John raven

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John raven

John Heinrich Detlef Rabe (born November 23, 1882 in Hamburg , † January 5, 1950 in Berlin ) was a German businessman. Because of his humanitarian services to the Chinese civilian population in the Second Sino- Japanese War, he is also known as the " Oskar Schindler of China", in US sources as the "second Schindler" and by the Chinese as the "German living Buddha " or "the good one." Germans from Nanjing ”.

Life

John Rabe was born in Hamburg in 1882. His parents were the ship's clerk Marcus Rabe (1846–1898) and Anna Cäcilie Kölln. He did a commercial apprenticeship, worked in Africa from 1903 to 1906 and went to China in 1908 .

Siemens representative in Nanjing

Memorial in front of John Rabe's house in Nanjing (China)

In China, Rabe worked from 1911 to 1938 for Siemens China Co. , A subsidiary of the Siemens & Halske Group. From 1931 he was managing director of the Siemens & Halske branch in Nanjing , the then capital of the Republic of China .

During the Nanking massacre (old spelling of Nanjing) in 1937/38, Rabe campaigned for the establishment of a two-by-two kilometer protection zone to protect the Chinese civilian population from Japanese soldiers. In doing so, he saved the lives of more than 200,000 Chinese.

In addition to the protection zone, Rabe had a three by six meter swastika flag set up on his property to prevent the Japanese pilots from bombing his house. The plan seemed to work due to the German-Japanese alliance ( Anti-Comintern Pact ). Regarding the fact that refugees lay down under the flag at night, he wrote in his diary : "This place is considered bombproof."

After the city was captured a few months after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War on December 12, 1937, the Japanese troops caused a bloodbath. Mass executions and systematic rape occurred for more than eight weeks . It is estimated that around 300,000 fatalities.

The foreigners who remained in the city tried to help the Chinese residents by setting up a security zone. John Rabe was elected chairman of the International Committee for the Nanjing Security Zone (originally 16 members, seven of whom left the city at the beginning of the siege; the remaining three German businessmen and six American missionaries). It was hoped that as a German and, above all, as a NSDAP member, he would be able to influence the Japanese military . However, it had little effect. 250,000 people were only able to find shelter temporarily within the 4 km² protection zone. Rabe himself took in more than 650 people in his family home and on his property (500 m²). His courage, tireless commitment and generosity earned him the admiration of the Chinese people (“You have the heart of a living Buddha”).

Return to Berlin

John Rabe's (first) tombstone in the museum in Nanjing
The new grave erected in 2013 on the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Cemetery , since 2018 honorary grave of the State of Berlin; the city of Nanjing thanked them on an enclosed plaque

After Rabe had left Nanjing in February 1938 on the orders of Siemens China Co. , he tried to draw attention to Japanese war crimes through lectures in Berlin . A report to Adolf Hitler , with which Rabe wanted to convince him to have a moderating effect on the Japanese and to prevent them from further atrocities, led to the brief arrest of Rabe by the Gestapo . Film recordings of the Nanjing massacre that had been made by the American missionary John Magee were confiscated. Rabe was allowed to keep his diaries about the war in Nanjing, but he was not allowed to give further lectures or publications. The living conditions in Berlin during the war and post-war years and a long-standing diabetes mellitus made Rabe's health difficult. From 1945 to 1946 he lived with his family in Berlin under extremely difficult economic circumstances, as he could not be employed again at Siemens before his denazification . Rabe's request for denazification was initially rejected by the British because he had been a member of the NSDAP, had described himself as a National Socialist at least during one meeting and had also briefly represented the NSDAP local group leader in Nanjing. It was not until the appellate court that Rabe was finally denazified in 1946 due to his humanitarian work in Nanjing and was able to work for Siemens again - but only as a translator, as he spoke five languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and English. He was no longer given a more responsible position.

John Rabe died impoverished on January 5, 1950 in Berlin as a result of a stroke and was buried in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Cemetery in Berlin-Charlottenburg . The city of Nanjing gave Berlin a bronze bust with a pedestal, which was placed on Rabe's grave from summer 2010 to October 2011. On December 11, 2013, a newly created monument from China was inaugurated on Rabe's grave.

Effect and honors

In December 1996, Rabe's extensive diary about the Nanjing massacre was presented to the international public by Rabe's granddaughter Ursula Reinhardt at a press conference in New York. The diary was immediately recognized by historians as an outstanding historical source and Rabe was referred to as "Oskar Schindler of China" because of his humanitarian achievements. The diary appeared in 1997 in excerpts in Germany, China, Japan and the USA. The New York Times headlined: "The Good Nazi".

John Raven House in Nanking

In 1997, Rabe's tombstone was transferred to the Nanjing Memorial by the Chinese . During a visit to China in 2003, the John Rabe House in Nanking was officially recognized by Federal President Johannes Rau from the German side. Rau placed a bouquet of flowers on a bust of Rabe in the courtyard of Siemens Numerical Control in Nanjing.

John Rabe's former residence in Nanjing has been renovated in accordance with an agreement signed in 2005 between Nanjing University and the German Consulate General in Shanghai. With the support of Siemens in China, Bosch Siemens Household Appliances (BSH) in China, the German Consulate General in Shanghai and Nanjing University, 2.25 million yuan (approx. 250,000 euros ) were made available to renovate the residence and a To build a memorial hall for John Rabe and the international security zone and the Rabe research center for peace and conflict resolution . The renovated memorial has been open to the public since December 2006.

Thomas Rabe , a grandson of John Rabe, opened the John Rabe Communication Center in Heidelberg . V. Like the John Rabe House in Nanking, the center is a peace institute that is supposed to make a small contribution to international understanding. As part of the international understanding between China and Japan, Thomas Rabe advocates a city partnership between Nanjing / China and Hiroshima / Japan as a peace idea. In the garden of the house there is a bronze bust of John Rabe, which was donated by Chinese students in Germany in 2005. This was unveiled as a memorial on August 13, 2005 . a. in the presence of the writer Erwin Wickert ( John Rabe. Der gute Deutsche von Nanking. DVA, 1997).

In autumn 2007, the film adaptation of Rabe's life with Ulrich Tukur in the leading role began under the direction of Oscar winner Florian Gallenberger in Shanghai . The film premiered at the Berlinale 2009 .

In 2009, 56 million Internet users of Radio China International , CRI, voted China's "Top Ten International Friends", who came from abroad, for the past 100 years. Raven is number 2 on this list, after Canadian doctor Norman Bethune . A solemn ceremony was held on December 8, 2009 in the presence of a representative of the Chinese government, Jia Qinglin from Beijing, who works as chairman of the Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese People .

On November 23, 2012, on the occasion of the 130th birthday of John Rabe and the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the protection zone of Nanjing the day before, identical John Rabe memorial plaques were unveiled in a festive setting in Nanjing, Berlin and Hamburg. Representatives from Siemens and representatives from the embassy and consulate general were present at the memorial ceremonies in China and Germany.

The memorial plaque in Nanjing is located in the foyer of the John Rabe House at Xiaofenqiao No. 1. In Berlin, the plaque was placed at Rabe's last residential address, at Harriesstrasse 3 in the Siemensstadt district . The plaque in Rabe's hometown of Hamburg can be found in the entrance area of ​​the Siemens branch at Lindenplatz 2. The three stainless steel plaques honor 40 years of diplomatic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Federal Republic of Germany in 2012 and the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the Nanjing security zone in 2012. They are designed in the dimensions 40 cm × 75 cm.

By decision of the Berlin Senate , the grave of John Rabe in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Cemetery (field BWB 2.5 / 6) has been dedicated to the State of Berlin as an honorary grave since 2018 . The dedication is valid for the usual period of twenty years, but can be extended thereafter.

literature

Movie

Web links

Commons : John Rabe  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erwin Wickert: John Rabe and the Nanking massacre . In Irmtrud Wojak (ed.), Susanne Meinl (ed.): Genocide and war crimes in the first half of the 20th century . Campus Verlag 2004, ISBN 978-3-593-37282-2 , pp. 245–269 ( limited online version in the Google book search)
  2. ^ Commemoration of John Rabe in Nanjing Radio China International, November 23, 2012
  3. ↑ Biography. In: John Rabe's Nanjing Diaries: Testifying and Contesting War Experiences in China and Japan. Retrieved July 29, 2019 (American English).
  4. ↑ Biography. In: John Rabe's Nanjing Diaries: Testifying and Contesting War Experiences in China and Japan. Retrieved July 29, 2019 (American English).
  5. ↑ Interview with Thomas Rabe , Radio China International.
  6. ^ "John Rabe": Ulrich Tukur and the Nanking massacre. (No longer available online.) In: Zelluloid.de. October 21, 2007, archived from the original on April 7, 2016 ; accessed on September 28, 2018 .
  7. ↑ CRI
  8. ↑ List of the Top Ten International Friends
  9. ↑ Honorary graves of the State of Berlin (as of November 2018) . (PDF, 413 kB) Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, p. 67; accessed on March 20, 2019. Recognition and further preservation of graves as honor graves of the State of Berlin . (PDF, 369 kB). Berlin House of Representatives, printed matter 18/14895 of November 21, 2018, pp. 1–2 and Appendix 1, pp. 5–6; accessed on March 20, 2019.
  10. ↑ Register of persons in his diaries: John Rabe - The good German from Nanking. ( Memento from March 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Raven, john
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Raven, John HD
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German merchant and humanitarian benefactor in China
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH 5th January 1950
Place of death Berlin