The year: 1937. The place: Nanjing (Nanking)1, the capital of Guomindang China2. The problem: The encircling Imperial Japanese Army. Bayonets, machine guns, and terror. Rape, pillage, and mayhem.
The question: What weapon do you use to oppose mass murder?
- Armed resistance.
- World opinion.
- A very large Nazi flag.
If you chose the last option, you are on the same page as John Rabe, also known as 'The Good German of Nanjing'. The bald, bespectacled businessman used his Party membership – and a very large flag, every pfennig he could scrape together, and the last ounce of his courage – to save an estimated quarter-million of his fellow humans from certain destruction. This is his story.