John Heinrich Detlef Rabe (23 November 1882 – 5 January 1950) was a Nazi businessman and diplomat best known for his efforts to stop war crimes during the Japanese Nanjing Massacre and protect Chinese civilians.

The Nanking Safety Zone, which he helped to establish, sheltered approximately 250,000 Chinese people from attack by the Imperial Japanese Army.

[3] Many Westerners were living in Nanjing, the Chinese capital city, until December 1937, with some conducting trade and others on missionary trips.

As the Imperial Japanese Army approached Nanjing and initiated bombing raids on the city, all but 22 foreigners fled, with 15 American and European missionaries and businessmen forming part of the remaining group.

[4] As the Japanese Army advanced on Nanjing on 22 November 1937, Rabe, along with other foreign nationals, organized the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and created the Nanking Safety Zone to provide Chinese refugees with food and shelter from the impending Japanese massacre.

The committee was inspired by the establishment in November of a similar neutral zone in Shanghai, which had protected approximately 450,000 civilians.

[3] Rabe was elected leader of the committee, in part because of his Nazi Party status and the German-Japanese bilateral Anti-Comintern Pact.

Modern estimates of the death toll of the Nanjing Massacre vary, but some put the number of murdered civilians as high as 300,000.

By December 1937, after the defeat of the Chinese force, Japanese soldiers often went house-to-house in Nanjing, shooting any civilians that they encountered.

[15] Unable to work and with his savings spent, Rabe and his family survived in a one-room apartment by selling his Chinese art collection but it was insufficient to prevent their malnutrition.

[15] In 1948, Nanjing citizens learned of the Rabe family's dire circumstances and quickly raised a sum of money equivalent to $2,000 USD ($25,000 in 2025).

From mid-1948 until the Chinese Revolution, the people of Nanjing also sent the family a food package each month, for which Rabe wrote many letters expressing deep gratitude.

In 1997, his tombstone was moved from Berlin to Nanjing, where it received a place of honour at the massacre memorial site and still stands today.