One of the worst wartime atrocities in modern history, killing an estimated 100,000–200,000+ Chinese civilians and POWs in six weeks.
Key Facts
- Start date
- December 13, 1937
- Duration
- Approximately six weeks
- Estimated death toll (IMTFE)
- Over 200,000 people
- Estimated rapes
- ~20,000 (range: 4,000–80,000+) cases
- Civilians sheltered in Safety Zone
- At least 200,000 people
- City destroyed by arson
- One third of Nanjing
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Following the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937 and the fall of Shanghai in November, Japanese forces advanced rapidly toward Nanjing. Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, installed as temporary commander, issued an order to 'kill all captives' before the city's capture, while General Iwane Matsui's Central China Area Army reached Nanjing's outskirts by early December.
Japanese troops entered Nanjing on December 13, 1937, and over approximately six weeks committed mass murder of Chinese civilians, children, the elderly, and prisoners of war. Soldiers summarily executed captured soldiers and male civilians suspected of military age, raped tens of thousands of women and girls, and destroyed roughly one third of the city through arson. Estimates of those killed range from 40,000 to over 340,000.
After World War II, General Matsui and several commanders were convicted of war crimes and executed by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Prince Asaka was granted immunity as a member of the imperial family and never tried. The massacre remains a deeply contentious issue in Sino-Japanese relations, with Japanese nationalist and revisionist movements continuing to deny or minimize the events.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
1 belligerent
General Iwane Matsui, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka.
Side B
1 belligerent