DBWI: Was the nuking of Moscow ethical?

In reality given the massive loss of life which would occur during a conventional offensive, compared to the nuclear option, it was justified. Conventional bombings would have continued, as Moscow was a legitimet Industrial target, and street fighting would have followed in almost every city the allies made it to. I mean can you imagine what the Battle of Stalingrad would have been like? Or the Battle of Moscow!


Or the battle on Nanjing. *shudders* But I don't think even the soviets wouldd have been rutheless enough to use CHem weapons in Moscow.
 
ug, spare us the Conspiricy theories...

well, Nuking Moscow, along with preventing SnowBlind from happening, prevented Japan fro expanding too far into the Red's country.
and you all have seen what Atlee said in his 'Bamboo Curtian' speach.... it was the lesser of two evils.

OOC: so lemme get a few things straight,
-the USSR is the 'villian' of this WWII.
-Japan took a OTL USSR-esqe Role, complete with Cold war.
-Germany apparently plays a france like role. no nazis?
-Stalingrad and Moscow were nuked.
-Patton survies, and become president in 52 give or take.
-SnowBlind = Olympic.
- so far no Vietnam or korean war type conflicts.

did i miss anything?

OOC: I don't know what the fudge is going on. The Nazis shouldn't be there as an enemy if WW2 is the allies vs. the USSR, but I keep getting the feeling people are trying to jam them in.
 
OOC: I don't know what the fudge is going on. The Nazis shouldn't be there as an enemy if WW2 is the allies vs. the USSR, but I keep getting the feeling people are trying to jam them in.

OOC: Hitler getting killed by the British was pointed out in the second post of the thread, so I think it should be pretty much canon there were Nazis. As I understood it, Hitler died sometime before 1940. Thus, a "WWII" never really panned out between Germany and the Western allies.

Later, it was the USSR that started an aggressive war against a Germany under a "denazified" military government and the Western Allies jumped in on Germany's side.
 
A British Perspective...

It's one of those historical questions that keeps coming up along with Britain's real responsibility for the Indian Civil War and the whole Rhodesia thing.

There's little doubt successive British Governments feared a Soviet attack and once Hitler and the Nazis were replaced by the nationalists and the Army, it became possible to seek that rapprochement with Germany on the basis of a mutual need to stand against Stalin.

Of course, they still replay Halifax's famous broadcast on September 5th 1940 when he announced Britain was at war with Russia following the Soviet attacks on Poland and Romania. My uncle was sent to Germany in '43 and fought at Hanover and Magdeburg alongside the Germans and French (under the overall command of Erwin Rommel, would you believe ?).

No one wanted to invade the vast hinterland of the USSR - after all, Napoleon had failed. The casualty estimates were horrendous so the American atomic bomb was far and away the best decision though of course no one at the time appreciated the real horror and the impact of radiation.

My uncle never spoke much about the war and I don't think many of us in western Europe appreciated how awful things were in those first two years in Russia with Moscow and Volgograd gone and Petrograd ravaged by bombing.

In Britain of course we were pleased the war was over and we had survived almost intact but we all knew the Americans were calling the shots - even the Japanese recognised that. Washington made us dismantle the Empire - that's what Churchill said in his famous speech in '47.

India was a shambles - after Mountbatten was murdered, they sent in Montgomery but he had no feel for the local conditions. Ironically, we ended up losing almost as many troops in Hyderabad, Bengal and the Punjab as we did in Germany, Hungary and Poland.

Halifax fell because of India and the Conservatives split between the Imperialists led by Churchill and the "Europeans". With Labour in disarray because of the war, the Liberals re-emerged in the 1950s under Grimond and took power with the Euro-Tories in 1952. When they joined and called themselves the Liberal Democrats, I don't think anyone realised they would be the main party of Government for the rest of the history of Britain.

We needed to join EuroFed - there needed to be a counterbalance to America and the Sino-Japanese Alliance. EuroFed is confusing but well-meaning.

I went to the Peace Memorial in Moscow five years ago - I know a piece of fused glass from Red Square is in the British Museum but it's not the same as being there. The Russians are in many ways the bridge not only from war to peace and from past to future but from EuroFed to China-Japan.
 
I would say yes....because the lives saved with one bomb spared more lives lost by hundreds. The destruction of one of Europe's oldest cities was tragic, yes....but remember I come from the South and my mother's family was reduced from independent farmers to sharecroppers due to General Sherman's little fun time. I'm hardly without credentials in the sob stories.

OOC: The bit about Sherman reducing mom's family to sharecroppers from independent farmers is true IOTL.
 
The Germans certainly weren't saints, to be sure. Even though Nazism was officially downplayed in politics didn't mean it wasn't there under the surface. My grandfather told me about being there when they finally took Kiev, bloody mess that that was. He says that a lot of the German officers executed any prisoners they had taken if they found out they were Jewish, and then tried to pretend like they'd been dead the whole time. Not all of them did that, he also described German soldiers and officers who were appalled by what was going on, but it happened enough that it left a serious impression on him. The Germans also didn't seem to get on to well with the Buffalo Soldiers, as I think the Horadnia Incident illustrates well.

OOC: as an aside, I was trying to imply with the "J.J." name that the President Kennedy in question was in fact Joe Jr., surviving the war in ATL and going into politics, but if people want to go with JFK its cool too.
 
OOC: so lemme see if i get this right.
there were Nazis, but Hitler was killed early on by the Brits, possibly over Czecholoslovakia, and a more Anti-nazi goverment came to power, then shortly after, sensing weakness, the Reds attacked Poland and WWII started?
 
Well guys, I've gotta head up to Tokyo for the Yasakuni memorial service on Sunday, so I may be out of touch for a few days.

The SK's have been threatening more suicide bombings after the "Class A"s were dis-enshrined last year...

The boss says PM Ozawa's going to be there this year.

Wish me luck!
 
Oh god, the Nazi 'death camps' conspiracy again. Geez guys - can you say 'Red Propaganda'? Look, I hate to break it to you but these just plain didn't happen. I know that there was a full investigation in the 70's and there were a handful of prosecutions, with some petty officials sent to prison, but surely, in this day & age, we’re not re-opening the old wounds? Everyone knows that the so-called Jewish question was settled with the repatriation of the Jewish minorities into Poland & Russia. Heck, the USSR at this point was desperate for whatever skilled labour it could get, and if anyone sent people to the death camps, it was the Soviets, not the Allies. Ok, yes, there were some low-level problems in some backwaters of the Reich – especially Silesia (witness the German army being sent in to restore order in Wroclaw, following a massive Soviet-backed uprising against the legitimate (and democratic) government, but that’s pretty much all. Lets face it, the Soviets were desperate to politically divide the Allies in face of the Western hammer and the Japs Anvil and they were just clutching at straws. I mean, look at the evidence, some of the top witnesses at the Hannover Trials back in ’74 were supported with evidence gleaned from Soviet intelligence! Talk about questionable!OOC: No, I don’t believe this, but in this TL there’s bound to be someone who would take this viewpoint.
 
Conspiracy? I've seen the camps with my own eyes, and it was all there. It is the biggest shame Germany has ever endured, and it was one of our own making.
 
Oh god, the Nazi 'death camps' conspiracy again. Geez guys - can you say 'Red Propaganda'? Look, I hate to break it to you but these just plain didn't happen. I know that there was a full investigation in the 70's and there were a handful of prosecutions, with some petty officials sent to prison, but surely, in this day & age, we’re not re-opening the old wounds? Everyone knows that the so-called Jewish question was settled with the repatriation of the Jewish minorities into Poland & Russia. Heck, the USSR at this point was desperate for whatever skilled labour it could get, and if anyone sent people to the death camps, it was the Soviets, not the Allies. Ok, yes, there were some low-level problems in some backwaters of the Reich – especially Silesia (witness the German army being sent in to restore order in Wroclaw, following a massive Soviet-backed uprising against the legitimate (and democratic) government, but that’s pretty much all. Lets face it, the Soviets were desperate to politically divide the Allies in face of the Western hammer and the Japs Anvil and they were just clutching at straws. I mean, look at the evidence, some of the top witnesses at the Hannover Trials back in ’74 were supported with evidence gleaned from Soviet intelligence! Talk about questionable!OOC: No, I don’t believe this, but in this TL there’s bound to be someone who would take this viewpoint.

dammit, another Neo-nazi?

uhh, do you guys really ignore all the information floating around for you to grab?

well before this argument heats up, look at it this way;
they did what they felt was the best corse of action.

OOC: sorry about the Neo-nazi thing. someone's gonna bring it up sooner or latter in this.
 
Well, happily there were no SK bombings this weekend.

Ran into a Nigerian guy in Shinjuku who had a "drumming circle for peace" going on. At least the Kenyan scammer types werent around... (Everybody and their dog seem to be getting that Kenyan 904 scam email these days!)

Caught the Mag-Lev back. Man, that's still amazing!
 
well before this argument heats up, look at it this way;
they did what they felt was the best corse of action.

This could be atributed to the entire nuking of Moscow thing I believe. Remember, back then no one knew what these weapons were really going to do to a city the size of Moscow. Before that we only had Trinity in the US and Hurricane in Australia, and these aren't realy representative for real use. All they knew was taht Nukes make a bloody big boom. Nothing about the fallout and the long-term damages to human tissue.
 
I don't know why people are so happy with blowing up a city and ending countless lives, including the ones of my family. I lost a wife and daughter. I was overseeing a munitions factory outside of St. Petersburg when it happened. And as a little expose, most of the bombs we made were duds. I for one am a pacifist and think that the government we had was corrupt. But would you punish the son for the wrongdoings of his father? I don't think so. So do not think that "only evil people" died. because they were not evil. I would go as far as to say that the municipal leaders were not evil, just misguided and not beyond change.

After I escaped Russia, I have been going around to middle schools begging people to talk instead of fight. The tongue is more powerful than the fist. If the ambassadors made the effort they were supposed to do than there would have been a lot more sypathizers for the cause. Now in Russia, as far as I know, American has become synonymous with villain,.
 
Well, we don't feel good about it. What I believe is that people fail to understand that this has to be judged from the perspective and with the knowledge of the people back then. Had they known then what we know today about Nukes then they might not have nuked.
 
Top