Nanjing Massacre

Nanjing Massacre, (December 1937–January 1938), mass killing and rape of Chinese citizens and capitulated soldiers by soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army after its seizure of Nanjing, China, on December 13, 1937, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which overlapped with and later became part of World War II. The number of Chinese killed in the massacre has been subject to much debate, with most estimates ranging from 100,000 to more than 300,000. The massacre is regarded as one of the most devastating episodes of civilian mass killing in the 20th century and continues to shape relations between China and Japan.

Historical context

Following the Meiji Restoration (initiated in 1868), Japan rapidly emerged as an industrialized and imperialist power on the global stage. By 1910 it had annexed Korea; in 1931 it occupied Manchuria (northeastern China) and in 1932 established the puppet state of Manchukuo. These moves revealed Japan’s territorial ambition and willingness to dismantle Chinese sovereignty by force.

China was deeply fractured at this time, divided between the Nationalists (Kuomintang) led by Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists led by Mao Zedong. The two sides had been engaged in intermittent civil conflict since the late 1920s. The Northern Expedition had nominally unified much of the country under Nationalist rule, and after its conclusion in 1928 the Nationalists moved the capital from Beijing to Nanjing. However, Nationalist rule was always contested. During the Long March of 1934–35, Communist forces were driven from their southern bases but regrouped in Yan’an in the northwest and remained a rival power. In 1936, following the Xi’an Incident, the two sides formed a nominal united front in response to the Japanese threat, though deep ideological and military divisions persisted between the two factions.

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Full-scale war between Japan and China began in July 1937 following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident near Beijing, marking the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japanese forces advanced quickly into northern and eastern China, capturing Beijing and Tianjin in July 1937 and Shanghai that November after a prolonged and costly battle. As Japanese troops pushed inland following the fall of Shanghai, Nanjing emerged as their next strategic objective.

The fall of Nanjing

By late November 1937, Japanese forces had broken through Chinese defensive lines and were advancing on multiple fronts toward Nanjing. The Nationalist high command was divided over whether to defend the city or abandon it. The city’s defensive geography was poor—it sat on the Yangtze River with its back to the water, vulnerable to encirclement, and lacked natural barriers or prepared fortifications adequate to withstand a siege. Senior commanders recognized that a determined defense would likely result in rapid collapse and catastrophic losses. The city’s symbolic significance was profound, however, and after much deliberation, Chiang Kai-shek eventually appointed Tang Shengzi to command a hastily assembled force of approximately 100,000 troops, many of them untested conscripts or exhausted survivors of the retreat from Shanghai.

Japanese forces, with overwhelming air and artillery superiority, breached the city walls by December 12. Tang organized a general retreat too late and with insufficient communication. The Yangtze River, which might have served as an escape route, became a death trap as Japanese aircraft flew overhead. Thousands of Chinese troops discarded their weapons in hopes of blending in with civilians but were instead rounded up by Japanese forces. Tang and many senior officers escaped, leaving their troops trapped and leaderless. Japanese troops entered the city on December 13.

The massacre

Japanese troops entered the city to find that organized defense had collapsed. Having expected a prolonged siege, the Imperial Japanese Army instead found itself in possession of a city filled with tens of thousands of prisoners and hundreds of thousands of civilians, with no established protocol for managing either and with command discipline already eroding in the ranks.

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Under the command of Matsui Iwane, who was executed by the Allied powers after World War II for his role in the massacre, Japanese soldiers committed executions and rapes on a mass scale over the next six weeks, looting and burning the city and surrounding towns and destroying more than a third of its buildings.

The violence targeted civilians, prisoners of war, women, children, and the elderly with equal ferocity. Methods of killing included mass shootings, live burials, bayoneting, arson, and drowning. Some military officers reportedly engaged in “killing contests,” competing to murder Chinese civilians with swords—a spectacle reported in Japanese newspapers at the time with apparent approval.

The scale of the violence was staggering, and historians have subsequently struggled to establish a precise chain of events or a framework for how the massacre became so chaotic and indiscriminate. Contributing factors included ideological dehumanization. Influenced by Nazi ideology, many Japanese believed their superior modernization demonstrated innate superiority over other Asian peoples. There was also tacit encouragement from senior command—while no explicit written orders authorizing indiscriminate killing have survived, there was a clear choice not to stop what was happening.

Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, a member of the Imperial family and an army general, assumed field command during the final assault between December 5 and 10, when Matsui was ill. While Matsui retained overall responsibility, Asaka was in command at key moments. Some historians believe Asaka issued an order to “kill all captives,” though evidence leaves this question undetermined.

The most intense phase of the violence lasted several weeks and eventually subsided by early 1938 as Japanese authorities sought to restore order and consolidate their occupation of the city.

The Nanjing Safety Zone

After the fall of Nanjing, a small group of Western missionaries, businessmen, and medical professionals remained. They established the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone on November 22, 1937, creating a demilitarized neutral area to shelter refugees. The zone covered approximately 1.49 square miles (3.86 square kilometers) and contained foreign embassies, the University of Nanking, Ginling College, and other institutions. Using Red Cross flags for identification, the committee established more than 20 refugee camps that housed about 250,000 people.

John Rabe, a German businessman and Nazi Party member, served as chairman of the International Committee. Despite his Nazi affiliation, he worked tirelessly to protect Chinese civilians—indeed, that same affiliation afforded him significant latitude in his dealings with Japanese forces. After the massacre, Rabe returned to Germany and attempted to inform the public about Japanese atrocities but was arrested by the Gestapo and forbidden from speaking. Later, after relocating to the United Kingdom, he left the Nazi Party and his family fell into poverty and malnutrition. Upon learning of his situation, the people of Nanjing raised a significant sum of money; the mayor of Nanjing personally traveled from China to deliver food to Rabe’s family. From mid-1948 until the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the people of Nanjing provided Rabe with monthly food packages.

Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary and administrator of Ginling College, turned her campus into a refugee camp that sheltered over 10,000 women and children at the height of the violence. Other key figures included Miner Searle Bates (American professor), Dr. Robert O. Wilson (American surgeon), Rev. John G. Magee (American clergyman), George Ashmore Fitch (American YMCA administrator), and Dr. Lewis S.C. Smythe (American professor), whose testimonies and diaries provided crucial documentary evidence of the atrocities.

Accountability and aftermath

In the aftermath of Japan’s surrender, justice was pursued through multiple channels with limited success. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1946–48) convicted and executed Matsui Iwane for his role in the atrocities. Tani Hisao, a lieutenant general involved in operations at Nanjing, was also tried by a Chinese court and executed in Nanjing.

Prince Asaka, however, was granted immunity by General Douglas MacArthur and the Allied occupation authorities, who extended blanket protection to members of the imperial family as a matter of occupation policy—a partly strategic decision, premised on the belief that the emperor’s cooperation was essential to governing Japan without prolonged resistance.

Yet it was Asaka who was in command when Nanjing actually fell, and he is believed by many historians to have authorized the indiscriminate killing. Matsui, by contrast, although undoubtedly responsible for the broader failure of discipline, is reputed to have reprimanded military leaders under his command for their crimes—and to have been laughed at.

Matsui, who expressed concern and tried to rein in the violence, was executed, while Asaka, who likely bore equal or greater responsibility, was shielded by his royal status and never tried. This asymmetry is representative of the incomplete attempts at securing justice for the Nanjing Massacre; the vast majority of mid-level officers and soldiers who committed murder and rape were not held accountable in any meaningful way.

Memory and historiography

In China the Nanjing Massacre occupies a central place in national historical memory. In 2014 China’s top legislature designated December 13 as the National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims. The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, built around excavated mass grave sites, serves as the primary site of commemoration and features a “12-second clock,” illustrating that one person died every 12 seconds during the massacre. Annual ceremonies include a national minute of silence, sirens, and flags at half-mast.

In Japan public discussion and recognition of the massacre has been limited and contentious. Japanese textbooks have omitted or minimized the massacre, drawing formal diplomatic complaints from China. Prominent public figures and major newspaper editors have similarly downplayed the events. In 2015 China submitted archival documents related to the massacre to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, an act China understood as securing the historical record against denial; Japan criticized the submission as politically motivated and subsequently lobbied to reform UNESCO’s inscription process.

Japan has issued formal apologies for its wartime conduct on several occasions, most significantly in the 1995 Murayama Statement, in which Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi expressed remorse for colonial rule and aggression. These apologies have generally been regarded as insufficient by both China and Korea, in part because prominent Japanese politicians have continued to visit Yasukuni Shrine—which honors convicted war criminals—while making contradictory statements that many observers feel have continuously undermined whatever formal contrition has been expressed.