DB-RP: No Atomic Offensive over Germany?

[Blue Max]

Good evening, everyone.

It appears that the last radiated zones of Germany have been declared safe for human habitation, after nearly 60 years of unsafe radiation levels.

With the German Chancellors current vow to rebuild Hamburg, Berlin, Essen, Munich and Frankfurt-am-Main to their preatomic glory, I wonder what would have happened if President Truman didn't hit Germany with 20 odd nuclear weapons in 1946. Many people claim that with the only US troops in Europe stuck at Monte Cassino, and with the Soviets held at a hopeless stalemate at the Dnieper River, that the atomic campaign against Germany saved as many as 5 million Soviet, American, French, and British Lives.

Still, I wonder what would have happened if the campaign was not carried out. Perhaps the allies saved 5 million of their own losses, but the Germans took 10 million. Does anything think that Eisenhower made the right call using Nuclear weapons to force Germany to her knees? Or should the USA, UK and the Soviet Union slogged on the old fashioned way?

[Chengar Qordath]

Well, as I recall most of the estimates say that pursuing a conventional war all the way to the bloody conclusion would have ended up killing far more people than the atomic offensive did.