China was in flames when a German businessman became a reluctant hero. When the Imperial Japanese Army invaded China in 1937, attacking the civilian population of the capital Nanking with unprecedented inhumanity, John Rabe, manager of Siemens' China branch and a resident in the country for 27 years, took action. Along with a few other members of the foreign community including doctors and missionaries who remained in the city, and driven by simple humanitarian concerns, shock at the appalling behaviour of Germany's Asian ally, and a love for the country and people among whom he had worked for so long, he created a safety zone in which a quarter of a million civilians survived what was later to go down in history as the "Nanking Massacre."