A Japanese soldier prepares to publicly behead a young Chinese boy.The massacre began on December 13, the day the Japanese troops reached the city.

 A Japanese soldier prepares to publicly behead a young Chinese boy.The massacre began on December 13, the day the Japanese troops reached the city.

A Japanese soldier prepares to publicly behead a young Chinese boy.

The massacre began on December 13, the day the Japanese troops reached the city. 

Due to multiple factors, the death toll estimates vary from 40,000 to over 300,000, with rape cases ranging from 20,000 to over 80,000 cases.

The Japanese army had pushed quickly through China after capturing Shanghai in November 1937. By early December, it was on the outskirts of Nanjing. As the Japanese approached, the Chinese army withdrew the bulk of its forces since Nanjing was not a defensible position. The civilian government of Nanjing fled, leaving the city under the de facto control of German citizen John Rabe, who had founded the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. On December 5, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka was installed as Japanese commander in the campaign. Whether Asaka ordered the Rape, or simply stood by as it happened, is disputed, but he took no action to stop the carnage

The massacre began on December 13, the day the Japanese troops reached the city. They faced minimal resistance and ran entirely unchecked. Chinese soldiers were summarily executed in violation of the laws of war, and looting and rape was widespread. Due to multiple factors, death toll estimates vary from 40,000 to over 300,000, with rape cases ranging from 20,000 to over 80,000 cases. However, most credible scholars in Japan, which include a large number of authoritative academics, support the validity of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and its findings, which estimate at least 200,000 murders and at least 20,000 cases of rape. The massacre finally wound down in early 1938. 

  John Rabe's Safety Zone was mostly a success, and is credited with saving at least 200,000 lives. After the war, multiple Japanese military officers and Kōki Hirota, former Prime Minister of Japan and foreign minister during the atrocities, were found guilty of war crimes and executed by electric wire. Some other Japanese military leaders in charge at the time of the Nanjing Massacre were not tried only because by the time of the tribunals they had either already been killed or committed seppuku (ritual suicide). Prince Asaka, as part of the Imperial Family, was granted immunity and never tried