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As early as May, 1943, General Groves, Vannevar Bush, and James Conant, began to discuss how the atomic bomb would be used. Even though the outcome of the war in Europe was far from certain, very little consideration was given to Germany as a probable target for atomic attacks. (Records of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1943) An irony is that while the military did not seriously consider Germany as a target for nuclear attack, many of the scientists on the Manhattan Project felt that Germany always was the primary target. (Szilard 1978, 181-188)

German nuclear research had been the reason for the creation of the Manhattan Project. The driving force behind the scientists’ work was the fear of Nazi Germany possessing a weapon that could allow them to win the war and perhaps conquer the world. Many of these men had left Germany before the war began and knew what could come of a Nazi atomic bomb. Considering the fact that German was the possible nuclear rival, why was it ignored when considering nuclear planning? Even today, no adequate explanation has ever been found as to why the military and civilian leadership did not seriously consider Germany as an atomic target. In 1943, when atomic attacks were first discussed, there was no guarantee that the war in Europe would even be close to being concluded by the time an atomic bomb was ready.

One possible explanation comes out of the May 1943 meeting of Groves, Bush, Conant, and several other military personal. "The point of use of the first bomb was discussed and the general view appeared to be that its best point of use would be on a Japanese fleet concentration in the Harbor of Truk [in the Pacific, north of New Guinea]. General Styer suggested Tokyo but it was pointed out that the bomb should be used where, if it failed to go off, it would land in water of sufficient depth to prevent easy salvage. The Japanese were selected as they would not be so apt to secure knowledge from it as the Germans would be.” (Records of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1943) As can be inferred from Groves’ statement, the fear was the bomb could be a dud and recovered intact by the Germans. Groves and the other planners in the MED did not want to risk providing the Germans with the very thing that the United States feared they were actively working to acquire. Also, this could be looked at as an early form of nuclear deterrence. If Germany did posses an atom bomb before the war ended, the U.S. could not be sure if the Germans would use it. The Germans surely would have calculated the risks of being the first to use such a powerful weapon and how the Allies would respond. If the U.S. had dropped an atomic bomb on Germany and had the Germans possessed one or more of their own, the result could have been the nuclear annihilation of Paris or London. While there are not any known documents, memos, or plans for the use of atom bombs on Germany, speculation has always continued about that possibility.

Would the United States have been more inclined to use atomic weapons in Europe if the Germans had obliterated our Normandy invasion forces with some type of radiological or chemical weapon? If the war had continued on into late 1945 or 1946 with no obvious end in sight, would the United States have used nuclear weapons to bring Germany to its knees? If the purpose of the nuclear attacks on Japan was to save Allied lives and bring the war to a quick end, then it must be assumed that the United States would have used atomic weapons in Europe if the war looked to drag on for several more years. Come late 1945 or 1946, USAAF B-29 Superfortresses or B-32 Dominators carrying atom bombs, could have easily darkened the skies over Germany. Fortunately for Germany, the war ended before such a decision had to be made.

One difference is that the German civilians were not ready to die in their millions resisting the Allied armies...the Japanese civilians were. The estimates that are usually cited for how many casualties would have resulted if the U.S. had been forced to invade the home islands of Japan are probably gross underestimates. If you consider how many civilians died during the Okinawa campaign (many by suicide) it's not unlikely that millions of Japanese civilians would have died. Some individuals who were killed by the atom bombs might have survived, but the overall death toll would have been far higher.

That's quite apart from the number of Americans who would have died...a lot of us wouldn't be here because our fathers or grandfathers would have been killed in the invasion.

This doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. Granted, people and especially governments often do things that don't make much sense. But the overwhelming consideration is that a bomb used against Japan would not be available against Germany, and the U.S. was not likely to have a surplus of bombs in time to do much good. If, as you say, little thought was given to using the atomic bomb against Germany, it may be because the planners foresaw that the war in Europe would indeed be over before the bomb was ready; if they had been wrong, plans could have been changed.

Probably Groves's greatest fear was that the war would be entirely over before the Manhattan District accomplished its task.