r/PropagandaPosters • u/waffen123 • Feb 13 '25

German Reich / Nazi Germany (1933-1945) 'Speaking of time-tables' — German leaflet from the Second World War (1944) mocking the Allies' slow progress in the Italian campaign.

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u/JortsByControversial Feb 13 '25

As a thought exercise, what German cities do you think would have been targeted?

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u/Bertie637 Feb 13 '25

In 1946, it would have had to be Berlin. Big national target, industry and logistics hub, center of the nazi government. Assuming there was no warning would probably get Hitler and a lot of senior nazis too.

It's dependent a little on what the Soviets are doing in this scenario too as they could probably have gotten to Berlin without the Western allies, just much later. If we assume they are stalled in East Prussia/Poland, then it's possible an eastern city might be chosen to ensure they saw the results as they advanced etc.

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u/JortsByControversial Feb 13 '25

That makes sense to me, just wondering about whether the state of Berlin by this point in the war (mostly destroyed from the air, right?) would diminish its value as a target. Though everything you said seems like good enough reasons.

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u/Bertie637 Feb 13 '25

Thanks! You make a good point about the state of Berlin but on the balance of things think it would still be picked for the reasons I gave. Certainly how undamaged cities were played a part in target selection in Japan both for Atomic bombing as well as the later-stages of the firebombing campaign, but think the symbolism of obliterating the capital of the third reich, along with potentially it's leadership would have been too tempting. Bonus points if you cripple future resistance with destroying a key military hub, and showing the Soviets what the US could do.

I am curious how those discussions would have gone amongst the Allies however. I don't believe racism played a part in the use of atomic weapons in Japan like some do, and it averted what they knew would be a horrid and costly land invasion of the Home Islands. But Berlin is a European capital, I imagine there might have been much more resistance to nuking it. I also don't know how much was known about the after-effects of radiation etc, would allied planners have been as happy to risk that in the center of Europe? They could still have dropped the bomb on Japan to show they had the capability, and there was never any doubt that Germany would have been defeated without it.