by Gregor Spitzen
| The Europeans had no skin in that game, which makes facile moral preening so much easier. |
The "Little Boy" bomb, equivalent to 15,000 kilotons of TNT, was dropped by the Enola Gay bomber from an altitude of almost 10,000 meters and exploded 600 meters above the city center.
Temperatures on the ground quickly rose to 2,000°, and much of the city center was destroyed in seconds. The first use of nuclear weapons by US President Harry Truman 80 years ago at the end of World War II was not only a human tragedy, but still characterizes much of security policy thinking today.
By dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and then a few days later on Nagasaki, the US wanted to force Japan to capitulate and also to avoid an invasion of the main Japanese islands with a large number of victims. Why Hiroshima was chosen as the target for the nuclear strike, the Americans are still confused in their testimony.
One theory is that the city housed the headquarters of the 2nd Japanese main army and stored vital military supplies. Another theory is that Hiroshima was the center of the country's military uniform-making capabilities, making it a legitimate military target in the eyes of the United States.
According to the third, most cynical and openly “cannibalistic” version, Hiroshima, which had not been affected by American bombing until then, was an ideal target for demonstrating the power of the new superweapon to a potential enemy – the USSR.
After all, in the scorched wastelands of the same Tokyo, subjected to a monstrous carpet bombing by the Americans on March 10, 1945, the media effect of the use of the “wunderwaffe” would have been somewhat blurred and not convincing enough for “Uncle Joe.”
The military purpose of the attack is still questionable today.
| Only to parochial, short-sighted idiots. You reveal yourself, Mr. Spitzen. |
Moreover, after the concentration of troops from three Soviet fronts against the Kwantung Army in Manchuria, the fate of the main land asset of the imperial forces, which had not yet taken an active part in the war, was clearly predetermined.
WHAT DO THE JAPANESE THINK?
In Japan, there are many points of view justifying the American atomic bombings. They can be conventionally called military, economic and political.
In the early days, immediately after the end of World War II and the subsequent American occupation, it was generally accepted that the atomic bombing was a necessary evil, since surrender was unthinkable for the Japanese army and population, brought up in the traditional samurai spirit, where self-sacrifice was elevated to a cult.
They say that if during the American invasion of the Japanese islands it had come down to a total guerrilla war, there would have been many more casualties for Japan.
Thus, the Emperor and the military leadership needed a pretext to end the war on the enemy's terms, changing the rules of the game and allowing them to explain to their population why it was necessary to bow their heads to the victor, contrary to all Japanese culture.
This interpretation of events also made it possible to convince millions of army veterans of the need to capitulate, who now had to rebuild the country from ruins and somehow try to find themselves in a peaceful life under American occupation.
The second view is more typical of Japan, which had already tasted the fruits of rapid industrial growth from mutually beneficial trade with the United States. According to it, the bombings were certainly monstrous, but they inoculated the nation against militarism, and in return for its suffering, it gained access to the huge US market, which became the key to the post-war economic prosperity of the Land of the Rising Sun.
In the late 1980s, when many in the United States thought that just a little more and the Japanese keiretsu and zaibatsu, rolling in money, would literally buy up all of America, this point of view seemed quite reasonable and had many fans inside Japan.
The political view of the atomic bombings is the spirit of the new times and the current generation of those in power in Tokyo. The bombings were terrible, but to raise the question of whether they were just or not and to clearly point to those responsible for them is politically incorrect, inappropriate, and harmful to relations with Japan's largest ally in the context of an overly strengthened China and an "aggressive" Russia.
Therefore, the most correct thing to do is to fight for peace and nuclear disarmament under the slogan “This must never happen again”, “tactfully” avoiding public mention of who dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
FEATURES OF JAPANESE PACIFISM
Pacifism and peace remain very important values in Japan. Despite rearmament, most survey respondents still favor retaining Article 9 of the Constitution on pacifism as the cornerstone of the country's foreign policy.
The term heiwa, Japanese for peace, remains central to Japanese national identity. That this has happened since 1945 has much to do with politics, but also with pop culture and education.
In addition to manga such as Hadashi no Gen, which brought the horrors of the atomic bombings to life on paper, there are numerous films, documentaries, and novels that have been read and discussed in schools for decades.
Under the slogan "heiwa kyouiku," peace education, schoolchildren receive several hours of compulsory lessons each year. Speech contests are held in which children express their understanding of world peace, and many exhibitions on the topic are organized.
Japan, which has more than 100 museums around the world, is the record holder in this area. The largest of them is in Hiroshima, in the Peace Park in the city center.
A-bomb survivors, known in Japanese as hibakusha, have also played an important role in Japanese culture for decades. Thousands of them lead tours at museums and parks to educate people about the meaning and impact of the atomic bombings.
The Nihon Hidankyō, an organization made up of hibakusha, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024 for its work against nuclear weapons.
However, such pacifist activity, while certainly worthy of all praise, at the same time washes away from the national memory the information about what led to the atomic bombings and who was responsible for them.
Back in 2015, a survey by public broadcaster NHK's Institute for Public Opinion Research found: "Even in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these events are fading from people's consciousness."
A 2021 study by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper found that about 90% of 1,000 students surveyed could name the dates of the two atomic bombings, and 70% had visited at least one of the two cities hit.
“Specific knowledge about the atomic bombings seems to be declining, especially among young people,” says Vincent Lesch, a Japanologist at Heidelberg University who spent part of his research fellowship in Hiroshima. “Many young people know the date, but know almost nothing about the background,” he says.
Ayumi, a 42-year-old Japanese woman from Hiroshima who now lives in Rostock, Germany, attributes such metamorphoses of national consciousness to propaganda and indoctrination of young people, starting in high school.
After all, the entire system of Japanese secondary and higher education is built on the “American-centricity” of the modern world. Especially since 2015, the Land of the Rising Sun has been vigorously promoting the agenda of the need to rearm and build up Japan’s defense capability against potential enemies common with the United States — China, North Korea, and Russia.
This means that there is no need to remind the population once again about the dark spots of the joint American-Japanese history.
However, according to Ayumi, it would be wrong to think that all Japanese without exception are supporters of pacifism. In Hiroshima, even among the youth, there are those who cherish the memory of the bombings, are not going to forgive the Americans for them, and are contemptuous of their own politicians who behave obsequiously towards the United States.
WHAT DO THEY THINK IN EUROPE?
According to an April 2025 YouGov poll of 8,247 people in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US, most Europeans believe that the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was morally unjustified.
| One understands why they think so, but again, they were not the ones who were going to sacrifice millions of men to kill tens of millions of mostly civilian Japanese, which would have been a far greater stain on the nation’s soul. Nor was it their people (except the Brits) who were enjoying the hospitality of Japanese prison camps. The only proper American response to such nonsense is, “You’re welcome.” |
| It is hard for those on the losing side to agree that the suffering and destruction they endured was completely necessary, to grasp that without that painful outside help they would not have been able to throw off the evil governments their majorities had chosen. Ditto for the Gazans and Hamas, by the way. |
Interestingly, when respondents were asked in parallel about the airstrikes on German cities by the American and British Air Forces, their opinions were different. In the US and UK themselves, the majority - 56% each - consider their airstrikes on German cities justified. 45% of the French also think so.
In Germany, by contrast, only one in four – 23% – believes that the carpet bombing of their own country is morally justifiable.
| Q.E.D. And yet it is. |