Revisiting the Wound of a Nation: The “Good Nazi” John Rabe and the Nanking Massacre (original) (raw)

2011, Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies

In 1937, John Rabe (1882-1950), the Nazi director of the Nanking branch of Siemens and chairman of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, saved over 200,000 Chinese during the Nanking massacre, one of the most brutal episodes of the Japanese invasion of China (1931-1945). His feat was recently revivified in a film by Florian Gallenberger. The film, John Rabe, can be categorized as another attempt in the search for "good Germans" or, more bluntly, for "good Nazis," a paradoxical term memorably applied to Oskar Schindler, whose story was popularized in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film, Schindler's List (e.g. Koltnow). Gallenberger's film gained acclaim after a successful premiere at the Berlinale in February 2009, and, two months later, it again received extensive media coverage after winning four German prizes, including those for best picture and best actor. German newspapers almost unanimously stated that Rabe has been considered a "saint" and the "Oskar Schindler of China," though his story was hardly known in Germany. Despite the 1997 publication of his Nanking and Berlin diaries by Erwin Wickert, a former diplomat to China who stayed at Rabe's residence in 1936, and the 1997 publication of the late Iris Chang's bestseller The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, in which Chang shares her discovery of Rabe's diaries, Rabe remained largely unrecognized outside of China. The biopic brought Rabe's heroism into focus, publicizing his name and story while mediating between Hollywood cinema and Nazi-retro films. This article reiterates Rabe's life story, compares his diaries with Gallenberger's representation in the film, places the film within the discourses of Nazi-retro films and Asian-German geopolitics, and considers reasons for the film's subordination of an objective account of atrocities to a version of events whose heroic and romantic elements would more likely ensure commercial success. It surveys media reports, reviews, and interviews, and in doing so examines the film's reception in Germany, China, and Japan. Noting the past unawareness and neglect of this tragedy as a result of the Chinese Civil War and the rivalries between China and Japan, this article also situates the film within the recent decades of controversy and debate about the massacre and discusses how they shed light on politics, memory, and national identity.