The memorial with the »atomic bomb dome «, the ruins of the former Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in the Peace Park of Hiroshima commemorates the dropping of the first atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. The three-story domed building is the landmark of the city, where 200,000 people perished at the time. Hiroshimawas rebuilt after the Second World War.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial: Facts
| Official title: | Peace Memorial in Hiroshima |
| Cultural monument: | Memorial site with the atomic bomb dome, »Genbaku Dome«, the ruins of the former Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and in the middle of the Peace Park with the cenotaph in the form of a concrete arch and a replica of the saddle of the clay horses that were used as grave goods in the Kôfu period; still today more than 300,000 registered survivors, so-called hibakusha, of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki |
| Continent: | Asia |
| Country: | Japan, West Honshu |
| Location: | Hiroshima on Motoyasu, southwest of Osaka and Tokyo |
| Appointment: | 1996 |
| Meaning: | a memorial for securing world peace |
Hiroshima Peace Memorial: History
| 1914 | Construction of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry based on a design by the Austrian architect Karl Hova and the Czech architect Jan Letzel (1880-1925) |
| 07/16/1945 | first atomic bomb test in the desert of New Mexico |
| 08/06/1945 | The atomic bomb was dropped, resulting in more than 200,000 victims, including 30,000 Korean forced laborers and around 500 Chinese deported to Japan |
| 1955 | Opening of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum |
| 1966 | Worldwide appeal for donations to preserve the atomic bomb dome |
| 1967 | Conservation measures for the atomic bomb dome |
| 1989 | renewed conservation measures from donations |
“Enola Gay”
The mission of the USS “Indianapolis” was so secret that the loss of the heavy cruiser in the Philippine Sea was initially not noticed.
Barely three weeks earlier, the first atomic bomb had detonated on the Los Alamos test site, and only a little later the second “mushroom cloud” in history towered over the densely populated industrial metropolis of Hiroshima. It should be followed by a plutonium cloud over Nagasaki. In a matter of seconds, both cities were literally “wiped out”. This unimaginable catastrophe brought the end of the world war within reach, but at the same time a new dimension of horror arrived. The area bombing and devastating firestorms of the “total war” that has just ended in Europe could hardly be compared with the effects of this fatal “miracle weapon”. “The bomb” resembled the ancient myth of the in an almost uncanny way Pandora, whose once opened vessel the suffering of humanity inexorably escaped.
On its way from the United States to the bomber group stationed on the Pacific island of Tinian, the Indianapolis, flagship of the US 5th Fleet, had delivered the first atomic bombs. A few days before the planned use of the new weapon, a Japanese submarine surprised the cruiser, which had left Guam without an escort – too late, of course, to stop the dropping of the American bombs. The sinking of the cruiser, sailing through the Pacific without its explosive cargo, whose crew, drifting in the water, was tragically at the mercy of the sharks, marked no more than one of many gruesome episodes of the Pacific sea war.
Since the stocks of weapons- grade uranium were very limited in 1945, one can probably assume that the war would have ended without the use of the A-bomb. Hidden from the eyes of the general public, the devastating effects of atomic explosives would have remained the sole subject of academic speculation.
According to politicsezine, the world war should be ended without a new edition of the landing on the Japanese motherland associated with incalculable risks and devastating losses. But the political leaders still had to demonstrate the existence and potential of the atom bomb, which came too late for use in Europe, under the influence of the “logic” of the war. Only through the use of the new “over-weapon” could one hope to be able to shape the post-war period. The end of the Second World War was at the same time the entry into the two-part world of the hysterical and artificially pacified atomic age. To the present, this sequence appears to be a consistent and therefore logical historical development,
The military-political “demonstration” of the bomb in action against the defenseless civilian population had unimagined consequences, as it reduced the military option of limited nuclear war to absurdity. The nuclear weapons systems immediately mutated into “political weapons”, the use of which amounts to self-destruction. Pandora’s box, once opened, cannot be closed again.
August 6, 1945, 9:15 am local time: The B-29 long-range bomber nicknamed “Enola Gay” unleashes the heavy uranium bomb “Little Boy” over the city of Hiroshima. There were 43 seconds left, and the demonstration of absolute superiority marked the irrevocable advance into the sober dimension of weapons of mass destruction, beyond all traditional military virtues. ” Kamikaze “, the god wind of ancient Japan, returned to the motherland, misguided as a radioactive “fall-out”.
