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The contents of this site are direct quotes, translations, or abridged versions of scholarly works by Japanese historians or researchers. |
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FIRST Lie: 300,000 people were massacred in Nanking SECOND Lie: Population of Nanking was 600,000 translated from article by Tomizawa
Shigenobu, |
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On December 13th 1937, the Japanese army, which had been in a state of war with China, occupied the Chinese capital of Nanking. We have been told that the Japanese soldiers carried out atrocities against the citizens of Nanking, starting immediately after the occupation. Chinese documents claim that the Japanese invaders took away, over the course of 6 weeks, the lives of over 300,000 good citizens of Nanking, as well as the property, freedom, and virginity of a huge number of people in an organized and horribly cruel manner. (Shogen:Nankin Daigyakusatsu, published by Aoki Shoten, or "Testimonies of the Great Massacre of Nanking") This seems to be the post-WWII accepted image of what happened in Nanking, and the content of Iris Chang's grisly book, The Rape of Nanking. These stories ignore a huge fact. On December 13, 1937, when the Japanese army entered Nanking, the city's population was approximately 200,000. Then how was it possible to kill 300,000 people? #2 In order to answer this simple but vital question, the Chinese side claimed at the post-war Tokyo war crimes tribunal that the population of Nanking was about 600,000 to 700,000. That's also what Iris Chang says. #3 However, that claim was concocted to support the original claim that 300,000 people were meaninglessly massacred in Nanking. Because it is a lie, the claim that the population of Nanking was 600,000 to 700,000 is filled with paradox. Here, I would like to verify the two lies, and in doing so, verify the fallacy of the massacre of Nanking, in four chapters and data on population, Japanese troop deployment, and resources mainly from 1937-38, which are noted in the Footnotes. |
Fallacy of the 
"massacre":
the Safety Zone,
the seige of
Nanking, and the
unchanging
population
Fallacy of the "massacre" :
the Safety Zone, the seige of Nanking, and the unchanging population
Before doing so, I need to explain about the Safety Zone, which is an important factor in revealing the fallacy.
Throughout the fall of 1937, as the Japanese army approached towards Nanking, its citizens scrambled to get out of the city. As a result, by the end of November, what was once a city of one million people became a city of 200,000 people.
At the same time, a considerable number of Westerners lived in the city, whose living quarters tended to be concentrated in a particular area of Nanking. They were considered a third party to the Sino-Japanese conflict, with inviolable rights to life and property. The Westerners organized the Nanking Safety Zone Committee, in order to have the remaining Chinese move into the area where they lived, call it a neutral safety zone, and get the area recognized as such by both the Chinese and the Japanese. John Rabe, a German, was elected Committee Chairman.
The "Safety Zone" was located approximately at the center of the city, and had no neutral armed forces to guard it. The Japanese army said because of those facts, and because inner city battles were likely to happen and because Chinese soldiers could easily escape into that area, the area could not be recognized as a neutral area. However, the Japanese army did say it will to try to respect the efforts of the Safety Zone Committee when possible. #4
Let's go back to the over-all picture.
Mayor Ma Chao-chun of Nanking threw responsibility into the air and left the city on December 3rd. Before doing so, on December 1, he ordered all the citizens of Nanking to move into the Safety Zone, and "turned over" to the Committee "nearly all functions of the City government" #5, and left 450 policemen, 100,000 Chinese dollars, and 3000 tons of rice and 1000 tons of wheat to the Safety Zone Committee. #6 This made John Rabe the semi-official "acting mayor" #7 protecting the lives and property of the citizens of Nanking.
What is false about the Rape of Nanking and the book's claim that 300,000 people were massacred in Nanking? The answer is simple.
Chairman Rabe, who shouldered the burden of protecting the safety of all the citizens of Nanking, stated repeatedly that the population of Nanking is 200,000, and that he had to secure food for these 200,000 persons. He is consistent about this number.
Just before the arrival of the Japanese army, Rabe sent out a telegram to Hitler: "Undersigned Deputy Group Leader Nanking, chairman of local International Committee, asks his F'er kindly to intercede with the Japanese government to grant permission for creation of a neutral zone for noncombatants, since imminent battle for Nanking otherwise endangers the liver of over two hundred thousand people..." #8
On November 18, Rabe writes in his diary #9 that "Wo Kopang, the chief of police, has repeatedly declared that 200,000 Chinese are still living in the city."
On December 10, he writes, "We're anxiously awaiting an answer to our telegrams from the Japanese authorities and from Chiang Kai-shek. The fate of the city and 200,000 people are at risk."
On December 17, or four days after the fall of Nanking and supposedly four days into an "orgy of violence" #10 by the Japanese army, Rabe hands in a letter to the Japanese, in which he asks them to restore and maintain order in the city in order to save 200,000 Chinese from "starvation". This, at a time when Iris Chang says the Japanese were killing "civilians in every section of the city", and "streets, alleys, and ditches of the fallen capital ran rivers of blood, much of it coming from people barely alive, with no strength left to run away." #11 Is the "acting mayor" blind, since his most urgent concern seems to be protecting people from hunger? #12
Rabe remains consistent both in his diary and in the Safety Zone Committee's official letters to the Japanese army, on December 18, 21, 25, 27, and January 14 the following year, that the population of Nanking is 200,000, and that he is responsible for securing food for them.
From January 17, he writes in his diary and official documents that Nanking's population increased to 250,000.
What is crucial here is not so much that the population is 200,000. Rather, the crucial point is that the number remains constant, and that Rabe does not even once downsize it. Had there been the sort of massacre that Iris Chang describes, to the order of 300,000, the population would have decreased markedly. But there is no change. What I have quoted and mentioned were stated by someone who could be considered "acting mayor" of Nanking, who is carrying out relief work and trying to secure enough food for all the inhabitants. From his statements, there is no possibility of 300,000 persons murdered, nor could there have been even massacres of 50,000, or 30,000, or 20,000, or even 10,000 persons. The Nanking Safety Zone Committee protested to the Japanese army a total of 52 homicides within the city walls of Nanking. #13
Fallacy that the
population was at
least 600,000
when Nanking
was seiged
Now I would like to point out the fallacy in the assertion that the population of Nanking was 600,000 to 700,000.
In March of 1938, about three months after the fall of Nanking, sociology professor Lewis Smythe of University of Nanking conducted a survey of war damages inflicted onto the inhabitants of Nanking and the surrounding areas. #14 It was a serious academic endeavor, in which he used many college students to cover a wide area, and deemed by scholars as having a high degree of credibility. Dr. Smythe carried out a population survey as of end of March, which was approximately 220,000. #15
The number 220,000 is significant.
Iris Chang claims in her book that the population of Nanking was 600,000. Then the number of people massacred must be 380,000. If she believes the population to be as much as 700,000, then the number of people massacred jumps to 480,000. On what arithmatic does Iris Chang base her various claims of 200,000 or 300,000 or 430,000 victims? Obviously she is ignoring both her acclaimed John Rabe and Dr. Smythe's meticulously scientific research.
The next problem is the burial of the bodies. The charge is made that 300,000 persons were massacred by Iris Chang and others, although there were only 52 homicides. #16 The question arises, what happened to all the dead bodies? Who buried all the bodies, where? Iris Chang, and the Chinese and those Japanese who assert that there was a massacre are having a hard time trying to explain away who buried how many bodies where.
Iris Chang cites the burial records used in the Tokyo war-crimes trial, #17 the most glaring of which is the Tsun-shan-tang, which allegedly buried more than 110,000 bodies.
This group is known to have had little to do with burials. No one who were there in 1937 or 1938 ever mentions such burial activities by the Tsun-shan-tang in their writings. Their "burial records" appeared out of nowhere at the Tokyo Trial, 11 years after the fall of Nanking. Most Japanese scholars refute the veracity of the "records".
Iris Chang and others say that the population of Nanking was at least 600,000. How are they going to explain what happened to all the extra bodies, bigger than their claim, produced by simple arithmatic? They should give us a convincing explanation.
All the Nanking
residents had
gathered in
the Safety Zone
All the Nanking residents had gathered in the Safety Zone
Another paradox is that when the Japanese army entered Nanking, the city was practically deserted, and a no man's land, except for the Safety Zone, which was absolutely packed. Where did the 600,000 people live during those six weeks, and in what part of the city were the 380,000 people killed?
During the early weeks of the Japanese occupation, all the citizens of Nanking were concentrated in the Safety Zone, while the rest of the city was deserted. Here are some facts:
- On December 1, facing an imminent attack by the
Japanese army, Mayor Ma ordered all the citizens of Nanking to move into the Safety Zone.
- On December 8, General Tang Sheng-chih, commander
of the Chinese army defending Nanking, ordered all non-combatants to move into the Safety Zone.
- On the same day, Tokyo Asahi Newspaper reported
that residents of dangerous zones in Nanking rushed into the Safety Zone, creating utter confusion.
- Manchester Guardian correspondent H.J. Timperley
wrote in his book What War Means,
#18 that
Nanking was in fact clearly separated into a packed Safety Zone and a de facto no-man's land.
- The Safety Committee wrote to the Japanese embassy
on December 17th that "on the 13th when your troops entered the city, we had nearly all the civilian population
gathered in a Zone", #19 i.e. the "Safety Zone".
- The testimonies of the Japanese soldiers and their
field diaries invariably describe how quiet and empty the city was, except for the Safety Zone. Nankin Senshi, or "battle records of Nanking", published by Kaikosha, and Shikumareta Nankin Daigyakusatsu , or "the plotting of the Nanking massacre story",
by Mitsuru Oi, both recount how tense the Japanese soldiers were when they entered the various gates of Nanking,
expecting a big showdown of street combat. What they encountered was a city of silence. To be sure, there were
a few scattered Chinese soldiers, but they lacked the will to fight, and no bullets rang through the streets. Not
a single citizen was in sight, and soldiers have testified that they felt scared by the eerie silence and the emptiness
of the city. There were people within the Safety Zone, but they had been told it was an off-limits area, into which
only designated Japanese security troops were permitted to enter.
- Japanese soldiers have testified that when they got near the Safety Zone, they saw piles of Chinese military uniforms heaped onto the streets that separated the Zone and the rest of the city. This was because the retreating Chinese soldiers escaped into the Safety Zone, discarding their uniforms and camouflaging themselves as ordinary citizens. The Japanese army carried out a mopping up operation, which was an effort to separate the soldiers in disguise from ordinary folk. This operation continued until early January, and was carried out only in the Safety Zone. The army had no need to do this in other parts of the city, because the army believed nobody lived there.
400,000 Invisible
Residents
If Iris Chang continues to insist that 600,000 people lived in Nanking, then their distribution would be 400,000 persons in the non-Safety Zone area, since 200,000 persons lived in the Safety Zone. #20 Iris Chang should explain in which areas of the city the 400,000 Chinese lived. None of the Japanese soldiers met or saw these 400,000 persons. Were they Invisible Residents?
What was the fate of the 400,000 Invisible Residents? They must have been all massacred. The massacre could not have taken place in the Safety Zone, which saw no population decrease. Also, population statistics for Nanking end of March is equal to the number of people living in the Safety Zone. Therefore, the victims of the massacre must have been the Invisible Residents in the non-Safety Zone area of Nanking.
So what is my point? It is that the number 600,000 is a fabrication, concocted to "verify" that 300,000 people were massacred.
I now ask Iris Chang to solve the mystery of who killed the Invisible Residents. It could not have been the Japanese Army. The reason for this statement is that because a great part of the city seemed to be a no man's land to the Japanese Army, there was no military reason to guard those areas. The troops originally designated to guard particular areas of the city were ordered in rapid succession to leave Nanking, so that they could be engaged in other operations.
The city of Nanking is about 35 square kilometers in size, or about three-fifths of Borough of Manhattan. The Safety Zone is about 3.8 square kilometers in size, which is just about equal in area to New York's Central Park .
The Japanese Army ordered about 3000 men, a main power of one regiment, to guard the Safety Zone and its 200,000 inhabitants. Towards the end of December, seeing that the situation had settled down, about two regiments were ordered to guard the whole city of Nanking, including the Safety Zone, while the rest of the army was ordered to either move on to other parts of China, or to secure the suburbs of Nanking.
The two regiments must have behaved in a very peculiar fashion. The soldiers in charge of the Safety Zone do not kill anyone, as evident in the constancy of its population, while the other soldiers become a throng of killer maniacs and decimate the population of the area they are in charge of. Put it another way, if a soldier's duty is switched from one zone to the other, as from the Safety to the non-Safety Zone, then his senses leave him and he becomes a homicidal maniac. Such behavior is impossible for a normal person, and it is far more natural to assume that soldiers of neither zones were killer maniacs.
Looking at from another perspective, let us assume that there was a massacre. Two to three thousand men in the non-Safety Zone would have to kill 400,000 people in six weeks. Killing on such a scale is an impossible feat, unless the massacre is done as an organized, planned military action. There is no evidence of such behavior by the Japanese military.
If there was a massacre, then some evil military force other than the Japanese army must have killed all the residents, and blame it on the Japanese. Who would believe such an odd scenario? Yet, I see the evidence of such twisting of truth in the sentencing of Lieutenant General Sumio Tani, who was executed as the culprit of the Nanking massacre.
Lieutenant General Tani headed the 6th Division of the armed forces that attacked Nanking. He had been ordered to attack and seige the southwest portion of Nanking city. This area used to be a highly populated area, containing many shops. However, all the residents had fled before the Japanese came, and all that the soldiers saw when they entered the area on December 13th were stores with closed signs, and not a person in sight. Lieutenant Tani left a few troops to guard this area, and ordered all the rest to spend the night outside the city walls. Since there was no point in "guarding" a non-inhabited area, his whole division was ordered to start moving away from Nanking, on December 15, and arrived at Wuhu located 30 kilometers south, on December 21. Because he was away, he did not participate in the all-army ceremony held in Nanking on December 22, and sent instead a deputy to represent him and his division.
Yet this man was put to death as the perpetrator of the Nanking massacre. He protested his innocence and the fact that he was not even there, but the Chinese, intent on creating a Nanking massacre, did not listen and executed him. Lieutenant General Tani was found guilty of killing Invisible Residents of Nanking, and he was not even in Nanking. This is the truth of the Nanking Massacre.
My wife's father was born in 1900. He was 37 when the Japanese army beseiged Nanking. He had four children when he went to China as paymaster second lieutenant of Kumamoto Infantry of Division Six.
Throughout his life, he repeated, "Nanking Massacre, that is a lie", and died in 1993 when he was 93 years old.
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