A Brief History
On December 13, 1937, the blood-lust of a number of Japanese soldiers reached unprecedented proportions when they massacred over 250,000 Chinese in Nanking!
Digging Deeper
Digging deeper, we find Japan waging a war against their huge but militarily weak neighbor, China, during the lead up to World War II.
Resentful of western spheres of influence in China and western colonies throughout Asia, Japan was ready for their own piece of the pie. In their arrogance, they considered themselves the master race and as such deserved to rule all of Asia. This ethnocentric and nationalistic feeling set the stage for such a slaughter, as of course they thought the Chinese were inferior beings not deserving of respect as humans.
Nanking (various spellings) had been serving as the Chinese capital and as such was a prime target. Although the Chinese government fled, the Japanese still enthusiastically desired the subjugation of the erstwhile capital and took the city on December 13, 1937 and commenced a “rape” of the city with a massacre of enormous proportions. Raping and pillaging the people and the city, the attackers made huge sport of killing civilians, engaging in personal contests to see which Japanese soldier could individually kill the most Chinese!
The raping, murdering, looting and arson went on for six weeks. The raping (20,000 rapes estimated!) was not limited to young women, but included old women, girls, and girls so young the soldiers cut them to make rape possible! Likewise, the murders covered all ages, even babies were bayoneted and fetuses cut from bellies. Rape victims were also frequently mutilated, especially sexually.
In spite of there being thousands of guilty Japanese soldiers, only 7 were hanged after the war for these war crimes, and 18 men were sent to prison. The Japanese emperor, Hirohito, escaped any trial for war crimes after the war although he personally had approved treating the Chinese with no regard to international law or norms and that Chinese soldiers would not even be considered prisoners of war if captured. Despite denials and excuse making after the war, one must think such horrors could not have occurred without the tacit approval of the government and military leaders.
Question for students (and subscribers): How could anyone possibly be motivated to commit or go along with others committing such atrocities? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
The Rape of Nanking is considered “the second most vile and disturbing historic example of rape” in a list featured in Banned from the Internet?!: “Controversial” Top 10 Lists and it has been covered extensively in numerous other scholarly works.
Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. Basic Books, 2012.
Chang, Ying-Ying. The Woman Who Could Not Forget. Pegasus Books, 2012.
Qi, Shouhua. Purple Mountain: A Story of the Rape of Nanking: English Chinese Bilingual Edition. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2009.
Zarzeczny FINS, Dr. Matthew Donald. Banned from the Internet?!: “Controversial” Top 10 Lists. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="858 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=858">164 Comments
Could Fukushima be karma?
It is sad to say that people can act worse than animals despite the powers of intelligence they are given at birth.
I think it is a possiblity karma
This is so sad.
It’s really sad the way people can act.
the Japanese soldiers that committed these rapes and murders aren’t men they are savage animals lacking any trace of humanity and should have had the same thing done to them
This is really messed up
If everone would be honest and admit it, I think, every nation thinks they are the “master” race at sometime in history.
This is so disturbing and messed up!
I never realized this of what happened up until World War II. It is sad how cruel people can be to people of another nationality.
Before this class/article, I have never really heard much about the Japanese side of the war. It’s amazing what humans are capable of doing
That is crazy! This world is so messed up.
What an absolutely disgusting way for humans to behave
Wow, this was sickening to read. I wonder if there are written accounts from the women during this time period and also from the Chinese in general.
War is necessary from time to time… but what the Japanese did was unthinkable! — DAVID WARDLE
This massacre was absolutely horrible! I never understood what incentive the Japanese had when they did this.
Absolutely horrible
State sanctioned (failure to control the actions of your underlings is a form of sanction) murder seems to be the 20th century’s biggest theme.
This was really disturbing to take in…
Absolutely horrible to hear about this!
just horrific..
It’s hard to imagine how any human could believe that any of this was right.. It is really sickening to think that such violent and obscene things happen.
This is just terrible. It is sickening to know people are
cable of doing such things.
What a horrible act. It’s so disturbing humans would do something like this.
As a Japanese, I learned this fact in the class. However, it was just a part of the truth. Of cource, teacheres wanted to hide these horrible fact. I think education tend to protect own countries. But, it should be avoided. In addition, we learned Japanese were victim at WW2. The situation in Japan was terrible after nuclear bomb were dropped. However, I can say that Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor, then we were attacked by the US. I think this gap of education exists all around the world. We should be carefull not to see one aspect.
I don’t understand how people can be so cruel. This is so sad.
This disgusts me that anyone would have the indecency to do this. Truly awful.
The atrocities humans are capable of is incredibly unsettling and heart wrenching. This is why our leaders have to have a moral compass and teach their subordinates that anything less will not be tolerated.
This is so sad that the women of all ages were treated that way, and only 7 were hanged and 18sent to prison. More officers should have been punished. There is no words to describe how awful this is.
This is so disturbing. I don’t understand anyone that would rape a child, it is just insane.
This is awful! So many men committed these acts but so few were disciplined for it, I can not even fathom this happened or why anyone would do this to another person.
This was absolutely horrendous and disturbing. I will mention that although the facts are surprising and shocking, I believe that exclamation points should be excluded from texts discussing such horrors. I feel it is slightly disrespectful to the victims, even when they are no longer living.
This is so disturbing. I can not believe an entire city had to go through this. I can not imagine why they felt that this was necessary.
That is just sickening. I do not know how someone could come to raping that many women and killing the way they did.
It’s unbelievable that so many women and young children had to go through that and those men went unpunished for those acts.
I cant believe that thousands were guilty, but only 7 were hanged and 18 men were sent to prison.
I can not believe that this actually took place. The numbers of victims is just astounding! Such a sad event.
I can’t believe anyone could actually do this, it is truly awful.
This is a gut wrenching awful deed. I can’t believe that anyone could fathom doing this.
I don’t understand how anyone thought this was okay
This is just sickening. It’s hard to believe that someone could actually be capable of carrying out these horrendous acts.
I agree that it seems improbable there wasn’t tacit approval of government and military. There was a lack of justice here.
This is completely messed up.
this is seriously very disturbing and sad, i cant believe how anyone could do such things.
Just more devastating things
unfortunate this happened in history, tragedy after tragedy and this is up there as one of the most sickening i have read to this point.
I understand it is war but this kind of violence did not make sense to me. To rape women just because you are at war, rape is unexceptionably for any reason.
Violence never seems like the logical answer but it always tends to be the answer to many problems we face. Tragedy always seems to remain and this is just another example.
I can’t even imagine getting enough sick minded people together to do something so horrific. You would think someone would have realized that they were wrong.
Imperial japan really had an us vs them approach which like the nazis allowed them to do horrible things
This is one of the most disturbing events in history. I cannot believe that this chaos lasted for 6 weeks. It is terribly upsetting to read about the pure numbers of both rape and murder victims.
This is absolutely disgusting and awful. In one of my women’s history classes we discussed women historically being treated as the spoils of war and the rape of Nanking clearly demonstrates this. The Chinese women of Nanking were treated as prizes to be taken and won by the Japanese and not innocent civilians that they were.
A disturbing article to read about. The Japanese should be ashamed of themselves for raping so many Chinese women,girls and even worse babies. The Chinese should of bombed Japan for such ridiculous actions. More of the Japanese soldiers should of paid the price only a hand full getting hung does not pay for the crime.
I think that worst part of this whole article to read about was that the Japanese really did not suffer any consequences for this terrible and horrific event. Only seven people were hanged on the charge of war crimes and only eighteen men were imprisoned for it. It makes me sick to think that they got off so easy for such crimes.
Reading this article gave me the chills. 20,000 rapes estimated? I cannot even wrap my head around that number! It really shocked me, however, that after all these killings when the massacre was over, only 7 people were hanged and 18 went to prison.
In the US I feel that when we think back to WWII we often jump right to the Nazis. This article shows that it really is true that Japan was just as disgraceful of an enemy as the Germans were.
This is just terrible. Hate and blame against certain groups of people during World War II seemed to be the common theme. Japan was not defending their country by going to China and raping and killing innocent people. 250,000 killed and 20,000+ raped.. That is an unbelievable number.
There was zero integrity shown in this act of war. Raping and pillaging an entire nation does not advance any society. It is a shame that only 25 men were actually punished for these actions. The Japanese leader was not even punished!
It’s incidences like these that make the idea of war so intolerable. The fact that barely a fraction of men were convicted for such atrocities weakens my faith in humanity as a whole. Such widespread acts of horror like these allow me to seriously question the psyche of man and understand just how easily manipulated the human mind can be.
Despite how brutal and terrifying these crimes were, it is insane that out of the thousands of Japanese solders,only 7 were hanged and 18 sent to prison. Absolutely no need for anything like this. While reading the article it was also shocking to read that the government of China fled before this event, you would think they’d stay to assist and defend their country.
As Amanda had mentioned, it is horrifying that only 25 men were punished for pillaging and raping an entire country. These are sickening acts and deserved more harsh punishments. I never realized how prominent fighting and warfare was throughout the world’s human history, until reading all of these articles. I hope there comes a time where all humans can get along and people use words as a means of solving conflicts among them.
How do only 25 men get punished but there are 250,000 victims of the Rape of Nanking? This is appalling, and the Japanese should be ashamed of themselves. The Rape of Nanking does not get the same attention as the Holocaust receives, but it deserves more attention than it gets.
It still blows me away how messed up countries and their people can be. What a lack of concern for human life. To have 25 people punished for this mass crime against humanity is a shame. It should have been way more, including Hirohito.
Only 7 Japanese soldiers being executed for this atrocious attack seems to be a small number, especially considering the 20,000 rapes or more that occurred. It is disturbing to read about such a mass raping. Had China had a more imposing military, perhaps they would have been able to defend themselves during this attack.
I am disappointed that more soldiers were not held for the responsibility of this awful manslaughter. It is also shameful that the Japanese emperor approved of such things. The amount of mutilation among women/girls of all ages (even unborn babies) is appalling!
I am actually sitting here shocked. I just can’t believe that a group of soldiers, from any country, would be willing and excited about doing this to other people. They made a game out to it. They raped every woman in sight and even that wasn’t enough. They raped babies!
Wow, this story is unbelievable and appalling. I cannot believe something like this could ever occur and am surprised I have never heard of this. More soldiers should have been held responsible for this manslaughter. I am in shock that this went on for six weeks without anyone stepping in.
This is insane to think about. I can’t believe any leader allowed this to happen especially not so long ago. Obviously the crimes were not allowed and they executed 7 Japanese soldiers, but that was a slap on the wrist for the Japanese military.
I had never heard of this before, but this was clearly a horrific event that should just act as further justification for the United States entering the war. It seems that Nazi’s and the Japanese soldiers may have been more similar than people realized.
It is disgusting to think that there were people that did that to over 250,000 Chinese. What is even more sickening is that it went on for six weeks. China is clearly bigger in size and one would think they would have enough people to stand up and fight back.
I have never heard to this before and I wish it stayed that way! This is so wrong and disturbing. It is crazy to think that at one time in history things like this really happened. I can not believe something like this went on for six weeks without being stopped.
I never knew how extensive the damages were to the people of Nanking. It is horrific reading that young children were even raped or that pregnant women’s babies were brutally removed.
I cannot believe a country to need to show their power in such disturbing way. It is down right disgusting what they did to the people of Nanking.
This is an ugly mess. From the amount of women raped to the amount of men and women killed, it is almost unrealistic that this occurred. This mass chaos between the Chinese and Japanese was done way out of proportion.
Its disturbing the things that happened to the people of Nanking. I cannot even imagine being in those circumstances at that time
This war between the Japanese and China almost seemed like a game to the Japanese, trying to see individually how many they can kill.
This is disturbing and sad. imagine if we lived during this time.
Why have I never heard of this? This is one of the most disgusting things I have ever read. The Japanese have a darker history than I thought.
Nobody deserves this sort of torture.
Which soldier can kill more is a very terrible way to look at war.
This is such a terrible event in history, i cannot imagine how the victims felt. More than eighteen men should have been punished.
It’s sickening that this massacre went on for 6 weeks! Not to mention, truly amazing that Japan managed to overtake their neighboring country.
It is truly disgusting what happened during that 6 week massacre.
Again another country gets by with just a slap on their wrists. To do such horrible things and then not have to pay the penalty of at least prison. What makes people so evil?
I cannot believe that more people were not implicated for these ugly acts of violence, especially the emperor.
This is just horrible. I can not believe so many people got away with this. I believe that their leader should have gotten in way more trouble.
I found this article very disgusting. How 20,000 rapes occurred without anyone having to pay a penalty? How does that even happen?
This article is horrible. I do not understand what goes through some people’s minds in them thinking that any of this is acceptable. There should be no excuse for any of what occurred and every person involved should have gotten a more severe punishment. What is wrong with people?
This article made me sick to my stomach. Some people just do not have any regard for human life and worth. I cannot imagine how traumatized the survivors were. It is sickening that only a few people had to pay for their actions and so many others were never disciplined.
There was no justice for the Chinese because only 7 men were hanged and 18 were sent to prison. It is sad to think that people would make a sport of killing and have contests to see who could kill the most Chinese. Also, to rape 20,000 girls, no matter what age, is an outrageous crime and is very disturbing.
Reading this article really opened up my eyes. It’s sickening to even hear about one rape case. To hear about 20,000 rape cases is absolutey disgusting. I was even more surprised to hear about how often people were killed and mutilated, especially sexually.
I had no idea how brutal the Japanese were. War is already tragic enough to then add such horrific war crimes. It is like men in war just become animals looking for its prey!
If this was only the “second most vile and disturbing historic example of rape,” I cannot imagine what the first would be. What the Japanese did was truly disgusting and there punishment was not nearly severe enough.
I can’t believe “soldiers” were the ones doing these horrible things, especially committing over 20,000 rapes. This sounds like an unbelievable nightmare.
It disgusts me that over 20,000 rapes were committed. Even in today’s society, the raping of old women would be looked down upon and looked at as perverted, disgraceful, and disgusting.
This is honestly disgusting to read about. The way that these soldiers treated these people is horrifying.
This is a horrific, disgusting historical event.
This article shows the true evil of man and how importaint it is to protect yourself as well as the family you are apart of
The Nanking Massacre is the humiliation in the human history. Japanese committed a flagrant crime in China. Sadly, the government of Japan doesn’t admit what they did in today’s society.
That was really the true evil of man that, they were brazen, and they were unqualified to be soldiers.
It is hard to imagine living during this time period. I am surprised so few were punished for their actions.
I cannot believe that those soldiers treated people like that. This was horrible to read about and I cannot believe that it happened.
I hated reading this and these people should have never been labeled soldiers. Their behavior was disgusting.
This is a sad read. It’s hard to imagine anyone cutting young women to make rape possible.
This was a hard article to get through, I can’t imagine anyone, especially soldiers using this type of behavior and thinking that it was acceptable.
wow just behaving like that makes me think no one has a good train of though, like why would you even consider doing this.
Japanese culture holds honor close to its heart… This is anything but honorable, horrid what they did to these people.
This is absolutely disgusting and horrid and these men should have all suffered for this crime. I don’t normally condone torture in most circumstances but this is definitely the exception.
This is just disgusting can you imagine if this happened nowadays with all the media coverage we have it would be an all out war against the Japanese.
I cannot even wrap my mind around the fact that 250,000 people were killed in one single day. Absolutely insane.
A 250,000 person massacre is awful.
250,000 people is just a lot of people that this had to happen to…very sad.
This is terrible and to think that the Japanese value honor so much, kind of hypocritical if you ask me.
Raping and pillaging is the worst thing you could do. I do not understand how the Japanese could think this is okay.
That is insane how many people were killed on a single day.
Only 25 people were punished for the raping, pillaging, and murdering of even babies is sickening. This is one of the most disgusting story in history that I’ve read, so glad I didn’t live during this time period.
The massacre was not right and counter productive of what was happening at the time
Humans are disgusting.
That makes me disgusted to even think of 20,000 rapes happening in that one area. How horrifying of a thought. wow.
I never realized that the Japanese thought they were a superior race as well. It now makes sense to why Germany and Japan became allies during World War 2.
in war human became inhuman
The facts presented in this article are just sickening. I cannot fathom such an act.
I wish I didn’t know this. It’s so aweful
its really uncomfortable about what could happen
Those soldiers didn’t just act on their own when they treated those poor souls in such a barbaric way. When armies act like that, it’s because they were told to do so.
Either way it happened it was sad and I couldn’t believe that really happened.
I can’t believe how those soldiers acted and all the rapes that happened no matter what the age was. This was sad to hear those poor babies nd kids didn’t need to go through that.
I am in shock by how these individuals acted.
This was difficult to read. Horrific!
Contests to kill civilians, what a terrible thing to do to people. It seems that during every war, civilians take most of the losses.
If you are true leader, you take responsibility for soldiers actions regardless if you were there or not. War brings out the worse out of people and yes most of the time the civilians take most of the losses.
That’s a disturbing story. Not much else to say.
This article was so hard to read. I can’t believe people would do something like that especially to young girls.
Just horrible. How could you live with yourself doing these kind of war crimes. Raping anyone of any age is just evil and they should have all be punished.
The injustice in this situation is mind-boggling! How is it possible for something so disgusting to take place so many times without proper punishment?
This is definitely a blight on Japanese history, so much to the point were you would have to imagine that it is not mentioned very much in the culture due to the guilt left behind. I remember this incident being so bad that they wouldn’t even talk about it or teach it in the High School that I attended as a kid. It is truly one of those incidents in history that makes your stomach turn.
I cannot believe that the Japanese believed that they were the master race! They thought that they deserved to rule Asia. All of the rapes that occurred during this ordeal is the worst part of this story, the men whom raped these women are horrible human beings and deserve to rot in prison and then Hell! It is truly disgusting to read of all of the horror that these women and girls went through.
The rapes that were taken place are just awful to read about. I can’t believe that limited amount of people were held accountable for these actions. The poor women who had to suffer through those actions.
It is sickening to read that they felt it was ok to rape old women, young women, and girls.
This event is another terrible example of how people try to gain world power by murdering and raping innocent people. These soldiers and leaders should have received some sort of punishment for what they did.
This story is nothing short of down right horrible. I cannot imagine the trauma and death some of these women had to endure, all over men wanting to prove their power-fullness and superiority over another country. I am baffled by the extremely small number of men who were hanged and imprisoned for the raping. They had to have known there were many more involved. There was basically no justice for these victims.
Rape is a situation that is NEVER OKAY!
Even though the war crimes bad enough, what made it more tragic is that the Japanese emperor, Hirohito, escaped any trial for war crimes after the war although he personally had approved treating the Chinese with no regard to international law or norms and that Chinese soldiers would not even be considered prisoners of war if captured. Despite denials and excuse making after the war, one must think such horrors could not have occurred without the tacit approval of the government and military leaders. In spite of there being thousands of guilty Japanese soldiers, only 7 were hanged after the war for these war crimes, and 18 men were sent to prison. I would not call t justice for the Chinese people.
Horrible that I even had to read this article. It is unbelievable the awful torture and rape these poor women went through. Every person involved in the rape of women should have been sentenced to life in prison or death.
What a devastating period of time. Just thinking about the number of women of all ages and the children that were not only violated but mutilated from such a coward. Then to think that only a few were charged and sent to prison infuriates me.
Absolutely unacceptable and heart wrenching! How can people do such harmful things to women and children?! To commit the crime with the number of people rape and murdered only 7 were hung and 18 were sent to prison is absolutely unacceptable.
I can’t help but make the comparison between Japanese competing to murder the most Chinese, and American soldiers competing to murder the most Japanese after Pearl Harbor and America’s desire for revenge.
This was absolutely disgusting to read. My heart aches for all the people involved. I also cannot love Patrick’s comment below. He hit the nail on that one!
Excuse the language, but how in the hell were only seven people sentenced to death and only 18 sent to prison for these atrocities? Furthermore, why weren’t any government officials or military leaders prosecuted? There is no way they had no idea that these crimes were being committed by people that they had empowered.
I agree with Tiffany, this was disgusting to even read. I can not even imagine. But like Patrick said, there is much in comparison.
My heart breaks every time I hear this story. I think those 18 men who went to prison should’ve hanged with the other 7.
I am half Filipino. Many Filipino have Chinese ancestry and empathize with the Chinese because we also felt this superiority coming from the Japanese. Filipinos suffered the same cruelties at the hands of Japanese and people had family members who were World War II veterans and who despised the Japanese for the rest of their lives due to their inhumane treatment.
As others have noted, this article is powerful due to its ability to disgust. The number of Chinese who were abused and murdered is staggering. It is hard to envision the scale of such an outlandish attack, but it isn’t hard to believe that such a thing would happen back then, particularly at a time when it would have been so easy for the Japanese soldiers to get away with it without the rest of the world knowing.
This article was revolting. To imagine a human being capable of doing something like this is just awful.
This was definitely eye opening. I had no idea this had happened. I cannot even imagine the fear of the people in those villages.
Disgusting
Clearly there is NO and was NO justice served here. Thousands upon thousands of women and children treated like pure crap and only 7 men were hung and 18 sent to prison? Where is he justice in that? What a slap in the face!!!!
What a sad story. I had never heard of this before, but I agree that no justice was served for these people.
I do not know if there is a comment that I could place on here that poses any significance to the horror of which I just read.
Makes me sick to my stomach to hear what they did those Chinese women (older, younger, and even the babies) that’s horrible.
I always hear that Chinese women are treated so horrible, I feel so bad for them. I’m thankful it’s not like that in America
This makes me sick. Making a contest out of it and raping girls so young they had to cut them to be able to? Absolutely appalling.
Rape of Nanking was a famous war in China, because the losing war made a lot of innocent people in China get hurt and made them into death. Nowadays, there are still many Chinese people hate Japanese because of that war. The Japanese were merciless by using that way treating Chinese in the past.
this history made me really sick and not feeling well. For us, this is a very cruel history. This history has been unable to rewrite, Chinese don’t want to see this memory appear again.
“the second most vile and disturbing historic example of rape” I can not imagine living in a world like that. The government definitely allowed this to happen.