Nazi Germany Holds out Long Enough to be Nuked

[Chengar Qordath]

Fairly simple premise; Germany does a few more things right, and Allies do a few more things wrong, so Germany is still fighting by the time the US has nuclear weapons ready to use. Would Berlin be the first target for a nuclear attack, or would it be some other city, or would it be a location of primarily military importance.

What are the long-term social and political consequences? Would the use of nuclear weapons on Germany be as debated as their use on Japan is? Would being Nuked have a major effect on how Germans look at World War II?

 

[Sandmannius]

Fairly simple premise; Germany does a few more things right, and Allies do a few more things wrong, so Germany is still fighting by the time the US has nuclear weapons ready to use. Would Berlin be the first target for a nuclear attack, or would it be some other city, or would it be a location of primarily military importance.

Were there any cities still standing in Germany by the time the US had nuclear weapons?

 

[Rebel]

Were there any cities still standing in Germany by the time the US had nuclear weapons?

Plenty, actually. The Germans used much better building materials than the Japanese in constructing their cities.

 

[Faralis]

Germany has too do many more things right, and the Allied many more things wrong, because anyone with a IQ superior to a mouse ( and Hitler and that does not means he had more IQ than a rodent, mind you ) knows that Germany has lost the war after the succesful Overlord / Cobra ...

And if you make Normady a failure then poor "olde" Europe ...

 

[black angel]

the Nukes in Japan were more a show of force to Stalin and the USSR than anything else, of course the US (and even more, the UK) would want to have that show of force at the USSR's door step.

 

[The Red]

Germany has too do many more things right, and the Allied many more things wrong, because anyone with a IQ superior to a mouse ( and Hitler and that does not means he had more IQ than a rodent, mind you ) knows that Germany has lost the war after the succesful Overlord / Cobra ...

And if you make Normady a failure then poor "olde" Europe ...

It can still hold out for a while with a successful Overlord, it's a successful Bagration which meant the Nazis wouldn't be hanging on past spring.

 

[Gridley]

Fairly simple premise; Germany does a few more things right, and Allies do a few more things wrong, so Germany is still fighting by the time the US has nuclear weapons ready to use. Would Berlin be the first target for a nuclear attack, or would it be some other city, or would it be a location of primarily military importance.

What are the long-term social and political consequences? Would the use of nuclear weapons on Germany be as debated as their use on Japan is? Would being Nuked have a major effect on how Germans look at World War II?

I think you need more than a few tweaks; IMO the tipping point for deciding to use atomic weapons was the fear of unacceptable US casualties in an invasion of Japan, coupled with the belief that invasion was the only way to secure a Japanese surrender without The Bomb.

Germany was in a different state. They were being beaten at an acceptable cost already.

If Germany were nuked, I'd guess someplace other than the capitol. Dresden keeps being brought up when this point is discussed on other threads, and I don't have a better suggestion. Being nuked would have some effect on German attitudes, tending to offset the "oh gods, look what we did!" post-war horror.

 

[Chengar Qordath]

Germany has too do many more things right, and the Allied many more things wrong, because anyone with a IQ superior to a mouse ( and Hitler and that does not means he had more IQ than a rodent, mind you ) knows that Germany has lost the war after the succesful Overlord / Cobra ...

Considering how long they held out after it was clear the war was lost in OTL, I don't think the inevitability of defeat would be the determining factor for whether or not Germany would keep fighting. Hitler and a lot of the other high-ranking Nazis were pretty clear about the fact that they preferred having Germany fight to the death to an honorable surrender.

In any case, the details of the military situation are not what I want to focus on; I am more interested in the political/social/cultural impact of nuclear weapons being used on Germany.

 

[Emperor Qianlong]

Realistically, the only scenario where I could conceivably see Germany ending up getting nuked (read: where the usage of nuclear weapons actually is practical) is a delayed (say only in spring 1945), and/or less successful Overlord, the war in the east going poorly for the Soviets (for whatever reasons). I could imagine that in such a scenario, the usage of atomic weapons on Germany.

Otherwise, with a setup similar to OTL, the usage of atomic weapons would be very impractical for the war effort. After all, the Allies achieved a lot of more damage on Germany with conventional weapons.

A week back or so, somebody suggested in a thread what would have happened if Germany was nuked and Japan invaded: basically, the worst outcome possible and the least achieved.

 

[Derek Jackson]

If a nuke were on the way I wonder if Dresden might be Hiroshima in such a timeline.

The problem is that Hitler would likely NOT have surrendered.

Was there any more direct MILITARY use of nukes?

 

[Macragge1]

If a nuke were on the way I wonder if Dresden might be Hiroshima in such a timeline.

The problem is that Hitler would likely NOT have surrendered.

Was there any more direct MILITARY use of nukes?

Well Germany I suppose had larger and better-organised formations, garrisons, supply depots etc than Japan did right at the end, so i guess one of these could be targeted as a show of force - still, with 40's era aiming technology, it'll be near impossible not to cause some nasty collateral damage.

 

[Blue Max]

If the D-Day invasion in 1944 were somehow repulsed, some kind of nuclear variant would probably be in the works in 1946/7, whenever another attempt at Europe is made.

The Allies obviously need to not be fighting in Germany proper for nuclear weapons to be used--the Allies would have to be fighting a solid German line in August 1945 for such a situation to develop. The PoDs needed to achieve that aim are perhaps more significant than replacing massive firebombings with nuclear hits.

 

[ZEROGOKI1983]

Actually the allies had allready picked there targets for nukes in germany. It was just that we surrendered before they could nuke us. There is a list with the cities(towns) the picked. AFAIK they where mostly smaller cities in the 100.000-200.000 poeple region wich till then hadn't gotten much attention by the allied bombers.

At last thats what my history teacher told us in school.

 

[EWHM]

The problem with going nuclear on a Germany that you need the military advantage of going nuclear on (i.e., it's not on its last legs) is that it is likely to escalate into massive use of chemical and biological weapons. Japan had no capacity to retaliate against our nukes with such, but a Germany that's still enough of a going concern would, and England is awfully close by.

 

[Chengar Qordath]

I don't suppose we could just move past the military details and address the social/political fallout, which is what I'm more interested in?

 

[Germaniac]

What would happen if the German's were able to shoot down the plane carrying the Bomb? I don't mean that the German will be given a bomb, lets say it explodes in an empty area of Germany.

 

[Faralis]

What would happen if the German's were able to shoot down the plane carrying the Bomb? I don't mean that the German will be given a bomb, lets say it explodes in an empty area of Germany.

The B29, specially the modified for using the bomb ( more light, more fast, and flying higher than usual ) were awfully dificult to shot down, even for the most advanced german planes ... but I suppose they could be lucky ( really lucky ).

As for the sociological impact I dont really think it would be very different, probably a even more anti nuclear germany, and thats all ... because when the bomb falls, almost all the major German cities were rubble ...

 

[Valdemar II]

Flensburg could be target, the town was relative intact, home to the naval academy (so there would be a excuse for the bombing). I don't know whether the large danish minority would affect the choice.