Nanjing Massacre

In December 1937 the Imperial Japanese Army captured Nanjing, then the capital of the Republic of China, and its soldiers went on to kill and rape Chinese civilians, unarmed soldiers and prisoners of war on a vast scale, in what became known as the Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanised Nanking). The worst of the violence is traditionally dated to the six weeks after 13 December 1937, though atrocities in the area continued until March 1938. Estimates of the number killed vary widely, from tens of thousands to more than 300,000, and the event remains a source of tension between China and Japan.

The Second Sino-Japanese War had broken out in July 1937. After taking Shanghai in November, Japanese forces advanced quickly towards the capital. According to many accounts, troops on the march committed atrocities in the countryside, including the massacre of whole villages and a reported contest between two officers over who could first cut down 100 people with a sword. The Japanese Central China Area Army under General Iwane Matsui reached the outskirts of Nanjing in early December. Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, a member of the imperial family, had been placed in temporary command, and the main accounts say that, before the city fell, he ordered his troops to "kill all captives".

Japanese troops reached the city gates on 9 December. After four days of fighting the Chinese defence collapsed, and on 12 December the commander, General Tang Shengzhi, ordered a retreat. Many Chinese soldiers were trapped inside the city, and some tried to hide among civilians. Japanese divisions entered Nanjing on 13 December.

Over the following weeks Japanese soldiers killed large numbers of civilians, including women, children and the elderly. Units carried out so-called mopping-up operations in which captured soldiers and men accused of being soldiers were marched out of the city and shot or bayoneted in groups, in breach of the laws of war. Women and girls of all ages were raped, and many were killed afterwards. Looting and arson destroyed around a third of the city. Neither Matsui nor Asaka acted to stop the killing once it had begun.

A group of Westerners who had stayed in Nanjing, among them the German businessman John Rabe, organised a Nanking Safety Zone where refugees could shelter. Although Japanese soldiers repeatedly entered it to seize people, the zone is said to have saved the lives of at least 200,000 people.

The death toll is disputed. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East put the toll at more than 200,000, while many recent estimates fall between 100,000 and 200,000. The historian Bob Wakabayashi, for example, counting victims in the city and its six surrounding rural counties up to March 1938, puts the toll at well over 100,000 but short of 200,000. The Chinese government and the national memorial use the figure of 300,000, which some historians, such as Ikuhiko Hata, regard as a symbolic figure; the highest estimates, over 340,000, cover the wider Shanghai to Nanjing region. The lowest estimates, about 40,000, cover the city alone. Estimates of the number of rapes range from about 4,000 to over 80,000, with around 20,000 most commonly cited.

Matsui and Asaka were recalled to Japan in February 1938. After the war the Tokyo tribunal convicted Matsui, ruling that he had done "nothing, or nothing effective" to stop the crimes, and he was hanged in December 1948 along with the former prime minister Kōki Hirota and other leaders. Asaka, as a member of the imperial family, was granted immunity. A separate tribunal in Nanjing sentenced several officers to death, including Lieutenant General Hisao Tani and the two officers named in the killing contest.

A memorial hall for the victims was built in Nanjing in 1985, and China held its first national memorial day in 2014. The Japanese government states that it cannot be denied that large numbers of non-combatants were killed and that looting and other acts occurred. Some Japanese officials and politicians, and a few historians in Japan, have nonetheless denied or dismissed the massacre, which continues to strain relations between China and Japan.

Our 1938 map shows the Republic of China and the expanding Empire of Japan in the first months of full-scale war.