Wolf Schenke: Nanking's Final Days
On my return I found remaining behind: three members of the
embassy staff who had been assigned to stay at their posts and
Herr John H. D. Rabe, in whose house I had always been a welcome
guest on earlier visits to Nanking. Herr Kroger from Carlowitz
& Co. and Herr Sperling had likewise remained behind, though I
did not have occasion to meet them. Each painted the most dreadful
picture of the imminent capture of the city. Each was aware that
his remaining behind might well prove to be a matter of life and
death. It was less that they feared the shelling of the city by
Japanese artillery and airplanes. That danger was really nothing
compared to what was to be expected from the flood of retreating
Chinese troops. They considered all eventualities, but the results
of their deliberations were anything but hopeful. Had not the
troops of the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek murdered foreigners
and raped foreign women upon their arrival in Nanking in 1927?
They had seen the Szechuan soldiers march to the front,
looking like the semibandits they were. In previous wars it had
been standard practice for Chinese soldiers, especially those of
defeated and retreating armies, to burn, sack, and pillage the
local population. They pictured the retreating army defeated and
emoralized by the Japanese, flooding through Nanking. Would not
their rage and hate be directed against the whites? The old
enophobia would surely break out anew.
They recalled events that had occurred in Canton a decade
before. These included scenes of bestial cruelty beyond the
imaginings of a European brain. It is not easy to brazen out that
sort of future. But that is what those who remained behind in
Nanking did.
Unless I obtained a press card from the Chinese foreign
ministry it would be impossible for me to send press telegrams
home. After a long conversation with the remaining staff at the
embassy it was agreed that I should continue on to Hankow.
Herr Scharfenberg quickly scanned the mail I had brought with
me (from Shanghai), culled out what was secondary and put the
important items in a new envelope. We wanted to take them on with
us to Wuhu, where the German ambassador Dr. Trautmann was on board
the Kutwo.
Despite our haste, I wanted to say goodbye to Herr Rabe.
Hurter turned off the main road toward "Siemens City," as the
Germans in Nanking called the grounds of Siemens China Co., where
there was a little German school, which owed its foundation
primanly to Herr Rabe. Johny Rabe was sitting at his typewriter in
his office, writing his diary. Rabe had not remained in Nanking
for business reasons, but in order to erect a zone of refuge for
the 200,000 noncombatants of
Nanking, similar to that created
by Pater Jacquinot in Shanghai.
I was personally very skeptical of the plan, since the
committee lacked the authority to maintain law and order and
prevent either Chinese or, later on, Japanese soldiers from
entering the zone. Rabe said: "Well, after working here for 30
years and spending most of your life here, it's worth taking the
risk."
In our brief conversation he still kept his old good humor,
but it seemed to me to be more of a gallows humor now. Although I
had every good reason to leave Nanking, somehow in the presence of
Rabe and Hurter I felt like someone who is saving his own neck
while others march toward an almost certain death.
Taken from Wolf Schenke, Reise an der Gelben Front:
Beobachtungen eines deutschen Kriegsbereichterstatters
[Journey to the Yellow Front: Observations of a German War
Reporter] (Oldenburg and Berlin, 1943), pp. 60 ff. (excerpt).