19. Does Racism Explain Why Japan Was Nuked and Germany Was Not?
One of the myths making the rounds since shortly after the war’s end has it that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked because of anti-Japanese racism. The theory goes that atomic bombs were not dropped on Germany, and would not have been dropped, because the Germans were Caucasian, and neither the American government nor the American public would have stomached nuking them.
By contrast, the Japanese were racially different, and that made the decision to drop atomic bombs on them easier. While there was undoubtedly intense and vehement racism against the Japanese during the war, the theory is flawed for a variety of reasons. The main reason that Germany was not atomically bombed is that it surrendered before the atomic bomb was ready to drop on anybody.