Would the Allies have dropped an atomic bomb on Germany?

[BioHawk]

FWIW

In the war overall, bombing of Japanese cities might have killed about 337,000, including my estimate of 165,000 by atomic bombs, the quintessential city and civilian killers. Equally indiscriminate bombing of German cities by the United States and Britain may have killed about 410,000 German civilians.

Commentary: Was American WWII Bombing Democide?

By today's standards? Almost certainly. But our standards today are in large part shaped by what happened in WWII. Also, there just wasn't any other way to take over cities. Today we have technology to make it less necessary to just level a city if it is in the way. Not everyone can do it that way. The Russians kind of did this with indiscriminate artillery fire in Ukraine but they really didn't have the resources to do it. Or, the Ukrainians were effective at eliminating artillery when it was being used. I don't know what actually happened with it. Thankfully, they didn't use nuclear weapons which would have been the only way they really could have done it.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Do you think the bomb was dropped was dropped because of racism? Lol

Absolutely not. Clearly you have not read my comments on this thread.


Get lost if you can't read

 

[millah_22]

That was my question. Let's assume Germany's borders had been relatively intact and the frontlines static in 1945 do you bomb Berlin? A more industrial target? Anything in the south that might lead to radioactive drift into Switzerland?

I don't think Truman really wanted to bomb anyone. It was just the choice of dropping it on Japan or sending American lives. He just wanted to send men to die miles away from home much less than dropping a bomb.

 

[jamesvanderwulf]

One country drew us into the war with a sneak attack on our naval base, the other by default. Germany might have bombed Moscow first had they beaten us to the bomb...

 

[torbee]

I think americans thought hitler was a monster not just subhuman. I have never seen nor heard anything suggesting that this was a racist decision. It was means to end the war quickly while limiting excessive bloodshed. Good grief could we at least give this piece of history the proper perspective and leave accusations of racism out of it? The left is so enamored with racist and other labels today . Just craziness. Even Bill Maher complains about it.

You don’t think Americans had racist attitudes toward the Japanese in 1945?

Revisionist history much, lol.

 

[1inamillion]

You don’t think Americans had racist attitudes toward the Japanese in 1945?

Revisionist history much, lol.

Of course there was racism. There has always been racism but it didn't play a role on where and when the bomb was dropped. Nuff said.

 

[NorthernHawkeye]

It would not surprise me if there were some racial undertones to the decision.

The Japanese were portrayed in media and propaganda much more “other” than the Germans, particularly the non-Nazi civilian population.

Easier to justify mass civilian casualties when the enemy is defined as somewhat sub-human.

The people of Dresden would have something to say about that.

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

Didn’t the book Slaughter House 5 feature the fire bombing of Dersden. KV argued it was essentially the ally equivalent of Hiroshima.

The alt stadt city center was completely destroyed. It was rebuilt after reunification. Great city to visit.

Pretty horrific fire storm

 

[redghost1974]

If Germany had never decided to invade Russian, it would have been on the table. That fvck up doomed the Nazis.

Bombing Japan was a much easier decision. High population density and no bordering allies. Minimal risks with maximum effect.

 

[win4jj]

Which of his books are banned?

Honestly none that I know of. Slaughter House 5 has been mentioned as a potentially banned book at different times I have read the subject.

I’m just making that comment to make sure we don’t ban books and authors without due knowledge of the content of said books.

 

[FlickShagwell]

LOL

Look at who was holding the French and British debt that was going into default if they lost.

We marched into WW1 to save Wall Street, not any American interests.

And here I’d thought Wall Street was an “American interest.”

 

[jamesvanderwulf]

You don’t think Americans had racist attitudes toward the Japanese in 1945?

I do. My WWII old man still does. " Sneaky little Japs " still part of his vocabulary but that's the way it was back then...

The Germans were Krauts, Fritzs and Jerrys

Guys a little older than me called the enemy in Vietnam Gooks, Slopes and Charlie...

I'm sure McGill had a name for Iraquis...

 

[Jimmy McGill]

I do. My WWII old man still does. " Sneaky little Japs " still part of his vocabulary but that's the way it was back then...

The Germans were Krauts, Fritzs and Jerrys

Guys a little older than me called the enemy in Vietnam Gooks, Slopes and Charlie...

I'm sure McGill had a name for Iraquis...

I had never heard the term before I got to Baghdad...they called them Hadjis

 

[Jimmy McGill]

I'll give the past people a little bit of leniency as they were draftees that never had a college education. Our military is now completely volunteer. Now some of them have college degrees, but there is no reason for that type of language. The minute you dehumanize your opponent, you become just as bad as them.

 

[seminole97]

And here I’d thought Wall Street was an “American interest.”

Committing millions to war abroad for the benefit of the 1%'s balance sheet and overseas colonial powers might be your idea of an 'American interest', but it isn't one of mine.

I couldn't begin to defend it.

 

[jamesvanderwulf]

Military officers have considerably higher levels of educational attainment, on average, than enlisted personnel and U.S. adults. More than eight-in-ten DOD active-duty officers have at least a bachelor’s degree, including 42% who hold an advanced degree. They are four times as likely as average adults ages 18 to 44 to have completed a postgraduate degree.

The educational profile of enlisted personnel is much different. The vast majority of enlisted personnel (92%) have completed high school or some college. This compares with 60% of all U.S. adults ages 18 to 44. Fewer than one-in-ten enlisted personnel (7%) have a bachelor’s degree, compared with 19% of all adults ages 18 to 44.

 

[onlyTheObvious]

I think they would have.

Numbers estimate hundred of thousands of soldiers had their lives spared by dropping bomb.

It’s well documented Japan knew they could not win a war against the United States. Their strategy was to make it so brutal and ugly the Americans would push for peace.

Listen to the Dan Carlin series on the pacific war. Some of it is difficult to listen to even 80 years later. Placing prisoners in cages and thrown them in ocean to drown. One American soldier was pulled into a cave and the Japanese cut his hands in between his fingers all the way up to his wrists just so he would suffer and draw his fellow soldiers into cave so they could be killed.

Japan made their own bed. Their brutality was disgusting and frankly they got off easy in the post war. Many many more Japanese should have been tried and executed.

Japan didn’t even surrender after the first bomb yet some want to argue a demonstration would have been suffice.

 

[torbee]

I do. My WWII old man still does. " Sneaky little Japs " still part of his vocabulary but that's the way it was back then...

The Germans were Krauts, Fritzs and Jerrys

Guys a little older than me called the enemy in Vietnam Gooks, Slopes and Charlie...

I'm sure McGill had a name for Iraquis...

Why do you libs have to make everything about race!? 😂

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

 

[sober_teacher]

You haven't read many history books on the war I guess. American GIs were racist as **** in the Pacific. It was how they got through the war.

In Europe, GIs were fighting people that looked like them. I agree with Maher, but today is a much, much different time from 1944

For any that haven't read books on what the fighting was like in the Pacific, it's impossible to grasp the racial overtones (by Japanese just as much as us). It was perhaps just as brutal in its own way as the Eastern Front was b/t Germans and Russians. Part of the way soldiers coped with that was to believe the other side was different. Reading accounts of how Japanese resisted even behind enemy lines, what they did when the MacArthur took back Manila, the Bataan Death March, etc; I can't really blame people for how they acted back then. Different times - and quite honestly, not something that any American has even a small idea of what it was like.

You don’t think Americans had racist attitudes toward the Japanese in 1945?

Revisionist history much, lol.

Yeah, that's pretty much a silly statement by anyone who says there werent racist attitudes at the time.

But no, I don't really believe it had anything to do with why we dropped the bomb on Japan and not Germany. IMO, it was timing as much as anything. In late spring it was clear Germany was going to fall, and sooner rather than later. It was honestly also clear that Japan was going down also; but nearly everyone feared the potential butcher's bill that would be paid if the US had to invade Japan's home islands. Not to mention early postwar concerns of East Asia if Russia were to play a major role in final defeat of Japan.

 

[seminole97]

You haven't read many history books on the war I guess. American GIs were racist as **** in the Pacific. It was how they got through the war.

Well, that and flamethrowers.

In the words of Captain Frank C. Caldwell, a company commander in the 26th Marines: "In my view it was the flame tank more than any other supporting arm that won this battle." Tactical demands for the flame tanks never diminished. Late in the battle, as the 5th Marine Division cornered the last Japanese defenders in "The Gorge," the 5th Tank Battalion expended napalm-thickened fuel at the rate of 10,000 gallons per day. The division's final action report stated that the flame tank was "the one weapon that caused the Japs to leave their caves and rock crevices and run."

 

[Mufasa94]

One country drew us into the war with a sneak attack on our naval base, the other by default. Germany might have bombed Moscow first had they beaten us to the bomb...

Crazy it took to post #44 for December 7, 1941 to be mentioned.

Completely expected that day to be ignored by the crowd that loves to accuse racism as the reason for decisions.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Crazy it took to post #44 for December 7, 1941 to be mentioned.

Completely expected that day to be ignored by the crowd that loves to accuse racism as the reason for decisions.

Nobody has accuse racism for being the reason. Simply said that there were racial overtones. Get a grip. READ

 

[FlickShagwell]

Nobody has accuse racism for being the reason. Simply said that there were racial overtones. Get a grip. READ

He’s from the crowd that hates to read.

 

[GOHOX69]

There doesn't seem to have ever been much discussion amongst the US and British about using an atomic bomb in the European theater. The war ended before practical deployment could be achieved, but there does not seem to have been any planning to ever use one. Why? The attached article gives some reasons, fear of an unexploded bomb falling into the hands of German scientists, and the bombs being best suited to the B-29. The second one seems to be a weak argument. The British Lancaster could do the job, and I don't believe transferring a wing of B-29s to England would have been that difficult as it is suggested to be. The vulnerability of the B-29 to a still potent Luftwaffe seems to be a bigger concern.
Of all the articles I could find no concerns were stated about collateral damage or fallout. Even those relatively weak atom bombs produced radioactive fallout. If the war in Europe had stalled in the Fall of 1944, and the Russians had been held back, would we have dropped an atom bomb that might have produced fallout that would have affected Soviet troops?
Interesting notes in the article about the early target planning done in 1943. I was somewhat surprised to see the Japanese fleet at Truk so prominently mentioned. However, a bomb dropped into that harbor, ringed by mountains, would have been devastating.
Discuss.
https://ieer.org/resource/commentary/always-the-target/

No. That's white on white violence.

 

[OutbackBowl2017]

Allies had too many soldiers near Germany to drop the bomb or bombs and fear fall out to those soldiers and allies countries and the damage it would cause vs dropping a bomb or bombs on an isolated country in japan that also devastated the US Navy with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

 

[lucas80]

No. That's white on white violence.

You are ignoring the fact that we killed a crap ton of Germans, the logistics, and the post below yours about how there was less risk to our soldiers.

 

[seminole97]

You are ignoring the fact that we killed a crap ton of Germans, the logistics, and the post below yours about how there was less risk to our soldiers.

He’s trolling you, paleface.

 

[sober_teacher]

Allies had too many soldiers near Germany to drop the bomb or bombs and fear fall out to those soldiers and allies countries and the damage it would cause vs dropping a bomb or bombs on an isolated country in japan that also devastated the US Navy with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

If it wasn't clear that Germany was going to fall with or without the bomb, there's no question they'd have used it if they had to, to defeat Hitler.

Concerns of fallout and the like could have been dealt with.

 

[seminole97]

Allies had too many soldiers near Germany to drop the bomb or bombs and fear fall out

Not a thing in 1945.

 

[GOHOX69]

You are ignoring the fact that we killed a crap ton of Germans, the logistics, and the post below yours about how there was less risk to our soldiers.

I realize we killed a crap ton. I realize we fire bombed Dresden. However, still, I believe the ethos of genociding your own race prevented the allies from nuking their European brethren. Asians were third class people.

 

[sober_teacher]

I realize we killed a crap ton. I realize we fire bombed Dresden. However, still, I believe the ethos of genociding your own race prevented the allies from nuking their European brethren. Asians were third class people.

Sorry, I don't really believe race played a major factor in this. By the time we had the bomb, the war in europe was over, and we were facing a potential bloodbath in the Japanese home islands.

 

[GOHOX69]

Sorry, I don't really believe race played a major factor in this. By the time we had the bomb, the war in europe was over, and we were facing a potential bloodbath in the Japanese home islands.

We can agree to disagree. Things are easier if you consider people subhuman.

 

[BrianNole777]

Yes.

America basically nuked Dresden.

 

[GOHOX69]

Yes.

America basically nuked Dresden.

No offense Padre but firebombing a town doesn't subject it to radiation, fall out and fetal mutations and cancers that manifest even to this date.

 

[BrianNole777]

No offense Padre but firebombing a town doesn't subject it to radiation, fall out and fetal mutations and cancers that manifest even to this date.

I doubt the people in charge during WW2 could have foreseen that.

 

[sober_teacher]

We can agree to disagree. Things are easier if you consider people subhuman.

Easier sure - but the battles at Okinawa, Iwo Jima imo factored in much more. Those Japanese KNEW they were doomed, and they were determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Given the limitations they faced, the resistance they mounted against US amphibious forces were quite frankly astounding.

Had resistance been weakening as they got closer, I think it's a tougher call regarding the bomb. But most estimates of invading Japan itself called for truly massive US casualties.

It also makes a difference in how you view the enemy when in Western Europe, the Allies and Germans fought a mostly "clean" war, especially compared to the brutality of the Eastern Front or what the Americans faced vs Japan.

And again, the decision to use in Europe was never a serious debate because it was over by the time we had the bomb.

 

[jdw10224405]

As others had said, if Normandy / D-day landing wasn't successful, the possibilities increase. I think the other factor is if Germany didn't get stopped and suffer tremendous losses in Russia, Germany probably would have been in a position to hold out a lot longer, at least in Germany itself, which might have pushed for a drop on Berlin.

 

[BrianNole777]

@preshlock any opinion?

 

[GOHOX69]

I doubt the people in charge during WW2 could have foreseen that.

Work with isotopes had been known for 50 years prior to ww2.