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."
Modern China is motivated by several major concerns:
1. Eliminating all rival systems of thought that tend to cast the Communist party in a bad light. This means that Taiwan, specifically, must be brought under complete Communist control because as long as it exists, it serves as a viable (and attractive) alternative (i.e. democratic capitalism)to what Chinese Communism offers. The Chinese had the same problem with Hong Kong until reunification after the British treaty concession ended. People tended to "vote with their feet" and make the dangerous swim to Hong Kong to the mainland much like East Germans did when they braved the Berlin Wall. Islam has the same problem. China has been threatening Taiwan for 50+ years and nothing has happened. Why? Because on the one hand, China CANNOT overcome Taiwan because it cannot project power. On the other hand, any attempt to take Taiwan by force would necessarily destroy infrastructure, wealth and technical/economic know-how (or force these to be transferred elsewhere) that the Communists would dearly love to have for themselves. A military attack on Taiwan, therefore, is either impossible or self-defeating. China would rather threaten and coerce Taiwan back into the fold than go to war to reclaim it.
2. Having achieved (at some future date, exactly when is unimportant) complete control over all ethnic Chinese (and all land, resources and people it can make a claim to), the next move is to support and defend those gains against any political, ideological, economic or military threat. The means to achieve this, for now, is massive economic investment from the West to build an indigenous economic and military base. China will not do anything to provoke an actual shooting war with the US, Japan or South Korea because to do so would cut off the funding, collaboration and materials required to achieve this aim.
3. Chinese nukes (despite American technology) exist in limited numbers (the last reliable report I know of put this number at 30-40 or so warheads capable of reaching the Western half of the United States). Do not assume that they will all work as advertized. It's not as if they test and maintain these things and their delivery systems as rigorously as we do. A retaliatory strike resulting from a Chinese first launch (against the US or an ally)effectively eliminates aims 1 and 2 noted above. The Communists may be thick-headed, but they are certainly NOT stupid. The large Chinese military, equipped with 1950's vintage weapons, for the most part, is sufficient to keep internal 'peace and order' and their numbers (in men, aircraft and now, SS missiles and a .modern' frigate navy) are sufficient to give any outside power pause about interfering in Chinese affairs. Which is what they want - they want to keep the people inside China inside China (and in line) and keep Westerners (and their allies) out. They don't want to invade and conquer Japan, for example.
4. The recent Chinese embrace of rampant capitalism is simply a new shade of lipstick on the same old pig. The Communist party simply looked north and saw what happened to Russia and decided the same would not be their fate. The hope is that once people are content to make some money (or have the appearance of making some), they will forget about getting political rights. However, the accumulation of wealth (and the desire to pass it on) ALWAYS results in the demand for political rights to protect that wealth. ESPECIALLY FROM THE GOVERNMENT. From this standpoint, the Communist Party's days are numbered. The absolute worst thing (for the Communist party) would be for millions of Chinese to take the streets demanding democratic institutions.
Nope. I didn't know about John Rabe until I read this article. Do you have any links?
DD(X) about 14,000 tons displacement Crew about 150
USS Ticonderoga (1983) CG47) about 10,000 tons, crew about 387
USS Albany (1944) (CA123) about 14,000 tons, crew about 1900
USS Georgia (1906) (BB15) about 14,000 tons, Crew about 812
No force projection ability whatsoever? I seem to recall them projecting rather well against your army at Chosin Reservoir. What ever happened to Task Force Faith?
I served on three carriers in my 11 years (Midway, Enterprise and Eisenhower), so I cannot vouch for the ships complements on cruisers or cans.
However, I can tell you that while automation DOES reduce the number of people needed to operate the ship, the Navy would NEVER send a ship to sea with "just enough" people in a wartime setting. Only extreme circumstances would even force anyone to even think about doing it.
Sorry, you clearly have not been to China.
I bought and read Iris' book the first day it came out.
I'd earlier read her Thread of the Silkworm.
I know exactly what I am saying and why.
Yes. Their machine runs overtime.
It is unfortunate that even this article is an example of that. It makes even a good story like this about what Rabe did to help a number of people just fodder for the CCP machine.
Too bad.
There've been a lot of great posts on this thread I've appreciated reading.
There's been a lot of recent publicity about him and these things -- mainly kickstarted by Iris Chang's book about the massacres in Nanjing 68 years ago this month.
Thanks, for the ping. :D
So you say but your words say otherwise. Your wisdom is for others to judge.
"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."
Theres quite a lot of wrong facts, and poor deductions, amid a few canny observations in your anti-China tirade, but I just wanted to correct one of the most glaring ones. Your completly flawed analysis of the Chinese role in WW2.
WW2 for China didn't begin in 1941 but rather 1937. The initial years of the second Sino-Japanese war were the bloodiest, however after 1939, the China front had more or less stabilized to a degree with the Japanese lacking the manpower or logistical depth to carry the invasion further and the Chinese lacking the firepower to recover occupied territories. To say that Chiang completly avoided fighting the Japanese is somewhat inaccurate, in fact I could say that you are buying into Communist propaganda. The Nationalist army took part in dozens of major actions against the IJA, beginning with one of the most prominent engagements during the battle of Shanghai. The allegations that Chiang was more or less content to wait out the Japanese are only accurate after 1942 when the U.S. had entered the war. Knowing that Japan would ultimately be defeated, why bother wasting your men and material when you knew that you would have another war with the communists at hand afterwards?
The U.S. had begun the process of supply China with war materials by early 1941 but the fact of the matter was when the U.S. entered the war in December, the China front was not a priority and thus received far fewer material than was earmarked for Europe. Your criticism is true, but you fail to note just how little supplies China actually received. Following 1942 and the closing down of the Burma road, all supplies had to be flown past the hump. The airlift capabilities within India were limited by the number of available transport aircraft and so the result was that even the relatively small amount of supplies destined for China proved undeliverable, with much of it simply lieing in wait at depots in India.
You are correct that the primary aim of U.S. vis-a-vis the China front was to keep as many Japanese soldiers occupied as possible while preparing for an invasion of the home islands. Of course the atomic bomb rendered such a plan moot. However, to use this fact to dismiss the Chinese war effort is ridiculous because it dismisses the years of warfare prior to this period. Japan had taken over a million casualties in China and millions of Chinese both soldiers and civilian paid with their lives.
P.S. The reason that I quoted that particular sentence is because you completly forget the Chinese presence in the SE Asia front. X-force were the original Chinese divisions present that withdrew into India by 1942, Y-force were the Yunnan divisions that linked up with British forces and drove the Japanese out of Burma.
Thanks, Very interesting points to mull over, to ponder/reconsider...in effect, PLA is "where USA was in Spanish-American War" right now...seemingly great potential, little "ready" capitol (no $$$$) infrastructure? :^)
I have posted useful information on China's "successes" in the Korean War below. Also I will note that even the Chinese military TODAY regards their 50s military as being without force projection capability; Korea is traditionally regarded as being properly either part of the Chinese empire or a tributary vassal -- true military power would mean acting OUTSIDE of their traditional sphere of influence. Gaining the capability to do this is the entire purpose behind the "revolution in military affairs" and their staff colleges' focus on "comprehensive national power," in case you haven't reviewed these materials. Basically, stories about the "War to Aid Korea and Resist U.S. Aggression" are only relevant in the indoctrination of schoolchildren today -- they are not theoretically a large part of what Chinese military officers learn in their academic studies in strategic and tactical methodology, except for certain matters pertaining mostly to defensive actions.
And you reinforce my point -- China would have been powerless to respond if MacArthur and the right-most political elements in the U.S. had prevailed upon Truman or Eisenhower to employ nuclear weapons in the conflict. We swore off doing so despite the fact that the Chinese had no ability to respond in kind.
Nowadays, China simply builds missile batteries around Xiamen and lets us count them via satellite imagery. Their politicians are entirely more pleasant today (and where business suits that would be welcome in any Manhattan law firm instead of the drab Mao suits of old) despite the fact that their capabilities imply a much greater threat. They have utterly stopped (contrary to the thinking of Lenin, Stalin and Mao for much of his life) any talk of exporting revolution and talk now of a "multipolar world." The purpose of this is to present a cooperative and collaborative face to the world while they continue to build up their ICBM stores and naval force projection capability. Perhaps most demonstrative -- When Mao was screaming loudest about reversing China's embarassments at the hands of foreign powers, he never even made a serious gesture towards Hong Kong or Macau.
They are predictable when one keeps in mind Sun Tzu's advice to act strongest when weak and weakest when strong. China's most belligerent public statements have always come out when they have been least prepared to offer a fight.
Another illustrative example that I have personally dealt with: For about the last decade, they have focused on trying to build up "military to military exchanges" with the United States (a matter I have regeretably been exposed to up close). During these occasions they toast cooperation and speak of Chenault and the Flying Tigers in WWII ad nauseum. However, within their own training schools (again I have first hand verification of this, regretably enough) the U.S. is referred to quite specifically as the "primary enemy" (or primary "threat" depending on how you interpret the Mandarin) during the initial instrution of Soldiers and officer candidates.
Side note - Summing up the whole Korean War by pointing to U.S. forces killed at Task Force Faith is, I'm afraid, as silly as attempting to sum up our efforts in World War II by staring at a collage of photographs from Kasserine Pass, Corregidor and Dieppe.
From official Chinese sources, PVA casualties during the Korean War were 390,000. This breaks down as follows: 110,400 KIA; 21,600 died of wounds; 13,000 died of sickness; 25,600 MIA/POW; and 260,000 more WIA. However various Western and Eastern sources estimate that about 500,000 to 1 million Chinese soldiers were either killed in action or died of disease, starvation, exposure, and accidents. Overall total Chinese killed, wounded and missing equal to about less than 1 million. Chairman Mao's only healthy son, Mao Anying, was also killed as a PVA during the war.
As the PVA rotated about 2 million troops during the war the casualties figure of most western sources seems too high. If the PVA suffered 500,000 casualties (1/4 of all troops rotated) or 1,000,000 casualties (1/2 of all troops rotated) the PVA would be so weaken that they would not be able to defend the line let alone mount any meaningful offensive. However, as the battle line hardly moved from 1951 to 1953 the high casualties figure should be greatly scrutinized.
The pot calling the kettle black.
"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."
Fair enough and I agree.
"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."
Well spoken.
"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."
I appreciate your knowledge and information. I cannot possibly refute any of your points. But I do recall pretty clearly reading an article about the Navy's planned next-generation of ship's having an amazingly small number of sailors on board. Of course, the article could be incorrect. Sometime when I have more time, I will find another such article, and probably post again on this subject, with a greater depth, in part resulting from your information.
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