Would the United Stated have used the bomb on white, West-European Germans?

[Sprayber]

Why are some of you people so much more accepting of America's use of firebombing then the use of the Atomic bomb. Did the people of Japan suffer so much more then the people of Dresdan and Hamburg?

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Was that due to Heisenberg's incompetence or a genuine lack of resources, etc.?

Lack of knowledge of what their problems were. The heavy water plant was built because they didn't know how to use graphite as a moderater. Had to due with contamination of their graphite source.

Heisenberg wasn't incompetent. He was only one man not a huge nultinational team. He had help of course but most of Germany's best and brightest in the field had taken off for other countries in the thirties. There is also a possibility that Heisenberg was deliberatly holding up the project.

[Grrr]

The people in Japan suffered a LOT less than those of the German cities.

[Alexander's Horse]

Turn the question around: Would Hitler have used the bomb on London if he had it? Of course he would.

There probably would have been a bit more agonising about nuking Berlin but I'm sure they would have done it. The same arguments would have won out - saving the lives of allied troops, shortening the war, that sort of thing.

[Q Classic]

copenhagen is a good play about that.

but recent evidence and letters seem to point to the fact that he really was stumped, and although probably not giving his whole effort into the project, wasn't really holding it back.

[KrazyHorse]

but recent evidence and letters seem to point to the fact that he really was stumped, and although probably not giving his whole effort into the project, wasn't really holding it back

Heisenberg had himself and a dozen or two other scientists. At its peak the Manhattan project employed two or three thousand (?) scientists and tens of thousands of technicians, workers, etc.

The scale of the efforts is completely different. No one man built the US atomic bomb, which is what the Germans were asking of Heisenberg...

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Sprayber
Why are some of you people so much more accepting of America's use of firebombing then the use of the Atomic bomb. Did the people of Japan suffer so much more then the people of Dresdan and Hamburg?

Not really. The reaction is a gut one. The world lived with the threat of nuclear annihilation for 50+ years, therefore there's an emotional response to their actual use. Whether you kill 200 000 people over the space of a week with conventional weapons or 200 000 people in one instant with an atomic weapon doesn't seem to be much different to me.

[faded glory]

Not quite.

Germans in the US never faced the same type of antagonism that Japs did. Germans were whites who had let themselves be led astray; Japs were born that way...

No...Germans were spied on (see, german-american Bund and germantowns in NY). I rememeber living in Long Island and driving through Yaphank and still seeing "Hitler Street" and "Goebbels Ave". This was in 1995-97 mind you. The german populations had since moved out for some time giving way to hispanics and polish people who couldnt really read the signs anyway. (Ide be suprised if they were still up). Anyway the germans left these towns because of busts and spying searches. etc.....

Anyway back to the orignal question. Yes the germans were spied on. But they werent rounded up. It was simply too difficult considering


But the fact how much Americans of German descent were actually in the army. Somthing like 15% of those drafted in the pool were germans. So it was too difficult. Unlike the japanese civilians, who were small and weak for the most.

[faded glory]

oops got caught off considering..owell. I have to throw papers.lol. cya

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by faded glory



No...Germans were spied on (see, german-american Bund and germantowns in NY). I rememeber living in Long Island and driving through Yaphank and still seeing "Hitler Street" and "Goebbels Ave". This was in 1995-97 mind you. The german populations had since moved out for some time giving way to hispanics and polish people who couldnt really read the signs anyway. (Ide be suprised if they were still up). Anyway the germans left these towns because of busts and spying searches. etc.....

Anyway back to the orignal question. Yes the germans were spied on. But they werent rounded up. It was simply too difficult considering


But the fact how much Americans of German descent were actually in the army. Somthing like 15% of those drafted in the pool were germans. So it was too difficult. Unlike the japanese civilians, who were small and weak for the most.

Faded, the view of Japanese and Germans was completely different. It has mainly to do with the fact that Germans looked like "everybody else" and Japanese were readily identifiable. Remember that this is in a society which was still running on Jim Crow...

[Alexander's Horse]

As others have mentioned, developing the bomb in the timeframe required a massive scientific and economic effort of which probably only the United States was capable at the time.

The Germans had the choice to go down the nuclear path in 1940 but went for rockets instead. They couldn't do both.

The fact that nuclear science, relativity and the like was tainted as "Jewish science" also helped a lot because nazi scientists and physics schools were not up with the latest theory. They had dealt themselves out in the thirties. Its one of those nice little historical ironies for which we should be grateful.

[Pythagoras]

1. Germany undestood the concept of surrender. The Japanese never surrendered.

2. By the time the bomb was developed D-day had succeded and Patton and Montgomery were having unexpected and swift succeses.

3. The United States had direct competition with Japan in the Pacific, however the US had little direct competition with Germany expansion/imperial wise.

4. Japan is so much more mountaneous and treachorous than Japan.

5. Food in Japan would be MUCH harder to come by than in contintental Europe during protracted fighting. Disturbing the commerce in Japan would have led to mass starvation much larger than that in Europe post ww2.

7 Supplying an invasion of Japan would be a logistic nightmare. Its one thing when you have Britain next door. Supplying millions of troops thousands of miles away for perhaps years on end fighting in Japan would totally sap the economies of the west.

[Pythagoras]

The following scenario would have been interesting:

Dday fails. Roosevelt demonstrates the awesome might of his fully-functional "battle station" (hehe) by letting the Germans know what fate might await them. Then maybe nuke a city. I wonder how the war would have ended that way.

[Shi Huangdi]

They did a poll at the time IIRC of least like ethnic groups during WWII. #1 was Germans, #2 was Japanese, and #3 were the Jews.

[Al B. Sure!]

there's also the matter that the Japanese attacked us first at Pearl Harbour... we just went to war with Germany because they were the enemy of our allies and the ally of our enemy... we wanted revenge for pearl harbour...