In the early years of the Atomic Age, most people only dimly understood the consequences of tactical nuclear war:
It wasn’t until nearly a decade into the superpower contest that Europe’s nightmare gained a vivid, terrifying clarity.
That clarity came in 1955 from Carte Blanche, NATO’s first major exercise to simulate what a nuclear exchange with the Soviets on the continent would look like.
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The exercise was mostly an air war, spread out over six days in the summer of 1955. Organizers distributed roughly 2,500 planes between the sides, giving the pretend Soviets slightly more aircraft.
Exercise referees moderated the pace of the conflict, telling air base inhabitants when they’d been hit by a nuclear bomb, the distance it had landed from them and the damage it had done.
British Air Commodore Peter Wykeham-Barnes, Chief of Staff of Allied Air Forces in Europe, briefed the press on the results of Carte Blanch. Tactical nuclear war, Wykeham-Barnes concluded, favored the aggressor—in this case, the mock-Soviets of Northland.
Nonetheless, “in an all-out atomic war, there would be no winners and no losers and little left to asses,” he said. Any similar conflict would be “short and horrible.”
Someone leaked details to West Germany’s Der Spiegel newspaper. According to the leaked info, targets in West Germany had borne the theoretical brunt of the exercise, with 268 of the 335 mock nuclear weapons detonating inside the country.
Exercise officials calculated 1.7 million dead.
The public was understandably frightened … and outraged. Polls showed increases in domestic opposition to nuclear weapons.
I can understand the West German public being opposed to Soviet nuclear weapons, but it doesn’t sound like a lack of American nuclear weapons would protect them.
The question is from what were American nuclear weapons protecting the West Germans? In 1955, the wall had not yet been built. Hence, there were millions living in East Germany that did not simply flee to the West. This suggests it wasn’t so bad in East Germany, at least in comparison to being nuked.
After the wall was built, the situation was arguably different as people in East Germany no longer could flee (sure there was the occasional daring escape, but there was a comparable number of people who were shot when they tried).
Nonethless, the public mood about nuclear weapons did not turn when the wall was built. If anything, the public in West Germany become even more opposed to them. West Germans knew that East Germans were poor, but the average man was not starving, had a wife and children.
So West German opinion generally was that Soviet rule over West Germany would mean poverty for all, reeducation camps for some and a bullet for very few. For most West Germans that sounded a lot better than being nuked.
Most men are content if they don’t starve, get a wife and can raise a few children.
“I can understand the West German public being opposed to Soviet nuclear weapons, but it doesn’t sound like a lack of American nuclear weapons would protect them.”
That being the point of the propaganda and Soviet-funded “grassroots” movements.
MAD is a bitch, but at least rational enough to hold off nuclear war. Not so with pure Islam since their theology/ideology encourages destruction to bring in the Mahdi and end times.
I’m reminded of the propaganda against the neutron bomb, which was designed to stop an armored assault while leaving no long-term contamination.
Wanweilin says:
Ah, like all those other troubles because of the evil homophobes out there in the sands. Like, two World Wars, or teh New World Order, or decolonization, or Net Zero… oh wait.