THE DEATHTOLL OF THE NANKING MASSACRE

Some people seem to think just listing the number less than 300,000 as victims of Nanjing Massacre counts as a denier.
Well some Chinese people deny this number as well.
Some Chinese people say it was 350,000; others say it was 400,000(南京大学歴史系編著「日本帝国主義の南京における大虐殺　１９７９　p33)


Suppose the number of victims are thousands;still, that is horrible number and that does not soften the atrocity. So basically my focus is not the number. But since there are some people who regard citing the less than 300,000 as an attempt to whitewash history, I'll give some reasons for citing 20,000 to 100,000.

I am not a historian nor I am trained to be a historian. I have not checked the primary sources. But there are some third party's accounts before Tokyo tribunal and Tokyo tribunal judged based on these sources.

The burial record of Red Swastika Society(the original text) * (+the 'reports issued from the Safety Zone Committee安全区の検査報告) The original document is lost

40,000


Lewis S.C. Smythe
[a professor of Sociology, Nanking University and the author of "War Damage in the Nanking Area, December, 1937 to March,1938 Urban and Rural surveys, Shanhai, Mercury press 1938... he was asked by Timparly to investigate the case)

33,470「スマイス報告」をめぐる「議論」

p165



Miner Searle Bates
(member of the International Safety Zone Committee for Nanking), information provided to Harold Timperley, as reported to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Trial)Hata

40,000


H.J Timparly
[the author of what war means(1938 left book topical book/Victor Gollancz ltd.)and an advisor to the Chiang Kai-shek's propaganda organization)

40,000

(p67

John Rabe
(German head of the International Safety Zone Committee for Nanking), letter to Hitler after returning to Germany
June 1938Hata

50,000～‚60,000


Tokyo Tribunal(1)

over 200,000

Estimates made at a later date indicate that the total number of civilians and prisoners of war murdered in Nanking and its vicinity during the first six weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000. That these estimates are not exaggerated is borne out by the fact that burial societies and other organizations counted more than 155,000 bodies which they buried(IMTFE, op. cit., November 11, 1948, vol.2, p.103.in

*Red Swastika Society 43,071

Chongshantang 112,261 the record sbmitted to the trial

Total 155,332

Defense attorneys objection

1 The burial charts were prepared 10 years after the fact. It is not possible to make any definitive statements about corpses after 10 years have elapsed, so we must assume that these figures were invented.

2 In view of the sites where the bodies were discovered, they must have been those of soldiers killed in action. It is mistaken to assume that they were victims of a massacre perpetrated by Japanese military personnel.

3 These figures were, most likely, invented. For instance, Chongshantang supposedly buried an average of 130 bodies per day until the end of April. However, there is a sudden rise in the number of interments after April, to an average of 2,600 bodies per day for 10 successive days.

4 Yuhuatai, Shuixi Gate, and Zhongshan Gate were swept by Japanese troops, which would have removed or arranged for the removal of any corpses found. In any case, it is extremely unlikely that so many bodies remained at those locations five months after hostilities had ended.

5 Virtually no women or children are listed in Red Swastika Society records. But in Chongshantang records, figures for men, women, and children have been supplied so as to reflect the portion of the population each group accounts for. They were certainly fabricated.

Probably influenced by this consideration, the judgement for Matsui cites over 100,000
as the number of victims.

Tokyo Tribunal(2)

over 100,000

極東国際軍事裁判判決

Some historians doubt the probative value and admissibility and others contends killing was legal. Still others calculates the number of victims based on the total population, the number of soldiers, the the number of dead bodies, etc.

Examining Chongshantang Burial Records, it surely looks doubtful. And Timberlay has reason to inflate the number but no reason to make it look smaller;for he was an advisor to the Chiang Kai-shek's propaganda organization. Personally I think Hata is right in contending that the claim more than 100,000 were massacred is unreasonable. So I for one cite from 20,000 p33 the number of captive/guerrilla massacred based on Japanese military record) to 100,000.

But if there are more convincing argument, or I study it further, I might change it.

UPDATE
This site tell us a relatively fair account of the debate over the death toll in current estimate.

It is safe to say that today the majority of historians estimate the death toll of the Nanking Atrocities in the range between 200,000 and 300,000 as claimed by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East or the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal.

But this is not true. Even so called the massacre school in Japan based on the record speculates the death toll as less than 200,000. And when 300000 is menioned it is the number including the death toll of soldiers killed in action . I think the reader of the site should be careful about the way the author write. He is not telling a lie, but I think the author is misleading.
Kasahara is a representative of the massacre school. His estimate of the massacre of captives is 80.000. This number itself is controversial .But note that he estimates about 110,000 civillian death. I think this is a way beyond reasonable nubmer; why the hell do you have to kill civillians far more than captives? And he hasn't shown Japanese killed civilians as civilians, besides civilians as mistaken for guerillas=captives. Note also that Kasahara talks as if Rabe was talking about civilian death when Rabe mentioned 50.000 to 60000. But in fact he was talking about all the death toll. I wonder why some Japanese scholars feel the obligation to concede to CCP's interpretation. Guilt conciousness? Influence of coummunism?

If they want to emphasize how cruel the war was,why don't they just cite the following number.

Democide figures - 20th century
20th century democide
The top killers (individuals)
He notes that the number killed by government in the 20th century is far larger than the number killed by war.
He ranks the top killers as:
1 Soviet Union - 62 million.
2 Communist China - 38 million (this includes 3 million before they even got into power).
3 Nazi Germany - 21 million.
4 Nationalist China (Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang) - 10 million.
5 Axis Japan - 6 million.link

I think both the denier school and the massacre school went extreme.


....................................................................................

Note that I quoted some from so-called denier's book or site, but I didn't quote their opinion.
Here is a useful source from other site.
Date.. claims,,....................... Number of
................................................casualties
Sources
1938 The Safety Zone Committee 49 Documents of the Nankgin Safety Zone
1938 L.C. Smythe ,,,,,,,................ 15760 War Damage in the Nanking Area
1938 M.S. Bates ........................ 42000 What War Means
1941 E. Snow............................ 42000 The Battle for Asia
1943 A. Smedley..........................200000 Battle Hymn of China
1946 Nanking district Court..............340000 Summary report on the Investigations of Japanese war crimes committed in Nanking
1948 The IMTFE...........................200000 The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (stenographic records)

................................................................................
Sources published in the Republic of China (Taiwan) and Hong Kong
More than 100,000: An Outline of the Eight-Year Conflict by Chen Cheng, Army chief of staff, 1946
340,000: Nanking District Court Prosecutor's Report on the Investigation of Crimes Committed by the Enemy, 1946
More than 100,000: A Brief History of Chinese Resistance, Ministry of Defense Department of Political History, 1952
More than 100,000: History of the People's Revolution, compiled from a variety of Republic of China sources in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Sun Yatsen, 1965
More than 100,000: History of the War of Resistance Against Japan, 1966
More than 100,000: A Short History of the Sino-Japanese Conflict, Defense Research Institute, 1968
200,000: Anti-Japanese Resistance, Jiang Jingguo, 1978
Sources published in the People's Republic of China
430,000: Reform Daily, 1945
200,000: People's Daily, 1946
300,000: Worker's Daily, 1946
300,000: History of China at War, Shu Zongfu and Cao Juren.
300,000: People's China (Japanese translation), 1947
300,000: Government-approved textbooks currently in use
Several hundred thousand: The Great Nanking Massacre, Department of History, University of Nanking, 1948
400,000: Testimonies: The Great Nanking Massacre, edited by the Historical Reference Research Committee, City of Nanking, 1 984

All of these publications were written subsequent to the IMTFE
link
...................................................................................

M. Bates writes a memo based on the record and says, "Evidences from burials indicate that close to 40,000 unarmed persons were killed within and near the gates of Nanking, of whom some 30% had never been soldiers."(79Timperley, What War Means: The Japanese Terror in China, p.59)link

{A} low and incomplete figure for civilian deaths..inflicted by the Japanese in the first weeks of their occupation of Nanking, was 12,000; and for deaths of unarmed men in military clothing, 35,000. Of these murder, over 90 per cent occurred in the first ten days, most of all in the first three days.>
(Statement of M.B. Bates, dated February 6, 1947 in: Miner Searle Bates papers, Record Group No, 10, Box 126,Folder1132, Yale Divinity school Library, New Heaven, Conneticut in p 294

Evidence from burials indicate that close to 40,000 unarmed persons were killed within and near the wall of Nanking, of whom some 30% had never been soldiers/埋葬による証拠の示すところでは、四万人近くの非武装の人間が南京城内または城門の附近で殺され、そのうちの約三〇パーセントはかつて兵隊になったことのない人びとである。
『日中戦争史資料 ９』P47,,,,,,ベイツは、戦後に数字の根拠を「安全区の検査報告、および紅卍字会の死体埋葬報告」としている。

安全区の検査報告、および紅卍字会の死体埋葬報告では、男女の子どもの死体数はまったく不完全で、実数に比べて少なくなっています。平民の死者はけっして一万二千にとどまらないのです。武器を持っていない軍人で殺された者も三万五千を下ることは決してありません。

『南京事件資料集 ２中国関係資料編』P306
南京金陵大学歴史教授ベイツ博士の声明書 一九四七年二月六日


　従って、ベイツの３月１５日の「四万」という数字は「紅卍字会の死体埋葬報告」だけに基付くのではなく、その時点の「安全区の検査報告、および紅卍字会の死体埋葬報告」の最新情報であり、上記のスマイス報告と同じ内容の数字を得て３月下旬ないしは４月始めの土壇場で"What War Means"の原稿に挿入したと考えるのが自然である。
link

The Red Swastika Society has for the last month been feverishly burying bodies from all parts of the city outside the zone and from the surrounding countryside.
The conservative estimation of the numbers of people slaughted in cold blood is somewhere about 100,000, including of course thousand of soldiers that had thrown down thir arms.
["Documents On The Rape Of Nanking", Timothy Brook,Ann Arbor Paperbacks, 2002, P254]
link

「The Red Swastika Society has for the last month been 」
が一番最後の行にあります。ついでに原稿の上部を見ていただくと中学生でも理解できると
思いますが、日記の日付けが入っています。




ＭＡＲＣＨ７　つまり３月７日です。

５月７日ではありません…



　ウィルソン日記の１０万という見積もりの記述日時が、スマイス博士の戦争被
害調査よりも前の数字であるということが判明しました。すると、当初は１０万
という被害見積もりもあったが、調査した結果約４万の埋葬しか確認できなか
ったということになるでしょう。つまり外国人の認識は軍民４万でそれは東京
裁判まで続いていたと考えられます。（南京陥落から概ね一年後の、１９３８年
１１月のベイツ書簡でも約４万という記述）。東京裁判でベイツが行なった証
言、調査できなかった虐殺があったという意味の認識を、当時の史料から
証明するのは困難なようです。（そういう史料が今のところ無い）link

埋葬記録の原典は存在するか？
東京裁判に提出された紅卍字会の埋葬記録は1937～1938年当時の記録ではなく、戦後に編集 されたものである。
許伝音証言によれば紅卍字会の埋葬記録は、公文書としての保管は 許されず「私文書として保管」していた物らしいが、 その原本は発見されていない（公開されてない？）link

With the assistance of Professor Bates, Smythe hired a large number of Chinese students and, over a period of approximately two months, proceeded to conduct a survey on war damage sustained by the residents of Nanking. For the survey, Smythe used the random sampling method. He did everything he could to ensure that it would be meticulous, accurate, rational, and fair.

For the portion of the survey that focused on households, the students, working in teams of two, visited one out of every 50 occupied homes. They interviewed the residents and multiplied the figures obtained from those interviews by 50. For the portion relating to damage to houses, the teams inspected one house in 10. A certain amount of bias was inevitable, since the interviews were conducted by Chinese students, but the scientific methods used cannot be faulted.

Smythe's survey covered not only the Nanking city limits, but also Xiaguan and other areas located immediately outside the city's gates. The fieldwork was done between March 9 and April 2, and analyzed between April 9 and 23. The survey of buildings was conducted between March 15 and June 15. Smythe also conducted an agricultural survey in six counties adjacent to Nanking, from March 8-23, covering damage to crops, seed, farming equipment, as well as human casualties.link

Note that i didn't adopt Tanaka's number of the death toll.
....................................................................................
Rabe

43 Kasahara, Nankin jiken, 223–24. In his report to Adolf Hitler, John Rabe noted that the Chinese estimate of 100,000 civilian deaths was perhaps too high, and that "we Europeans put it between 50,000 and 60,000." John H. Rabe, Nankin no shinjitsu [The truth about Nanjing], Japanese translation of Der Gute Deutsche von Nanking by Hirano Kyko (Tokyo, 1997), 317; in its English translation, however, the estimate refers to all victims, see The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe, John E. Woods, trans. (New York, 1998), 212. Smythe, War Damage in the Nanjing Area.Convergence or Divergence?
Recent Historical Writings on the Rape of Nanjing/DAQING YANG魚拓

The chairman of the International Committee, John Rabe, gave a series of lectures in Germany after he came back to Berlin on April 15, 1938, in which he said, "We Europeans put the number [of civilian casualties] at about 50,000 to 60,000."link

Pros and cons about the record of the Red Swastika Society

Is was estimated lower

["Eyewitnesses to Massacre", p.223"]

Introduction of Magee's Film
Film 10 3.c.
(途中省略)
Between January 23, when they started work, amd March 19, the
Red Swastika Society had buried 32,104 corps in Nanking and
the immediate vicinity(around the city walls). They estimate that
they have done just about one half of this work. In addition many
bodies were buried by relatives and other groups. It is very probable
that many bodies were burned up in the innumerable fires that were
started in the city possibly for that very purpose. There are still large
numbers of unburied bodies in section outside the city walls.

- 試訳 -
　１月23日（紅卍字会が仕事を始めたとき）から３月19日までの間に、紅卍字会は南京とその直近（城壁の周囲）で 32,104の死体を埋葬した。彼らは、およそ半分の作業を終えたところだと推定している。それに加えて、多くの遺体が親戚や他の団体（複数）によって埋葬された。多くの遺体が、おそらく、まさにその目的で市中で始まった無数の火事によって焼却されたことは十分ありえる。城壁の外側の地域には、まだ多数の埋葬されていない遺体がある。
link

>["Eyewitnesses to Massacre", p.223"]
>>
>>Introduction of Magee's Film
>>Film 10 3.c.
>>(途中省略)
>> Between January 23, when they started work, amd March 19, the
>>Red Swastika Society had buried 32,104 corps in Nanking and
>>the immediate vicinity(around the city walls). They estimate that
>>they have done just about one half of this work. In addition many
>>bodies were buried by relatives and other groups. It is very probable
>>that many bodies were burned up in the innumerable fires that were
>>started in the city possibly for that very purpose. There are still large
>>numbers of unburied bodies in section outside the city walls.
>>
>>- 試訳 -
>>　１月23日（紅卍字会が仕事を始めたとき）から３月19日までの間に、紅卍字会は南京とその直近（城壁の周囲）で 32,104の死体を埋葬した。彼らは、およそ半分の作業を終えたところだと推定している。それに加えて、多くの遺体が親戚や他の団体（複数）によって埋葬された。多くの遺体が、おそらく、まさにその目的で市中で始まった無数の火事によって焼却されたことは十分ありえる。城壁の外側の地域には、まだ多数の埋葬されていない遺体がある。
>>---
>
>>城内で 1,793体、城外で30,311体を「片付けた」
>合計すると、32,104体になります。link

It was estimated higher

We received a report saying the Red Swastika Society had buried 31,791 by March 15. But we recognized the report as having empty figures. As of the end of February, 5,000 was reported,and on March 15, the figure mounted to 31,791. It was calculated that they had buried 26,000 in fifteen days. In other words, 1,700 a day had to be disposed. However, as far as I knew, the number of burials in the list was estimated to be not more than from 600 to 800 a day, which was supposed to be the maximum number. So there must be have been considerable amount of padded figures. We accept the list as it was, in order for the future job not to be suspended."(Showa History Institution)
Then, what is the true number of the corpses? 22 X 200 = 4,400.4,400 + (600 to 800 X 10) = 10,400 to 12,400. This number almost coincide with the Chinese soldiers's dead(*4)link

The burial records submitted by the Red Swastika Society in chart form are also suspect. In one section of the chart no burial site is listed, only "December 28: 6,466 bodies." This figure far surpasses any recorded before or after this date. Furthermore, according to the diaries of International Committee member George Fitch and Hamasaki Tomizo (45th Regiment), there was heavy snowfall on December 28.link

..................................................................................
Chongshantang

There existed no record to substantiate that the Advance Benevolence Society worked on burial activities.link

According to Testimonies: The Great Nanking Massacre, each Chongshantang burial crew consisted of 12 persons: a foreman, a regular worker, and 10 temporary laborers.69 But as we mentioned previously, the organization maintained that it buried an average of 2,600 bodies per day. In an era when there were no bulldozers or power shovels, and when most trucks were owned by the military, how could Chongshantang have managed to inter so many bodies? Furthermore, no Japanese ever saw such a burial crew at work.link

According to another source,

However, when they received subsidies from the Service Committee, they gradually resumed their activities." Chongshantang was unable to resume its activities full scale until September 1938, eight months after the occupation. This information is totally inconsistent with Chinese claims that the organization interred more than 110,000 bodies during the four months following the occupation.

その他資料どちらかというと虐殺派どちらかというと否定派


「犠牲者数」をめぐる諸論


A1民間人総数　
B1中国軍総数
B2中国戦死者
B3中国逃亡・脱出

C1捕虜
C2生存捕虜
C3捕虜虐殺

D埋葬数　＝　正規戦死者＋捕虜虐殺＋民間人虐殺（日本人によるー中国人による）

Eスマイス調査＝正規戦死者＋捕虜虐殺＋民間人虐殺

笠原　
兵士虐殺　B1-B2-B3=15-2-1(逃亡）-4（脱出）=8
市民 D×α＞E=3～12


秦
兵士虐殺　B1-B2-B3-C2=10-5-1-1=3
市民　　　E-南京特別区=33470-26870=15760

原
第９師団７連隊＋１６師団３３連隊＋１６師団３０旅団＋１１４師団６６連隊＋山田師団≒２
部隊別資料参照のこと

The population of Nanjin
December2～30000

the safty zone2～30000
March/Smyth
25～27000 ＋α.
And it is said there is little flow from the outside. So there were the massacre of civillians but it is safe to say the number of civilians qua civilians massacred is much fewer than so called the Massacare school claims.


そもそもスマイス調査が、原因が日中いずれであるかを問わぬ「戦争被害調査」であるから、死者には戦闘の巻添え、中国軍によるもの、日本軍によるものが混合しているものと見て


捕虜はせぬの解釈

China softens tone on Japan’s war crimes

By Mure Dickie in Beijing

Published: December 14 2007 00:23 | Last updated: December 14 2007 00:23

魚拓

China shows no sign of easing its insistence that the invaders killed more than 300,000 people in Nanjing city in the weeks after its fall, a figure many historians see as highly inflated.

The number is carved into signs and walls at the new hall and Mr Zhu said Japanese who questioned a total confirmed by postwar tribunals were acting out of “ulterior motives”.

“Three hundred thousand is a cast-iron fact and distortion of it by anyone will not be tolerated,” he said.

Some rightwing historians and commentators in Japan seek to deny that any significant massacre of civilians or unlawful execution of prisoners took place in Nanjing. Estimates of the number killed by mainstream Japanese historians range from around 13,000 to more than 100,000, with totals depending in part on whether deaths before the city’s fall and in nearby regions are included.