1. John Heinrich Detlef Rabe was a de-nazified NSDAP member, diplomat and businessman best known for his efforts to stop war crimes during the Japanese Nanjing Massacre and protect Chinese civilians.
24 Facts About John Rabe
1. 2.
John Rabe had been sent to China as an official German representative in the European-US diplomatic quarter in Nanjing, the Chinese capital.
3.
John Rabe served as senior chief of the diplomatic mission at the time of Japanese conquest.
4.
John Rabe pursued a career in business and worked in Africa for several years.
5.
At the time of the Japanese attack on Nanjing, John Rabe was a staunch Nazi and the party's local head, serving as a Deputy Group Leader in the Nazi Party.
6.
John Rabe was elected leader of the committee, in part because of his Nazi Party status and the German-Japanese bilateral Anti-Comintern Pact.
7.
John Rabe opened up his properties to help 650 more refugees.
8.
The documentary Nanking credited John Rabe with saving the lives of 250,000 Chinese civilians; other sources suggest he saved 250,000 to 300,000.
9.
John Rabe was not the only person to record Japanese atrocities.
10.
John Rabe summarized the conduct of Japanese soldiers in Nanjing in the following manner:.
11.
John Rabe traveled first to Shanghai, returning to Berlin on 15 April 1938.
12.
John Rabe took with him a large number of source materials documenting Japanese atrocities in Nanjing.
13.
John Rabe showed films and photographs of Japanese atrocities in lecture presentations in Berlin, and he wrote to Hitler, asking him to use his influence to persuade the Japanese to stop further violence.
14.
John Rabe was detained and interrogated by the Gestapo; his letter was never delivered to Hitler.
15.
John Rabe was allowed to keep evidence of the massacre but not to lecture or write on the subject again.
16.
John Rabe continued working for Siemens, which briefly posted him to the safety of Siemens AG in Afghanistan.
17.
John Rabe subsequently worked in the company's Berlin headquarters until the end of the war.
18.
John Rabe was later denounced by an acquaintance for his Nazi Party membership, losing the work permit he had been given by the British Zone of Occupation.
19.
John Rabe then had to undergo lengthy de-Nazification in the hope of regaining permission to work.
20.
John Rabe depleted his savings to pay for his legal defence.
21.
John Rabe was formally declared "de-Nazified" by the British on 3 June 1946 but continued to live in poverty.
22.
John Rabe's family subsisted on wild seeds, his children eating soup and dry bread until running out of that as well.
23.
From mid-1948 until the Chinese Revolution, the people of Nanjing sent the family a food package each month, for which John Rabe wrote many letters expressing deep gratitude.
24.
In 2005, Rabe's former residence in Nanjing, the John Rabe House, was restored to its former state; it houses the John Rabe and International Safety Zone Memorial Hall, opened in 2006.