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tv   Nagasaki  Deutsche Welle  August 6, 2020 11:15am-12:00pm CEST

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chileans form improved in italy and his permanent signing means that he can play in the rest of enters europa league campaign. you're watching t.v. news from berlin coming up next we got a documentary film on why a 2nd atomic bomb was dropped on japan on the city of nagasaki 75 years ago thanks for. more posters from nigeria you know that's what money would sponsor their unique. authentic. and successful beyond belief 7. they would start aug 7th on d w. in
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the summer of 1905 the war in the pacific was still raging americans were flying bombing missions over japan. children took refuge in caves used as air raid shelters. on august the 9th we stayed in the bomb shelter longer than usual because we'd heard of a new kind of the bomb that had just been dropped on hiroshima that. very few on board the us bombers were aware of the weapons destructive force recruited to reclaim. because federer would not feeling a martyr or want to get rid of. the thing contained plutonium rather than the uranium used in the hiroshima bomb developing it cost billions of dollars. what's interesting about this is they had an atomic bomb. they had the hiroshima
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bomb but all this effort was put into the plutonium bomb so do you think all of that effort did not contribute to the use of it and nagasaki. that's an interesting question. all these people were children back then they are the ones who are still alive and my name was even today they ask why this bomb had to be dry wiping their city from the face of the earth. god my god they saying do you hear the victims voices do they still reach your ears i am my please world they never
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let this happen again my love everything burns up. my he was leaving. i now remember world war i remember us the victims of the atomic bombs our world has been cloaked in mourning ever since he. was meat. in the air raid shelter death was always close by says suck away she will hear him . she was 6 years old at the time. at the time we go and look at that we were hungry every day young mothers didn't even have enough milk to nurse their babies. one baby screamed so loudly once that someone complained because you had to be quiet in the air raid shelter. that would kill the mother whispered be still and held her hand over the baby's mouth so desperately and tightly guarded she
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smothered it that was what the war was like. the only in the end the baby's little head just fell to the side kick it that that. was my back there that was the spot. the bomb exploded. the epicenter of. the bomb even destroyed the university hospital on the outskirts of the city beach yaki kate his mother worked there so much that. i was collecting shrapnel on the roof with my friend. his friend had to go to the toilet so they got into the elevator that saved both their lives. but when the elevator door opened we ran into the hallway. there were suddenly in the unbelievably bright flash of light. and then i passed
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out so did a kid station i asked. the flash even penetrated the cave where sucker way was cowering with her sister and a baby. then the blast wave slammed them against the wall at the rest of the. almost everyone had already gone out because they'd already sounded the all clear. then some of them came back and begged for help. from i was unconscious and that we're coming up that they still have the they were completely disfigured that the bodies were burnt and split open. they often had open rooms with a in and losing out still if they did for water or to be killed kathy many died before our eyes. but i just kept looking for my sister and the baby that had laid down next to me
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a ship. that's part of the your the last time i regained consciousness in the hall at the hospital all i could see was fire everywhere and the flames were coming right at me more coal me to the floor was covered with grit and bits of broken glass. i crawled to a wall that was still intact then i discovered a nurse that she was covered with blood and crouching in a corner. i crawled towards her. off and she looked at me and shouted hey kid quick call the fire department table with a whole yarn big and that's how. the bombardier saw a church through a break in the clouds and chose it as a target tens of thousands of people around the epicenter were incinerated within seconds or painfully burned to death. could have devised such a weapon. the
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search for answers takes us 1st to the u.s. state of new mexico to a place called los alamos for a long time it was just the site of a boy scout camp then it was rebuilt into a secret facility for developing the atomic bomb. the address was a post office box residence even joke that people were born in their numbers replaced names on driver's licenses address specialist to be santa fe. there were very few telephones up here but the ones that they did have were monitored mail was censored so that people couldn't even talk about the weather in their mail to their their families back home because the at the security folks were afraid or if they talked about a certain rainstorm that happened on a certain day then someone might be able to pinpoint the location. hundreds of
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nuclear experts from the u.s. and europe got together here at the start in the end there were more than $8000.00 of them some even came with their families among the scientists were many future winners of the nobel prize in physics. even within the government and military only a few people knew of this secret project many of the young technicians handling plutonium were not fully aware of its dangers one was. they were assembling some metallic petroleum parts. the fellow who was right next doing it he dropped it and unfortunately it fell in through what was already assembled and it reached the critical mass and he died from it 3 other man who were standing a few feet away. were affected. and the one i knew
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lost all of his hair. everything and looked like he had a sunburn and a short dislikes considerably he died quite early. on july 16th 1905 workers in the new mexico desert did the 1st plutonium bomb to the desired detonation height on a steel tower. the test was complicated 2 tons of conventional explosives were placed around the plutonium core and all of it had to detonate simultaneously with accuracy to a 1000th of a 2nd. the 1st nuclear explosion in history was witnessed by those in charge of the project from 9 kilometers away. afterward a report was released saying a munitions depot in the desert had exploded. was
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a good topic that this would affect not only military targets but wiped out the whole city of course. from the test shots of the bomb that obviously that they knew the extent of the destruction. the heads of the project posed at what was left of the vaporized steel tower physicist j. robert oppenheimer and general leslie gross. but there were also critical voices in los alamos. as there were many scientists here who thought that we should do a demonstration for the japanese and they they signed a petition and oppenheimer stopped the petition from going forward to the government. the critics remained isolated they read later that america had no bombs to waste so why did it have to drop 2 bombs within days of each other. we had
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2 different kinds of bombs we had the your am bomb that was dropped at hiroshima and we had the plutonium bomb that we dropped at nagasaki had we had authority and bomb we probably would have taken out a 3rd city but it was important to test the plutonium bomb from the standpoint of u.s. policymakers and military strategists because that was the kind that we were going to bring into effect increasingly over the next period the effort that went into this was the primary. challenge. that the scientists face that loss at los alamos and the implosion device was a much more efficient way of exploding either iranian or plutonium and that was going to be the future.
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for the victims of the nagasaki bombing essentially test subjects' so bomb builders in the u.s. could determine which of their models should go into production. for 7 decades during their memorial services not just hockey citizens have criticized governments including their own for waging war. their city was always cosmopolitan even in centuries when japan isolated itself from the world there were european trade missions and christian churches in nagasaki the bomb destroyed those places along with the rest of the city. at the start the plan was only to use the bomb on military installations but later dual targets became the preferred term.
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go to the target wasn't arms factories but entire cities you must. so then want us know that both raids were planned for the early morning also suggests that they wanted to strike when as many people as possible were out of doors the more modern us. the war in the pacific was a desperate conflict japan sacrificed young pilots in kamikaze attacks. the americans depleted their forces fighting from. island to island they suspected that invading japan would cause enormous casualties and they were counting on the same ally they'd had against nazi germany joseph stalin. when u.s. and soviet leaders met at the potsdam conference stalin already knew about the nuclear bomb project thanks to espionage but he didn't show his hand us president
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harry s. truman had hoped that stalin would sign an ultimatum to japan but he feared that stalin might refuse because of a neutrality agreement between the soviets and the japanese. when stalin told truman that he was coming to the war truman writes in his diary stalin will be in the jap war by august 15th 50 japs when that occurs to truman knew that the soviet entry was going to be determinative american intelligence had been saying that repeatedly for months. but then truman suddenly deviated from his plan and even went as far as hindering stalin from signing why. because on july 16th truman received the decisive report from general groves in los alamos results exceed expectations wrote groves and what counts is the battle test.
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when truman received the 1st news of success of the determination about that of course he wrote in a there it's a real. big news big news that i've blown successful this is an enormous destructive give us the it is so enormous so powerful that the still to 60 feet. wrong melted. and their immune melted and the media after this but we're going to use this again is this against a military target we're civilized nation or we're not going to use it against women children can you imagine that the powerful weapon you're going to drop in the middle of the city you're going to you're not going to affect you know though. and so really already there the process of denial. started even through.
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the historian finds it striking that the ultimatum to japan's government. and no debt and that truman removed a provision to retain the emperor even though the west knew how the japanese revier the imperial dynasty. tokyo's diplomats were by then turning to a possible mediator who appeared neutral to them shows of stand on. the conversation with truman he says we have to. japanese to sweep. that you know but of course that from from the start as one of you it is necessary to delay the japanese hair and a sort of sort of. participate in truman those who want to do it so that. the united states can drop. the bomb.
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on a farm in the u.s. state of indiana the last surviving person who accompanied the bomber looks back at the mission. tailgunner william barney is 93 years old he was the radar operator on a newly assembled bomber crew at an air base in utah. some operator. got out there we met a colonel to boot and he was one commanding officer and he said you guys are a bunch of the elites it's just small and it's rather a very secretive outfit. here's bomber pilots charles sweeney and plummeted it's practice the techniques for dropping the bomb. we just learned in florida not reform we're going to missed it wanted it but exploded near it covered so much more territory so we work with mit people who worked on him or her those are.
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birthed and liberal thing is gone we didn't know what was good we don't know what they're told is to. barney's unit and its aircraft were then transferred to the pacific they were based on the island of tinian in the mariana islands the 1st operational bomb was loaded onto the aircraft it was the bomb with the a long gated shape containing uranium the bombs builder's name did little boy. nor solid metal miming. what are words really who you're going to when we're in movies or different want to go to a new replacement. colonel paul tibbets head no only gay painted on his plane that was his mother's name. he had
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a good 6 hours flight time ahead of him. but tug refers and technicians were in planes accompanying the bomber to measure the force of the blast they flew at high altitude out of range of japanese anti aircraft. aircraft were also deployed to observe the weather and before they dropped the bomb the technicians released radio sonas to record the blast wave and radiation and transmit them back to the aircraft . some of them on this also made it clear how much and how many ways they wanted to measure the effect of the new bomb. us. as occupation troops later discovered more than 100000 people were killed in hiroshima. many of them left nothing more behind than their shadows.
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the shadows of objects and people were permanently imprinted on surfaces exposed to the heat of the blast there were even shadows of people who were simply crossing the street. or. the u.s. authorities recorded pedestrian on a bridge 6 tenths of a mile southwest of the epicenter then the information was kept secret for decades . the news that hiroshima had been wiped out reached president truman at sea he was returning to america from the potsdam conference. that the report that the city of hiroshima had been wiped off the map and he jumped up and said this is the greatest thing in history he was sort of so for you know he was so he could not restrain him so he was jumping up and. why was he saw excited and you know he is not he is the
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scent man you know why he didn't sell this kid you know the people but i think my interpretation of this happiness is that it is exactly the way that he planned. managed to drop the bomb before so obvious into the fray. truman imagined he'd won the race against time that had started in pants down stalin also believed truman had outmaneuvered him and was frustrated until his hopes were rekindled thanks to new reports from japan. is starting came back to moscow not all this 5th. and here he resumed his frantic activities of obviously preparing for the war. and then.
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6 if you take a look at the appointment book blank. and that will show you the extent of the shock he thought. game it gives up you know. we. you know there we lost right and he was sure that your parent were the son and they're well and then there's a proof from japanese ambassador. and this is a hard you know how about soviet reply to her mediation and then she merely. action nearly all of the attack moved up their path for about 48 hours. so why didn't the shock of hiroshima forced to pander surrender. some historians say it wasn't a shock for tokyo civilian suffering had never been a reason for japan supreme military leaders to change tack so why should they do it
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now ringback ringback. hiroshima was simply another city that was destroyed there were 68 cities destroyed i think prior to hitler hiroshima so this was another one well it happened to be by one bomb ok but the same effect. the real blow to the japanese was the entry of the soviet union. but instead of waiting to see the effects of a soviet attack america seemed to be in a hurry to drop the 2nd bomb. that was the plutonium model known as fat man. because japan continued to ignore demand. for capitulation truman believed the step was justified he warned japan that it would be struck by a rain of ruin the mission was plagued by one glitch after another the aircraft
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didn't have enough fuel a 3rd aircraft failed to appear the planned target the port of kokura and the secondary target nagasaki were both covered by clouts. yeah we didn't hit quite sure the close one to go down or the other was struck during and who is not supposed to restart that run on greater and the guardian just put near their. own bitter small and last minute he took over. and he he got to target but he didn't get to center and wondered where but still and all of it covered a big tear. again tens of thousands of people were killed almost all of them civilians. the number of victims should actually have been higher than in her all schama because the
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explosive force of the plutonium bomb was twice as high. the search for a witness who is shown in an old photograph has led all across japan it is one of many photos that were found stored in an abandoned house where the photographer had hid them from censors some of them have already been shown in this film. but one image cannot be understood without hearing the story behind it. it's the story of ga cold or you who now lives in a home for the elderly. for decades she would not speak of the war. she a go was one of those who survived in a bunker later she found her mother who had not come to the air raid shelter with her all that was left was
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a pile of ashes ready ringback ringback. where is she looking in this picture ready. you know my scenario is that they hide the house next door belong to a doctor it had its own air raid shelter and i i know last couple of my father thought someone might still be in there i did it went in and actually found a small girl gun who was still alive or not and i think that this next. we asked how she and her father were able to identify her mother. we recognized her by her tortoise shell hair clip which i had once given her as a gift and of what remained of her clothing that was still recognizable back then we were lots of layers we wrapped up our bodies to protect ourselves from the flames of the bombing that the. so high did it to the local. jageler
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you paid her last respects to her mother amidst the rubble. and you want to know a man with you there was nothing else we could do how we couldn't even save anything for her burial though that we didn't have a container and again you know. what i know i'm not at this charred body and thought that was once my mother. i briefly touched her foot and it just fell apart that i could carry you can tell apart like dry sandy. there were no one it simply turned to dust in them. not because i don't want to give myself. all that remains is a small shrine in honor of her mother and her thanks to the gods she says because she herself was able to live so long. how to do this and since then i've been thankful for every day that i've been healthy. peter my mother often prayed
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i believe that's why i'm still here you know. the young girl suddenly stayed in the air raid shelter until the next day with her sister and the baby. how our teeth were chattering. and we clung to each other throughout the whole night that the other. mama mama please come quickly. but no one came to help us. after a while they set out to search for their house or what was left of it. that they get that we didn't find out that 1st that she had died a few 100 metres away from our house. we found the remains of our older sister
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where the house used to be and we had her baby with us cord she was lying on the ground face down with her hands held in front of her face we didn't know who it was but. it was only when we turned the body over carefully and when able to pull her hands away from the face that we recognised the area around her eyes. at that. flowed from the rubble of the hospital wandered around and then came back and found his mother critically wounded. the how where why are they not i mean she was lying face down on the bed and couldn't move on or bit hundreds of bits of glass were stuck in her back. and i hadn't cried before then but when i saw her the tears flowed down my cheeks like
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a horror told me that the more mommy. everything that was needed to hear from the wounded was in short supply doctors in nagasaki had 'd just begun to treat burn victims who had survived the blast in hiroshima they reported that japan's air defenses didn't even see the bombers coming. most of the doctors and nurses were killed in the bombing the facilities were destroyed the medicines were minimal at best they were using any kind of home remedies they could find to treat those victims who were horribly burned. japan formally surrendered on board a battleship in tokyo. the capitulation document was signed on september 2nd 1945. general douglas macarthur then became the country's military governor
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japan's foreign minister represented the government at the ceremony. in the end it was emperor hirohito ordered his squabbling war council to capitulate the american leadership rejoiced claiming that the atomic bombs had brought peace. well the official version that the both bombs were necessary in order to bring the japanese around to surrender is not borne out by the facts in the chronology of the surrender process the japanese had been trying to surrender for weeks if not months but they weren't going to surrender under unconditional surrender and they weren't going to surrender as long as the emperor's life was at stake they hoped that they would get the soviet union to mediate between the united states and japan for better surrender terms they were unable to get that because
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the soviet union cleared war in japan on august 8th. and that was the end of that idea. emperor hirohito was spared a war crimes trial but he had to give up his divine status he suggested to his people that the bombing was the reason for japan's defeat that was advantages for him because it deflected the issue of his responsibility for the war. both he and truman and here to the myth that the bombs decided the war and truman wrote in the memoir us that this isn't a draft a bomb was a very very heavy i just wanted to avoid well if he wanted to would then why didn't they invite started to sign the proclamation and when he knew the zipper discovered they were in a moscow. and secondly they knew that they had been discussed this spring who wanted to know the fate of the emperor and then put
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a system why then they promised the japanese got the japanese government that you know that's that's a possibility there. and those 2 alternatives were consciously avoided. so that's that's why i think is sara. i would argue. that both some pro formation and the one that it was it was issued so already decided that they're going to drop the. us military newsreels showed that japan had already been flattened before the nagasaki bomb was dropped just after the end of the war they reported that nearly all major cities from all sucked up to tokyo had been destroyed largest japan's fleet had been decimated in the ports and the country was no longer able to fight another evidence finally in the words of the announcer scenes like this proved that japan was no
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longer able to wage war even before the bombs were dropped like these leave no doubt that japan was horribly beaten be. the atomic bomb. in fact you have to remember that 6 of the 75 star admirals and generals who got their 5th star during world war 2 are on record saying that the atomic bombs were either militarily unnecessary or morally reprehensible and could and the probably the most outspoken was truman's own chief of staff admiral william leahy who said they categorize this with the most atrocious things that ever been done he says war was not it cannot be made that way and he also said that truman karen told me that we would all be hit military objectives he says then we went ahead and killed as many women and children as we could which was just what they wanted all along. by the 1st anniversary of the victory when americans look back there was no longer any
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downtown tampa right now some tromping the bombs. were reduced according to this newsreel account the greatest of all new wars ended in year ago and it was not because the so-called japs had too few weapons or soldiers artillery the reporter speaks of large armies and weapons arsenals but says that just as the japanese were ready for the final battle the 1st atomic bomb was dropped they were stunned but still has to take it then 3 days later the 2nd bomb fell on nagasaki 3 days later another bomb fell on august so. that was the final so they surrendered it's perfectly understandable i mean the united states was the only country that has used atomic bombs it used them on what robert
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oppenheimer the director of los alamos called and essentially defeated anime this was our good war we were. having fascism in europe we were fighting militarism in the far east and to end the war with something that. has a negative context something that puts a black mark on this war is something that the united states can't quite absorb and so it was justified by the idea that we would have to have lost a 1000000 a 1000000 troops in an invasion there was not going to be an invasion the japanese were going to surrender clearly before. november 1st 1945. ringback the end of the war brought little relief to those suffering from radiation
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sickness at 1st many were taken in by relatives. but soon she and her sister went back to living in the rubble their illness had made them outcasts. ringback a little bit at the coming i lost my hair and i had names. but i didn't even notice. i only saw the stain in the blood dripped onto my clothes that. i could see what the kids are saying in the town's company that's we had just disgusting. workers registered that the death rates for nagasaki victims were rising again the deaths came not from injuries but because more and more children were throwing themselves in front of trains. came a point when my sister said let's just die to where our mother has got i
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kept trying to talk her out of it but then she just didn't come home and i found her. no tracks a couple quite a plane is. sock away wanted to end her own suffering too but she jumped out of the way of the black locomotive at the very last moment. and they are. the americans set up a secret commission to investigate the long term effects of the bomb effects that were new to them new. reports released later said they observed the same phenomena in nagasaki as in hiroshima. the experts called it radiation sickness. others called it radiation plague because there was no known treatment for. 'd
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the atomic bomb casualty commission that was set up by the united states after the war was there to study the victims now to treat them. there in fact if they died their remains were often sent to the united states for further testing which is why so many of the japanese see themselves as having been guinea pigs for the american experiment i have a lot of friends who are survivors. and they felt that many of them feel that they were treated terribly in the aftermath and many were humiliated they were forced to get up on those stages get naked in front of this auditorium full of doctors so they could be further examined many of them were young at the time some were teenagers it left a lot of very very deep scars so the american role in the aftermath i think was
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pretty regrettable at best criminal worst. these are the few survivors still alive today. they have survived despite the trauma and cancer diagnoses and a childhood in which many of them were shunned as outcasts even by their own people . they say who will talk about what happened to us when we are no longer around in the. final muscle you don't believe we were really something like lab animals for the americans. it was just that the bomb had already been dropped on hiroshima. that building the plutonium bomb would have been senseless if they didn't use it on. so they had to do it quickly before japan surrendered to me and
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i. so does that mean the americans were war criminals and are the japanese the victims no they say that would be too easy to night coming when they were nicer and it's often said we're the victims. but we were the victims of 2 perpetrators we were americans victims and victims of our own wartime government. japan was to blame for the war and also to blame because it did not surrender much earlier it diverse school time in the uk. we asked the historians one last question 70 years after the tragedies of hiroshima and nagasaki where do you place the blame for dropping the atomic bombs. by bombing cities and not only in hiroshima and nagasaki america had crossed the threshold
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leading to a war on civilian. before that only hitler and gannicus spain and the japanese and china did that. and the west called it barbarism. but then the british did the same thing in dresden and the americans in tokyo. and with the 2 atom bombs they ultimately went beyond the point of no return when i guess when i was very i said perhaps there's an argument for the 1st bomb but the 2nd one was clearly that's a seri. but the more. i learned. with the evidence that has come out both in the united states and in japan and in the soviet union it's quite clear that neither bomb was that.
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this woman is defining that we seem. to almost move has been searching for her husband and son for years both might be victims of syria's secret service now there's a ray of hope suspected henchmen of us on our own trial in germany. some concern for. a few 100 minutes on d w. d 2 you know that 77 percent flop because younger ben thanks
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a lot. that's me and me and you. and you know what it's time all voices. on the 77 percent we talk about because you dropped off you this is where because. 77 percent this weekend on d w. on a meal time did call complete the 2nd season on the fence it's about the environment it's still not society and it's still about us with all planets on the brink we spoke to several leading experts in the fish found out to check. look you're still the only real serious.
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player. this is due to your news live from berlin at the world reaches out to beirut after the massive blasts that killed nearly 150 people and injured thousands more french president in one box office lines in bringing aid and pledging lebanon is not alone the number of officials are under arrest over the explosions and a state of emergency is in force also coming up.

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