When the invading Japanese Army overran the Nationalist Chinese capital in December 1937, soldiers embarked on a two-month rampage of looting, rape and killing that left tens of thousands of Chinese civilians dead in what became known as the Rape of Nanking.
Now a recently unearthed diary reveals an unlikely rescuer of thousands of Chinese: a German businessman living in China who was the leader of the local Nazi organization.
The businessman, John Rabe, kept a 1,200-page diary that provides a rare third-party account of the atrocities. In it, he writes of digging foxholes in his backyard to shelter 650 Chinese and of repelling Japanese troops who tried to climb over the wall, of dashing through war-torn areas to deliver rice, and of stopping Japanese soldiers from raping Chinese women. He even wrote to Hitler to complain about the Japanese actions.
''These escapades were quite dangerous,'' he wrote in his diary. ''The Japanese had pistols and bayonets and I -- as mentioned before -- had only party symbols and my swastika armband.''
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