Editing Nanjing Massacre (section)

== March to Nanjing and atrocities ==
[[File:Contest To Cut Down 100 People.jpg|thumb|An article on the "[[Contest to kill 100 people using a sword]]" published in the ''[[Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun]]''. The headline reads, {{"'}}Incredible Record' (in the Contest to Cut Down 100 People) – Mukai 106–105 Noda – Both 2nd Lieutenants Go into Extra Innings".<ref>{{cite news |url=http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080810x1.html |title=War and reconciliation: a tale of two countries |newspaper=[[The Japan Times]] |access-date=March 6, 2011 |archive-date=June 4, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120604200643/http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20080810x1.html |url-status=live}}</ref>]]

Although the massacre is generally described as having occurred over a six-week period after the fall of Nanjing, the crimes committed by the Japanese army were not limited to that period. Numerous atrocities were committed as the Japanese army advanced from Shanghai to Nanjing, including rape, torture, arson and murder. Many were committed as part of a systemic [[State terrorism|terror campaign]] meant to undermine the will to resist amongst the Chinese population.<ref name=":10">{{Cite book |last=Paine |first=Sarah |title=The Wars for Asia, 1911–1949 |date=2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=137}}</ref>

=== Japanese war crimes in the countryside ===
Advancing Japanese forces transformed the 170 miles between Shanghai and Nanjing into "a nightmarish zone of death and destruction". Japanese aircraft frequently strafed unarmed farmers and refugees "for fun".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Timberley |first=Harold |title=Japanese Terror in China |publisher=Books for Libraries Press |year=1969 |pages=91}}</ref> Civilians were subjected to extreme violence and brutality in a foreshadowing of the upcoming massacre.<ref name=":5" />

In one example on November 23, the Nanqiantou hamlet near [[Wuxi]] was set on fire, with many of its inhabitants locked within the burning houses. Two women, one a 17-year-old girl and the other pregnant, were raped repeatedly until they could not walk. Afterwards, the soldiers rammed a broom into the teenager's vagina and stabbed her with a bayonet, then "cut open the belly of the pregnant woman and gouged out the fetus". A crying two-year-old boy was wrestled from his mother's arms and thrown into the flames, while the hysterically sobbing mother was bayoneted and thrown into a creek. The remaining thirty villagers were bayoneted, disemboweled, and also thrown into the creek.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Katsuichi |first=Honda |title=The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame |date=1998 |pages=63–65}}</ref><ref name=":5" />

In another case on November 29, the Japanese 3rd Battalion from [[16th Division (Imperial Japanese Army)|the 16th Division]] rounded up eighty civilians in the village of Changzhou. The Japanese then massacred the villagers with heavy machine guns. According to army doctor Hosaka Akira, "The people were all gathered in one place. They were all praying, crying, and begging for help. I just couldn’t bear watching such a pitiful spectacle. Soon the heavy machine guns opened fire and the sight of those people screaming and falling to the ground is one I could not face even if I had had the heart of a monster."<ref name=":11" />

According to Kurosu Tadanobu of the [[13th Division (Imperial Japanese Army)|13th Division]]:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harmsen |first=Peter |title=Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze |date=2013 |publisher=Casemate |pages=252}}</ref> <blockquote>“We'd take all the men behind the houses and kill them with bayonets and knives. Then we'd lock up the women and children in a single house and rape them at night... Then, before we left the next morning, we'd kill all the women and children, and to top it off, we'd set fire to the houses, so that even if anyone came back, they wouldn't have a place to live.”</blockquote>Chinese civilians often committed suicide, such as two girls who deliberately drowned themselves near [[Pinghu]], an event witnessed by Japanese First Lieutenant Nishizawa Benkichi.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Nishizawa |page=670}}</ref>

=== Japanese war crimes in urban areas ===
As early as November, Japanese forces had been committing atrocities  against urban regions and cities. [[Jiading]] was shelled by Japanese forces, then 8,000 of its civilian residents murdered. Half of [[Taicang]] was razed to the ground, and then half the salt and grain stores looted.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harmsen |first=Peter |title=Nanjing 1937: Battle for a Doomed City |date=2015 |publisher=Casemate |page=58}}</ref>

On December 8, the Japanese Shanghai Expeditionary Army captured the city of [[Zhenjiang]] between Shanghai and Nanjing. They then set Zhenjiang on fire and executed anyone attempting to douse the flames. Zhenjiang burned for ten days. The Japanese also burned wounded Chinese soldiers alive and raped women and children. According to a city resident who survived the blaze, the city was burned as a deliberate attempt to destroy civilian property.<ref name=":10" />

According to one Japanese journalist embedded with Imperial forces at the time:<ref>[[Joseph Cumming|Cummins, Joseph]]. 2009. ''The World's Bloodiest History''. p. 149.</ref><blockquote>The reason that the [10th Army] is advancing to Nanjing quite rapidly is due to the tacit consent among the officers and men that they could loot and rape as they wish.</blockquote>In his novel ''Ikiteiru Heitai'' ('Living Soldiers'), [[Tatsuzō Ishikawa]] vividly describes how the 16th Division of the [[Shanghai Expeditionary Force]] committed atrocities on the march between Shanghai and Nanjing. The novel itself was based on interviews that Ishikawa conducted with troops in Nanjing in January 1938.<ref>[[Katsuichi Honda|Honda, Katsuichi]], and [[Frank Gibney]]. "The Nanjing massacre: a Japanese journalist confronts Japan's national shame." pp. 39–41.</ref>

=== Massacre contest ===
{{Main|Hundred man killing contest}}
[[File:日本人拿人頭.jpg|thumb|A Japanese soldier poses with the severed head of one of his victims]]
Perhaps the most notorious atrocity was a [[Contest to kill 100 people using a sword|killing contest between two Japanese officers]] as reported in the ''[[Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun]]'' and the English-language ''Japan Advertiser''. The contest—a race between the two officers to see who could kill 100 people first using only a sword—was covered much like a sporting event with regular updates on the score over a series of days.<ref>Tokyo Nichi Nichi, December 13, 1937, article on the killing contest.</ref><ref>Japan Advertiser, December 7, 1937 (an American-owned and edited English-language daily paper in Tokyo)</ref> In Japan, the veracity of the newspaper article about the contest was the subject of ferocious debate for several decades starting in 1967.<ref name="Kingston_2008_9">{{harvnb|Kingston|2008|p=9}}.</ref>

In 1937, the ''[[Osaka Mainichi Shimbun]]'' and its sister newspaper, the ''[[Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun]]'', covered a contest between two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda of the Japanese 16th Division. The two men were described as vying to be the first to kill 100 people with a sword before the capture of Nanjing. From [[Jurong, Jiangsu]] to [[Tangshan]], Mukai had killed 89 people while Noda had killed 78. The contest continued because neither had killed 100 people. By the time they had arrived at [[Purple Mountain (Nanjing)|Purple Mountain]], Noda had killed 105 people while Mukai had killed 106 people. Both officers supposedly surpassed their goal during the heat of battle, making it impossible to determine which officer had actually won the contest. Therefore, according to journalists Asami Kazuo and Suzuki Jiro, writing in the ''Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun'' of December 13, they decided to begin another contest to kill 150 people.{{sfn|Wakabayashi|2000a|p=319}}

In 2000, historian Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi concurred with certain Japanese scholars who had argued that the contest was a [[Urban legend|concocted story]] by the Japanese army, with the collusion of the soldiers themselves for the purpose of raising their [[Yamato-damashii|national fighting spirit]].<ref name="Wakabayashi Summer 2000 307">{{cite journal |first=Bob Tadashi |last=Wakabayashi |title=The Nanking 100-Man Killing Contest Debate: War Guilt Amid Fabricated Illusions, 1971–75 |journal=The Journal of Japanese Studies |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=307–340 |date=Summer 2000a |jstor=133271}}</ref>

In 2005, a Tokyo district judge dismissed a suit by the families of the lieutenants, stating that "the lieutenants admitted the fact that they raced to kill 100 people" and that the story cannot be proven to be clearly false.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/08/japanese-court-rules-newspaper-didnt.php |title=Jurist – Paper Chase: Japanese court rules newspaper didn't fabricate 1937 Chinese killing game |publisher=Jurist.law.pitt.edu |date=August 23, 2005 |access-date=March 6, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110225011506/http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/08/japanese-court-rules-newspaper-didnt.php |archive-date=February 25, 2011}}</ref> The judge also ruled against the [[civil claim]] of the [[plaintiff]]s because the original article was more than 60 years old.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://andesfolklore.hp.infoseek.co.jp/intisol/hyakunin/hanketu4.htm |script-title=ja:楽天が運営するポータルサイト ： 【インフォシーク】Infoseek |work=infoseek.co.jp |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060512091852/http://andesfolklore.hp.infoseek.co.jp/intisol/hyakunin/hanketu4.htm |archive-date=May 12, 2006 |language=ja}}</ref> The historicity of the event remains disputed in Japan.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-scars-of-nanking-memories-of-a-japanese-outrage-764827.html |location=London |work=The Independent |title=The scars of Nanking: Memories of a Japanese outrage |date=December 13, 2007 |access-date=August 22, 2017 |archive-date=January 28, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120128210201/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-scars-of-nanking-memories-of-a-japanese-outrage-764827.html |url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== Chinese scorched-earth policy ===
The Nanjing [[garrison]] set fire to buildings and houses in the areas close to Xiaguan to the north as well as in the environs of the eastern and southern city gates. Targets within and outside of the city walls—such as military barracks, private homes, the Ministry of Communication, forests, and entire villages—were completely burnt down, at an estimated value of US$20–30 million (1937).<ref name="doomed">{{cite web |url=http://www.geocities.com/nankingatrocities/Fall/fall_01.htm |title=Five Western Journalists in the Doomed City |access-date=April 19, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050325115933/http://www.geocities.com/nankingatrocities/Fall/fall_01.htm |archive-date=March 25, 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ne.jp/asahi/unko/tamezou/nankin/1937-12-08-NewYorkTimesTillmanDurdin.html |title=Chinese Fight Foe Outside Nanking; See Seeks's Stand |access-date=April 19, 2006 |archive-date=July 3, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170703035524/http://www.ne.jp/asahi/unko/tamezou/nankin/1937-12-08-NewYorkTimesTillmanDurdin.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ne.jp/asahi/unko/tamezou/nankin/1937-12-09-NewYorkTimesHallettAbend.html |title=Japan Lays Gain to Massing of Foe |access-date=April 19, 2006 |archive-date=September 13, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050913064732/http://www.ne.jp/asahi/unko/tamezou/nankin/1937-12-09-NewYorkTimesHallettAbend.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Establishment of the Nanking Safety Zone ===
{{Main|Nanking Safety Zone}}
[[File:Some members of the International Committee for Nanking Safety Zone on Dec 13, 1937.jpg|thumb|Members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, including John Rabe (center) and John Magee (center right)]]
Many Westerners were living in the city at that time, conducting trade or on missionary trips. As the Japanese army approached Nanjing, most of them fled the city, leaving 27 foreigners. Five of these were journalists who remained in the city a few days after it was captured, leaving the city on December 16. Fifteen of the remaining 22 foreigners formed a committee, called the [[International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone]] in the western quarter of the city.<ref>{{cite journal |first=David |last=Askew |title=The International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone: An Introduction |url=https://chinajapan.org/articles/14/14.03-23askew.pdf |journal=Sino-Japanese Studies |volume=14 |pages=3–23 |date=April 2002 |access-date=February 23, 2020 |archive-date=August 19, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190819031634/http://www.chinajapan.org/articles/14/14.03-23askew.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

German businessman [[John Rabe]] was elected as its leader, in part because of his status as a member of the [[Nazi Party]] and the existence of the [[Germany–Japan relations|German-Japanese]] bilateral [[Anti-Comintern Pact]]. The Japanese government had previously agreed not to attack parts of the city that did not contain Chinese military forces, and the members of the Committee managed to persuade the Chinese government to move their troops out of the area. The Nanking Safety Zone was demarcated through the use of [[International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement|Red Cross Flags]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/nanking.htm |title=Genocide in the 20th Century: The Rape of Nanking 1937–1938 (300,000 Deaths) |website=History Place |access-date=March 27, 2017 |archive-date=March 8, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170308232201/http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/nanking.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Minnie Vautrin]] was a Christian missionary who established [[Ginling Girls College]] in Nanjing, which was within the established Safety Zone. During the massacre, she worked tirelessly in welcoming thousands of female refugees to stay in the college campus, sheltering up to 10,000 women.<ref name="auto7">{{cite web |url=https://depts.washington.edu/triolive/quest/2007/TTQ07032/yuen/minnievautrin.html |title=Minnie Vautrin |access-date=October 5, 2022 |archive-date=October 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221005030657/https://depts.washington.edu/triolive/quest/2007/TTQ07032/yuen/minnievautrin.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Bernhard Sindberg's Refugee Camp ===
[[File:Sindberg on inspection in the refugee camp, Nanjing Massacre.jpg|thumb|Bernhard Sindberg holding a Danish flag with Chinese refugees in his refugee camp. ]]
At the age of 26, a [[Danes|Dane]] named [[Bernhard Arp Sindberg]] began his role as a guard at a cement factory in Nanjing in December 1937, days before the Japanese invasion of Nanjing.<ref name=":8">{{Cite web |last=Møller |first=Gregers |date=September 1, 2019 |title=Dane saved thousands of Chinese at Nanjing massacre |url=https://scandasia.com/dane-saved-thousands-of-chinese-at-nanjing-massacre/ |access-date=May 29, 2024 |website=Scandasia |language=en-GB |archive-date=May 29, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240529024640/https://scandasia.com/dane-saved-thousands-of-chinese-at-nanjing-massacre/ |url-status=live}}</ref> As the massacre began, Sindberg and [[Karl Günther (engineer)|Karl Gunther]], a German colleague, converted the cement factory into a makeshift refugee camp where they offered refuge and medical assistance to approximately 6,000 to 10,000 Chinese civilians.<ref name=":7">{{Cite news |date=August 30, 2019 |title=Nanjing Massacre: Denmark honours hero who rescued Chinese |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49524779 |access-date=May 29, 2024 |website=BBC |archive-date=October 17, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191017171827/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49524779 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=August 31, 2019 |title=Statue honors Dane credited as Nanjing Massacre lifesaver |url=https://apnews.com/article/5e768712a4dc4a559ab11cbf18eae3f2 |access-date=May 29, 2024 |work=AP News |archive-date=May 29, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240529030442/https://apnews.com/article/5e768712a4dc4a559ab11cbf18eae3f2 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Knowing that Imperial Japan was not hostile towards [[Denmark]] or [[Nazi Germany]], thus showing respect for their flags, Sindberg painted a large [[Danish flag]] on the cement factory roof to deter the Japanese army from bombing the factory.<ref name=":7" /> To keep Japanese troops away from the factory, he and Gunther strategically placed the Danish flag and the German [[swastika]] around the site.<ref name=":7" /> Whenever the Japanese approached the gate, Sindberg would display the Danish flag and step out to converse with them, and eventually, they would leave.<ref name=":8" />

=== Prince Asaka appointment as commander and the "Kill All Captives" order ===
[[File:Prince Asaka Yasuhiko 01.jpg|upright|thumb|[[Prince Yasuhiko Asaka]] in 1935, who would issue orders to "kill all captives" in the Nanjing area. ]]
In a memorandum for the palace rolls, Hirohito singled [[Prince Yasuhiko Asaka]] out for [[censure]] as the one imperial kinsman whose attitude was "not good". He assigned Asaka to Nanjing as an opportunity to make amends.{{sfn|Bergamini|1971|p=23}}

On December 5, Asaka left Tokyo by plane and arrived at the front three days later. He met with division commanders, lieutenant-generals [[Kesago Nakajima]] and [[Heisuke Yanagawa]], who informed him that the Japanese troops had almost completely surrounded 300,000 Chinese troops in the vicinity of Nanjing and that preliminary negotiations suggested that the Chinese were ready to surrender.{{sfn|Bergamini|1971|p=24}}

Prince Asaka issued an order to "kill all captives", thus providing official sanction for the crimes which took place during and after the battle.<ref name="Chen, World War II Database">Chen, World War II Database</ref> Some authors record that Prince Asaka signed the order for Japanese soldiers in Nanjing to "kill all captives".{{sfn|Bergamini|1971|p=24}} Others assert that lieutenant colonel [[Isamu Chō]], Asaka's [[aide-de-camp]], sent this order under the Prince's [[sign-manual]] without the Prince's knowledge or assent.<ref>Iris Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', 1997, p. 40</ref> Nevertheless, even if Chō took the initiative, Asaka was nominally the officer in charge and gave no orders to stop the carnage. While the extent of Prince Asaka's responsibility for the massacre remains a matter of debate, the ultimate sanction for the massacre and the crimes committed during the invasion of China were issued in Emperor [[Hirohito]]'s ratification of the Japanese army's proposition to remove the constraints of [[international law]] on the treatment of Chinese prisoners on August 5, 1937.<ref>Akira Fujiwara, "Nitchū Sensō ni Okeru Horyo Gyakusatsu2, ''Kikan Sensō Sekinin Kenkyū'' 9, 1995, p. 22</ref>

A detailed analysis of wartime materials and documents by Japanese researcher Ono Kenji has directly implicated Prince Asaka in issuing the order to illegally execute Chinese captives in the Nanjing Area.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Wakabayashi |first=Bob |title=The Nanking Atrocity, 1937–1938: Complicating the Picture |date=2000b |publisher=Berghan |pages=84–85}}</ref>