本文作者

Zhang Lianhong, professor at history department of Nanjing Normal University,doctoral supeivisor and research fellow at the Institute of Nanjing Massacre History and International Peace.

（张连红，南京师范大学历史系教授，博士生导师，南京大屠杀史与国际和平研究院研究员。）

A Hero of Nanjing: Austrian Mechanic Rupert R. Hatz during the Nanjing Massacre

Zhang Lianhong

Abstract: On the eve of the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, more than twenty people from the United States, Germany and other western countries voluntarily risked their lives to stay behind in the city. They sponsored the establishment of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, which sheltered, protected and provided relief to more than 200,000 refugees, adding a glorious episode to the history of human civilization. Among these Westerners was a mechanic from Vienna, Austria named Rupert R. Hatz, who not only bravely stopped the rape of women by the Japanese troops on many occasions, but also investigated and documented cases of atrocities committed by the Japanese troops and submitted them to the Japanese Embassy in Nanjing as a protest. On February 27, 1938, after the Safety Zone in Nanjing was forcibly disbanded, Hatz left Nanjing for Shanghai, and little was known about him after that. During the Nanjing Massacre, he volunteered to stay in Nanjing and gave a helping hand to the Chinese people, which makes him a hero of Nanjing.

Keywords: Nanjing Massacre; Austrian Mechanic; Hatz

During the Nanjing Massacre, the Nanking Safety Zone, set up by more than twenty Westerners headed by John Rabe, sheltered, protected and provided relief to more than 200,000 refugees, adding a glorious episode to the history of human civilization. In the past twenty years, quite a lot of academic research has been published on some of these Westerners including John Rabe, Minnie Vautrin, Miner Searle Bates, George Fitch, John Magee, Robert Ory Wilson, Wilson Plumer Mills, and Ernest Herman Forster, as access to rare documents about them has become available. However, as the only Austrian, mechanic Rupert R. Hatz still remains relatively unfamiliar to the academic community. Based on the documents from the Westerners in Nanjing at that time, this paper briefly reviews the activities of Hatz during the Nanjing Massacre as an attempt to shed some light on his contributions, but there are still many mysteries about him to be unveiled, and any follow-up research will be highly valued.

Hatz on the Eve of the Japanese Occupation of Nanjing

The name of Rupert Hatz, according to the author’s research, made its earliest appearance in The Good German of Nanking: the Diaries of John Rabe. On December 1, 1937, Rabe wrote: “Dr. Rosen asks the Germans to meet and discuss when people will have to board the Hulk. Christian Kröger, Eduard Sperling, young Hirschberg and Hatz, an Austrian mechanic, all want to remain here to help me.”

George Rosen was the executive secretary of the German Embassy in Nanjing and he had recommended, on the eve of the Japanese occupation, that all the Germans then in Nanjing should board foreign ships on the Yangtze River. From Rabe’s diary it can be seen that Hatz was an Austrian mechanic and had close ties with the Germans including Rabe. Rabe’s Diary of December 4, 1937 notes that Hatz, as a non-member of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone (December 3, 1937), served as the associate of its Transport Commission chaired by E. L. Hilschberg, a German doctor. Soon after taking the post, Hilschberg was instructed to take the ailing Chang Chun, former Chinese Foreign Minister, to Hankou, and was unable to return because of the Japanese occupation of Nanjing. Hatz, therefore, effectively assumed the role of chair of the Transport Commission.

After the establishment of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, one of its most important tasks was to bring in as much grain, coal and other supplies from outside the city as possible, so that it could provide relief to the refugees after the Japanese occupation, which imposed heavy responsibility on the Transport Commission. According to Rabe’s Diary, by December 8, the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone had managed to requisition 12 trucks, with which they transported into the Safety Zone 6,300 bags of rice (equivalent to 7,875 dan), coal and 500 bags of salt to be used by the soup kitchens. Such work then came to an end as the whole city was basically closed down with the approach of the Japanese troops. As a result, George Fitch, director of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, announced a restructuring of the Committee on December 8, merging the Transport Commission into the Food Commission, which was headed by Han Xianglin, Rabe’s Chinese assistant.

Hatz appears in a photo in the collection of the Yale Divinity Library showing him with Rabe and other members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone at the entrance of its headquarters located at5 Ninghai Lu, Nanjing. We do not see his name again, however, until it appeared in some Western documents recording what happened on December 13. On that day, as the Japanese troops were about to occupy Nanjing completely, the defending Chinese soldiers had retreated into the city and were trapped in a siege. Members of the Committee, including Hatz and Rabe, toured along the perimeter of the Safety Zone to persuade the Chinese soldiers to lay down their arms and wait for the Japanese soldiers to accept their surrender and process them as POWs. Hatz seemed quite active in the effort as Rabe wrote in his diary the same day:

Two of us committee members drive on ahead and near the Railway Ministry we come across another group of 400 Chinese soldiers, whom we likewise persuade to lay down their weapons. Shots are fired at us from somewhere. We hear the whistle of bullets, but don’t know where they’re coming from until we discover a mounted Chinese officer fooling around with his carbine. Maybe he didn’t agree with what we were doing. I must admit: From his point of view, perhaps the man was right, but we couldn’t do anything else. If it had come to a battle here in the streets bordering the Safety Zone, fleeing Chinese soldiers would no doubt have retreated into the Zone itself, which would then have been shelled by the Japanese and perhaps even totally destroyed because it was not demilitarized. And we still had the hope that these fully disarmed troops would face nothing worse than being treated by the Japanese as prisoners of war. I don’t know what happened to the officer who shot at us. But I did see our auto mechanic, Herr Hatz, an Austrian, grab his carbine away from him.

In the presence of several Westerners, Hatz took the initiative to grab the gun from the young Chinese officer. Unfortunately, this group of Chinese soldiers who were persuaded by the International Committee to lay down their weapons were all shot by the Japanese troops in the end, despite repeated negotiations between the Committee and the Japanese military authorities.

Archibald Trojan Steele, an American journalist, also described this incident in his report: “A strong German decided to teach him a lesson, so he pulled the man off his horse, grabbed his pistol, and punched him in the face. The guy faced the punch without a cry.” Steele had apparently mistaken Hatz for a German. Lewis Strong Casey Smythe, secretary of the International Committee, also talked about this in detail in a letter to his family.

In addition, Smythe and George Fitch met Hatz earlier that afternoon along Shanghai Lu and saw Hatz rushing to warn a detachment of about twenty Chinese soldiers not to venture southward, to avoid encounters with Japanese soldiers over the hill. This was witnessed by Wilson Plumer Mills who happened to pass by. He described the thrilling scene later in his letter to his wife:

We decided after lunch, before going back to the International Committee’s office at Ninghai Road, that we would take a look at the Japanese soldiers who, we knew, were in possession of the city, or at least of its southern portion. So as we reached Shanghai Road, on going west from Ping Tsang Hsiang, we decided to turn south and continue until we found a Japanese unit. But as we got to the foot of the hill on the north side of the American Embassy, Mr. Hatz, one of the German (or Austrian) members of the community met us in his car. He was driving north and was very much excited. Just then we noticed also that there was a small Chinese unit fully armed, just starting up the hill, under the lead of a young officer. We recognized this officer as one who had accompanied a superior to our headquarters earlier in the day and had, as we thought, given up his arms to us at the same time his superior did. But we were evidently mistaken, for here this young fellow was leading his little troupe of some fifteen or twenty men up the hill. We were surprised to see any Chinese troops heading south at a time like this, because those soldiers who were still in the city were in the northern part, and were divesting themselves of their equipment as fast as they could. At least we knew that many were doing so. But to return to Mr. Hatz. He shouted to us that the Chinese should not go up the hill, that the Japanese troops were just at its foot on the other side. So we told these soldiers what Mr. Hatz had said and turned them back. Sure enough when we went up the hill ourselves and down its other side to Kwangchou Road, there we found the detachment which Mr. Hatz had seen.

Mills described the event in great detail and commented on it in his letter, saying that if they hadn’t warned the Chinese detachment, those soldiers would surely have engaged in a battle against the Japanese troops, the result of which would certainly be the destruction of the Chinese unit and many civilian casualties. “The battle did not take place. It can be said that we were only a single step, or a single hill, away from the battle.” In the letter, Mills, one of the core members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, mistakenly believed that Hatz was a German. Magee, in his letter to his wife, mistook Hatz for a Hungarian, and spelled his last name as “Hotz”. These show that the Americans in Nanjing at that time did not know Hatz very well.

Rescuing the Refugees

Facing the brutal Japanese troops during the Nanjing Massacre, almost all the Westerners in Nanjing risked their lives to stop the Japanese atrocities. Compared with other Westerners remaining in Nanjing, Hatz might be relatively younger. This explains why he almost had never been taken advantage of by the Japanese soldiers in his rescue of the refugees. When reading the diaries, correspondence and reports of the Westerners staying in Nanjing at that time, we can piece together the heroic deeds of Hatz.

Of all the available documents, the diaries of John Rabe, chairman of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, have the most records about Hatz, who was quite familiar to Rabe since they came from the same ethnic group and shared the same language. In his diaries, Rabe repeatedly referred to Hatz’s heroic deeds in preventing the atrocities of Japanese soldiers. For example, on December 17, 1938, Rabe wrote in his diary:

Herr Hatz, our Austrian auto mechanic, gets into an argument with a Japanese soldier, who reaches for his sidearm but is immediately floored by a well-placed hook to the chin, whereupon he and his two Japanese comrades, all armed to the teeth, take off. Let us hope that this victory will not bring us any evil consequences.

On December  19, Rabe  wrote: “Next to our main office on NinhaiLuisahousewhereabout20womenaresheltered,andJapanesesoldiersbrokeinthere to rape the women. Hatz springs over the garden wall and chasesthe scoundrels off.”

On December 22, Rabe recorded in his diary another of Hatz’s confrontations with the Japanese soldiers:

This afternoon Kröger and Hatz saw a Chinese being bayoneted in the neck by a drunken Japanese soldier; when they hurried to his aid, they were themselves attacked. Hatz defended himself with a chair. The Japanese is reported to have succeeded in tying Kröger up, possibly because Kröger’s burned left hand is still bandaged. Mr. Fitch and I raced at top speed to their rescue. We met with them on our way there as they were heading home, and returned with them then to investigate the case on the spot. We found the soldier still there, being slapped around by a Japanese general who happened to pass by. Mr. Tanaka from the Japanese Embassy was also present.

Smythe, the then secretary of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, wrote about the December 22 event in a letter to his wife:

Today near headquarters Kröger and Hatz were trying to save a house from rape and robbery by a drunken soldier. The man turned on Kröger and was going to tie him up and lead him off to shoot him! A Chinese boy ran to Headquarters to get Fitch, who took Rabe with him and dashed to the rescue. By a miracle, Tanaka and a general were touring the Zone and passed the place and somewhat heard the trouble and went in. The General first asked the soldier, who said Kröger had attacked him! Then the General asked Kröger, who told him he merely politely asked him to leave—luckily it was one time Hatz had not biffed the man on the chin!

In Smythe’s eyes, Hatz was young and perfectly capable of beating up the lying Japanese soldier.

Eduard Sperling, another German, was the Inspector General of the Nanking Safety Zone. In a report to George Rosen of the German Embassy, he also talked about how he and Hatz together caught the Japanese soldiers who were stealing a car. He wrote:

On December 17, Herr Hürter’s automobile was stolen from the German Embassy. By chance Herr Hatz and I happened to be nearby, along with an official of the Japanese Consulate, so we were able to halt the thief at the next street corner, and it was with great difficulty that we talked him out of taking the vehicle.

Sperling was about 60 years old, but Hatz was young, and he managed to catch up with the Japanese soldier who had stolen the car.

Christian Kröger, the Treasurer of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, described in a report how he and Hatz risked their lives to drive away Japanese soldiers who were raping women:“On 17 December Japanese soldiers went into 5 Lo Kia Lu, raped four women and took one bicycle, bedding and other things. They disappeared quickly when Hatz and myself appeared on the spot.”

In another case, Hatz by himself repelled Japanese soldiers who were raping women:

December 19 at 11:30 a.m. Mr. Hatz reports that he found two Japanese soldiers in a dugout at the house next door to our Headquarters on Ninghai Road, who were trying to rape some of the women. There were about 20 women in the dugout. Hearing the women yelling for help, Mr. Hatz went into the dugout and chased these honorable soldiers out.

Apart from driving away the savaging Japanese soldiers, Hatz sometimes made representations to the Japanese gendarmes in the hope of protecting women from being raped by the Japanese soldiers. On December 18, 1937, for instance, “At 8 o’clock Herr Hatz shows up in a truck with a Japanese police commissioner and a whole battery of gendarmes, who are supposed to guard Ginling College tonight. Our protest at the Japanese Embassy seems to have helped a little.” Owing to the presence of the Japanese gendarmes, the situation had improved to some extent. But there had also been cases of these guards raping the women seeking shelter in the college, which left Minnie Vautrin, the acting president of Ginling College, in much trouble.

Recording and Protesting against Japanese Atrocities

To stop the Japanese atrocities, the Westerners in Nanjing kept going to the Japanese Embassy to lodge their protest. As the Japanese authorities demanded that they provide evidence of Japanese misconduct with the signatures of eyewitnesses, these Westerners had to record the time, place and witnesses of the Japanese atrocities in detail at the same time as repelling the Japanese assaults on their victims. These records were later compiled into a very important collection, the Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone. Although the documents provided by the Westerners did not prevent the Japanese army from further violence, they have become a precious historical record of the atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Nanjing at that time, and the most convincing evidence against Japanese right wing counter-propaganda today.

According to the Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, from December 15, 1937 to February 6, 1938, the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone reported 444 cases of misconduct to the Japanese Embassy. In addition to the cases mentioned above, the following also involved Hatz:

Case 69: Meng Chai Te, Chief Sanitary Inspector of our 8th Section, had the house at 59 Peiping Road where he is living entered six times yesterday and seven times today by Japanese soldiers. On the 17th two girls were raped there and again today two more were raped, one of them so brutally that she may die. Another girl was taken away from the place today. The refugees living in this house have been robbed of most of their money, watches, and other small articles. This case was personally investigated by Mr. Hatz and myself. (Fitch)

Case 185: On the morning of January 9, Mr. Kröger and Mr. Hatz saw a Japanese officer and a Japanese soldier executing a poor man in civilian clothes in a pond inside the Safety Zone on Shansi Road, just east of the Sino-British Boxer Indemnity Building. The man was standing in the pond up to his waist in water on which the ice was broken and was wobbling around when Mr. Kröger and Hatz arrived. The officer gave an order and the soldier lay behind a sandbag and fired a rifle at the man and hit him in one shoulder. He fired again and missed the man. The third shot killed him. (Kröger, Hatz)

Case 69 was verified by Hatz and Case 185 was witnessed personally by Hatz and Kröger, who reported the barbarity to the International Committee upon their return to their Headquarters on Ninghai Lu at 11 o’clock of the same day. Smythe immediately sent a report to American diplomat Allison, who had just returned to Nanjing. Commenting on the event, he wrote:

Case 185 is clear evidence of the inhumanity of the Japanese troops in executing civilians. More importantly, it has posed a threat to the life and health of the residents, which certainly concerns ourselves as well, since the whole area, especially the ponds, is full of dead bodies. Fortunately, there has not been a plague in our city. However, if the current situation continues, especially if the water is unclean, we will always be at risk of epidemic outbreaks.

Magee, the chairman of Nanking International Red Cross Society, also mentioned this case in his letter to his wife and commented: “Any last corporal or common soldier seems to be able to determine the fate of the poor Chinese!”

On the afternoon of January 9, Rabe, Kröger and Hatz went to the German Embassy to greet German diplomats Dr. Rosen, Hürter, and Scharffenberg who had been granted permission to come to Nanjing and had just arrived on the English gunboat Cricket. Rabe, Kröger and Hatz welcomed them with a bottleof champagne that Kröger had “commandeered” somewhere.Hatz must have informed Rosen of the killing that morning, since the latter subsequently reported the event to the German Foreign Ministry, in which heprovided many details of the incident:

On the morning of January 9th, just a few hours before we returned to the city, Mr. Kröger and Mr. Hatz (an Austrian) witnessed a practical application of the spirit of Samurai right next to the Embassy: between the Sino-British Boxer Indemnity Building and the so-called Potsdamer Platz, to the left side of the Embassy Street, there was a small pond that had not yet been completely frozen. A Chinese in civilian clothes stood hip-deep in the water with two Japanese soldiers lying beside it. They aimed their rifles at him and shot him as ordered by the officer standing behind them. The body is still floating in the water now. Many ponds and small pools in and around Nanking have been contaminated by corpses. It should be noted that these ponds are sources for the poor residents’ domestic water consumption. Although we have been negotiating with the Japanese, the water company of the city has not yet supplied water to our building, and we have been relying on underground water drawn by deep-well pumps.

The cases recorded in Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone are just the tip of the iceberg.  In his report to the Japanese Embassy, Smythe, who compiled the cases, said: “As indicated in the note, these are only a part of the cases that have come to our attention. Mr. Sperling (our Inspector-General), Mr. Kröger, Mr. Hatz, and Mr. Riggs spend a good deal of their time escorting Japanese soldiers out of houses. These men do not have time even to dictate most of their cases.” Many cases of atrocities by Japanese soldiers discovered by such Westerners as Hatz had not been recorded. For instance, on December 22, Hatz and Kröger found that 500 civilians were shot dead tied up outside Hanxi Gate. In the evening of December 20, Hatz and Kröger drove around Chung Cheng Lu, Baixia Lu, Taiping Lu and Guofu Lu to find Japanese troops setting fire and looting everywhere. None of these was included among the 444 cases in Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone.

In addition to documenting such atrocities as killing and raping by the Japanese troops, Hatz, together with Rabe, Kröger, and others, investigated the losses of German and American property in Nanjing. For example, on December 23, 1937, Hatz participated in the investigation arranged by Rabe of property losses suffered by foreigners. It was found that atotalof38Germanbuildingshad beenlootedandone(Hempel’sHotel) burned down. The Americans had a much longer list of losses, withabout 158 American buildings looted inall.

During the Nanjing Massacre, Hatz engaged in almost all the collective activities of Westerners remaining in Nanjing. For example, he co-signed the first petition letter, dated December 21, 1937, that was addressed to the Japanese Embassy by all foreigners in Nanjing, stating that “We come to petition in the name of humanity that the following steps be taken for the welfare of the 200,000 civilians in Nanking.” Hatz’s signature is also on the resolution passed on February 15, 1938 by the Sixth Joint Meeting of the Superintendents of the Nine Districts and the Managers of the Twenty-Five Refugee Camps in which a vote of thanks was extended to John Rabe, and on the Declaration of the Members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone jointly issued by the Westerners remaining in Nanjing on February 21 of the same year.

Among the Westerners staying behind in Nanjing during the Nanjing Massacre, R. R. Hatz (Austrian), Cola Podshival (White Russian) and Bernhard ArpSindberg (Danish) were relatively young. Hatz held a very good relationship with Germans like Rabe, Kröger and diplomats from the German Embassy in Nanjing and often socialized with them. On the evening of January 30, for instance, Hatz, Rabe and Sperling went to the German Embassy to have dinner with Hürter and Scharffenberg. According to Rabe, Hatz was a “poor devil” as he once put on a pair of boots “commandeered” from Kröger’s room, which was mocked at by Rabe in his diary.

Leaving Nanjing

By the end of January 1938, with the return of American, German and British diplomats to Nanjing, the atrocities of Japanese troops had been somewhat curbed. However, the Japanese had been on high alert against the Westerners remaining in Nanjing and had not allowed any of them to leave after the Japanese occupation. Although Kröger had been asked repeatedly to go back to the Headquarters of Carlowitz & Co. in Shanghai, he never succeeded. Rabe wrote in his diary on January 13, 1938: “Kröger has tried on various occasions to get Japanese permission to travel to Shanghai and has thus far been regularly turned down.”Kröger continued to write to the Japanese Embassy for the permission. He wrote:

According to the letter from my company in Shanghai, they strongly demand and desperately need me to go there. I have to reiterate my request for permission to go to Shanghai. As I have carefully studied, the city of Nanking and its surroundings are now quite calm, free from sniper attacks or other dangers. I have to take the risk this time anyway, so you will not be held liable for any possible unfortunate event.

In his letter, Kröger applied for a bus ride to Shanghai, and applied for permission for Hatz, who took some responsibility in the management of Carlowitz & Co., to drive to Shanghai.

Ten days later, the Japanese Embassy finally agreed to grant Kröger permission to go to Shanghai, making him the first foreign member of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone to leave Nanjing. However, the Japanese Embassy did not allow Hatz to travel to Shanghai together with him, nor did it allow Kröger to travel by bus. Instead, Kröger “got on an open railway car guarded by some hulk of a soldier”, and Hatz was only allowed to drive Kröger to the train station. Five days later, George Fitch, the head of the YMCA, was also allowed to leave Nanjing for Shanghai in the same way.

When it became possible for foreigners in Nanjing to apply for travel to Shanghai, the headquarters of Siemens in Shanghai hoped that Rabe, in view of his physical condition, could also go there for recuperation. After arriving in Shanghai, Kröger wrote to Rabe on January 28, advising him to get to Shanghai as soon as possible. He also warned Rabe not to bring his luggage onto the train, for he would not be able to get it out of the station;instead, Hatz might be asked to drive his luggage to Shanghai. Kröger wrote:

There’s a Krupp diesel at my hong. Carlowitz & Co. can indeed claim it as theirs, but there’ll be no one there who knows how to deal with a diesel. Hatz wanted to drive the car to Shanghai. See to it that you gradually get your things packed up and then have Hatz drive you to Shanghai in it. Surely that will be possible by the middle of March.

In order to help Hatz leave Nanjing, Rosen, the secretary of political affairs of the German Embassy in Nanjing, sent an application to the Japanese Embassy. On February 16, Rosen wrote to Japanese Acting Consul-General Fukui in Nanjing, saying: “With regard to the letter I wrote to Major Hirotaon February 15, I am very grateful for the arrangements you have made for Mr. Rupert Hatz’s trip to Shanghai on board the steamer Wantung and his return to Nanjing after a short stay there.” The Wantung arrived in Nanjing around February 27. Rabe had planned to go to Shanghai on it, but later, with the help of the British Embassy in China, he left Nanjing on February 23 on the British gunboat Bee. Four days later, on February 27, Hatz and Auguste Zautig, a German from The Kiessling’s Café, were allowed to travel to Shanghai on the Wantung. Rabe’s luggage was shipped to Shanghai accompanied by Hatz.

Hatz’s departure from Nanjing is mentioned in a report by Scharffenberg from the German Embassy in Nanjing in the Federal Archives of Germany:

On 27 February, the Austrian Rupert Hatz and Balt Zaudig left town. Richard Hempel, the hotelier, and Eduard Sperling, the “chief of police” of the Safety Zone, are the only Germans left. Mr. Hatz would love to come back to Nanjing again, but I don't believe the Japanese will allow him to do so.

Perhaps in order to help Hatz get some help from the German companies in Shanghai, Scharffenberg provided Hatz with a special letter as a proof of his performance during the Nanjing Massacre:

It is hereby certified by the Nanking Office of the German Embassy that Mr. Rupert Hatz, an Austrian citizen, has been actively involved in and made contributions to the protection of German property and Reich citizens during the chaotic period following the occupation of Nanking by the Japanese army.

It is not known whether this letter was helpful for Hatz during his stay in Shanghai.

Heroic Deeds Highly Praised

Hatz’s heroic deeds during the Nanjing Massacre were highly praised by the Western people, especially the Germans who remained in Nanjing. In his speech bidding farewell to Nanjing on February 21, 1938, Rabe praised Hatz, saying: “Due respect should be paid to Mr. Hatz and Mr. Cola. Mr. Hatz is a perfect driver. With his amazing driving skills he can even drive a car without wheels.” In his speech at the YMCA tea party in Shanghai on February 28, Rabe thanked Hatz again, referring to Hatz and Cola as “my German friends” and “our auto mechanics.” This was half a month before the German annexation of Austria.

Hatz was also highly praised by Trautmann, the German Ambassador to China, for what he had done during the Nanjing Massacre. In the Federal Archives of Germany is a thank-you letter written by Trautmann in Hankou to Hatz who had arrived in Shanghai. The letter was dated March 22, 1938, a week after the German annexation of Austria on March 15, 1938 when Austria had become the eastern province of Germany and Hatz had thus become notionally German. Trautmann’s letter reads as follows:

Dear Mr. Hatz!

I would like to express my appreciation to you for your fruitful and selfless work in the spirit of humanitarianism, which has placed your life at risk since you became a member of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone in November 1937 and later of the Nanjing International Relief Committee.

In addition, I sincerely thank you for your personal efforts in bravely protecting German property in Nanjing during this period.

Your actions have brought honor to our fatherland.

Trautmann

Ambassador of Germany

The archives of German Foreign Ministry include letters Trautmann wrote to Rabe, Sperling, Kröger and Hempel with almost the same wording as in his note of thanks to Hatz. The letters to Rabe, Sperling and Kröger include the sentence: “Please allow me to inform you that I have requested the German Red Cross of the Foreign Ministry to award you a medal for your work in Nanking”, but this sentence is not included in the letter to Hatz and Hempel. In the letter to Hempel, nothing is mentioned of his service as a member of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and the Nanking International Relief Committee. Trautmann did not write a thank-you letter to Auguste Zautig, another German living in Nanjing during the massacre, because Zautig’s advanced age made him unable to take part in the rescue of refugees. Mills noted in his letter to his wife that Mr. Hempel and Mr. Zautig, the other two Germans, had also gone through the difficult period when Nanjing was under siege, but the former was preoccupied with his own affairs, and the latter was too old to be more involved in their work. Unfortunately, Mr. Hempel’s small hotel on East Zhongshan Lu was burned down after the Japanese invaded the city. In the thank-you letter to Hatz, Trautmann mistook him for a member of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and the Nanking International Relief Committee.

The German Embassy in Hankou had always believed Hatz was a member of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, because on April 1 and April 19, 1938, Lang of the German Embassy in Hankou and Trautmann respectively sent letters to Xu Mo, the deputy foreign minister of China, reporting the list of Germans during the Nanjing Massacre, the contents of which were the same. On the list were five Germans: Rabe, Kröger, Sperling, Hatz and Hempel. Rupert Hatz was introduced as a member of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and the Nanking International Relief Committee. The list did not include Auguste Zautig, who was then in the city, and Karl Günther, a German working at the Kiangnan Cement Factory (disguised then as a representative of Siemssen & Co.) outside the city.

Hatz’s performance in Nanjing was also praised by Scharffenberg, chancellor of the German Embassy in Nanjing, who wrote in a report to the German Foreign Ministry that Mr. Hatz, an Austrian, had stood the test in Nanking and done a good job.

The Americans in Nanjing at the time might not have known Hatz well and did not make many references to him in their correspondence and diaries. In a letter to his wife, Mills, who succeeded Rabe in the chairmanship of the Nanking International Relief Committee, talked about the help from a number of Westerners, with special reference to Hatz and Zial for their “great help” to the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, saying that they had played a very important role in escorting the delivery of goods by trucks. Smythe also mentioned in his letter that vehicles in the Safety Zone were mainly managed and maintained by Hatz.

Further Information on Hatz to Be Uncovered

Did Hatz return to Nanjing after he left for Shanghai on February 27, 1938? What were his movements after arriving in Shanghai? If Kröger’s report was true, Hatz, as a co-manager in the Nanjing Branch of Carlowitz & Co., should have reported to its Headquarters when arriving in Shanghai. Kröger went to Hong Kong in early February. Perhaps Hatz chose to meet Rabe when the latter arrived in Shanghai, but no relevant information has been found so far.

Recently the author of this paper paid a visit to the National Library of Australia and was overjoyed to find a naturalization notice dated January 16, 1948, indicating that Hatz emigrated to Australia after the war. The part concerning Hatz’s application for naturalization reads as follows:

RUPERT HATZ of Austrian Nationality, born at Vienna, Austria, and resident Six Years Three Months in Australia, now residing at Alcoota Station via Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia, intend to apply for naturalisation under the Nationality Act 1920-1936.

On January 18, 1949, the Australian Department of Immigration granted Certificate of Naturalization to Hatz.

We have also found some information about his whereabouts on Genealog.com (https://www.myheritage.com) and the “About people” column in some Australian newspapers. One note, for instance, reads: Mr. Rupert Hatz, a mechanic from Alcoota Station, called here on his way to Darwin. He was accompanied by Mr. John Samsell, Mr. Stretton and party... Another note, dated November 19, 1948, reads: Rupert Hatz, mechanic from Alcoota Station, passed through here on his way to Inverway. He was accompanied by Nick Wheelin from Bushy Park.

From the above pieces of information it can be inferred that, before the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941, Hatz might have left Shanghai for Australia. He lived in Alcoota, had traveled as a mechanic to Darwin, Inverway and other places, and had a good circle of friends in Australia.

Although Hatz risked his life to save and protect so many refugees during the Nanjing Massacre, little is known about him. Where in Vienna was Hatz born? What was his family background? When did he come to Nanjing? What was his job in Nanjing? Why did he choose to stay behind to help Rabe? Did he leave behind any correspondence or other documents during the Nanjing Massacre? What did he do after leaving Nanjing for Shanghai? Did he have a family? When did he die?

Much information yet remains to be uncovered on Rupert Hatz, a hero of Nanjing.

Additional Remarks

During the preparations for the establishment of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone on the eve of the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, John Rabe was recommended by the Americans who advocated the establishment of the Safety Zone to take the chairmanship of the organization since there was an alliance between Germany and Japan. In order to help Rabe, Kröger, Sperling, and Hatz among others volunteered to stay behind in Nanjing during the massacre. There were more than twenty Western nationals remaining at that time, including, apart from the Americans, six Germans headed by Rabe, one Austrian (Hatz), one Dane (Sindberg) and two White Russians (Cola Podshivaloff and Zial). Unlike the Americans, the six Germans were mostly businessmen: Rabe was the head of Nanjing Branch of Siemens Company; Kröger was the representative of Carlowitz & Co. in Nanjing; Sperling was a member of Shanghai Insurance Company; Karl Günther was a representative of Siemssen & Co. at the Kiangnan Cement Factory; Hempel was the manager of the North Hotel; and Zautig worked with The Kiessling Café. Except for Zautig who was in his senior years, all the other Germans left behind documents on stopping Japanese atrocities and rescuing refugees during the massacre, which serve as evidence for the great contributions they made to the protection and relief of the Nanjing refugees. However, little is known about Hatz or other Germans such as Kröger and Sperling.

During the Nanjing massacre, the majority of the refugees in Nanjing, most of whom were illiterate, could not distinguish between the Germans, Austrians, Americans, and Danes, but they felt hopeful and grateful when they saw the Western people led by Rabe risk their lives to help them when they were most desperate. When they learned that Rabe was leaving Nanjing for home, the representatives from twenty-five refugee camps wrote a letter of gratitude to Rabe requesting him to stay. At the refugee camp in Ginling College, thousands of young women knelt down on the lawn and begged Rabe not to leave. For the refugees in Nanjing, these Westerners were saviors and “reincarnation of Bodhisattva”! Although it has been eighty years since the Nanjing Massacre, the bronze statues of Rabe and Vautrin as well as other Westerners who offered a helping hand to Nanjing refugees still stand on the campuses in Nanjing where they fought against Japanese atrocities. Many people come to commemorate them with flowers every year on commemoration days.

Not everyone is willing to help when other people are in danger. This makes such transnational humanitarian aid from people like Rabe, Vautrin and Hatz shine most gloriously in the history of human civilization. The stories of these heroes together with their humanitarianism are always worthy of our study, dissemination and remembrance!

(Translated by Wu Hexiong)

英文载于《日本侵华南京大屠杀研究》英文刊2019年第一期，注释从略。

中文载于《日本侵华南京大屠杀研究》中文刊2018年第一期。