John Rabe (1882-1950), known as the Oscar Schindler of China, was an employee of Siemens and a Nazi party member when he helped establish the International Safety Zone (ISZ) toward the end of 1937 to provide a refuge for Nanjing's noncombatants.
As a result, he is credited with helping save the lives of some 250,000 Chinese from the marauding Japanese troops. As a Nazi, Rabe got more respect from the Japanese than his other Western colleagues running the ISZ and on a few occasions by showing his swastika armband he managed to stop Japanese soldiers in the midst of raping Chinese women. In general, however, the good intentions of the ISZ were ignored by soldiers allowed to run amok for six gruesome weeks.
Were it not for the timely intervention of the German President Johannes Rau in 2003, Rabe's house in Nanjing would have been bulldozed for a road-widening project. On a visit to the city, Rau prevailed on local authorities to move their roadwork elsewhere, and in 2004, Siemens agreed to provide funding to help restore the dilapidated house.