# Was Heisenberg a Nazi collaborator, saboteur, or something in between? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 4, 2011, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853 "2011-11-04T14:45:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/41 "2011-11-06T17:23:32Z")
Little Nemo: Which is, of course, what happened. But the option for Germany was left open, it was not off the table at that point. I suspect strongly that by late '44, Roosevelt and Churchill expected the bombing of Germany to be unnecessary, given their best estimate of when things would be ready. This is after D-Day was successful, after all. But I don’t think, given Mr. Tibbets’ orders, that it was entirely ruled out quite yet. One can always not drop a bomb that one has planned to drop, but it’s very hard to drop a bomb that hasn’t been planned to drop. Mark it down as being prepared for the fluid nature of war? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/42 "2011-11-06T17:26:34Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The firebombing of Japanese civilian populations, such as the incendiary bombing of Tokyo on 9 March 1945 which killed over 100,000 civilians, was pretty horrific. No effort was made to target military or industrial targets, and in fact the stated goal of the firebombing operations was to terrorize the civilian popuation. Gen. Curtis LeMay actually ranked efficiency not in terms of military targets destroyed or war-making capability reduced, but number of people killed per tonnage of bombs dropped. After the war, LeMay himself admitted that had the Allied forces lost the war, he and other commanders and planners in the 20th Air Force would have been tried as war criminals. > > The treatment of Okinawa during and after the war by the United States is also worthy of criticism. Rape was reportedly very common, although the Department of the Navy refused to investigate claims of rapes by the Marines stationed there during the war and for several years afterward. During the Cold War buildup of American naval and air bases in Okinawa many civilians were pressed into service and agricultural land was annexed with little or no renumeration. > > I assume by your use of the term “The Rape of Nanking” your primary source material is Iris Chang’s book of the same name. While there is no question that the occupying Japanese engaged in a campaign of rapine, molestation, and murder of civilians (as well as unlawful execution of legitimate Chinese POWs) that was at least tacitly approved by the Japanese military command and later denied by the successive Japanese government, figures and many of the claims of the book are considered to be massively overstated by most authorities, and even the author’s own quoted sources do not back up the most extreme of her claims. Yes, Iris Chang, but by ANY by the Japanese accounting, it was still PLENTY horrific enough. And the thing was … absolutely UNNECESSARY most of it. The Japanese army leaders just wanted to make sure their soldiers were ruthless and hard enough to take any orders given to them, so they set them on the civilian population of Nanking like a bunch of damn animals. Mass bayonetings, mass rape, torture, murder … what matters how many tens of thousands of people were tortured, raped and butchered, it was a prolonged experiment in horror and torture, and totally not necessary. I think the Rape of Nanking all by its lonesome was enough to justify ANY act of self-defense to keep the Japanese from taking power in the loathsome fascist form they had taken. > [@](#): > > This is a specious argument that continues to be repeated. Not specious, sound. That’s why it gets repeated. And will be ultimately the judgement of history. > [@](#): > > In fact, by the time of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military effectively had no war-making capability left, and given the dearth of indigenous resources and almost complete destruction of industrial infrastructure would not have been able to re-arm or mount any effective attach. It would have been easy enough to simply wait out the Japanese through the winter (although the counterargument can be made that this would have resulted in more casualties due to famine, disease, and exposure than the deaths from the atomic bombs). The real reason for dropping the Fat Man and Little Boy had nothing to do with saving the lives of American troops and everything with preventing Japan from suing for peace with the Soviet Union, thus providing a strategic vantage in the Pacific. An additional hypothesis is that it was also an opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of nascent nuclear warfare capability in an applied context to the Soviets, as a precursor to the Cold War conflict. It’s wonderful how you can so easily sweep aside the uncertainty that existed for US leaders at that time with a wave of your hand. The American leadership knew the island-hopping campaign had been a slow, nasty war of extermination with the Japanese troops not giving in even though they had no rational chance of surviving, forcing more American lives to be lost in rooting them out. They looked at Okinawa, and what a party that was. And they looked at mainland Japan and thought about millions of Japanese fighting with whatever they had on hand and they were plenty worried. Frankly, given all that came before, it was probably pretty close to a no-brainer to drop the bomb. I know you can’t and don’t want to see that, but it’s fairly rational, when you realize that the primary concern of American leaders was protecting American lives, not Japanese lives. The Japanese gave up the right to complain about ANYTHING that might happen to them several years earlier … > [@](#): > > Let’s take another tack. Andrei Sakharov was instrumental in developing the multi-stage thermonuclear fusion weapons (Sakharov’s “Third Idea”) for the Soviet Union, which allowed a near parity with contemporary American capability and exacerbated the Cold War development of absurdly destructive nuclear weapons and ballistic delivery systems. The Soviet Union was, if anything, even more horrific of a dictatorship than Nazi Germany; it lasted longer, resulted in the deaths of more people, and was every bit as systematic (if not as efficient) as the German government in imprisoning and executing people for completely arbitrary reasons. Sakharov later performed ground-breaking work in many non-weapon areas of physics including gravitation, cosmology, and controlled nuclear fusion (developing the tokamak reactor), and publically campaigned for nuclear disarmerment, limiting or ending nuclear testing, and dissident rights at peril to his career, freedom, and health. Is Sakharov a “bastard” for providing the Soviet Union–a criminal regime of first order–the advanced nuclear capability to destroy cities, or is he one of the most brilliant and benevolent scientists of the 20th century? > > Stranger How many bombs did he drop again? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/43 "2011-11-06T18:07:37Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > You could make that argument, but you can just as easily make the following two arguments against it: > > 1. The Japanese were the aggressors and the best way to protect against current or future aggressors is by making it seem like a really really bad idea. > 2. The goal of fire bombing was, like Sherman’s run through the South, to make the Japanese people lose the will to keep fighting, not to kill people. While that’s accomplished by destroying the homeland, so that people end up starving and living without shelter, the hope is that it brings an end to the war more quickly and saves a larger number of absolute lives (particularly those of the aggressed) in the long run. The Japanese government of WWII was not a representative government (the civilian government having been essentially overthrown by a military coup). And saying that the firebombing of Tokyo (and many other cities) was to “make the Japanese people lose the will to keep fighting, not to kill people” is a pretty lame rationalization, equivilent to a mugger claiming that he didn’t shoot his victim to kill him, only to take his wallet. The firebombing campaigns of Japanese cities, the domestic structures of which were largely stick and rice paper construction, was explicitly designed to cause horrific damage and kill large segments of the population, which were mostly civilians whose support for the war effort was limited and often enforced. We can discuss the necessity or lack thereof of the campaigns–although frankly, they had little impact on the ability of Japan to support military efforts, whereas destruction of Japanese naval capability and elimination of petroleum and metals going into the Japanese islands is what effectively curtailed the Japanese threat to American forces in the Pacific–but the fact remains that acts that are knowingly or intentionally targetting civilians are outside the conduct of what had previously been considered “legitimate” warfare and were justified by the morally ambiguous concept of “total war”. That the opposing parties of the Axis powers did the same is not an ethical justification. The United States does not hold a unique moral high ground on the manufacture and proliferation of nuclear weapons, and many of the scientists and engineers involved in the Manhattan Project later regretted their actions as contributing to an amoral institution of disproportionate destruction, which they performed due to a combination of national loyalty and revulsion of the fascist threat in Europe. Heisenberg could make the same claim, and with the same moral and ethical reservations. Curiously ignored are the statements about American activities in Okinawa. The Okinawans (or more properly, Ryukyuans) weren’t ethinically Japanese, didn’t support the war effort beyond agricultural imports and indentured service, had virtually no native war-making capability, and were only part of the Japanese Empire due to annexation in 1879 that was tacitly supported by the United States. Despite this, a quarter of the native population, nearly all civilians, perished in the once of the largest and bloodiest battles of the Pacific, the Battle of Okinawa in April-June 1945, for the crime of being previously subjugated by the Empire of Japan. After the war the Ryukyu Islands was administrated by the United States for 27 years, in which the population had only token representation and was effectively under marshal law. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/44 "2011-11-06T18:11:47Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > How many bombs did [Andrei Sakharov] drop again? How many nuclear weapons did Nazi Germany drop–or indeed, even construct–courtesy of Werner Heisenberg? Stranger ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/45 "2011-11-06T18:12:47Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > This is a specious argument that continues to be repeated. In fact, by the time of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military effectively had no war-making capability left, and given the dearth of indigenous resources and almost complete destruction of industrial infrastructure would not have been able to re-arm or mount any effective attach. The argument above is the specious one; see link: [Japanese Home Island Defensive Manpower 1945](http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/macarthur%20reports/macarthur%20v1/ch13.htm) (from link, my emphasis): > [@](#): > > By the end of **July 1945** , the **ground forces in Japan** had been increased to a basic strength of **30 line-combat divisions** , **24 coastal-combat divisions** , and 23 independent mixed brigades,\*\* 2 armored divisions\*\*, 7 tank brigades, and 3 infantry brigades That is 66 divisions-plus. A full-strength US division was about 18,000 men strong. Even at 50% of that number Japan would have had over half a million defenders on the ground. Then there were Japanese air assets: (from link, my emphasis): > [@](#): > > Secret airfields would be utilized by **suicidal special-attack units** to escape bombing raids. To conserve air strength for employment against the landing forces, carrier task forces supporting the invasion would be attacked by only a few hundred planes and then only when it became unmistakable that a full-scale invasion was in progress. The bulk of the air fleet of 10,500 planes, mostly of the small special-attack type, would be launched against the warships and transports in the crucial invasion area. Japanese plans called for these planes to be completely expended within a ten-day period in a supreme effort to repel the invasion forces. **By the end of June 1945, 8,000 of the necessary craft were already available; the other 2,500 were expected to be finished by Fall** Per Wiki prior to surrender apprx 2800 Kamikaze attacks hit 402 ships, sinking 34 to 57 (sources disagree on #sunk), killing 4900 and wounding 4800. As for equipping the troops they had, the USSR lost over 9,000 killled and 24,000 wounded in less than two weeks fighting in Manchuria _after_ the bombs were dropped. Do you suppose the Japanese Home Islands were less well-equipped for defence than Manuchria ? > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > It would have been easy enough to simply wait out the Japanese through the winter (although the counterargument can be made that this would have resulted in more casualties due to famine, disease, and exposure than the deaths from the atomic bombs). Do you give a damn about any losses except Japanese losses??? You do know, don’t you, that Japan was inflicting continuous casulaties, including civilian casualties, on the Allies in China, Burma, Indonesia and the Philippines right up until the bitter end? > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > The real reason for dropping the Fat Man and Little Boy had nothing to do with saving the lives lives of American troops Nonsense. In Truman’s words everyone in the country was afraid of going through a repeat of the Okinamwa campaign “from one end of Japan to the other”. For your information Okinawa cost about 400 US lives per square mile. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > and everything with preventing Japan from suing for peace with the Soviet Union, thus providing a strategic vantage in the Pacific. Garbled. Japan was at peace with the USSR until the day Nagasaki was bombed. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > An additional hypothesis is that it was also an opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of nascent nuclear warfare capability in an applied context to the Soviets, as a precursor to the Cold War conflict. Actually, Secretary of War Stimson’s diary made note of the inevitable fact that USSR would be impressed by US possession of the bomb, and its demonstrated willingness to use it. However, I have provided matter of historical fact that the US had urgent reason to use nuclear weapons even if the USSR had not existed. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/46 "2011-11-06T18:23:05Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Curiously ignored are the statements about American activities in Okinawa. That’s because books by Okinawans are far more critical of the Japanese treatment of Okinawans. In modern day, they aren’t fond of the US military, to be certain. But if they don’t feel a great need to complain about the US during WWII, then I don’t see the need. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/47 "2011-11-06T18:34:20Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Name me one thing the US did in World War II that was anywhere CLOSE to the horror of the Rape of Nanking. > > Estimates of the number of Allied soldiers who would have been killed in a land assault on Japan vary from half a million to 1.5 million. A lot of innocent American lives were saved by bombing cities supporting the Japanese. Except those were arbitrary numbers that got used for propoganda purpposes. It’s not like some guy ran a bunch of scenarios and cane up with that estimate and handed it to the President. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/48 "2011-11-06T21:54:41Z")
Personally, I think that the evidence concerning Heisenberg is scanty enough that it would be unjust to draw either conclusion from it. You’ll end up risking either calling a hero a bastard, or calling a bastard a hero, and I’d rather do neither. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/49 "2011-11-06T22:40:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Personally, I think that the evidence concerning Heisenberg is scanty enough that it would be unjust to draw either conclusion from it. You’ll end up risking either calling a hero a bastard, or calling a bastard a hero, and I’d rather do neither. Let us say that Heisenberg was a brilliant physicist with an unfortunate loyalty to a nation taken over by fascists, at least a partial willful blindness to the end goal of the Nazi leadership, and an uncertain command of ethics. Rather than being a “bastard” or a “traitor”, this makes him a somewhat flawed persona; in other words, a fairly typical human being, albeit with a profound gift for understanding quantum field theory and nuclear physics. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/50 "2011-11-06T23:18:56Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Except those were arbitrary numbers that got used for propoganda purpposes. It’s not like some guy ran a bunch of scenarios and cane up with that estimate and handed it to the President. No, they were not arbitrary, but were based on statistical extrapolation from battlefield data, and available to the President by circulation to the Secretary of War and the JCS: [US Casualty Projections for Invasion of Japan](http://home.roadrunner.com/~casualties/) (from link, my emphasis): > [@](#): > > Altogether, this model \ for the invasion of Japan had cost the U.S. 3,426 dead and 13,099 wounded to kill 23,811 Japanese defenders… > > These losses had a sobering effect on the JCS’s Joint Strategic Survey Committee presiding over the refinements made to “Operations Against Japan Subsequent to Formosa,” which through the spring of 1945 (long after its name, but not content, was rendered obsolete by the rush of events), was used as the primary outline for the series of campaigns culminating on Japan’s soil. In its 30 August 1944 annex, the planners noted the number of Japanese troops which could be made available to defend the Home Islands-3,500,000-and extrapolated that number against a not yet complete count of the destroyed Japanese garrison. The JPS committee concluded: > > **“In our Saipan operation, it cost approximately one American killed and several wounded to exterminate seven Japanese soldiers. On this basis it might cost us half a million American lives and many times that number wounded . . . in the home islands.”** > > This “Saipan ratio” set the standard for strategic-level casualty projections in the Pacific. Together with the experience of combat attrition of line infantry units in Europe, plus the assumption that fighting in Japan could stretch nearly as far as 1947, it provided the basis for the Army and War Department manpower policy for 1945, and, thus, the pace for the big jump in Selective Service inductions and expansion of the training base even as the war in Europe was winding down. > > A minimum of 104 copies of “Operations Against Japan Subsequent to Formosa” were distributed to the Secretary of War, all four members of the JCS, their deputies, certain OPD group chiefs, and a wide variety of officers and support staff. > > …The implied top-end figure of approximately 1,700,000 to 2,000,000 battle casualties built on the basis of the Saipan ratio was slashed down to a best-case scenario figure that was not so huge as to make the task ahead appear insurmountable, and use of a 500,000 battle casualty figure was “the operative one at the working level” during the spring of 1945. Now, numerous subsequent casulaty estimates are cited by the link, ranging from affirmation of the estimate of over million to as low as 100,000 for the 1st 90 days. However, as of July 1945 Secretary of War Stimson and JCS Chief Marshall both believed that 1,000,000 was entirely possible, and they were the highest ranking under Truman, and were in daily contact with him. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/51 "2011-11-06T23:42:40Z")
My impression is that Heisenberg didn’t feel atomic research represented a moral dilemma. He mistakenly thought that the production of a working atomic bomb couldn’t happen in the near future. So his attitude was that he was essentially conducting a theoretical research program rather than developing a weapon. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/52 "2011-11-07T03:49:44Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Let’s take another tack. Andrei Sakharov was instrumental in developing the multi-stage thermonuclear fusion weapons (Sakharov’s “Third Idea”) for the Soviet Union, which allowed a near parity with contemporary American capability and exacerbated the Cold War development of absurdly destructive nuclear weapons and ballistic delivery systems. The Soviet Union was, if anything, even more horrific of a dictatorship than Nazi Germany; it lasted longer, resulted in the deaths of more people, and was every bit as systematic (if not as efficient) as the German government in imprisoning and executing people for completely arbitrary reasons. Sakharov later performed ground-breaking work in many non-weapon areas of physics including gravitation, cosmology, and controlled nuclear fusion (developing the tokamak reactor), and publically campaigned for nuclear disarmerment, limiting or ending nuclear testing, and dissident rights at peril to his career, freedom, and health. Is Sakharov a “bastard” for providing the Soviet Union–a criminal regime of first order–the advanced nuclear capability to destroy cities, or is he one of the most brilliant and benevolent scientists of the 20th century? Well the big difference is that during the Stalinist years (the only time when soviet union was really comparable to Nazism in terms of crimes against humanity), it would have been actual suicide to rebel against the not just not career suicide. Stalin put his head of secret police, Beria, in charge of the Soviet nuclear program, any kind of objection on behalf of the scientists involved would have been suicidal. And most importantly of all, he DID raise objection. albeit when the political had changed from Stalin’s years, but it was still a very brave thing to do. That’s what makes him less culpable than Heisenberg. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/53 "2011-11-07T05:56:58Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > No, they were not arbitrary, but were based on statistical extrapolation from battlefield data, > and available to the President by circulation to the Secretary of War and the JCS: > > [US Casualty Projections for Invasion of Japan](http://home.roadrunner.com/~casualties/) > > (from link, my emphasis): > > Now, numerous subsequent casulaty estimates are cited by the link, ranging from affirmation > of the estimate of over million to as low as 100,000 for the 1st 90 days. However, as of July 1945 > Secretary of War Stimson and JCS Chief Marshall both believed that 1,000,000 was entirely possible, > and they were the highest ranking under Truman, and were in daily contact with him. 1. Saying “it takes this many of our guys to kill one of their guys” is faulty logic. “We lost X” men on X battle and assuming all other conditons are equal (or worse) is bad. 2. It doesn’t matter. If we had told the Japanese they could keep their Emperor, this MAY have been avoided. In the end, guess what? Still had an Emperor. 3. Two bombs. Not one, but TWO. And one was sped up because of weather! Real humane. Real friggin’ humane and unnecessary. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/54 "2011-11-07T10:21:30Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > 1. Saying “it takes this many of our guys to kill one of their guys” is faulty logic. “We lost X” men on X battle and assuming all other conditons are equal (or worse) is bad. Why? Why would any commander in his right mind assume that conditions are going to be _better_ when invading the Japanese home islands? “Hmm, in previous battles, we lost one soldier for every Japanese soldier killed. Let’s completely throw this information, collected from actually fighting the Japanese forces, out of the window and pull a figure out of my ass.” Seriously: what source of information, other than previous battles fighting the forces you are preparing to engage, should a commander in the field use to estimate casualties? FYI: Operation Downfall, the planned Allied invasion of Japan, assumed that up to 15 nuclear weapons would need to be used to pacify the Japanese defensive forces. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/55 "2011-11-07T10:38:23Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > Why? Why would any commander in his right mind assume that conditions are going to be _better_ when invading the Japanese home islands? > > “Hmm, in previous battles, we lost one soldier for every Japanese soldier killed. Let’s completely throw this information, collected from actually fighting the Japanese forces, out of the window and pull a figure out of my ass.” > > Seriously: what source of information, other than previous battles fighting the forces you are preparing to engage, should a commander in the field use to estimate casualties? Especially when it’s reasonable to assume that the Japanese were going to fight much harder in Japan than they had fought for obscure islands in the Pacific. And after the war when the Americans saw the preparations Japan had been making to resist the invasion, the consensus was that their worst-case scenario probably underestimated the casualties. The American estimates had assumed Japan was running out of military equipment and supplies because they were seeing units running short of these items. The reality was that the shortages the Americans were seeing were due to the stockpiling of equipment and supplies in Japan for its defense. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/56 "2011-11-07T16:00:43Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > 1. Saying “it takes this many of our guys to kill one of their guys” is faulty logic. “We lost X” men on X battle and assuming all other conditons are equal (or worse) is bad. The reasonable underlying assumption was that US casualty rates were not likely to improve against an enemy defending his home ground. Hence the argument is neither arbitrary or illogical as you claim now. > [@CitizenPained](#): > > 1. It doesn’t matter. If we had told the Japanese they could keep their Emperor, this MAY have been avoided. In the end, guess what? Still had an Emperor. The Japanese were informed, generously, by the 7/26/45 Potsdam Declaration that: [Potsdam Declaration Text](http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/ferrell_book/ferrell_book_chap7.htm) “The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been \*\*established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people \*\* \*\*a peacefully inclined and responsible government.” \*\*(emphasis added) If the Japanese has asked if they might by their freely expressed will retain their Emperor, the atomic bombings may have been avoided. May have, but I doubt it, since the Japanese military wanted at least one final battle on Japanese soil even after Nagasaki and the entry of the USSR into the war against them. They were overruled only by the unprecedented intervention of the Emperor. > [@CitizenPained](#): > > 1. Two bombs. Not one, but TWO. And one was sped up because of weather! Real humane. Real friggin’ humane and unnecessary. The only obligation we had was to reduce to a minimum our own expense in blood and treasure, and that left no room for humaneness on behalf of a fanatic enemy who failed to make good use of the three days grace it had between the two atomic bomb attacks. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/57 "2011-11-07T19:25:07Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Let us say that Heisenberg was a brilliant physicist with an unfortunate loyalty to a nation taken over by fascists, at least a partial willful blindness to the end goal of the Nazi leadership, and an uncertain command of ethics. Rather than being a “bastard” or a “traitor”, this makes him a somewhat flawed persona; in other words, a fairly typical human being, albeit with a profound gift for understanding quantum field theory and nuclear physics. I’d prob go with this. Nazis like Heisenberg are culpable for co-operating with the Nazi regime, but the fact so many did is more an indictment of the human condition rather than anything else. Its an ironic part of the human condition that physical courage is so much more prevalent than moral courage. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/58 "2011-11-07T20:57:37Z")
Why does everyone always fixate on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while ignoring the much more horrific bombing of Tokyo? If we hadn’t had the atomic bomb, we would still have reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to rubble. The point of the atom bomb was not that we could destroy cities; the point was to make it look _easy_. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853/59 "2011-11-08T19:27:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Why does everyone always fixate on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while ignoring the much more horrific bombing of Tokyo? This raises a legitimate point, and is worth another thread. > [@Chronos](#): > > If we hadn’t had the atomic bomb, we would still have reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to rubble. OK. > [@Chronos](#): > > The point of the atom bomb was not that we could destroy cities; the point was to make it look _easy_. Nuclear weapon potential encompasses both the destruction of entire cities, and the ease with which cities may be destroyed. These complemetary potential elements are in no tension with each other, and treating them as if they were does not add value to the discussion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-heisenberg-a-nazi-collaborator-saboteur-or-something-in-between/601853.md?page=2)