Why did U.S not drop atomic bomb on Berlin?

Probably because the first successful test wasn’t undertaken until July 16th 1945 and the war in Europe had been over since the 8th of May 1945.

Regards,

kev35

Apart from the fact that it would have wiped out an awful lot of allied soldiers in N.Europe!

oohh! That would be why then 😉

And not forgetting that a considerable proportion of the uranium for the Hiroshima bomb (and the test device? – can never remember which one that used) had been on board the U-234, destined for Japan when the war in Europe ended.

Adrian

Perhaps by the latter stages of the war, the British and Americans knew that Germany would have to have an army occupation, to combat the threat posed by Russia, and didn’t fancy doing that amidst the radioactive fallout.

Or they knew that Hitler had already bu66ered off to Argentina, and subsequently the body the the Russians recovered, and held in total secrecy for over 60 years, was in fact that of a young woman!

Even if the US had had the atomic bomb in, say, January 1945, it may well not have dropped it on Berlin for the same reasons it did not drop atomic weapons on Tokyo.
There was seen to be a need for some sort of Japanese government that could sign an act of surrender. Had Japan’s government been decapitated by a nuclear strike, the eventual surrender may have been far more drawn-out and messy: Japanese forces in the Pacific were in steady retreat, but they were by no means defeated and it was only the direct order from the Emperor that brought the fighting to a swift conclusion after the second bomb was dropped.
By the same token, it suited the western allies to have a sort of German government in Flensburg in the final days of the war with sufficient authority remaining to tell German forces in countries like Denmark and Norway that they should surrender forthwith.
It may well be that in the hypothetical case of the US having an atomic weapon in Europe in January 1945 cities like Hamburg, Kiel or Frankfurt would have been more likely targets.

I don’t think the radioactivity was a problem Because in 1945 it wasn’t understood by the Military , It never stopped them from occupying Nagasaki and Hiroshima , or the troops involved in the Later Pacific Nuclear tests !

[The Scientists new how dangerous Radioactivity was but the dangers were never fully explained to the Military man in the street ..so to speak , but that’s another Topic ]

If they had one ready in 1944/5 then the simple answer would be the same reason that they didn’t drop one on TOKYO ,

Or they knew that Hitler had already bu66ered off to Argentina, and subsequently the body the the Russians recovered, and held in total secrecy for over 60 years, was in fact that of a young woman!

Now identified by some DNA on the sole of a shoe found nearby?:diablo:

The reason it wouldn’t have been dropped on Berlin is the same as why it wasn’t dropped on Tokyo. Both those cities had been severly damaged by conventional bombing. Whereas both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were essentially undamaged thereby allowing the scientists to assess the destructive power of their devices.

Now identified by some DNA on the sole of a shoe found nearby?:diablo:

Don’t tell TIGHAR!!! They’re really into shoe soles.

Thanks to Kev35 and pagen01 for remembering history…:D

“Why did U.S not drop atomic bomb on Berlin? “

As kev points out by the time the Abom was ready Berlin was in the hand of the allies and Russia. A better question might be…

Why did U.S not drop atomic bomb on Moscow?

“Why did U.S not drop atomic bomb on Berlin? ”

As kev points out by the time the Abom was ready Berlin was in the hand of the allies and Russia. A better question might be…

Why did U.S not drop atomic bomb on Moscow?

A little thing called the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) balance.

But the question is why would they have in 1945 and the answer is still why? The last thing anybody at that time, except the terminally stupid, wanted was the continuation of war. And IIRC they didn’t have any left.

One point not made so far was the actual damage and numbers of deaths that the first atomic bombs were capable of when dropped on a city were actually lower than some of the larger mass bomber raids on German and Japanese cities*. Due to the shock effect of ‘one bomber with one bomb’ causing the damage it did, this is often misunderstood to mean the destruction was significantly greater than a conventional raid. It wasn’t.

And Tokyo was very heavilly attacked with conventional (firebombing) weapons.

*Numbers of deaths and measurements of destruction in all cases are disputed to some degree.

So, I believe, were the Poles.

Regards,

kev35

Indeed they were – and still are……….

The Allied forces made some major invasions, Marocko, Sicily, Normandie and alot of islands in the paciffic. They wanted to avoid an equal or more allied-human-costly invasion of the japaneese mainland.

If the a-bomb existed in 1943-44 maybe the Ruhr-area, Bremen-Bremerhafen and Hamburg would have been better, more logical(:eek:) targets then Berlin.

A minor point but Russia was an ally!

So, I believe, were the Poles.

Regards,

kev35

The last thing anybody at that time, except the terminally stupid, wanted was the continuation of war.

I understand that what you present is the Western viewpoint but you might want to notice that according to this definition there were dozens of millions of terminally stupid people between Elbe and the Pacific. For many of them the stupidity was literally terminal, either by a bullet in the neck or by freezing and starvation in places like Vorkuta.

“Why did U.S not drop atomic bomb on Berlin? ”

As kev points out by the time the Abom was ready Berlin was in the hand of the allies and Russia. A better question might be…

Why did U.S not drop atomic bomb on Moscow?

A minor point but Russia was an ally! Without her on our side we would not have won the war. The Eastern Front over-stretched Hitler’s resources. And we would hardy have bombed our key ally at the time, would we….?

I understand that what you present is the Western viewpoint but you might want to notice that according to this definition there were dozens of millions of terminally stupid people between Elbe and the Pacific. For many of them the stupidity was literally terminal, either by a bullet in the neck or by freezing and starvation in places like Vorkuta.

Spare us the Cold War rhetoric – the truth is that the matter is now resolved and with far less loss of life than what you are proposing.