[171][172], According to a brief reference to Nanjing at the Yasukuni museum in Tokyo, the Japanese general in charge gave his men maps showing foreign settlements and a civilian "safety zone", and ordered them to maintain strict military discipline. According to American historian Edward J. Drea: While the Germans, beginning in 1943, did engage in substantial efforts to obliterate evidence of such crimes as mass murder, and they destroyed a great deal of potentially incriminating records in 1945, a great deal survived, in part because not each one of the multiple copies had been burned. It was truly a regrettable act of barbarity. [3] After capturing Shanghai the Japanese Army decided on December 1 to continue its military campaign to the capital city of the Nationalist government of China, Nanking, which is roughly 300 kilometers west of Shanghai. [21] By contrast Bob Wakabayashi sets the bar higher and believes that the estimate of 40,000 victims put forward by Ikuhiko Hata is the lowest reasonable estimate of the total death toll and considers numbers below this to be attempts at minimizing the atrocity. Only since the 1990s, through the revisionist Patriotic Education Campaign, the massacre has become a national memory as an episode of the "Century of Humiliation" prior to the communist founding of a "New China". The situation was different in Japan. China's Rising COVID-19 Death Toll Satellite images suggest a higher number of deaths as China suspends short-term visas for South Korean and Japanese travelers in a retaliatory measure. An official from South Korea said they would summon the Tokyo ambassador to protest. "[70][71], Ralph L. Phillips, a missionary, testified to the U.S. State Assembly Investigating Committee, that he was "forced to watch while the Japs disembowled a Chinese soldier" and "roasted his heart and liver and ate them. On 17 December, chairman John Rabe wrote a complaint to Kiyoshi Fukui, second secretary of the Japanese Embassy. This created panic in the area and hundreds of women moved into the Ginling College campus yesterday. In an attempt to secure permission for this cease-fire from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Rabe, who was living in Nanjing and had been acting as the Chairman of the Nanking International Safety Zone Committee, boarded the USSPanay(PR-5) on December 9. Yet, in China, this figure has come to symbolize the justice, legality, and authority of the post-war trials condemning Japan as the aggressor.[113]. [12] Consequently, Askew estimates that the true number of corpses buried in and around Nanking was 17,500,[21] whereas military historian Masahiro Yamamoto puts the number at 43,000. At trial, Matsui went out of his way to protect Prince Asaka by shifting blame to lower-ranking division commanders. Although the death toll exceeds the immediate number of deaths from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (140,000 and 70,000 respectively, by the end of 1945) and even the total civilian . Files. [59] Initially, this figure was generally accepted as including both massacre victims and Chinese soldiers killed in combat, though during the 1980s it came to be interpreted as including only massacre victims. Some Chinese soldiers stripped civilians of their clothing in a desperate attempt to blend in, and many others were shot by the Chinese supervisory unit as they tried to flee.[21]. Although Koizumi denied that he was trying to glorify war or historical Japanese militarism, the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused Koizumi of "wrecking the political foundations of China-Japan relations". The massacre occurred over a six-week period starting on December 13, 1937, the day the Japanese captured Nanking. [21] When Yoshiaki Itakura, an independent writer who became one of the leading researchers of the Nanking Incident,[21][32] analyzed the records of the Japanese Army, he multiplied his final tally by 0.6 in order to account for exaggeration and reached the total of 13,000 to 19,000 massacre victims. Official war journals and diaries were also published by Kaikosha, an organization of retired Japanese military veterans. Nanjing Death Toll Graph. [11] Here Australian journalist Harold Timperley was quoted as stating that 300,000 civilians had been killed. [65], Nevertheless, the Chinese government has maintained a hard line on its estimate of 300,000 victims. [14][15] In Japan, the veracity of the newspaper article about the contest was the subject of ferocious debate for several decades starting in 1967. According to the Mainichi Shinbun, this is a photo of Nanking citizens wearing armbands of the flag of Japan and giving cheers to the Japanese military on the day of its Ceremonial Entry into Nanking on December 17, 1937.. Takashi Yoshida asserts that, "Nanjing has figured in the attempts of all three nations [China, Japan and the . Kasahara notes that Smythe's survey proves that a bare minimum of 12,000 ordinary civilians were massacred within Nanking, though other contemporary sources gives figures between 50,000 and 100,000, plus at least another 26,870 outside Nanking. On 10 February 1938, Legation Secretary of the German Embassy, Rosen, wrote to his Foreign Ministry about a film made in December by Reverend John Magee to recommend its purchase. ", Harold Timperley, a journalist in China during the Japanese invasion, reported that at least 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed in Nanjing and elsewhere, and tried to send a telegram but was censored by the Japanese military in Shanghai. Didi Tang, Beijing. [26][89] Daqing Yang, a historian at George Washington University, believes that "an obsession with figures reduces an atrocity to abstraction and serves to circumvent a critical examination of the causes of and responsibilities for these appalling atrocities"[90] and Carol Gluck concurs that "The crucial historical question remains the moral one: how could ordinary Japanese have done what they did? [43], By contrast Yoshiaki Itakura adopted an even stricter standard than Hata, advocating that only Chinese soldiers captured in uniform and then killed be included as massacre victims. Women and girls were raped en masse and looting was widespread. In December 2007, newly declassified U.S. government archive documents revealed that a telegraph by the U.S. ambassador to Germany in Berlin sent one day after the Japanese army occupied Nanjing, stated that he heard the Japanese ambassador in Germany boasting that the Japanese army had killed 500,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians as the Japanese army advanced from Shanghai to Nanjing. [26], In a memorandum for the palace rolls, Hirohito singled Prince Yasuhiko Asaka out for censure as the one imperial kinsman whose attitude was "not good." [12][26][60] The figure was originally based on the verdict of the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal which added the burial records of 155,300 bodies with 72,291 destroyed corpses to arrive at a total of 279,586, though there was an apparent adding mistake in this calculation. The "Great Massacre School" group supports the validity of the findings at the Tokyo Trials, and concludes that there were at least 200,000 casualties and at least 20,000 rape cases; whereas "The Illusion School" group rejects tribunal findings as "victor's justice". Durdin, F. Tillman. especially offenses against prisoners of war.[91]. . The total death toll of the Nanking Massacre is a highly contentious subject in Chinese and Japanese historiography. The soldier thought he might as well rape her before killing her, so he pulled her out of the group to a spot about ten meters away. Although most sources suggest that the final phase of the battle consisted of a one-sided slaughter of Chinese troops by the Japanese, some Japanese historians maintain that the remaining Chinese military still posed a serious threat to the Japanese. Answer (1 of 16): 1. [33] Bob Wakabayashi, a historian at York University, found out on the basis of the records of the Japanese Army alone could prove that at very least 29,240 people, or more likely 46,215 people, were massacred by the Japanese in Nanking in the opening weeks; when considering evidence other than military records, Wakabayashi concluded the total deaths in Nanjing and its neighbouring six rural counties in a 3-month period to be "far exceed 100,000 but fall short of 200,000". ", "Case 13 December 18, 4 p.m., at No. It referred to the Nanjing massacre as an "incident", and glossed over the issue of comfort women. In 1948, the case of the Nanjing massacre was considered by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which handed down two death sentences. In December 1937, Japanese troops assaulted Nanjing after pursuing retreating Chinese forces. [2][3][4][5] Beginning on December 13, 1937, the massacre lasted six weeks. [21] Noting that different definitions produce vastly different estimates, he believes that even the significant disagreements between the historians Tokushi Kasahara and Ikuhiko Hata would disappear if they had been using the same definitions. Dr. Robert O. Wilson, a surgeon and a member of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, took the witness stand first. This rejection of the committee's ceasefire plan, in Rabe's mind, sealed the fate of the city. The battle was bloody as both sides faced attrition in urban hand-to-hand combat. [21], However, when Shokun! This sense of mistrust is strengthened by Japan's unwillingness to admit to and apologize for the atrocities. The total death toll of the Nanjing Massacre is a highly contentious subject in Chinese and Japanese historiography. What you hear and see on all sides is the brutality and bestiality of the Japanese soldiers. [3][94][92][95] However, the most credible scholars in Japan, which include a large number of authoritative academics, support the validity of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and its findings, which estimate at least 200,000 casualties and at least 20,000 cases of rape. The death sentence imposed on Hirota, a six-to-five decision by the eleven judges, shocked the general public and prompted a petition on his behalf, which soon gathered over 300,000 signatures but did not succeed in commuting the Minister's sentence. [121], Kki Hirota, Prime Minister of Japan at an earlier stage of the war, and a diplomat during the atrocities at Nanjing, was convicted of participating in "the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy" (count 1), waging "a war of aggression and a war in violation of international laws, treaties, agreements and assurances against the Republic of China" (count 27) and count 55. The Japanese army leadership assigned sections of the safety zone to some units to separate alleged plain-clothed soldiers from the civilians. Between the declaration of a ceasefire on August 15, 1945, and the arrival of American troops in Japan on August 28, "the Japanese military and civil authorities systematically destroyed military, naval, and Since the area outside the safety zone had been almost completely evacuated, the mopping-up effort was concentrated in the safety zone. Many remember the atrocities that occurred to the Jews in the Holocaust, but few remember what is called, "The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II," where 300,000 people were murdered, and 20,000 women were raped (Rivera 2). For example, Edgar Snow stated in his 1941 book, The Battle for Asia, that 42,000 were massacred in Nanking and 300,000 in total between Nanking and Shanghai, figures which were apparently based on these estimates. The death toll, and indeed the events in Nanjing in general, are subject to much discussion, with death toll estimates ranging from 30,000 to 300,000. Following the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese Imperial Army marched from Shanghai to the Chinese capital city of Nanking, and though a large number of Chinese POWs and civilians were slaughtered by the Japanese following their entrance into Nanking on . [57] Soon after some denialists claimed that no massacre had taken place at all. The report consists of eight volumes and was released to mark the 70th anniversary of the start of the massacre. In regard to the number of victims of this Nanjing Massacre the Tokyo (War Crime) Trials later found it in excess of 200,000, and prosecuted Japan's responsibility severely", reads one Japanese textbook. 18 I Ho Lu, Japanese soldiers wanted a man's cigarette case and when he hesitated, one of the soldier crashed in the side of his head with a bayonet. The Nanjing Massacre, commonly known as "The Rape of Nanking," was an infamous war crime committed by the Japanese military in and around the then capital of . [158], Many Japanese prime ministers have visited the Yasukuni Shrine, a shrine for Japanese war deaths up until the end of the Second World War, which includes war criminals that were involved in the Nanjing Massacre. Masahiro Yamamoto, Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2000), 112. . Matsui was convicted by a majority of the judges at the Tokyo tribunal who ruled that he bore ultimate responsibility for the "orgy of crime" at Nanjing because, "He did nothing, or nothing effective, to abate these horrors. The two men were described as vying to be the first to kill 100 people with a sword before the capture of Nanjing. In 2005, John Rabe's former residence in Nanjing was renovated and now accommodates the ". [127], On October 9, 2015, Documents of the Nanjing Massacre have been listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. Mrs. Hsia was dragged out from under a table in the guest hall where she had tried to hide with her 1-year-old baby. [29] Some authors record that Prince Asaka signed the order for Japanese soldiers in Nanjing to "kill all captives". What many people don't know is that the emperor had largely lost control of the army and Japan, which was a flourishing democracy before was taken over by the military (basically) following . [169] In the 2010 Japan-China Joint History Research Committee meeting, scholars from the Japanese side set the maximum possible number of civilian victims at 200,000, with estimates of around 40,000 or 20,000. It was worse. "[91] However, Masahiro Yamamoto printed a rebuttal of Gluck's statement in his book Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity, arguing that "To determine the extent and nature of [Japan's] responsibility, the 'numerological arguments about the death count and distinctions of comparative atrocities,' which [Gluck] termed as irrelevant to the moral question, are essential. Simultaneously, the 9th Division entered nearby Guanghua Gate, and the 16th Division entered the Zhongshan and Taiping gates. For Japan, it was a question they needed to answer but were reluctant to do so because they too identified themselves as victims after the A-bombs. Hopefully when you being unarmed yourself tried to protect an unarmed crowd from a bunch of inhuman robbers you could speak truth every time and stay alive which I am . Rape! ", "Japanese Crimes in Nanjing, 193738: A Reappraisal", "The Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre: Rhetoric in the Face of Tragedy", Japan's Last Vets of Nanking Massacre Open Up, "The Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanking Massacre: Rhetoric in the Face of Tragedy", "The Chinese Islamic "Goodwill Mission to the Middle East" During the Anti-Japanese War", "John Rabe's letter to Hitler, from Rabe's diary", "Denial of the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking", "The Rape of Nanking vs. the incident of Nanking: a Literature Review", "The Nanjing Incident: Recent Research and Trends", Paragraph 2, p. 1012, Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East, "Convergence or Divergence? In 1986 Ikuhiko Hata became the first historian to call this definition into question. [8] Nevertheless, on December 1, headquarters ordered the Central China Area Army and the 10th Army to capture Nanjing, then-capital of the Republic of China. Non-Japanese historians are prepared to accept that the slaughter at Nanking . [91], Other factors include the mass disposal of Chinese corpses by Japanese soldiers; the revisionist tendencies of both Chinese and Japanese individuals and groups, who are driven by nationalistic and political motivations; and the subjectivity involved in the collection and interpretation of evidence. The Chinese women were undefended, their menfolk powerless or absent. [85] Approximately 70 percent of the Japanese army's wartime records were destroyed. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East was convened at "Ichigaya Court," formally Imperial Japanese Army HQ building in Ichigaya, Tokyo. "[168] Recognizing the Nanjing Massacre as such can be viewed in some circles in Japan as "Japan-bashing" (in the case of foreigners) or "self-flagellation" (in the case of Japanese). [1] Today most Japanese historians of the so-called "great massacre" school have reduced their death toll estimates somewhat and now advocate the figure of "100,000 plus" in contrast with the old consensus of 200,000. [34], In reference to the greatly divergent ways in which various scholars have delineated the massacre, Askew has affirmed that the debate on the death toll "is meaningless if two completely different definitions are being used". Death toll of the Nanjing Massacre Last updated May 04, 2022. Asaka denied the existence of any massacre and claimed never to have received complaints about the conduct of his troops.[119]. The perpetrators also committed other war crimes such as mass rape, looting, and arson. Asaka by shifting blame to lower-ranking Division commanders [ 85 ] Approximately 70 of! That No massacre had taken place at all from the civilians committee 's ceasefire,! 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