Nanjing Massacre
Debate in Japan

David Askew, formerly an associate professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, noted that in Japan views concerning the massacre were divided between two mutually exclusive groups. The "Great Massacre School" group accepts the findings of the Tokyo Trials, and concludes that there were at least 200,000 casualties and at least 20,000 rape cases; whereas "The Illusion School" group rejects the tribunal's findings as "victor's justice". According to Askew, the "Great Massacre School" is more sophisticated, and the credibility of its conclusions are supported by a large number of authoritative academics. Askew estimates that the city's population was 224,500 from December 24, 1937 to January 5, 1938.

Hora Tomio, a Japanese history professor at Waseda University, published a book in 1967 following his 1966 visit to China, devoting a third of the book to the massacre. During the 1970s, Katsuichi Honda wrote a series of articles for the Asahi Shimbun on war crimes committed by Japanese soldiers during World War II (such as the Nanjing Massacre). In response, Shichihei Yamamoto, using the pen name "Isaiah Ben-Dasan", wrote an article that denied the massacre, and Akira Suzuki published a book that denied the massacre. However, the debate was short-lived because no denialist produced a study that was as comprehensive as the one conducted by Hora. The opposition fell short of denying the massacre.

There are disputes about the official death toll of the massacre. This estimate includes an estimation that the Japanese Army murdered 57,418 Chinese POWs at Mufushan, though the latest research indicates that between 4,000 and 20,000 were massacred, and it also includes the 112,266 corpses apparently buried by the Chongshantang, a charitable association, though today some historians argue that the Chongshantang's records were at least greatly exaggerated if not entirely fabricated. According to Bob Wakabayashi, he estimates the death toll within Nanjing City Wall to be around 40,000, mostly massacred in the first five days; while the total victims after a 3-month period in Nanjing and its surrounding six rural counties "far exceed 100,000 but fall short of 200,000". Wakabayashi concludes that estimates of over 200,000 are not credible.
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