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

Post by CamperBob2 » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 8:54 AM UTC

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…

Post by Tsubasachan » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 9:08 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #111

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…

I don't know about you, but I think I would run up the white flag after being nuked once .

Post by maxnoe » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 11:22 AM UTC

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.

Post by mannykannot » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #98

ufmace wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We had a much larger economy and resource potential than germany and japan. Yes, I once thought that it should have been surprising that Germany didn't get the bomb first. Upon more reading, the effort that the US threw at the project was simply staggering - nobody knew which was the best technique for how to do a bunch of different things, so the Americans tried all of them at the same time. No other participant i…

> No other participant in the war could have duplicated that level of effort. Effort aside, there's also luck. Americans couldn't assume that Germans haven't tried despite the lack of resources, and scored on first attempt by sheer chance. This is one of those races where even if you're very confident that you're faster than everybody else, you still give it everything you have, because the consequences of not winnin…

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #118

int_19h wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia has a lengthy article on various debates and controversies on this broad subject (whether the bombs were justified or not), including Soviet role in it, and whether it made the second bomb unnecessary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombing...

It doesn't seem to have have transcripts of the "discussions the Japanese war cabinet had behind the scenes", which is specifically what you wanted people to look at in your former comment.