Re:Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hal...
by krapp on Friday February 08, 2019 @01:02PM
(#19116924)
The Manhattan Project wasn't focused on developing the atomic bombs just for dropping on the Japanese. The US was afraid of Germany developing a bomb first, and evidence presented here[0], at least, suggests several tactical and strategic reasons for choosing Japan over Germany (such as superior German air support, the perceived greater likelihood of Germany's imminent surrender versus Japan, and fears that Germany might better be able to reverse engineer a dud than the Japanese.)
None of this suggests a primarily racially-motivated rationale. The evidence doesn't seem to support the premise that the US bombed Japan because they were Asians and didn't bomb Germany because they were Caucasians.
Although, racism and xenophobia likely informed American public opinion of the bombings after the fact. There's no way to know how that would have played out had Germany been bombed, or both Germany and Japan.
[0]http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/10/04/atomic-bomb-used-n...
Re:Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hal...
by kcorbitt on Friday February 08, 2019 @05:17PM
(#19119202)
> several tactical and strategic reasons for choosing Japan over Germany (such as superior German air support, the perceived greater likelihood of Germany's imminent surrender versus Japan, and fears that Germany might better be able to reverse engineer a dud than the Japanese.)
...well, there was also the fact that Germany had already surrendered by the time the first atom bomb was built.
In any case, I also think the charge of racism is a bit uncalled for, the complete disregard for human suffering exemplified by the firebombing campaigns are surely enough to qualify as very serious war crimes all on their own.
(Though to claim that an America that was interning all its japan connected citizens in camps was acting without any racial impulses do seem rather implausible)