Product Description

The Good Man of Nanking is a crucial document for understanding one of World War II's most horrific incidents of genocide, one which the Japanese have steadfastly refused to acknowledge.  It is also the moving and awe-inspiring record of one man's conscience, courage, and generosity in the face of appalling human brutality.

Until the recent emergence of John Rabe's diaries, few people knew abouth the unassuming hero who has been called the Oskar Schindler of China.  In Novemgber 1937, as Japanese troops overran the Chinese capital of Nanking and began a campaign of torture, rape, and murder against its citizens, one man-a German who had lived in China for thirty years and who was a loyal follower of Adolph Hitler-put himself at risk and in order to save the lives of 200,000 poor Chinese, 600 of whom he sheltered in his own home.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #171816 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-14
• Released on: 2000-03-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Amazon.com
In November 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army took Nanking (Nanjing), the capital of China and home to 1.3 million people, and began an orgy of murder, rape, and looting. By the time discipline was restored two months later, hundreds of thousands of Chinese were dead, with hundreds of thousands more homeless, starving, and traumatized. The Rape of Nanking, as it is commonly known, still causes international controversy, as Japanese politicians refuse to apologize unequivocally to China and school textbooks continue to misrepresent the events.

Like Oskar Schindler of Schindler's List, John Rabe was an enterprising and fundamentally decent German businessman caught up in war. Head of the Nanjing branch of Siemens, the German electronics firm, he had lived and worked in China for almost 30 years. Rather than flee from the threatened city, he stayed to organize a safety zone as refuge of last resort for Chinese civilians. The Good Man of Nanking is his firsthand description of the terrible events and his ultimate success in saving perhaps a quarter of a million lives. The diary format provides a forum for the extraordinary power and immediacy of John Rabe's words, including his gallows humor, placing the reader there in Nanking as the bombs explode and the Japanese soldiers begin their massacres. Rabe's trials were not over when he returned to wartime Germany; diary entries that he wrote during the occupation of Berlin by the Soviet army form a fascinating coda to this book. --John Stevenson

From Publishers Weekly
Considered the Oskar Schindler of China, Rabe was a German businessman who saved the lives of 250,000 Chinese during the infamous siege of Nanking. But Rabe was also a member of the Nazi party and a man whose motto was "Right or wrong-my country." This gaping paradox adds a fascinating complexity to his newly translated diaries, which primarily focus on the six-month Nanking siege in 1937 and 1938. When the Japanese air raids began over Nanking?where Rabe was regional director of the German industrial giant Siemens?Rabe's wife, along with most foreigners, evacuated the city. But Rabe stayed to protect his Chinese staff and co-workers; as he put it, "I cannot bring myself for now to betray the trust these people have put in me." As the magnitude of the Japanese assault became apparent, Rabe, along with American doctors and missionaries, created an International Committee whose purpose was to set up a Neutral Zone where Chinese civilians could take refuge. Six hundred of the poorest Chinese were soon living in Rabe's own house, symbolically protected by an enormous canvas painted with a swastika; thousands more took shelter in the arbitrary Neutral Zone that Rabe continually begged the Japanese to respect. Lacking food and medical supplies, Rabe was mobilized to continue his good works by the atrocities he witnessed; his descriptions of the sadistic rapes, torture and slaughter perpetrated by Japanese soldiers are chillingly vivid. Similar in some ways to Giorgio Perlasca, the Italian fascist businessman who helped save Budapest's Jews (Enrico Deaglio's The Banality of Goodness, Forecasts, June 1), Rabe was a complicated figure whose ultimate reasons were very matter-of-fact: "You simply do what must be done."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Joining the ever-growing shelf of World War II memoir literature, this carefully edited book recounts the wartime experiences of an obscure German businessman who is now known as the "Oskar Schindler of China" and revered as a saint by the Chinese. Rabe (1882-1949) lived in China for almost 30 years, most notably as the director of the Siemens branch in Nanking during the infamous 1937 siege. Working closely with American friends, he organized an International Safety Zone that offered relative security to 250,000 Chinese during the brutal Japanese occupation. This book, based on a journal he kept then, describes his rescue efforts as well as the atrocities he observed. Called back to Germany shortly thereafter, he was arrested by the Gestapo and forbidden to speak of his experiences. The editor, a friend who first met Rabe in China in the early 1930s, explains the general political and military background and, more importantly, summarizes the political information that was available to Rabe himself. Recommended for academic and informed lay readers.AMarie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A stunning example of man's inhumanity towards man
Firstly, I will restrict my comments to the book itself, and not be baited into a discussion of whether or not the events took place. Indeed, one does not read the reviews of "Diary of Anne Frank" to look for holocaust denials.

This is an immensely powerful book. It tells the firsthand experience of John Rabe in Nanking, and his efforts to maintain order and peace before and during the Japanese occupation. Over 600 people took refuge on the grounds of his own house for safety. Armed only with a white face, German flag and Swastika armband he was able to chase away criminal Japanese soldiers from raping, looting and murdering.

When Rabe returns to Germany he writes about the difficulty he faces at the hands of the Russian occupying force, which is quite similar to the plight of the Chinese that he witnessed in Nanking. The same barbarity but perhaps not quite as extreme.

A stunning example of man's inhumanity towards man. A difficult read - not because of the diction (which is simple and the translation excellent), but because of the depth of the subject matter. I found that I could only read some 20 pages at a time before having to put the book down in disgust.

The last point about this book I must highlight is that the popular media has done much to be clear that not all Germans were Nazis. This book forces us to realize that the ideology of Nazism must be viewed separately from at least one of those who supported it (Rabe).

Japnese Nationalism never died
Unbelievable.
I thought the Japanese people where peace loving pacifists now.
I was wrong.
The hate coming against this book is mindboggling considering it's a journal and not a political manifesto.
Those who criticize this diary are revealing themselves.
Racist and Nationalistic fanatics as in times of old.
The mistake of leaving Hirohito in power has born it's fruit.

the truth
Dont listen to those who say this book doesn't prove anything about the Rape of Nanking. They have their own agendas and refuse to listen to logic about what really happened. REad the book for yourself to make your opinion.