What happened at Nanjing in 1937, and why do historians still dispute the numbers?
A massacre took place; the sources agree on that. How many died depends on where you draw the borders, and what records survived.
▶ Start the storyBetween December 1937 and March 1938, the Imperial Japanese Army killed and raped Chinese civilians, noncombatants and in Nanjing, then the capital of China. The event is called the Nanjing Massacre, or the Rape of Nanjing. It came during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which began in July 1937, and it followed the Japanese capture of Shanghai in November.
On 13 December Japanese troops entered the city after days of intense fighting. Soldiers murdered civilians, summarily executed thousands of captured soldiers in violation of the , and raped women and girls. One third of the city was destroyed by arson. Prince Asaka, temporary commander in the campaign, had issued an order to "kill all captives", and neither he nor General Matsui acted to stop the killing once it began.
Jul 1937
Second Sino-Japanese War begins
Nov 1937
Japanese forces capture Shanghai
13 Dec 1937
Japanese troops enter Nanjing; the massacre begins
Dec 1937 - Mar 1938
Period in which, per the sources, the massacre took place
Some people tried to protect others. A committee of Westerners, including the German citizen John Rabe, created the Nanking Safety Zone, which is credited with saving at least 200,000 lives. The American missionary Minnie Vautrin sheltered up to 10,000 women at Ginling Girls College.
How many died is disputed, and the range is wide. The postwar Tokyo tribunal estimated more than 200,000, and the Nanjing Tribunal of 1947 counted more than 300,000. Newer estimates give between 100,000 and 200,000: the historian Bob Wakabayashi, for example, puts the toll for Nanjing and six surrounding counties in that range. The full span runs from 40,000 for the city alone to over 340,000 for the whole Shanghai-Nanjing region. China officially commemorates 300,000, which the Japanese historian Ikuhiko Hata treats as a symbolic figure. The debate is not only about method: Japanese nationalists and historical revisionists have denied or minimised the massacre.
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Recap
The massacre is documented; the exact toll is disputed because records were destroyed and the borders drawn differ.
💡 A trick to remember it · Think of a map with different outlines: draw a tight line, a wide one, a longer time, and you get a different count.
Surprising fact · Estimates run from 40,000 to over 340,000, and the differences come largely from method, borders and lost records.
Sources (1)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (17 claims) cites at least one of these.