User:Robert Treat/Why the Bomb would not have worked with Germany

A scenario some alternate World War II buffs have employed is where the United States uses the atomic bomb to defeat a Germany that has successfully conquered Europe and th e Mediterranean, or an Axis where the Soviets are full-fledged members and Barbarossa never took place. (OK, I’m guilty of this.) We had the Bomb first, so if things had gotten that bad we could have swooped in at the last minute and “saved the day”. Right?

Not really.

To begin with, about the only way Germany could have conquered Europe and the Mediterranean was NOT to declare war on the United States. Why Hitler made that fateful decision on Dec. 11, 1941 has baffled historians ever since he made the decision, but this is for another discussion. The point here is that without a war between the U.S. and Germany there would have been no occasion to drop bombs on Germany, conventional or otherwise.

Another problem is air defenses. Japan’s air defenses were almost non-existent by the time the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were dropped. If Germany’s Me-262 jets had shot down Enola Gay before it got to its intended target, they’d have shot down the Manhattan Project with it. Air defense would have been even more of a problem if the Soviets were in the Axis.

A more viable nuke-Germany scenario could have taken place in the context of a failed Normandy invasion, but it’s doubtful this could have kept the Soviets out of eastern Europe, or even kept Germany from being divided. It’s more likely we could have been faced with the choice of bombing either Germany or Japan, and neither option would have spared us from some very nasty repercussions.

Many people have alleged that racism played a role in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. It would have been infinitely harder to dispute this allegation if we’d bombed Japan while the Third Reich still existed, even if the latter were a rump state where the Nazis were making a last stand in Bavaria.

On the other hand, if we’d bombed Germany and then needed a fresh batch for Japan, by the time we had this the Soviets would probably have had a foothold in Hokkaido. With how costly Operation Downfall was expected to be, it might have been tempting at this point to step back and let others fight it out. And how would this have played out?

The Soviets had the Bomb in 1949, that’s how.