Japanese Atrocities in Nanjing (eBook)

This book presents a collection of annotated English translations of German diplomatic documents-including telegrams, dispatches and reports-sent to the Foreign Office in Berlin and the German Ambassador in Hankou, China, by German diplomatic officials in Nanjing, and detailing Japanese atrocities and the conditions in and around Nanjing during the early months of 1938. The author visited the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) and the German Foreign Ministry Archives (Auswärtiges Amt Archiv) in Berlin, where these documents are currently archived, in 2008, 2016, and 2017 to locate and retrieve them. These diplomatic documents are of significant value in that they provide both detailed information and wide coverage, from different locations and on various topics. Further, the information offered is unique in a number of ways. First, the events were recorded from the perspective of Germans, citizens of a country that was a close ally of Japan, and second, these documents are not included in any other source. As such, these archival primary sources represent an invaluable addition to the research literature on the Nanjing Massacre and will undoubtedly benefit researchers and scholars for generations to come. 

Suping Lu is a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author of They Were in Nanjing: The Nanjing Massacre Witnessed by American and British Nationals (2004) and The 1937-1938 Nanjing Atrocities (2019), and the editor of Terror in Minnie Vautrin's Nanjing: Diaries and Correspondence, 1937-38 (2008), A Mission under Duress: The Nanjing Massacre and Post-Massacre Social Conditions Documented by American Diplomats (2010), and A Dark Page in History: The Nanjing Massacre and Post-Massacre Social Conditions Recorded in British Diplomatic Dispatches, Admiralty Documents, and U.S. Naval Intelligence Reports (2012 & 2019). From 1999 to 2021, he also published eight books in Chinese on similar topics in Beijing and Nanjing, China.

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This book presents a collection of annotated English translations of German diplomatic documents-including telegrams, dispatches and reports-sent to the Foreign Office in Berlin and the German Ambassador in Hankou, China, by German diplomatic officials in Nanjing, and detailing Japanese atrocities and the conditions in and around Nanjing during the early months of 1938. The author visited the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) and the German Foreign Ministry Archives (Auswartiges Amt Archiv) in Berlin, where these documents are currently archived, in 2008, 2016, and 2017 to locate and retrieve them. These diplomatic documents are of significant value in that they provide both detailed information and wide coverage, from different locations and on various topics. Further, the information offered is unique in a number of ways. First, the events were recorded from the perspective of Germans, citizens of a country that was a close ally of Japan, and second, these documents are not included in any other source. As such, these archival primary sources represent an invaluable addition to the research literature on the Nanjing Massacre and will undoubtedly benefit researchers and scholars for generations to come.