What happened to the Nazi nuclear project? Why were German POWs treated so well? World War II is one of the most studied wars in history, but there are still lots of questions that have arisen over the years.
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00:00What happened to the Nazi nuclear project? Why were German POWs treated so well? World
00:04War II is one of the most studied wars in history, but there are still a lot of questions
00:08that have arisen over the years.
00:11On the morning of December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese aircraft suddenly arrive in the
00:15airspace above the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Honolulu, Hawaii. With a barrage of munitions,
00:20Japanese forces destroyed much of the U.S. fleet stationed there, including over 300
00:24planes, four battleships, 2,335 U.S. service members, and 68 civilians.
00:30Nobody imagined that Japanese would do such a thing. This was almost like science fiction.
00:34The attack sprang out of a tangled network of long-simmering rivalry and resentment between
00:38the U.S. and Japan. Many sources point to the beginnings of the tensions in the late
00:4219th and early 20th centuries, but things got real after 1931 when Japan invaded Manchuria.
00:48Things got even realer when Japan straight-up invaded China proper in 1937. The really real
00:53tensions hit in September 1940 when Japan entered into the Tripartite Pact with Germany
00:58and Italy.
00:59By late 1941, Japan had effectively decided the U.S. was in its way. Though the nation's
01:03plan was sound in theory, the attack on Pearl Harbor specifically is still difficult to
01:08understand. U.S. forces were already considerable, thanks in part to a 1940 military draft that
01:13helped the armed services grow to almost 2.2 million members by December 1941. And though
01:18Japan's attack inflicted a massive amount of damage, they didn't achieve near-total destruction
01:22of the fleet.
01:23You could make the case that of all the places Japan invaded in early December 1941 — Philippines,
01:27Guam, Wake Island, modern-day Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong — the Pearl Harbor attack
01:32was the least successful. You know, we should just do something on that day in a future
01:36video. If you want to see it, leave a comment.
01:39Anyway, not only did they fail to destroy repair shops and essential fuel oil tanks,
01:43they also failed to destroy any aircraft carriers. Just like Yamamoto allegedly said, they woke
01:48a sleeping giant.
01:49The American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
01:57Japan took a big chance. They tried to end the war before it began, and — spoiler — they
02:02didn't.
02:03Conspiracy theorists occasionally claim U.S. officials knew of the Pearl Harbor attack
02:06well in advance, but deliberately failed to do anything to make the nation's entry into
02:10World War II an obvious necessity. This has been dismissed as an outright falsehood by
02:14legitimate historians who make it clear that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was painfully
02:18surprised by the Japanese assault.
02:20There is a grain of truth here, however. The U.S. had long managed tense relations with
02:24Japan and knew of the other nation's increasingly aggressive stance, which was part of the motivation
02:28behind the Selective Training and Service Draft signed by FDR in September 1940. This
02:33was ostensibly the first U.S. peacetime draft, but was clearly influenced by growing tensions
02:38with Japan and the fact that World War II had already begun in Europe.
02:41What's more, Japanese officials warned U.S. military personnel on at least three occasions
02:46— October 16th, November 24th, and November 27th, 1941. Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, co-commander
02:52of the base at Pearl Harbor, was directly cautioned by Japan to execute an appropriate
02:56defensive deployment, though no other details were given. But when someone tells you to
03:00defend yourself, you should probably take heed.
03:03Part of the problem is that the U.S. didn't exactly know where they needed to take defensive
03:07deployment. As we mentioned before, turns out, everywhere. Kimmel and other commanders
03:11did prepare somewhat, but this included closely grouping craft on airfields — which is a
03:16great way to get a group of aircraft destroyed rather quickly — and only partially increasing
03:20monitoring around the Hawaiian Islands. It doesn't appear that FDR or any officials in
03:24Washington were aware of Japan's true intentions until mere hours before the Pearl Harbor attack.
03:29So did the U.S. know? Eh, kinda. But did the U.S. really think that Japan would fly all
03:35the way to Hawaii? Likely not.
03:38When your nickname is the Desert Fox, you know you're pretty good at the game. Even
03:41Allied leaders admitted to having some respect for Erwin Rommel, with UK Prime Minister Winston
03:46Churchill claiming that the German commander was a formidable adversary. Cool nickname
03:50and Churchill praise aside, a more fitting moniker would have been the Desert Procrastinator.
03:55Robert Citino, senior historian for the National World War II Museum, puts a lot of the early
03:59praise on Rommel thanks in part to one Adolf Hitler.
04:02Hitler really likes him. He's very, very close to Hitler, and Hitler admires him.
04:07Yet these tactics came with a less admirable side. According to Citino's estimation, Rommel
04:12may have been more enamored with the glamour of war than the nitty-gritty details of supply
04:16chains and logistics. As such, he didn't spend much time worrying about administrative duties.
04:21Yet attention to all these boring bits is often what makes for true success in war,
04:25and it surely falls on a general to ensure that such things are addressed. If you're
04:29still not convinced, consider that Rommel never managed to seize control of the vital
04:32Suez Canal. Or take a hard look at what may be his most significant failure, the inability
04:37to put a stop to the Allied invasion of Europe on D-Day. With such big fumbles on his resume,
04:42Rommel's enduring reputation makes little sense.
04:44Just to show how important the facade of greatness was to the Nazis, despite being part of the
04:48assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, he was still given the choice of being exposed
04:53as a fraud or chewing on some cyanide. He decided to keep the Desert Fox nickname and
04:57hope no one figured out the truth. We did.
05:00By early 1942, many Americans were understandably on edge. There were a lot of folks expecting
05:05a mainland attack on the U.S. Sightings abounded along the west coast of Japanese forces in
05:09the sky and seas, with most dismissed as mistaken identities. There were a few real attacks.
05:14A Japanese submarine attack on an oil field near Santa Barbara took place on February
05:1823, 1942, and the often-forgotten bombing in Oregon a few months later.
05:23But the best-remembered today is the one with the most clicky name, the Battle of Los Angeles.
05:27On the night of February 24, military forces received instruction to prepare for an unconfirmed
05:32Japanese assault. In the first hours of February 25, radar supposedly picked up signs of an
05:36invading force. L.A. went into a blackout.
05:39No lights anywhere. Not a cigarette is allowed to be lit on the street for fear of giving
05:45away any type of location to a potential enemy.
05:47Searchlights pierced the skies, and troops began firing an estimated 1,400 anti-aircraft
05:52rounds at something. Yet nothing came down. Some claimed to spot Japanese planes or a
05:57massive balloon, while others saw only clouds and smoke. No one was directly injured, though
06:01some reported deadly heart attacks and car accidents, while shrapnel damaged homes. The
06:06most likely explanation is a false alarm, though the scope of the panic remains confusing.
06:11For a while, at least, it must have seemed as if Germany had a nuclear weapons program
06:15on lock. By the late 1930s, German scientists had already conducted and publicized their
06:19experiments on nuclear fission, in which splitting atoms produced potentially immense
06:23and destructive power.
06:25As Nazi Germany formally entered into war and began taking territory across Europe,
06:29its scientists worked to refine their materials and more reliably produce enriched uranium
06:33for use in weapons. With the hindsight of history and the devastation first wrought
06:37on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by American nuclear bombs, it's clear that the Nazi nuclear program
06:42failed. But why?
06:44Germany once had serious advanced science at its fingertips, as evidenced by the U.S.
06:48push to incorporate Nazi scientists and engineers into its own post-war programs via Operation
06:52Paperclip. Part of the explanation centers on the fact that refining uranium and developing
06:56weapons was massively complicated and time-consuming. The Nazi government, lulled by the successes
07:01of conventional weapons, may have neglected to fund the nuclear program until it was too
07:05late, or they may have been scared off by the expensive but only semi-successful B-2
07:10rocket program.
07:11It didn't help that key German intellectuals like Albert Einstein fled Europe to avoid
07:14anti-Semitic persecution, and subsequently lent their help to the American Manhattan
07:19Project. So it turns out being cheap and being bigoted cost the Nazis the bomb. Good job,
07:24Nazis.
07:25From 1943 to 1945, an estimated 425,000 German POWs were sent to detention centers across
07:31the U.S. Many arrived in rural Texas, where extra land made it easier to establish camps.
07:37Texas was also selected because a 1929 Geneva Convention maintained that POWs should be
07:41sent somewhere with a climate similar to where they were captured. For a German soldier
07:45apprehended in North Africa, Texas was deemed Africa Hot, so that matched up.
07:50The Geneva Convention also required that POWs and their guards live in similar quarters,
07:54meaning that conditions were decent for German prisoners, to the point where locals derisively
07:58called a few Texas camps the Fritz Ritz. Captured soldiers likewise weren't required to work,
08:03though some did so anyway to alleviate the boredom and earn a bit of money.
08:07By doing work like this in the shoe shop, captives are able to buy cigarettes and other
08:12luxuries.
08:13Conditions were so good that very few tried to escape, and those who did hardly appeared
08:17to fear much retaliation. After the war, some attempted to stay in the U.S. and even occasionally
08:21succeed in becoming American citizens.
08:23On February 19, 1942, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, ostensibly to keep American military
08:30zones safe from foreign infiltrators. What it really meant was that some 120,000 Japanese
08:35Americans living on the West Coast — many of them citizens, even second- and third-generation
08:40citizens — were forcibly relocated to internment camps with little regard for their livelihoods,
08:45property, or civil rights. You probably knew about the U.S. treatment of Japanese Americans
08:49during World War II, but knowing that they were treated worse than captured Nazis makes
08:53their situation all the worse.
08:56We have covered the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki extensively in another video,
09:00so feel free to watch that one after this for a bit more detail. And yes, we know this
09:04is a passionate subject. Just look at the comments on that other video. We're just going
09:07to try and lay out the facts for you here.
09:09The main question is, was it necessary to nuke Japan? Internally, military officials
09:14also claimed that a land invasion would kill up to one million U.S. service members, and
09:18would claim even more Japanese lives.
09:20If Japan continued to resist and U.S. plans for a land invasion went ahead in what the
09:24Allied forces called Operation Downfall, it's possible that an already resource-stressed
09:28Japan would have surrendered. Or it could have been that fierce Japanese resistance
09:32like that seen from both combatants and civilians at Okinawa and Iwo Jima would have spiraled
09:36into a bloody guerrilla war. You can make the case for either side.
09:40Advocates for the fierce Japanese resistance point out that it took two nukes for Japan
09:44to finally surrender. On the other side, there were some peace-feelers thrown out there by
09:48some members of the Japanese government, but we need to point out that they all had Japan
09:52keeping their emperor in power. That was a position not tenable to Allied forces.
09:57Even if the nuclear strikes in Japan avoided all that at a terrible price, they served
10:00additional purposes. The Soviet Union, which was quickly emerging as a major rival to the
10:05U.S., now saw what America was capable of doing, as did any leader sympathetic to Soviet
10:10communism. One of the questions today, therefore, is, did the U.S. nuke Japan to send a message
10:15to the Soviets, or to truly end the war?