These too
Posted on 12/17/2005 5:37:00 PM PST by blam
Chinese memorial to 'the good Nazi' opens war wounds
By Peter Goff in Beijing
(Filed: 18/12/2005)
A plan by China to honour "the good Nazi", a German who helped to save hundreds of thousands of civilians from Japanese troops, has reopened a dispute with Tokyo over its lack of atonement for the Second World War.
The Chinese authorities are drawing up plans for a museum dedicated to the memory of John Rabe, who defied the "Rape of Nanking" - a six-week massacre during which an estimated 300,000 Chinese were slaughtered by Japanese soldiers.
Honouring Mr Rabe gives China the chance to draw international attention to Japan's wartime atrocities at a point when relations between the two Asian giants are fraught.
A card-carrying Nazi, Rabe was a China-based Siemens employee in 1937 when the Japanese stormed Nanking, or Nanjing as it is now known. His superiors ordered him to return home, but instead he sent his family back and established a "safety zone" in the city where he offered shelter to terrified Chinese. Using his Nazi credentials, he and a small group of other foreigners kept the Japanese at bay, at considerable risk to themselves, and saved an estimated 250,000 lives.
Rabe wrote a 1,200-page diary that documented the killings and rapes in the city, information that was later used as evidence of war crimes.
The Japanese soldiers "went about raping the women and girls and killing everything and everyone that offered any resistance, attempted to run away from them, or simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," he wrote. "There were girls under the age of eight and women over the age of 70 who were raped and then, in the most brutal way possible, knocked down and beaten up. We found corpses of women on beer glasses and others who had been lanced by bamboo shoots."
Chinese historians estimate that 80,000 girls and women were raped at the time.
"One was powerless against these monsters who were armed to the teeth and who shot down anyone who tried to defend themselves," Rabe wrote. "They only had respect for us foreigners - but nearly every one of us was close to being killed dozens of times. We asked ourselves mutually, 'How much longer can we maintain this bluff?' "
Beijing believes that Japan has never properly atoned for its atrocities. Chinese anger is further fuelled by repeated visits by the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, to the Yasukuni shrine, which honours Japan's war dead including some "Class A" war criminals held responsible for the massacre in Nanjing.
Last week, China's premier, Wen Jiabao, cancelled a summit with Mr Koizumi because "Japan won't own up correctly to its history". The shrine visits "seriously hurt the feelings of the Chinese people", he said.
When the pair did finally meet at a signing ceremony of a regional meeting on Wednesday, Mr Wen snubbed the Japanese leader by ignoring his request to borrow his pen.
Several awkward seconds elapsed in front of television cameras before the request was loudly repeated and the Chinese premier pasted on a smile and handed over the implement.
There were mass protests in March outside the Japanese embassy and consulates in China after Japan published a history textbook that glossed over the wartime atrocities. Tensions between the neighbours are exacerbated by other thorny issues, including a territorial dispute over resource-rich islands in the East China Sea and Japan's desire to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. China also fears what it sees as a growing nationalistic militarism in Japan.
"Part of the reason to honour John Rabe now is a response to Japan's bad attitude," Jiang Liangqin, a historian at Nanjing University, said. "For example, they honour the war criminals and have never properly said sorry. Some Japanese even deny the massacre took place. We know that Japanese often look down on Chinese and don't believe what we say. Well here is a European who told exactly what happened. We want to bring the world's attention to that."
While the killings were going on, Rabe wrote to Hitler several times begging him to intervene but never got a response. He said later that being based in China meant he was unaware of his leader's heinous plans in Europe.
After the massacre Rabe lectured in wartime Germany about what he had seen and submitted footage of the atrocities to Hitler, but the Fuhrer did not want to hear about Japan's actions. Rabe was detained by the Gestapo for a short period, denounced by the Nazis and barred from giving lectures.
In post-war Germany he was again denounced - this time be being a Nazi Party member - and was arrested first by the Russians and then by the British, but was ultimately exonerated following an investigation. He and his family lived in abject poverty, surviving on occasional care packages posted to him by the grateful people of Nanjing. He died of a stroke in 1950 at the age of 68.
"The people of China will never forget the good German John Rabe, and the other foreigners who helped him," said Ma Guoliang, an 89-year-old woman whose parents were killed by the Japanese. "He saved so many people and yet at any time he could easily have been killed himself. He could have left, but he stayed with us. We called him the living Buddha of Nanking."
"Stillwell constantly complained "
Yes, he certainly did, when he wasn't putting broomsticks in Chennault's spokes. Yadada yadada yadada, shut the hell up, Vinegar Joe.
Chiang tried to get rid of him from almost the day he arrived.
Have you read "The Flying Tiger," by Jack Samson?
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These too
I do not mean to run down the Flying Tigers or those Chinese troops that fought alongside Merril's Maruaders at Mytchkina (sp?), for example. All I'm saying is that lives and treasure were expended (opening the Ledo Road, Flying the Hump, Keeping the 14th Air Force supplied, etc)on a scale that far outweighed the Chinese contribution to the overall fighting.
China served best as a magnet for Japanese troops and materiel that would have gone elsewhere.
Chiang played Roosevelt like a fiddle, getting the money, supplies and other aid that he artfully avaoided using against the Japsanese. He instead used it against the Commies, and look where it got him? The fact is that the Chinese Army was rife with corruption, staffed by political cronies and ineffective officers and served mainly by standing in front of the Japanese who had to station troops to merely watch them.
Over 2 million Japanese troops were still in China in August of 1945. No Chinese troops were in Japan, or anyplace else for that matter.
I wasn't making the argument for the state of their economy, but solely when you have a totalitarian government in place with the aformentioned nuclear weaponry, and a population 4 times ours, I'd still call it an 800-lb gorilla.
I probably should not have used "de facto" as a modifier, please excuse me. That being said, they still should not whitewash their history. For the record, I favor the remilitarization of Japan.
What a bizarre, inhumane and irrational statement.
Read Iris Chang's book about the Rape of Nanking and
see if theres a shred of decency in your heart.
I admire your in-your-face attitude toward the Chicoms, but I must disagree with the outcome of your thought experiment.
Japan is an important US ally and a responsible actor on today's international stage. But Japan has a problem with getting fully in touch with the humanity of non-Japanese people (and they have trouble looking honestly at history). My guess is that China under the Japanese would have been horrific beyond description. It gives me no pleasure to say this.
I'll give you an example of what I mean.
I believe it was about 15 years or so ago that the Economis (not exactly America's friend) ran a cartoon in which Saddam Hussein sat astride a nuclear weapon, shouting loudly "We're a Superpower! We're a Superpower!"
The missile was tied with rope to the back of a donkey (or perhaps a camel, I forget).
The point was, simply, that possession of a nuke means nothing when your country cannot even produce it's own food, toilet paper or lacks even rudimentary mineral wealth and the means to turn them into finished products, with indigenous financing, indigenous industry and technical skill. (I will, however, give the CHinese credit for formidible technical skills).
So China has a nuclear arsenal? So what. If China launches nukes, we have the capability to turn it into a self-lighting, glass-topped parking lot for the next 1 million years. The damage they can do, by comparison, is puny (although it would be tragic).
So China has 1 billion+ people? So what. It's still a static society that had to reach outside of it's borders and heritage to find a political philosophy (invented by the same Westerners they despise, no less!). It's still a society in which repression (political and economic) is the rule. It is a society that demands conformity and does not unleash the imaginations and talents of those 1 billion souls. It is a country that still labors under the mistaken impression that it is the center of the universe, and that it's people are a "Master Race", while the reality is on display for everyone to see. China is a cardboard cutout with a glass jaw.
I laugh at China. I laugh even harder that those that fear it because it will collapse from within long before it has to be defeated from without.
I don't think you know what you are talking about.
"I believe, in fact, the current generation of ships was designed under the philosophy, "Why have a machine do it when sailors are so cheap?"
No, I don't think so.
The routine maintenance required of a ship of the line and all its gear is unbelievable, from chipping and painting to replacing the klystron on a Vulcan Phalanx.
When you take a hit, or multiple hits, you need men, lots of men, for damage control.
In the end, a ship is still a steel box floating on the ocean, and there is no technology to "auto-repair" a big hole in the hull under the waterline. There is no practical technology to set various conditions of watertight and airtight integrity throughout that steel box.
And when the "automatic" fire suppression systems fail, as is inevitable, you need men to suit up and fight the fire.
Another consideration is watchstanding. Consider a ship steaming in modified condition 1, that only has two qualified TAOs. One of them has to be in CIC at all times.
Suppose they take 12-hour watches, port and starboard. Since the surface navy eats its own, they will also be expected to spend at least 8 hours a day on routine department head functions. That's 20 hours, excluding meals, officers' calls, special briefings, and contingencies.
All too many men spend their entire tours of duty trembling on the bring of collapse from fatigue, even with a crew of 350. Cut that number in half, and what will ensue?
On the other end of the chain of command, take the day of a deck seaman. Midnight to four, watch. 0430 to 0600, sleep. 0600 to 0730, titivate ship, shower, shave, breakfast. 0730, turn to, commence working day (chipping and painting, maintenance, etc.). 1130 to 1150, grab some lunch. 1200 to 1600, back on watch. 1600 to around 1700, back to normal work day. 1700 to around 1745, dinner. 1800 to 1945, there *might* be a chance to get some sleep, unless there's a drill or underway replenishment. 2000-2400, back on watch.
That's with three-section watches. On port-and-starboard watches, it's worse. And I haven't added in things like GQ drills, vertreps, unreps, weapons shoots, and on and on.
Fatigue causes accidents, and even at today's manning levels, fatigue is a serious problem.
Oh, yeah. I haven't read very much about the Chindits, but they should certainly be included.
"So China has a nuclear arsenal? So what. If China launches nukes, we have the capability to turn it into a self-lighting, glass-topped parking lot for the next 1 million years. The damage they can do, by comparison, is puny (although it would be tragic). "
I think you're overlooking Beelzebubba's treasonous sale to the Chinese of all the technology, and even machine tools, that they need to develop first-strike MIRV and MARV ICBM technology.
The day the Chinese pop up and tell the world that they have a hundred warheads precisely targeted on each of fifty American cities, in hardened silos deep within the Asian mainland, the world will suddenly become a much different place.
"I think it would be possible to achieve 60% or greater casualties on any Chinese force with not much effort."
Which would accomplish very little.
The Chinese took 40 million casualties in the 19th century Tai Ping rebellion. They wouldn't lose a moment's sleep over taking another 40 million tomorrow.
"But Japan has a problem with getting fully in touch with the humanity of non-Japanese people"
My, but that's a diplomatic way of putting it.
I wish I had your bravado. We may be able to turn China into a glass-topped parking lot and give those standing nearby permanent orange afros, but in an act of desperation, I don't want to imagine the damage they could inflict upon us or our allies. We still can't ignore that threat.
"we have the capability to"
Do we? What effect did the Klintstone years have on that? Is our arsenal sufficiently well-maintained that we can actually expect high-order detonation from most of our warheads? How many silos have been decommissioned? How about boomers? How many of those do we have left?
"Most Japanese who fought in WWII are dead. To hold their children and grandchildren accountable for their actions would be akin to racism."
Funny, that's what the young Nazi would say too. Of course, there really was no holocaust, you know.
"The people of China will never forget the good German John Rabe..."
Anyone remember the good Jap? While ambasador to Hitler's Germany he issued protection papers to as many Jews as he could and when he ran out of official forms he issued them on common paper.
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