SPIEGEL: When Winston Churchill found out that the US atomic bomb was ready for action shortly before Hiroshima, he said with enthusiasm about the supposed end of land wars with heavy losses: "Suddenly this nightmare was over and the bright and comforting prospect came in its place or two crushing blows could end the war. " Did the attacks on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki three days later, prove him right?
To person
IFSH
Ulrich Kühn , born in 1977, is head of the research area for arms control and new technologies at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH). In 2013, he founded the Deep Cuts Commission, a group of former government officials from Russia, the United States, and Germany that campaigned for deep cuts in the nuclear arsenals of the nuclear states. His research focuses on nuclear policies, conflict research and the deterrent paradigm.
Kühn: At that time, Churchill did not know that the bombs contaminated further geographical areas for many years and that the population suffered consequential damage for decades. Today, 75 years later, we still have victims of these bombings with health problems in nursing homes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many also suffered lifelong exclusion because they were considered "contaminated" in Japan and could not marry. It is disputed whether a conventional war would have been more painful. Some historians, particularly in the United States, say: These decisive blows brought the Japanese to their knees. Others argue that the Japanese were already left with no chance. I agree with Churchill on one thing: These weapons revolutionized warfare - you could suddenly bombard targets over long distances in a very short time with unprecedented effects. This led to the "balance of horror" in the Cold War.
SPIEGEL: So would the bombing that killed hundreds of thousands be an act of peacebuilding? Sounds cynical.
Kühn: In any case, there are people who take this view. In fact, since then we have not seen major wars between superpowers to the extent of world wars. Instead, however, proxy wars, for example in Vietnam or Afghanistan.
SPIEGEL: How have the bombings changed the public discussion about nuclear warfare?
Kühn: Basically there was no public debate before. The programs were secret, even some of the physicists and engineers involved claimed not to have known how terrible the effects would be. I want to doubt some of them. But the general public only noticed nuclear weapons after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Especially through horror pictures of charred, stacked corpses.
The documentary " Traces of War: Hiroshima" is running onAugust 6th at 9:10 pm on SPIEGEL Geschichte , to be received via "Sky" and "Magenta TV", among others, and can also be accessed at any time on Sky on demand.
SPIEGEL: How did people react to it?
Kühn: Above all, you realized what contribution physicists had made to this horror. The first anti-nuclear weapons movements quickly emerged. Researchers like Einstein demanded: never again! On the one hand with success: we have never seen the use of nuclear weapons again since then. On the other hand, due to the arms race, we had 90,000 nuclear warheads worldwide at times. In addition, more and more states have nuclear weapons, now nine. In addition, there are countries such as Germany, which play a nuclear support role through alliances. And the "virtual atomic powers", around 25 states, have the technical prerequisites and materials to build an atom bomb in a few months.
SPIEGEL: In addition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, their technology has also developed significantly since the 1940s. How would a war use of nuclear weapons look like today compared to Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Kühn: That depends. A regionally limited deployment in North Korea with five warheads would of course end differently than a full nuclear exchange between the USA and Russia. A few years ago, a study predicted how a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan could end, with both states burning up everything they have. The result was that the fallout and dust would darken much of East Asia. And that there would be almost a billion subsequent deaths over the next two or three years, mainly due to crop losses. The Americans and Russians have ten times the firepower of India and Pakistan. Nuclear warheads today come in a wide variety of forms - those from Hiroshima and Nagasaki are now considered to be very small.
SPIEGEL: What can you do to avoid such a horror scenario?
Kühn: The basic principle of deterrence is a paradox - most countries that acquire these weapons do it because they do not want to use them. In order to act as a deterrent, however, they must assure the other side that they will use them in case of doubt. What you can do about it is simple: talk. Talk to each other, in multilateral organizations, and work together to find treaties and mechanisms for arms control.
SPIEGEL: In recent years, such agreements have rather been canceled than newly concluded.
Kühn: There are few areas of international diplomacy that are so critical, even more so in the years of the Trump administration. The first arms control treaties were drawn up under Kennedy, now almost everything has been lost again: the "Open Skies Treaty" thought ahead by Eisenhower, which created trust between the superpowers through overflight rights, the treaty on the abolition of all medium-range missiles, several others. And on the horizon, a new Cold War is emerging between the United States, China and perhaps Russia.
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SPIEGEL: Does the new carelessness towards nuclear weapons in the USA have to do with the slow coming to terms with the past with the nuclear horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Barack Obama was the first US head of state to visit the site of the atomic bomb - that was 71 years later.
Kühn: There is no really noticeable public reappraisal of these crimes in the USA. In the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, the "Enola Gay" is on display, the bomber that was dropped on Hiroshima. It is presented as a proud part of US history, visitors stand in front of it and take selfies with victory signs. You see yourself as the winner of World War II and - rightly - as the nation that was attacked first. Often one hears arguments like "Well, atrocities happen in war". For the Hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Obama's visit was an important sign. They want people to never have to experience this incredible suffering again. Obama showed himself to be open-minded, even if he was slowed down domestically.
SPIEGEL: Donald Trump is the complete alternative.
Kühn: Trump is not interested in a large part of the nuclear issues, but his advisors, people like John Bolton or his successor Robert C. O'Brien, are extreme hawks and are convinced that the United States must shackle all ties - international contracts that limit their power.
SPIEGEL: So the refusal to learn lessons from the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is simply the arrogance of power?
Kühn: The background here is, I believe, the American claim that the USA is the best country in the world, which is a role model for everyone - "the shining city on the hill", as Ronald Reagan used to say. Black spots like the extermination of Native Americans, slavery, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki just don't go well with this. We Germans are very particular about historical self-criticism compared to other nations: critical examination of the crimes of the Holocaust has meanwhile become a matter of course in Germany. I know few other countries where this is the case. I do not know, for example, that the French are massively dealing with their colonial crimes or that the Russians are widely criticizing the effects of the Holodomor, the famine in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933.
SPIEGEL: You are the founder of the Deep Cuts Commission, which despite all adversities is trying to advance nuclear disarmament - in an advisory capacity with experts from Germany, Russia and the USA. What are the biggest obstacles?
Kühn: There are two things - first, prejudices about the other, which lead to fears of how he will behave. This can only be broken by talking to the opponent. The Commission organizes informal talks that bring together government employees. When the commissioners met for the first time, they eyed each other suspiciously. Sometimes you only need one or two evenings - sometimes with a little more alcohol - until you get closer ( laughs ) and realize that you also have common interests. It sounds banal, but that's exactly how you work to overcome prejudice.
SPIEGEL: And the second obstacle?
Kühn: Domestic interests. If you drive 50 minutes into the city from the airport in Washington, large blocks of buildings will start to the right after a short time, and you won't see much more until you get to the center. These are suppliers to the defense industry. The United States spends $ 750 billion a year on the defense industry - roughly double the entire German budget. This depends on the economic interests of companies that pay for the election campaign of candidates and then work to ensure that no disarmament takes place.
SPIEGEL: In view of the setbacks in nuclear disarmament and the risk of a new Cold War - why have the major anti-nuclear weapons protests such as those that arose during the Cold War in the peace movement not been made so far?
Kühn: On the one hand, because today's young generation no longer grew up in the Cold War. The atrocities of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the idea of a global nuclear war are no longer palpable. That makes it appear slightly purely imaginary. Above all, it is because we may be facing a much bigger challenge that "Fridays for Future" is taking to the streets: the climate change that we are already feeling. I think we can no longer assume today that the greatest horror in the sense of an Armageddon is the nuclear war. It's probably the creeping warming of the planet.