 1937 is detailed in a book called 'The Rape of Nanking', and John Rabe's own personal journals have been gathered and published under the title, 'The Good Man of Nanking'. Rabe was recalled to Germany by Siemens after the events of that winter, and penalized for the good work he'd done in saving the lives of his Chinese employees, their families, neighbors, and just about anyone else who sought refuge in his safe zone. Upon his return to Germany, he was interrogated by the Gestapo, and only released through the intervention of Siemens.

After the war, he was arrested and interrogated by both Russian and British forces, before finally being released, and declared 'de-Nazified'. His final days were spent in poverty, deprived of a full pension. No good deed will go unpunished, the saying goes, and so it was with John Rabe.

The people of Nanking, however, remembered the man who put it all on the line in order to protect them. Until his death on January 5, 1949, the Chinese government sent him monthly stipends of food and money in gratitude for all he did to save as many people in Nanking as he possibly could.

John Rabe proved that compassion, caring, and a good heart is all it takes to turn an average man into a true hero.

John Rabe's house in Nanking (taken in 2008)/ Photo: Thomas Plesser