Assuming the bomb was ready in late '44 there would have been little point in using it on Peenemunde- Peenemunde was an R&D site and by this time its work was over, the V2 were being produced in an underground factory in Austria and launched from Belgium. Also Peenemunde was already a ruin having been hit by RAF and 8th Air Force raids from 1943 onwards. When the Russians arrived in May 1945 there was very little left for them to grab.
That’s extremely one-sided. It was far more common for Japanese soldiers to refuse to offer to surrender than it was for American soldiers to refuse to accept the offer.
Not sure **Wakinyan **asked a question, seemed to be an asertion that there was no possibility of the A Bomb being used on Germany. Also, not sure what you are arguing - is it at **Wakinyan **is correct and there was no thought of using the bomb in Europe? If so, I think you need to address some of the points raised by me (and others).
I remember reading* that the Western Allies were just waiting with baited breath for the Germans to use chemical warfare so they could unleash a vast stockpile on the Germans. The Germans knew this so they didn’t use it.
*I think it was “Day of Battle” by Rick Atkinson.
I’ve read Atkinson’s books and I don’t remember this. And it seems unlikely. Why would the Americans and the British want to use chemical weapons? They were ready to if they had to, but I can’t see any reason why they would be hoping for the opportunity.
I swear it’s like some people just can’t accept the idea that the United States was ever on the right side of anything.
One significant consensus in the recent historical literature in English on Dresden, both pro and anti the attack, is that the city was not “picked” to be firebombed. The RAF had been dropping incendaries on most of their raids for years in the hope that they could ignite a firestorm akin to what they’d achieved in Hamburg. That was intended as the ideal outcome of most raids. There had been nothing special about the Dresden mission in advance. It happened to be the next target on the list and it happened to be the raid where everything went “right” and they got a repeat of Hamburg.
I could very well be wrong about the book…but I still think it might have been his book. He had a section in there where he talked about how some chemical agents had gotten loose in Italy, I think in a German air-raid and it was from a stockpile that was stocked up in the hopes they could use it if the Germans did first
And why wouldn’t this be ‘in the right’? The United States didn’t use them…but if the Germans used them first then the gloves were off. This is hardly ‘evil’ IMO.
Portraying the US and GB as just sitting around hoping the Germans would use some chemical weapons so they could soak their cities in them makes them sound somewhat evil. They had large stockpiles and the capabilities to deliver them, but mostly for MAD purposes - I don’t think anyone really wanted to use them.
It was tested, at Trinity.
No, the Nagasaki bomb was tested at Trinity. Fat Man and Little Boy were not identical devices.
No, the implosion bomb was tested at Trinity and the second implosion bomb was used at Nagasaki. The Hiroshima bomb was a simpler gun type which they decided didn’t need testing.
That’s a little bit of an unfair representation of what I said. Dresden was “picked” to the extent it was the next target in line for the treatment. I’m not suggesting there was anything particularly special about it. It was relatively unscathed (certainly compared to Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin etc) and would have made a good target for the big one.
Hey now! This is not entirely fair.
The Japanese treated prisoners of war so poorly in the beginning of the war that it is reasonable to assume surrender was not an option.
While it is probably in poor taste to say this…the Japanese had Karma bite them in the ass.
Yeah, part of the aversion of surrender to the japanese was cultural, but part was propoganda. Basically: “You know all that horrible sick shit we do to prisoners? They’ll do that to you!” makes death seem preferable.
For what it’s worth, I’ve read a lot of Richard Feynman’s memoirs of his time at Los Alamos, and he distinctly regrets not re-evaluating the moral stance of his work after Germany surrendered. Apparently, for him at least, the reason he was helping to build the bomb was to stop the Nazis. So at least one person considered nuking Germany during WW2.
Fair enough. Though you could just as plausibly have suggested the likes of Halle or Chemnitz as Dresden.
No doubt a reference to Bari in December 1943.
Though there is a distinct difference between taking the precaution of moving some of your mustard gas stockpile to Europe to have handy if the Germans escalate and hoping that they will.
Pretty much what several of us have said. The United States wasn’t evil because it was prepared for the possibility of having to use chemical weapons. But you posted that they “were just waiting with baited breath for the Germans to use chemical warfare so they could unleash a vast stockpile on the Germans”. I’ve never heard any evidence that the allies wanted an excuse to use chemical weapons.
Oh c’mon…you know there had to be a sizeable number of peeps that were! 
Anyway, I was remembering the book and that was the gist I got from it…that many really did want the Germans to use it as it would have been useful in places like Italy.
Duh. I knew that. What an embarrassing brain fart.
(backs sheepishly out of the room…)