80 years of the atomic age

80 years ago, US soldiers dropped an atomic bomb on an inhabited area for the first time in human history. Their target on August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., was the southern Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Just three days later, the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. On August 6, 1945, 140,000 people died in Hiroshima and shortly afterwards 73,000 in Nagasaki.

The US government still justifies its brutal action today with the argument that only the two atomic bombs could bring the Second World War in the Far East to a swift end. Not only Japanese historians, but also US historians dispute this thesis and point out that the Japanese government had already sent signals of peace and signs of “war weariness.”

To date, however, more than twice as many people have died from the long-term effects of nuclear radiation—a total of over 400,000. And the dying continues to this day – 80 years after the atomic bombs.

A few years ago, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki invited me to give lectures. My topic was “From the Atomic Age to the Solar Age.” There are probably no more important places to discuss this topic. I learned that the majority of citizens in Japan are also opposed to both nuclear energy and atomic bombs.

Anyone who talks to radiation victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki or visits the two impressive memorial sites will find themselves facing the gates of hell on earth. In August 1945, a mass murder took place that was unimaginable to the world at that time. Within seconds, tens of thousands of people were reduced to nothing, at best a pile of ashes or irradiated and crippled for the rest of their lives.

However, what shocked me most was a figure quoted by the mayor of Hiroshima: every year, more than 3,000 people in Japan still die from the effects of radiation exposure in 1945. Shortly before my lecture in Nagasaki, the deputy mayor slipped me a handwritten note on which he had written the current number of people killed in his city by atomic radiation: 140,144! (see photo)

80 years later, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not only behind us, but still ahead of us. People continue to die.

We know from years of discussion about nuclear weapons for North Korea and Iran about the close connection between the so-called peaceful use of nuclear power and the construction of nuclear bombs. The material for the bomb is also produced in nuclear power plants. Without nuclear power plants, there would be no nuclear bombs, even for Iran and North Korea. The global incidents at many nuclear facilities should give even the biggest supporters of nuclear power pause for thought! However, as long as there are around 400 nuclear power plants in operation worldwide, unscrupulous power politicians will continue to try to build atomic bombs. 400 nuclear power plants means 400 potential nuclear accidents. There is not a single nuclear power plant in the world that is 100% safe.

We must also expect that nuclear bombs will one day fall into the hands of terrorists if we do not leave the nuclear age behind us. But that means closing all nuclear power plants as quickly as possible and obtaining energy from renewable sources in the future – from the sun, wind, bioenergy, geothermal energy, hydropower, and marine energy. With the necessary political will, a 100% solar energy transition is possible within 15 years. The solar age is dawning. The sun is winning.

More than 40 years ago, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki vowed that the mass murder committed in their cities must never be forgotten or suppressed by humanity. They founded the global organization “Mayors for Peace,” which now has 8,497 mayors from 166 countries as members – including the mayors of over 900 German cities and municipalities, among others Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, and Cologne, but also smaller cities such as Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Trier, and Mainz. According to a FORSA survey, 93% of Germans are in favor of a ban on nuclear weapons under international law, and 85% support the withdrawal of the 25 US nuclear weapons still stored on German soil.

The goal of “Mayors for Peace,” which now represents over 350 million people: a world free of nuclear weapons! On January 22, 2021, the peace movement celebrated its greatest success to date: with the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), nuclear weapons are now illegal under international law. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that “there exists an international legal obligation to pursue in good faith and to conclude negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” However, this has not interested the nine governments that possess nuclear weapons. But the nuclear powers have been on the defensive ever since – at least in legal and international law terms. 122 states have committed themselves in the UN to renounce nuclear weapons for all time. Unfortunately, Germany has not yet signed this important treaty. But we know that peace is possible, but so is destruction. We still have a choice.

The mayor of Hiroshima is optimistic: “Since it was possible to abolish biological and chemical weapons worldwide, it is of course also possible to abolish the most dangerous weapons, nuclear weapons. No other city in the world should ever suffer the fate of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. To achieve this goal, however, many more cities and villages must join our alliance. Please help us in Germany too. Only by putting a lot of pressure on the powerful national politicians of the nuclear bomb owners can we achieve the destruction of the more than 15,000 nuclear warheads that exist worldwide today. These could wipe out the entire human race at least 20 times over.” (More about the peace mayors: www.mayorsforpeace.de)

“There is not the slightest justification for the nuclear hostage-taking of cities and villages,” the deputy mayor of Nagasaki tells me as we part. “Never again must a city become the target of nuclear weapons.” The question runs through my mind: don’t we owe this commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons to our children and grandchildren?

Nuclear weapons are weapons of terror, and 25 of them are still stored in Germany today – each with the destructive power of five Hiroshima bombs! It is probably the greatest and most dangerous illusion in human history that we can secure lasting peace with nuclear weapons.

In 2007, the pilot of the bomber that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, US soldier Paul Tibbets, died. Shortly before his death, he said: “Yes, I would do it again. I never had a sleepless night because of it.” To this day, no US president has apologized in Japan for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and for the mass murder.

In 2018, the mayor of Fukushima invited me to give a lecture to 400 Japanese mayors. My topic was – as previously in Hiroshima and Nagasaki – “From the Nuclear Age to the Solar Age.” I asked the mayor of Fukushima, who had just come from the damaged nuclear power plant, what would happen if he entered the reactor. His answer: “I would be ashes within seconds.”

In 2020, the whole world was searching for a vaccine against the coronavirus pandemic. We have long had the vaccine against the nuclear pandemic and the fossil fuel pandemic: renewable energies.

Wars are a crime against humanity. A nuclear war would probably be the last war, because after that there would probably be no one left to wage war. The warning cry of our hitherto ignored conscience is: do not forget the lessons of the four major nuclear disasters in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.

The mayors of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Fukushima told me that they cannot achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants on their own. They need the support of many colleagues around the world. After all, in 2017, 122 UN member states called for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. But all nine governments that possess nuclear weapons voted against it. Unfortunately, this included the German government at the UN. So far, the only member of the German government to speak out in favor of the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Germany was former FDP Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in 2012.

Probably many more German mayors will have to campaign for this before the federal government in Berlin comes out in favor of it. This would show that Germany has indeed learned something from its history after 1945. For 2000 years, the ancient Roman principle has applied: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” The result of this policy: 2000 years of war, mass murder, and endless suffering.

Based on this experience, we must finally develop the philosophy that “if you want peace, you must prepare for peace.” This means disarming, not arming, as the current federal government is doing by pouring more and more money into armaments, primarily to appease the US president.

The US spends more than eight times as much on armaments and the military as Russia and three times as much as China. Who is actually threatening whom here? With a tenth of global military spending, we could ensure that no child ever goes hungry again. And with another tenth, we could ensure that all children can go to school. Wouldn’t these be more worthwhile goals than starting a new arms race, as the US, China, Russia, and now Germany are doing again? When will we finally learn that the purpose of our existence is not hatred and arms races, but peaceful coexistence?

NATO’s announcement that it will station new medium-range missiles in Germany in 2026, which can be equipped with conventional and nuclear warheads, must be cause for concern. The spiral of escalation continues. The risk of nuclear war is now as high as it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960s, according to the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in the US, which stands at 89 seconds to midnight. We are not far from destroying ourselves.

• Speeches by the President (Mayor of Hiroshima) and Vice President (Mayor of Nagasaki) at the third meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Eleventh Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

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Franz Alt 2025 | Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator