Well I'm not entirely sold on it, but the only other rationale I know of was to simply to use it. To test it out and to show the rest of the world we had it. If instead that was the case, we still drop it on Germany

Before moving off of this tangent it is a interesting thought. Studying the eastern vs western front it was like Germany was fighting two different wars. The Western front had far more human treatment of the combatants on both sides. On the eastern which was far more savage between the SU and Germany.

I wonder if it was much easier to drop the bomb on Japan then it would have been on Germany for the leaders in power at the time. Since Japan was on an island and somewhat isolated from any US allies that also may have made it easier.

On the flip side the bombing going on in Berlin was brutal. Dan Carlin touches on this in his most recent podcast regarding dropping the Atomic Bomb on Japan which got me to thinking about this tangent.

The other factor here is the entry of the Soviet Union into the Eastern war, and the profound incentive the US had to ensure that Japan accepted American, rather than Soviet, peace terms. After Yalta and Potsdam, there was a great scramble among the strange-bedfellow allies (FDR the liberal idealist, Churchill the imperialist, and Stalin the communist) to shape the postwar world and territories according to their respective visions--Churchill readily accepted, and FDR grudgingly accepted, that Stalin would soon move from being ally to rival, perhaps even enemy. Having lost Eastern Europe to the Soviets, the US was not prepared to accept a similar division of Asia--naturally, the expansion of Communism into China and North Korea was seen as a big blow to postwar plans.

The japanese also weren't the same race and didn't include a large part of the ancestry of the americans.

The bombing was brutal at pretty much every german city, regardless of military or industrial importance. However, it was mostly conducted by the raf, while the us air force targeted mainly military targets.

I'm sure churchill would have happily dropped the bomb on berlin in a second, but I doubt the americans would have given him that favor. Without ever experiencing the terror of an industrial-age war on their soil, I doubt their pubic would have approved on dropping the bomb on "peers".

Any proof that the American public looked upon the Germans as their peers? Because that sounds absolutely retarded to me to think the dropping of the atomic bomb would be heavily influenced by race.

I think you're completely forgetting about WWI... I doubt the Americans had a special place in their heart for Germans. Pretty sure during WW2 after all the propaganda FDR pumped out to get them in the war, America hated the Germans plenty.

Oh certainly. Just look at the respective propaganda aimed at the two enemies. There was considerable admiration for the Germans among many Americans before the war--notably by people like Charles Lindbergh. The Japanese, by contrast, were seen as wholly alien, part of the vague "Yellow Menace" from the East. Racism wasn't really given a second thought at the time.

How much this factored into the decision to drop the bomb is hard to say. But it's worth noting that Japanese-Americans were subjected to far harsher treatment than German-Americans during either of the World Wars.

I put peers in parenthesis to indicate that I am not entirely happy with the word. English is not my native language. I meant to express that americans, the once in power anyhow, had, additional to their race, a lot more in common with germans then japanese.

The propaganda didn't bring the us into the war. I am aware of american weapon and ammunition delivery to the brits and soviets, but it was germany to declare war on the us and not vice versa. I am pretty sure roosevelt would have entered the war much earlier if the public really had that much hatred against germans.


How does the idea of putting people in internment camps because of ancestry sound to you?

How does the idea of denying basic civil rights because of race sound to you?

Retarded? Unamerican? And still both happend.

It's an interesting question. France & the UK actually did contemplate and plan military action against the USSR in the very early days of WWII. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-...the_Winter_War
See also the Wikipedia article on "Operation Pike". These plans look totally impractical, in hindsight. There was a lot of anti-Soviet feeling in the West, especially after the Soviets also invaded Finland. From a diplomatic point of view, France & the UK and the USSR had made some (futile) efforts to work out an anti-Hitler alliance before the invasion of Poland, but apparently France & the UK never dreamed that the USSR would abruptly "switch sides". Since the USSR (shrewdly) didn't attack Poland until Sept.17th, it looked less like a pre-arranged act of aggression against an ally they swore to defend (against Germany) and more like just a bit of Realpolitik..."Hey, Poland doesn't exist anymore, so we're just going to take back some land that they stole from us as a result of the Russo-Polish War."

I agree with you and thorag makes a good point about internment. It was no picnic being a German-American During WWII, but unless you lived in Hawaii ( A US territory at the time) it surely was far more difficult being of Japanese American.

As you (Turnprofit) said, "Racism wasn't really given a second thought at the time." and what would be considered racist hate speech today was normal dialog back then.

I think this was driven by fear. Asian American's had the stereotype of being far different than German-American's and that drives fear. We don't have to step that far back in the US to after 9-11 to see how fear causes the erosion of civil liberties. Under a less tolerant period like WWII, even less consideration was given to these issues then today.

I think the reason that the US might not have dropped the bomb in our alternate potential scenario would have had more to do with the close proximity of several ally nations and the long term harm to them. Who really knows, as we were firing nuclear weapons in Nevada for testing, so this might not have even been a consideration until later.

England is britain?

"England" is sometimes, wrongly, used in reference to the whole United Kingdom, the entire island of Great Britain (or simply Britain), or the British Isles.

This is not only incorrect but can cause offence to people from other parts of the UK, particularly Scotland .

History of the making of the UK

1536 - Act of Union joins England and Wales

1707 - Act of Union unites Scotland and England, together with Wales to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1801 - The Irish Parliament voted to join the Union. The then Kingdom of Great Britain becomes the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1922 - Name changed to United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, when most of the Southern counties in Ireland choose independence.


Great Britain comprises only England, Scotland and Wales.

British Isles

The British Isles - made up of several islands. Great Britain is the largest and most important one.


So now this is all cleared up. Please don't derail the thread from it's actual discussion.

Hitler had to go to war with the Soviet Union at some point. Everyone knew the Nazis hated communists and vice versa, which is what made the partition of Poland such a surprise to the world. Germany and the Soviets were destined for conflict at some point once Germany started taking out the West. While a Cold War era may have occurred similar to what happened post WWII, it seems unlikely Hitler and Stalin would have trusted each other long enough for that to occur. As it turns out Stalin trusted Hitler too much and even after the invasion started Stalin did not believe it.

Interesting thread. I've read a lot on Barbarossa lately & tend to agree w/ Stim & above that it was both inevitable and reasonable at the time for Germany to think they could win.

One thing I haven't been able to find much on though is their thinking behind the declaration of war on the US. Anyone read/watch anything about that? I assume they thought that too was inevitable but I don't see any upside to taking the initiative other than possibly guilting the Japanese to help them on the eastern front.