John Heinrich Detlef Rabe

John Heinrich Detlef Rabe was born in Hamburg, Germany. Moving to China in 1908, Rabe joined the German engineering conglomerate Siemens AG in 1910, eventually rising to become the managing director of its branch in Nanking (Nanjing), the capital of the Republic of China. Having lived happily in China for nearly three decades, Rabe developed profound affection and respect for the Chinese people.

In December 1937, as the Imperial Japanese Army advanced toward Nanking unleashing devastating aerial bombardments, foreign diplomats and wealthy citizens fled the city. Refusing to abandon his Chinese workers and neighbors, Rabe elected to remain. Alongside a small band of Western missionaries, doctors, and professors, Rabe organized the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, establishing an improvised 3.85-square-kilometer demilitarized sanctuary in the city center.

Elected chairman of the committee because Germany was an Axis ally of Japan, Rabe leveraged his Nazi party credentials to stare down Japanese soldiers attempting to enter the zone to murder and rape civilians. Rabe personally sheltered more than 600 Chinese refugees in his private garden, projecting his swastika flag over the courtyard to deter Japanese dive-bombers. Between December 1937 and February 1938, the Safety Zone sheltered and saved over 250,000 Chinese men, women, and children. Returning to Berlin in 1938, Rabe showed film footage and lobbied Adolf Hitler to intervene to stop Japanese atrocities, resulting in his immediate arrest and interrogation by the Gestapo.