¶ Allegation
At a battle in Nanking in China (Dec 1937 to Jan/Feb 1938) Japan vs Chiang Kai-shek(KMT: Kuomintang Republic of China) on 2nd Sino-Japanese war, Westerners in Nanking, mostly American journalists and pastors, accused Japanese soldiers for raping and killing civilians. They also mentioned the trusted Red Swastika burial team claiming the 40K death toll including soldiers. After Japan lost WW2, suddenly a new list of burial records by other groups appeared and the sum of all death tolls soared up to 200K (matched to Hiroshima/Nagasaki atomic bomb victims, 210K) submitted by the Republic of China (See Burial Record).
¶ Conclusion
There was no such massacre of Chinese civilians by the Japanese. No such photos proving that the Japanese killed civilians (See Nanking fake photos). None of the Westerners saw Japanese soldiers killing civilians in person (individual testimonies). They only saw the dead or injured not knowing who did it, or they saw Japanese killing soldiers, whom they thought were civilians. These Westerners sided with Chiang Kai-shek.
It has been the Chinese military, KMT, who have executed and killed Chinese civilians throughout the Nanking battle and even several months before that.
Quick Summary
I made 4 flashcard-like summaries as a simple takeaway.
Go to the details describing above.
Massacre in Nanking has already began by Chinese military KMT, not Japanese, who executed 2000 Chinese civilians for a suspicion of traitors over several months prior to a battle on 13th Dec in 1937.
On 9th Dec 1937, KMT top leader, Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Mei-ling fled away with US pilot airplane leaving Chinese commander, Tang alone. Japanese leader Matsui sent a message to surrender to spare Chinese soldiers‘s lives and to protect the ancient building in Nanking. Yet Chinese KMT refused it and decided to fight till the last drop of a blood absorbed in the land.
On 12th Dec evening, right before the battle, Tang escaped from Nanking, which put the KMT soldiers into a huge panic and they tried to escape as well out of a walled city heading to a north gate, but there was “a terrible holocaust” as Fitch’s note says, the other Chinese soldiers who were ordered to kill those trying to escape shot Chinese soldiers including civilians. Furthermore at north bay at Yangtze River thousands of Chinese soldiers tried to cross and drowned BEFORE Japanese reached on 13th morning. This is all because of the irresponsible Chinese leaders who refused Japanese peaceful proposal and escaped without giving the remained soldiers a proper order.
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After Nanking fall on 13th Dec in 1937, the order of City was restored. The terror of regime by Chiang Kai-shek was gone, and a new autonomous government was set up.
The collection of authentic photos of Nanking after the order was restored.
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Yet, there are many Chinese KMT soldiers who flooded into Safety Zone other than escaping to north, where they are not supposed to enter, and stashed their weapons pretending to be civilians while committing crimes (See KMT crimes).
Japanese military decided a mopping operation for the concern of the safety of the city where KMT still attacked Japanese troops by air raid on 2rd, 16th on Jan 1938 (See Soviet involvement).
Yet, Americans sided with Chiang Kai-shek took it as a massacre and spread anti-Japanese propaganda to the world and even worse, they helped Chinese KMT soldiers hide in Safety Zone, which is the completely unneutral act.
¶ How Americans made up Nanking Massacre twice.
First Nanking propaganda (1937 Dec - 1938)
Since a battle at Shanghai, American journalists had been on the side of Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, Soong Mei-ling and they spreaded anti-Japanese propaganda direct manner such as newspapers or journals with authors names on them. Especially at Nanking battle, Steel, McDaniel reported biased stories against Japan. US bias media even went further on June (6 month after Nanking battle) when Chiang bombed Yellow river to cause a flood to attack Japanese troops, causing up to a million death of Chinese civilians, US media said Japanese did it citing Chinese source and no single condemnation against Chiang when it was done by him (See Yellow River Flood and Spanish newspaper’s criticism).
American pastors such as Fitch, Bates, his subordinate Smyth, and his senior Milles were close to Chiang and Soong. Their relation had been there in Nanking as early as 1931 where Chiang had become Christian and protected Christianity for a political reason while other Chinese leaders did not (See Milles‘s paper). These American pastors played a great role to spread anti-Japanese propaganda indirectly by anonymous posts and articles on newspapers and books. They also carefully used other figures such as German John Rabe, Australian Timperley, Danish.
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Second Nanking Propaganda (1945-)
After WW2, there were two war winner trials. At Far Eastern Military Tribunal run by the US, the death count significantly soared up to 200K to 300K (matched to Hiroshima/Nagasaki atomic bomb victims, 210K) with the "non original" burial record submitted to the court by Republic Of China. Japanese leader at Nanking battle, Iwane Matstui (松井 石根), who has nothing to do with Pacific War(a battle against the US), was brought to the court, sentenced to death, and executed by the US.
Next at Nanking Military Tribune run by Republic of China, other Japanese such as Hisao Tani(谷 寿夫), Tsuyoshi Noda(野田 毅), and Toshiaki Mukai(向井 敏明) were sentenced to death and were executed.
Japanese soldiers indeed killed many captured KMT Chinese soldiers but these Chinese soldiers refused Japanese ultimatum to surrender and have executed/killed civilians/soldiers before/during/after the battle. Especially those Chinese soldiers who escaped into Safety Zone , took off their uniform and stashed their weapons are not qualified as POW.
But above all, the root of problem of Nanking battle is due to the fact that Chinese top leaders, Chiang Kai-shek and Tang who told their soldiers to fight till a last man, trapped their soldiers within a walled city and ordered barrier troops to shoot those escaping, yet cowardly escaped themselves. This brought a chaos at a battle and failed to end it with a minimum casualty.
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