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Atrocities Of Nanking

Not only did the culture in which the Japanese people were raised accentuate the de-humanization of the Chinese people but also the military training and societal education that took place and the military regiment associated with the education system. Many books have been written describing the horrors of the Rape of Nanking, however many dismiss or downplay the atrocities that took place. The German Holocaust certainly has its distracters but those tend to be fringe type elements. There seems to be an historical niche in the dismissal or denial regarding the atrocities that took place in 1937 at Nanking, China. To understand how distracters can, in good faith deny those atrocities, one must research the culture of that population and specifically the military culture including the command relationships and guidance that was issued from those commanders, and training that would lead to such animalistic crimes against humanity.
In order to understand how soldiers could conduct themselves in such savage roles during conflict and more importantly understand how those soldiers, leaders, and civilians could later dismiss those actions as non existent there needs to be an understanding of the culture in which these individuals exist. Soldiers and Japanese civilians had “a deep ambivalence in the Japanese society about China” which was ingrained with the hate and discontent for the Chinese. It was easy to inflict the terrible atrocities upon them. More importantly, due to that hate and coupled with an extreme level of pride, it has been equally as easy to dismiss and deny that the horrific events of 1937 ever actually took place.
There are limited resources to explore the events that took place in Nanking. Within these resources there are varying types of scholarly works, everything from fiction writing, chronological events, and scholarly publications such as International History Review. Other works that paint an outstanding picture of the events...