Mark Gagnon

What should have been some organized withdrawal or some type of diplomatic surrender just collapsed into a night of confusion and panic.

And when the sun rose on December 13th, 1937, the Japanese army...

just walked into Nanjing.

The city had no defenders left, really.

All their forces were either confused or deserted.

No leadership, just walls and civilians trapped inside.

So while the Chinese command escaped the city, a small group of foreigners chose to stay.

They knew exactly what was coming, but they stayed anyway.

At the center of that group was a man named John Robb, a German businessman who lived in Nanjing for years.

He was part of Siemens and was basically controlling the entire operations for the company while in Nanjing and had lived there for decades.

And he was also a member of the Nazi Party.

And what's interesting about him is people call him one of the greatest humanitarians of the 20th century.

And they call him the good Nazi of Nanjing.

And according to him and his sources, he joined the Nazi party for practical reasons like getting the funds for this Sino-German school, and partially because he believed that Germany and Japan's alliance could actually protect civilians.

Alongside him were American missionaries and doctors and professors.

Minnie Vautrin, who ran the Ginling College for Women.

and basically refused to abandon her students, Dr. Robert Wilson, a surgeon born in Nanjing to missionary parents who returned after medical training at Harvard and spoke fluent Mandarin.

Together, they carved out the International Safety Zone.

This was a designated area meant to shelter civilians from violence, about one and a half square miles on the west side of the city.

It included Ginling College, the University Hospital, and the American Embassy compound.