“The atomic bomb and the human being”

A wave of indignation swept through the ranks of numerous Swiss politicians around two years ago – fuelled by the media – when the then Swiss Federal President Alain Berset spoke in an NZZ interview of a “war frenzy” that he perceived in “certain circles”. At the time, the issue was about Switzerland’s stance on arms exports abroad. These are subject to the legal requirement that Swiss weapons sold abroad may not be resold to any country at war. In connection with the war in the Ukraine, the Swiss Federal Council had come under enormous pressure at home and abroad to relax the relevant law and allow exports to countries at war. This would have required to make Swiss neutrality more “flexible”, an opportunistic stance that now seems to be widespread among Swiss politicians from left to right. Here are the exact words Berset used to defend the ban and the context in which he spoke of the “war frenzy”:

“I understand and respect that other countries have a different stance. But Switzerland’s position must be respected, too. And I also believe that we will be understood if we explain how our position came about. It is based on our commitment to peace, to humanitarian law and, where possible, to mediation. We are the depositary of the Geneva Convention, the ICRC and the UN. And this special role of Switzerland is reflected in our laws, including those concerning the export of arms.”

He then said, referring to the pressure exerted on Switzerland to finally allow arms exports:

“The current climate is reminiscent of the climate at the beginning of the First World War. At that time, the prevailing opinion was that so much tension and frustration was around, that could only be discharged by war – and many people were enthusiastic about this idea.”

When asked about the parallels with today, Berset said:

“I can still sense this war frenzy today in certain circles. And I am very concerned about that. Because this feeling is based on a short-term view. We must always think long-term: what kind of shared future do we want on this continent?” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 11 March 2023)

The presidents of almost all Federal Council parties were shocked by Berset’s statement. His own party colleagues, who are otherwise always keen on taking a sceptical or even hostile stance towards the military, distanced themselves wordily from their Federal President and spoke, at best, of a misguided choice of words, with some even calling it a gift to Putin.
  Was what Berset said really so far-fetched? With his words, he passionately defended Swiss neutrality as an expression of a commitment to peace and described the mood in Europe, the willingness to continue to let people die in Ukraine and to accept war in Europe as a possibility at all, as highly problematic.
  The term “war frenzy” refers to an attitude towards war that is rightly cause for concern since it trivialises the reality of war, just as it was the case before the First World War. Alain Berset has issued a warning to all those who have lost their abhorrence of war and who are engaging in a rhetoric that deeply contradicts Switzerland’s neutrality. Neutrality is a concept of international relations that firmly rejects any form of dominance and any tendency towards violent conflict resolution, and that is exclusively committed to promoting and mediating peace and to fulfil humanitarian missions in aid of victims. The ethical dimension of a country’s neutrality as a service to peace seems to have fallen victim to amnesia in recent decades. Alain Berset is obviously one or the few politicians in Switzerland who is still aware of the role and significance of Swiss neutrality in this sense. Warnings against barbarism and the horrors of war have become rare in the so-called civilized world, with a few exceptions, as the following example shows.

“Never again Hiroshima and
Nagasaki” – a beacon for humanity

In 2012, I came across an exhibition in the foyer of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik that moved me deeply. It was called “The Atomic Bomb and the human being” and consisted of 40 framed posters with images and texts documenting the horrific consequences of the atomic bomb. They showed the unimaginable extent of destruction, the enormous number of charred corpses, images of dying people exposed to radiation trying to find relief in a river, and much more. As we learned, the exhibition was conceived by Nihon Hidankyo (“Council of Japanese Victims of Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs”), the Japanese association of atomic bomb victims founded in 1956, with the aim of keeping the memory of this war crime alive and of warning as many people as possible about the devastating consequences of this murderous weapon. Last year, Nihon Hidankyo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because the organization gives survivors a voice and has worked tirelessly to this day to outlaw the atomic bomb.
  After my visit to Iceland, I tried to persuade the teaching staff at a cantonal grammar school to show the exhibition to our pupils. My intention to engage the pupils in a discussion about the causes and consequences of war and to sensitize them to the horrors of war, met with little enthusiasm. The argument was that the images and content were too brutal. A few years later, after all, an opportunity arose to let the pupils reflect on the catastrophe in Hiroshima: a colleague suggested showing a documentary film depicting the bitter reality of the hibakusha (atomic bomb victims) and their deeply traumatic experiences.

“When the Sun Fell from the Sky”

First broadcasted in 2015, the documentary When the Sun Fell from the Sky by Japanese-Swiss author Aya Domenig shows the crime of the atomic bombing in a factual yet deeply moving way. Domenig begins by recounting her family’s perspective. Her grandfather was a doctor at the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima. Although he was not in the city when the bomb was dropped at 8:15 am on 6 August 1945, he arrived shortly afterwards and remained there continuously for ten days without having time to notify his wife. The events in the film are narrated including numerous conversations with Domenig’s grandmother, who tells her story from memory to her grandchild. Aya Domenig, who lives in Switzerland, had visited her grandmother just before the Fukushima disaster (2011) to hear her eyewitness account of the consequences of the atomic bomb. By then, her grandfather had long since died from the effects of radiation.
  The grandmother recounted that her husband returned home completely exhausted after these ten days in Hiroshima, without saying a word about his experiences. It was only later that he once confided to his granddaughter that during those ten days, surrounded by countless dead people, he had tried to save at least those who were still alive. He added: “Those who weren’t there and didn’t experience it themselves cannot understand” – and laughed and cried at the same time.
  The film also features a group of elderly ladies who worked as nurses in Hiroshima. They are very emotional as they recall their memories and watch a film about their hospital from the time after the bombing. They recount how they carried the many dead out of the city every day and burned them there, how after a few days the bodies were covered with maggots because the flies laid their eggs in the flesh of the dead. They describe how terrible and how stressful it was for them to remove the bandages from the seriously injured. After further descriptions, one of them energetically stops the conversation: she can no longer bear the memories and does not want to continue talking.
  Another contemporary witness and former nurse, Chizuko Uchida, who is over 90 years old, describes that, as a young woman, she chose this profession because she wanted to be a heroine, like the soldiers who sacrifice themselves in the war. But her experience with the atomic bomb, the unbearable sight of countless dead and dying people, radically changed her view of war. When the film was made, the woman, severely bent by age, took a great interest in the fate of the people who used to live near Fukushima, who may themselves have been exposed to radiation and fled. The film shows how the old woman sends bags of tea with healing properties she had harvested herself to those affected by the nuclear fallout and how she, as a spontaneous act of humanitarian aid, temporarily takes people from Fukushima into her home.
  Another portrait of a contemporary witness in the film is dedicated to Shuntaro Hida, who again is well over 90 years old and the last surviving doctor who worked with Aya Domenig’s grandfather at the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima. Bitterly he points out that after his death, there will be no one left to tell the truth, especially since politicians are not really interested in educating and protecting the population. That is why he still meets with journalists or gives lectures almost every other day. The camera follows him to various events where he talks about the atomic bomb and its fatal effect on human civilization. He tells Aya Domenig: “I will speak until I collapse!”
  His descriptions of what he experienced are difficult to bear: at the time of the bombing, he says, he had been with a patient in the countryside. Thereafter he saw so many people die without being able to explain their condition. He reported of blood pouring out of mouths, noses and even eyes. When people opened their mouths, there was a terrible smell of decay; it seemed as if people were literally rotting away before the doctors’ eyes. Never before, he said, had a Japanese doctor seen people die like this. The reason for the experts’ helplessness – a circumstance that caused Shuntaro Hida a visible outrage – is that between 1945 and 1952, the American occupiers had forbidden Japanese doctors and nurses from talking about what they had seen and experienced after the bombing. With that prohibition the Americans wanted to ensure that the health consequences of the atomic bomb remained a closely guarded secret. The commander-in-chief of the US Army even prohibited any exchange of information among experts, including any research and the carrying out of scientific studies. Anyone who dared to say anything risked being put in prison. As a result, medical personnel confronted with radiation victims exhibiting completely unknown symptoms were unable to do much. They did not understand why, for example, people died even though they had not been directly exposed to the bomb.
  To this day, as a consequence of American censorship, people in Japan suffer not only from the long-term effects of radiation exposure, but also from the fears and prejudices that arose from ignorance and misinformation. For a long time, and in some cases to this day, people from families of radiation victims found it difficult to find work and often remained single, unable to start a family because of the widespread fear that such people were a potential danger to others.
  This moving film left a lasting impression on the grammer school pupils, as became clear during the discussion that followed. The disturbing images, the shocking fates, the obvious terrible threat left no one unmoved. This shows how worthwhile it is to use such documentaries for younger generations to  develop a sense of revulsion and realism in the face of war and its consequences, to strengthen their unconditional determination to resolve conflicts through negotiation  as well as to search for non-violent solutions, as enshrined in the UN Charter.

“A blessing for humanity”?

A recent article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (16 July 2025) reported with commendable openness on the development of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The lead paragraph of the article states: “The USA invented the atomic bomb in the secret Manhattan Project – and dropped it twice on Japan. In Los Alamos, this is still today presented as a blessing for humanity. The victims are not mentioned.”
  The atomic bomb as a blessing for humanity? How is such an incredible perversion of reality possible? It illustrates an essential insight into the reality of war: truth is its first victim, even before the first shots are fired. How much manipulation was necessary to reinterpret the obvious war crime as a humane act? On the vital question of how the US justified the use of the bombs, the article quotes historians who point out that the Americans were not primarily concerned with ending the war as quickly as possible, as they led the population to believe. Rather, they intended to demonstrate “the destructive power of the new weapon to the Soviet Union” – “and what would happen to them if they thwarted America’s post-war plans”. At the end of the war, they stated, 85% of Americans welcomed the bombing as a moral act. It was only when it became known over time that Hiroshima was not a military base, as President Truman had claimed, and that 95 per cent of the victims in Hiroshima and 99.8 per cent of the victims in Nagasaki were civilians, as well as that the atomic bomb incinerated all living things in the immediate vicinity within seconds, and that the survivors and their descendants still suffer from radiation damage to this day, that the attitude of many Americans began to change.

Neutrality and the urgent
need for education for humanity

The future of humanity, whether plagued by war or blessed by diverse forms of serious, respectful intergovernmental cooperation, as firmly anchored in international law, depends on the attitude and commitment of people everywhere. Peace initiatives such as that of Nihon Hidankyo or documents that open people’s eyes and shake them up, such as Aya Domenig’s film, are contributions by people who, thanks to an ethic based on reason and humanity, contribute greatly to the common good worldwide. They therefore deserve the utmost recognition and support. Switzerland’s position, as defended by Alain Berset in his statement in 2023, namely to understand neutrality as an expression of a serious commitment to peace, understanding and humanitarian aid, is based on the same aspiration. Our educational institutions should make much greater efforts to impart an emotionally anchored ethic of peace to young people by giving them access to the knowledge and experience that gave rise to international law. They should be familiarised with people who have made significant contributions to this cause – Henry Dunant, Berta von Suttner, Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, to name but a few – and with their works. As a teacher I have repeatedly had the joyful experience of seeing that such role models of lived human ethics meet with great interest among young people. •