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Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]

germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org

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Re: Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]

#21

Post by mgoetzke »

marksweston wrote: post #11
andrew_ wrote: post #4

Fascinating stuff, really interesting characters. I for one never knew the Germans were pursuing fission for the production of "engines". Do yourselves a favor and read the entire transcript. The comments about how they see history being written, specifically about the German contributions, comes across as particularly naive but evident of men who were clearly distraught and disoriented. And their predictions about S…

> Fascinating stuff, really interesting characters. I for one never knew the Germans were pursuing fission for the production of "engines". Do yourselves a favor and read the entire transcript. I'm fairly sure that by "engines" they meant reactors.

They talk about a 'Maschine' in the German version 'a machine' and clearly mean a machine to produce energy i.e a reactor.

Re: Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]

#23

Post by maire »

porpoisely wrote: post #7

What an interesting read. Also, is it just me or are there a surprising number of german related topics on the frontpage right now? "We only had one man working on it and they may have had ten thousand" This is why I always chuckle at the ww2 "documentaries" positing the possibility of german or japanese bomb. Nevermind that both parties were preoccupied fighting far stronger and larger opponents ( US, British Empire…

There were 3 issues involved in the decision to drop the bomb: 1. The battle of Okinawa was fought vigorously by the Japanese leading the allies to increase their estimates of the cost of war on the Japanese homeland. 2. The fear that if the war lasted too long then the Soviet Union would enter the pacific war and carve up Japan in the same way we carved up Germany 3. Japan's desire for a conditional surrender

It is the 3rd factor that was the crux. I believe if we understood the terms of the conditional surrender then we could have ended the war without dropping the bomb. In fact, we likely did comply with what the Japanese wanted since we protected the emperor after the war.

Re: Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]

#24

Post by [deleted] »

gandhium wrote: post #15
skh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the Germans surrendered my dad's division was scheduled to be transferred to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan. At least that is what they were told. He was happy to hear of the bombings on Nagasaki and Hiroshima since from his perspective it caused the Japanese to surrender. Of course it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan. Politically the U.S. has not been…

> it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan They were specifically mentioned in emperor's address. Yes, they caused the surrender. > Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military targets They were military targets. There was army HQ, troops stationed there, factories which were producing military goods.

[deleted]

Re: Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]

#25

Post by erentz »

Plugged it in a previous thread but will plug it as relevant again, since I see debate in this thread about Japanese surrender and wheather the Germans were really developing the bomb.

Have a read of Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg, he was involved and saw a lot of the nuclear planning during the Cold War. It’s pretty clear from his retelling that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were not essential to end the war. Japan was days away from surrender, and we killed more people in a firebomb raid than with the A-Bomb anyway, so it’s not like they weren’t already suffering citywide destructions. In fact Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two cities kept off of the firebombing list simply to still have test targets for the A-Bomb.

On the German front Hitler apparently discontinued the nazi program when he found out it was going to take too long for his timeline to win the war.

In Cold War terms there’s almost too much disturbing in the book to list. But one thing it brought home to me was that we should have a “no first use” policy like other countries, but we don’t because we like to threaten their use. And we have absolutely no need for land based ICBMs anymore given we have SLBMs more than capable of destroying the world, the ICBMs are a strategic liability (targets) and yet instead of getting rid of them we are planning to spend over $100b to replace them.

Re: Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]

#26

Post by skadamou »

porpoisely wrote: post #17
skh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the Germans surrendered my dad's division was scheduled to be transferred to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan. At least that is what they were told. He was happy to hear of the bombings on Nagasaki and Hiroshima since from his perspective it caused the Japanese to surrender. Of course it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan. Politically the U.S. has not been…

It isn't debatable because we know hiroshima and nagasaki had no bearing on the japanese decision to surrender. If the nukes were the cause of japan's surrender, hiroshima would have been enough and nagasaki wouldn't have happened. Also, there is no ambiguity to the morality of hiroshima or nagasaki. No more than there is any ambiguity to the morality of nazi death camps. They were both racially driven war crimes and…

>...we know hiroshima and nagasaki had no bearing on the japanese decision to surrender.

I think this is an interesting idea but I would love to see a source on this.

When I took a Japan at War class in college our professor seemed to be of the opinion that using the atom bomb was what finally convinced the Japanese to surrender unconditionally but that they would have agreed to a conditional surrender as long as their emperor was guaranteed some form of independence. What are your thoughts on this?

Re: Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]

#27

Post by ceejayoz »

gandhium wrote: post #15
skh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the Germans surrendered my dad's division was scheduled to be transferred to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan. At least that is what they were told. He was happy to hear of the bombings on Nagasaki and Hiroshima since from his perspective it caused the Japanese to surrender. Of course it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan. Politically the U.S. has not been…

> it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan They were specifically mentioned in emperor's address. Yes, they caused the surrender. > Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military targets They were military targets. There was army HQ, troops stationed there, factories which were producing military goods.

Citing the Emperor's address as evidence isn't a great idea. It contains plenty of demonstrably false statements, like this:

> Indeed, we declared war on America and Britain out of our sincere desire to ensure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.

Re: Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]

#28

Post by olaf »

mgoetzke wrote: post #20
matt4077 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Von Weizsäcker, and his family, are extremely interesting. The father was a somewhat reluctant ambassador to Britain. The four brothers all were highly successful, as a physicist, a politician (President of Germany in the 90s), an economist, and a political scientist. I had the honor to study with the economist. I rarely get the explicit idea that someone is smarter or dumber than me. But with him, it was so obvious…

Richard von Weizsäcker (President of Germany) was fabulous. Every interview worth reading, every word well chosen. Nobody since has lived up to that high standard yet in my opinion.

No coin without flipside: "... Er war - für die Bundesrepublik in dieser Form bis heute einmalig - der intellektuelle Gegenentwurf zum Kanzler, und er hat diese Rolle auch gerne angenommen. Im privaten Leben war er zwar oft unbeherrscht, hochfahrend und anmaßend. Untergebene schurigelte er zuweilen aus nichtigem Anlass. Doch seine öffentlichen Auftritte inszenierte Weizsäcker untadelig. ..." Source [german]: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/richard-von-weizsa...

Re: Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]

#29

Post by avn2109 »

gandhium wrote: post #15
skh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the Germans surrendered my dad's division was scheduled to be transferred to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan. At least that is what they were told. He was happy to hear of the bombings on Nagasaki and Hiroshima since from his perspective it caused the Japanese to surrender. Of course it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan. Politically the U.S. has not been…

> it's debatable on whether or not those bombings did indeed cause the surrender of Japan They were specifically mentioned in emperor's address. Yes, they caused the surrender. > Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military targets They were military targets. There was army HQ, troops stationed there, factories which were producing military goods.

>> "Yes, they caused the surrender."

Broadly speaking, this is widely regarded amongst historians as not true at all, though most American schoolchildren are still taught it.

Mostly this is because American conventional airpower was so overwhelming in Japan that its effects were substantially interchangeable with the bomb. Before the atomic bombings, Secretary of War Henry Stimson (who chose Hiroshima and Nagasaki as targets) mentioned that America had literally run out of targets to (conventionally) bomb in Japan [0].

A more detailed summary of the "Bomb didn't cause surrender" argument is given in [1].

[0] http://www.doug-long.com/stimson5.htm , ctrl-F for "I was a little fearful that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon [the atomic bomb] would not have a fair background to show its strength."

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-jap...

Re: Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]

#30

Post by avn2109 »

skadamou wrote: post #26
porpoisely wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't debatable because we know hiroshima and nagasaki had no bearing on the japanese decision to surrender. If the nukes were the cause of japan's surrender, hiroshima would have been enough and nagasaki wouldn't have happened. Also, there is no ambiguity to the morality of hiroshima or nagasaki. No more than there is any ambiguity to the morality of nazi death camps. They were both racially driven war crimes and…

>...we know hiroshima and nagasaki had no bearing on the japanese decision to surrender. I think this is an interesting idea but I would love to see a source on this. When I took a Japan at War class in college our professor seemed to be of the opinion that using the atom bomb was what finally convinced the Japanese to surrender unconditionally but that they would have agreed to a conditional surrender as long as the…

I'm not the parent but I wrote a comment about this elsewhere in the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19115219

and another similar comment previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10485563

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