A small amount of matter can be converted into a destructive amount of energy. In nuclear physics, this is proven by the formula of the theory of relativity E=mc²: Energy is equal to mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. In order to trigger nuclear fission, a critical mass is needed. The 92 protons and 143 neutrons of uranium-235 together form the largest atomic nucleus on earth, unstable enough to be fissioned by neutron bombardment. The neutrons released in this process then start a chain reaction by splitting further uranium-235 atoms. Atomic bombs work according to the principle of nuclear fission.

The hydrogen or H-bomb, on the other hand, is a fusion weapon whose energy is released in an explosion of supernatural dimensions. Nuclear fusion is essentially a reverse, two-stage process: tritium and deuterium fuse together after being fired at each other with high energy. The energy for the bombardment is generated by a nuclear fission process of plutonium and/or uranium-235.

Neutron bombs form another class. The modified hydrogen bombs are designed for maximum neutron emission. The radiation kills living beings, but should spare enemy infrastructures such as houses, traffic routes and weapon systems as far as possible. The lethal radiation of the surrounding area should abate after a relatively short time, so that the areas could be invaded.

Radiological bombs, in contrast, are “dirty” radiation weapons that contaminate large areas with radioactivity and are intended to make them permanently uninhabitable due to very long half-lives. The radioactivity of cobalt bombs only decreases by a 1000th in the course of 50 years. Human survival would be permanently impossible outside of bunkers.⁶ ///

A nuclear weapon kills by pressure, heat and radiation. When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, 0.6 grams of mass was converted into energy, instantly wiping out 70,000 to 80,000 people. In the entire universe, there is probably no other physical effect in which a critical mass is brought to a chain reaction in fractions of a second and condensed in this way. The pressure that builds up inside an atomic bomb is more than one billion atmospheres. At 100 million degrees Celsius, it is six times hotter near the center of the explosion than inside the sun. Speeds within the pressure waves of 10,000 kilometers per second destroy every organism. Immediate and fallout radiation destroys organic cell tissue instantly or agonizingly slowly over weeks, months or generations.⁸

The explosion is usually triggered in the air. Thus, the destructive forces unfold the greatest effect and cover a larger area. The enormous explosive power of a chain reaction creates a glaringly bright fireball. Anyone who looks into it is instantly blinded. A pressure wave spreads in the atmosphere, the fireball cools down and a mushroom cloud forms, which, depending on the explosive power of the bomb, grows up to thousands of meters in the atmosphere.

In the dropping zone the people evaporate immediately. With increasing distance from the center, the degrees of combustion decrease. Storms fan the fire. Those who survive the heat radiation die in wildfires. The blast wave causes the houses of a large city to collapse and people are killed by flying debris.

The immediate radiation in the narrower dropping zone penetrates and destroys body tissue. Even in underground garages and subway shafts you are not safe from them. Beyond the explosion centers, the radiation clouds catch up with the fleeing people in their vehicles on congested highways.

The radioactive fallout transports contaminated particles from the atmosphere back to the ground. In a nuclear winter the sky darkens. Dust particles blown into the atmosphere prevent or greatly reduce the penetration of sunrays. Plant growth and photosynthesis are disturbed, famine is caused by crop failures and massive animal deaths.⁹

Electromagnetic impulses destroy the power supply and electronic components in clinics, supply systems and cars. This also causes the water supply to fail.

Medical care is collapsing. Hospitals close to the center were destroyed directly with the impact. Transport, communication and energy systems fail. Chaos, mass panic and flight cause social values to be forgotten faster than you can run. Devastation in the cities reflects the cultural decline and disintegration of any kind of order. Violence, looting and gang wars are moving into the streets, if there are any survivors at all. Everyone is fighting for their bare survival and literally walk over dead bodies. ///

If the cosmic radiation had not continued to reduce over millions of years, not even unicellular organisms would have developed on earth. With bomb drops, nuclear tests and nuclear reactor accidents we have reversed the process.¹⁰ Every year thousands of tons of radioactive waste are produced, which have to be isolated from the biosphere for up to a million years. We do not know where to put the hazardous waste.¹¹ The sword of Damocles of radioactive contamination has been hovering over our heads since the discovery of nuclear fission.

The rays of nuclear weapons kill painfully and undignified. The neutron bomb is optimized for radiation. High doses destroy the brain and the central nervous system. One loses one’s hair, senses and orientation, one can no longer articulate and becomes incapable of action. Blood pressure drops, fever, vomiting, spasms and paralysis, shock and coma finally lead to death. The rays penetrate the cells. Afterwards, cell division no longer functions, white blood cells are destroyed, simple inflammations become a death sentence. The gastrointestinal tract reacts to its destruction with uncontrolled diarrhea. The body loses its fluids. Doctors can no longer help you.

Those who survive suffer from lifelong psychological problems. Even with smaller radiation doses, the long-term damage is brutal. Irradiated cells are mostly killed, but some survive with damaged DNA. Their clones mutate into tumors, bone and lung cancer or leukemia. Complicated gene defects can lead to monstrous malformations for generations.

However, the infrastructure such as traffic routes and houses or the tanks remain largely intact during a neutron bomb attack and preserved for the enemy. Neutron bombs are the peak of planning perversions.¹² ///

After the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan capitulated. The Second World War was finally over. Supporters justified the dropping of the bombs with the argument that they had saved the lives of many soldiers who would have died in an invasion. Immediately after the ‘Trinity Test’, the initial nuclear test in the New Mexico desert, there were also voices among scientists against the use of Japan. Instead, they proposed a demonstration of the weapon of mass destruction to force the surrender.¹³

After the enormous “power” of nuclear fission had been revealed to the world, the new energy source was marvelled at, admired and celebrated. In the Japanese debris fields, American scientists examined the radiation damage, but did not treat the victims.¹⁴ They “only” wanted to learn to understand atomic radiation. It was about knowledge to extend power. The “atomic age” was born, in which new infernal machines could mutate.

The war had just come to an end when a new, “cold” war was already announced. In a series of atomic bomb tests, the two great powers blew up disused warships and entire islands. Even the moon was supposed to be blown to pieces for demonstration purposes.¹⁵ Underground, underwater and in the air, the US alone conducted mover 500 tests with names such as “Crossroads Able”, “Greenhouse”, “Ivy Mike” or “Castle Bravo” and also contaminated their own people.¹⁶ With the “Tsar”, the Russians ignited the largest hydrogen bomb in the world in 1961. The 50 megatons released were equivalent to 4000 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb. The mushroom cloud reached a height of over 60 kilometers!¹⁷

With the landing of Soviet medium-range missiles in the Bay of Pigs, Cuba became a trouble spot. At the end of the “Cold War”, more than 70,000 nuclear warheads of the two great powers faced each other with 800,000 times the destructive force of the Hiroshima bomb.¹⁸ The nuclear arms race was about to unload itself into an apocalypse.

But the nuclear tests also served civil use. In the new atomic age, the atom embodied the future and was considered “cool”. Its commercial use promised inexhaustible sources of energy and propulsion. Advertising films like “The Magic Of The Atom: The Atomic City” ¹⁹ promoted visions of luxurious living. At a fashion show in Paris, the new, more revealing “bikini” was named after the bombed-out South Sea atoll, whose then relocated natives are still claiming compensation for radiation illnesses today. After the many atomic bomb tests and reactor accidents, the mutations of greed for power and profit are still growing in the bodies of innocent people – in the form of cancerous growths.²⁰

In case of emergency, private nuclear bunkers were recommended to the “nuclear family” as status symbols. Father, mother and child would, underground, neatly dressed, fed by canned food and entertained by parlor games, simply sit out a nuclear war and know how to defend their supplies against their contaminated neighbors “out there” with hoarded rifles and revolvers.

In the belief that the earth’s surface could be reshaped at will at its own discretion, the american natural gas reserves were to be brought to the surface by huge bomb craters. Edward Teller planned to use a multi-megaton hydrogen bomb to create a deepwater port on the Alaskan coastline and the displaced earth masses for a second Panama Canal were to be blown up along with nuclear mushrooms.²¹ ///

The “MAD doctrine” born during the “Cold War” is based on a “mutually assured destruction”. The idea behind it: A nuclear power would be “dead certain” deterred from a first strike, if it had to assume that the other side could still strike back with destructive force. Once armed, neither side would have any interest in a warlike confrontation. Mutually adapted “overkill capacities” (enough bomb supplies to be able to destroy the enemy several times over) led to the creation of huge bomb arsenals that devoured vast sums of money. In return, peace was to be kept stable. Crazy world: By letter and seal, “guarantee conditions” for mutual annihilation were set up in the form of agreements. The “balance of terror” was “welcomed” diplomatically and with a handshake. Significantly, “MAD” in English also stands for “insane”.

So far the strategy of nuclear deterrence seems to have worked. But maybe we have simply been lucky until today? In the hot phases of international conflicts during the "Cold War", the fragile peace was repeatedly on the verge of collapse. Since then, the great powers have preferred to wage proxy wars. It is also paradoxical that the very states with the most nuclear weapons want to prohibit or dictate possession to others.

Even if one tries to cheat oneself again and again by the number of bunkered warheads, weapon-technological innovations and legally sophisticated contract details, ancient principles still apply: “As you do to me, so do I to you” and “tooth for tooth”. However, the “guaranteed mutual destruction” does not mean the identical number of missiles and possible deaths. What counts is the possibility to survive a first strike in order to be able to strike back with a destructive impact. For this reason, all systems are multiple redundant. Safety first. In 1981, the German theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann asked […] woher man denn die 100 Milliarden Menschen bekommen würde, die durch die Sprengkraft vernichtet werden könnten. Es bestehe ja kein Mangel an Waffen mehr, vielmehr reichten die Menschen, die durch Atomwaffen vernichtet werden könnten, nicht mehr aus. […] ²² (Translation: […] where the 100 billion people who could be destroyed by the explosive force would come from. There was no longer a lack of weapons, rather the people who could be destroyed by nuclear weapons were no longer sufficient […] ²²).

Submerged, nuclear-powered submarines operating on enemy shorelines are ideal tools, for first or second strike. Other “weapons of revenge” are bombers and nuclear-powered missiles that can stay in the air continuously. Brand new on the Russian side: hypersonic intercontinental missiles, which direct their nuclear warheads into the target at 20-27 times the speed of sound.²³ Red telephones will thus probably become obsolete in the future – the warheads would be faster in the target area than presidents could appease each other. ///

The so-called “balance of terror” no longer exists today. Whereas during the “Cold War” the USA and the USSR alone faced each other with multiple overkill capacities, today the United Kingdom, France and China also have nuclear weapons. Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea are regarded as de facto nuclear powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia are supposed to be working on nuclear programs. In Germany (american) nuclear bombs are also stored.

The arguments in the standard answers for a nuclear deterrence strategy, which are countered by “naive do-gooders” of the peace movements, are not convincing. “Who shoots first dies second” in truth never convinced. At the latest since more than two squabblers have been “rattling their sabres” the formula has become obsolete. The concept of nuclear deterrence also fails when "mini-nukes", small nuclear weapons could be used for limited tactical attacks or if political or religious “axes of evil” were in possession of nuclear weapons.

Several times already the insanely expensive zero-sum game in the form of “near-accidents” brought us to the threshold of the third and probably last world war. For example, in 1983 the NATO maneuver “Able Archer” made the Soviets nervous because they had not been sufficiently informed in advance about exercises for the use of nuclear weapons. They suspected preparations for nuclear war disguised as maneuvers and put their troops on alert.²⁴ In the same year, Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov, Lieutenant Colonel of the Soviet air defense forces, became the savior of the world. He exposed a US attack apparently carried out with intercontinental missiles as a system error of Soviet early warning systems and prevented the supposed nuclear “counterstrike”.²⁵ ///

Unlike fighting in the field, killing with remote-controlled missiles is an abstract process. In the hermetically sealed bunkers of the positions, skills will be executed with dead certainty in an emergency. After pressing the launch buttons, the teams will not notice anything of the dying and suffering on the other side. The great distance to the enemy and the abstraction of the technical “work steps” when triggering a weapon of mass destruction would probably leave the soldiers “cold”.

Scientists and bomb makers in the defense industry certainly derive their principles from selfish interests: careers in research and development. Before the Trinity Test was conducted in the New Mexico desert, the first nuclear test of mankind, some scientists were concerned that the plutonium implosion bomb “The Gadget” could set fire to the atmosphere. Nevertheless the test was carried out!²⁶ Greed for power and money are also the driving forces behind the development of machines in which megatons are set off against dollars.

Creative weapon designers are fuelling the arms race with their inventions. Edward Teller, the “father of the hydrogen bomb”, opposed his inventions to the communists with deep conviction.²⁷ Samuel Cohen “sold” his invention, the neutron bomb, as a “moral weapon” because, compared to other nuclear weapons, it would only release short-term secondary radiation.²⁸ Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein, on the other hand, became firm opponents of further nuclear weapon developments.²⁹ The positions between opponents and supporters of nuclear deterrence still exist. ///

The one results in the other. “Hate Speech” sows discord. Among the leaders of powerful states there are cool and hotheads – with or without bulletproof presidential suitcases. Military parades with mobile launching pads can be interpreted as warnings or provocations. Fears, lack of dialogue, misunderstandings, creeping developments, diplomatic entanglements, political tactics, media push, rapidly escalating events or human “purgatory of vanities” could awaken the nuclear dragon. Fear of isolation and economic starvation could tempt small states that feel cornered to set the “doomsday machine” in motion. “We should never. Never. Never!” could be turned into its opposite in the event of a “side theater of war” like Germany. The bigger nuclear button could tempt to push it at some point. ///

Even a regionally limited nuclear war with 100 bombs detonated, such as between the arch-enemies Pakistan and India, would result in millions of deaths. Radiated nights, without a morning, would not release the debris fields and deserts from their darkness for many years. Entire ecosystems and harvests would be destroyed. In a nuclear winter, millions would starve to death, even in other parts of the world. Survivors would languish with the most serious diseases and envy the dead.

Today there are about 13,900 warheads facing each other worldwide.³⁰ ///

The “SALT II, ABM” and “INF contracts” were terminated. “New START”, the “Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty” expires in 2021. The major powers are once again in disagreement. Russia has offered an extension. But the Americans want to bring China on board, Russia and China are not interested.³¹ American and Russian nuclear weapons have been decimated in the course of disarmament, but the remaining systems have been modernized. The world has by no means become safer. Tensions within the global political situation tend to increase the threat. There is only one solution: abolition and worldwide outlawing of these inhuman weapons. At the same time, it would be a tremendous climate protection measure and would release a great deal of money for other, global problems.

Since 1947 leading scientists have been quantifying the potential danger of self-destruction. “The Doomsday Clock” of the “Bulletin of Atomic Scientists” vividly conveys the current danger of extinction for mankind. In 1953, in the middle of the “Cold War”, at the time of the arms race and the Korean War, the “Doomsday Clock” was set to five minutes to 12. This was followed by changing years of armament and disarmament with conflicts that almost led to the World War III. For 2020, scientists have moved the hand to an unprecedented 100 seconds to 12 o’clock!³² The nuclear threat is increasing, not decreasing. It is more topical than ever. ///

Artists such as Isamo Noguchi, Iri and Toschi Maruki, Santiago Caruso, Roy Lichtenstein, Henry Moore, Enrico Baj, Werner Petzhold, and Norman Lewis were moved by nuclear energy. Unforgotten is the film “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” by Stanley Kubrick. The atomic bomb found its expression “naturally” in manuscripts, paintings, sculptures and artistic films.

In an essay on comedy, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, author of ‘The Physicists’ wrote: […] »Sichtbar, Gestalt wird die heutige Macht nur etwa da, wo sie explodiert, in der Atombombe, in diesem wundervollen Pilz, der da aufsteigt und sich ausbreitet, makellos wie die Sonne, bei dem Massenmord und Schönheit eins werden. Die Atombombe kann man nicht mehr darstellen, seit man sie herstellen kann. Vor ihr versagt jede Kunst als eine Schöpfung des Menschen, weil sie selbst eine Schöpfung des Menschen ist. Zwei Spiegel, die sich ineinander spiegeln, bleiben leer.« […] »Unsere Welt hat ebenso zur Groteske geführt wie zur Atombombe, wie ja die apokalyptischen Bilder des Hieronymus Bosch auch grotesk sind. Doch das Groteske ist nur ein sinnlicher Ausdruck, ein sinnliches Paradox, die Gestalt nämlich einer Ungestalt, das Gesicht einer gesichtslosen Welt, und genau so wie unser Denken ohne den Begriff des Paradoxen nicht mehr auszukommen scheint, so auch die Kunst, unsere Welt, die nur noch ist, weil die Atombombe existiert: aus Furcht vor ihr.« […] ³⁴ / / / / / / Approximate translation: […] “Visible, today’s power only takes shape approximately there, where it explodes, in the atomic bomb, in that wonderful mushroom that rises and spreads, immaculate like the sun, where mass murder and beauty become one. The atomic bomb can no longer be depicted, since it can be produced. Before it every art as a creation of man fails, because it is itself a creation of man. Two mirrors that reflect into each other remain empty.” […] “Our world has led to the grotesque as well as to the atom bomb, just as the apocalyptic pictures of Hieronymus Bosch are grotesque. But the grotesque is only a sensual expression, a sensual paradox, the figure namely of an un-shape, the face of a faceless world, and just as our thinking seems no longer to be able to manage without the concept of paradox, so too art, our world, which only exists because the atom bomb exists: out of fear of it.” […] ³⁴

Since the invention of the atomic bomb, the fragile state of our survival has been driven ever further to the tips of rockets. Should our fear of enemy nuclear weapons really be the only survival strategy – despite all the risks and the many dead? Or can we rely on the hope left in the “Pandora’s box” and finally create peace without nuclear weapons?

Friedrich Nietsche described hope in his philosophical writing “Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits”, published in 1878, as the worst of all evils, because it would only prolong people’s agony.³⁵ ///