Ever think you'd watch a movie in which the hero was a member of the German Nazi party? Well, okay, Oscar Schindler in the movie Schindler's List, was a party member, I guess, but I can't think of any other candidates, or at least I couldn't until I watched the movie John Rabe the other evening.
Rabe's story was very much like that of Oscar Schindler. He was a German businessman, working for Siemens in Nanking, China in 1937. This was the year the Japanese invaded China and perpetrated the mass slaughter of what became known as the Rape of Nanking, brutally raping and slaughtering some 300,000 Chinese. The horrors perpetrated by the Japanese in Nanking are beyond imagining (see link), but the movie gives a glimpse of what it was like.
Since the Germans were allies of the Japanese in 1937 Rabe was able to use his Nazi Party credentials to carve out a demilitarized safety zone in the city in which Chinese civilians were able to find relative safety from the savagery of the Japanese troops. It's believed that Rabe and a dozen or so other foreigners working together were able to save the lives of some 200,000 Chinese.
The movie (2009) stars Ulrich Tukur as John Rabe and is very well-acted. I strongly recommend the film to anyone who wants to know more about one of the most savage episodes of man's inhumanity to his fellow man ever recorded, and who also wants to watch a film about real heroism during these terrifying days.
There's a biography of Rabe at Wikipedia. The tragedy of his life seems to have been compounded after he left Nanking and returned to Germany, but what he and his associates did for the Chinese is something which should never be forgotten.
