Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: October 24, International Red Cross Committee official calls for prohibition of nuclear weapons
Oct. 24, 2024
by Kyosuke Mizukawa, Senior Staff Writer
On October 24, 1945, Fritz Bilfinger, an official at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Delegation in Japan who died in 1993, finished writing a classified report involving the atomic bombings. Even after investigating hospitals in Hiroshima on August 30 and sending a telegram to Dr. Marcel Junod, head of the ICRC Delegation in Japan, requesting that he send relief supplies, Mr. Bilfinger continued to record in detail the reality of the devastation in the city.
In the classified report, Fritz Bilfinger wrote about the situation in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, describing how victims on the street near the hypocenter were so completely burned that their identification had been impossible, based on information he had obtained from listening to people on the ground. He also wrote about the seriousness of the effects of radiation exposure, attaching information on the cases of four victims who had died with symptoms of bleeding gums and decreased white blood cell counts.
In the report’s conclusion, Mr. Bilfinger urged the ICRC to exercise its influence to prohibit the use of atomic energy as a destructive force.
The report is currently stored at the ICRC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. A 2010 declaration made by the ICRC president at the time focusing on the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons provided momentum for the establishment of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in 2017.
Meanwhile, on August 10, 1945, the Japanese government registered a protest with the United States against that country’s use of the “new type of bomb.” In a telegram dated August 29 sent to then-Japan Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu (archived at the Diplomatic Archives Collection, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan), Suemasa Okamoto, Japan’s envoy to the neutral Sweden at the time, wrote that he was able to discern pangs of conscience among the citizenry of the Allied nations in the readers’ column of a British newspaper and elsewhere, suggesting that, “There is still room to hit the enemy’s weaknesses if we use everything at our disposal, such as legislatures and media, to skillfully announce the extreme inhumanity [of the atomic bombings].”
Mixed in the telegram’s message was his intent to change public opinion in the Allied nations, which had desired “rather draconian measures” (as written in the telegram) taken against Japan, by emphasizing the inhumane nature of the weapon. Clause 10 of the Potsdam Declaration, which was accepted by Japan, states that, “Stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners.”
According to a U.S. report on the interception of a telegram dated September 15, a September 13 telegram from Foreign Minister Shigemitsu to the envoys of three neutral countries, including Switzerland, stated that the United States was criticizing Japan for mistreating prisoners of war and that Japan should use the issue of the atomic bombings as part of a propaganda campaign. However, on September 19, the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers (GHQ) issued a press code that would restrict reporting on the atomic bombings. Ultimately, even Japan’s diplomatic missions in neutral countries closed, leading to abandonment of the idea.
(Originally published on October 24, 2024)
On October 24, 1945, Fritz Bilfinger, an official at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Delegation in Japan who died in 1993, finished writing a classified report involving the atomic bombings. Even after investigating hospitals in Hiroshima on August 30 and sending a telegram to Dr. Marcel Junod, head of the ICRC Delegation in Japan, requesting that he send relief supplies, Mr. Bilfinger continued to record in detail the reality of the devastation in the city.
In the classified report, Fritz Bilfinger wrote about the situation in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, describing how victims on the street near the hypocenter were so completely burned that their identification had been impossible, based on information he had obtained from listening to people on the ground. He also wrote about the seriousness of the effects of radiation exposure, attaching information on the cases of four victims who had died with symptoms of bleeding gums and decreased white blood cell counts.
In the report’s conclusion, Mr. Bilfinger urged the ICRC to exercise its influence to prohibit the use of atomic energy as a destructive force.
The report is currently stored at the ICRC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. A 2010 declaration made by the ICRC president at the time focusing on the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons provided momentum for the establishment of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in 2017.
Meanwhile, on August 10, 1945, the Japanese government registered a protest with the United States against that country’s use of the “new type of bomb.” In a telegram dated August 29 sent to then-Japan Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu (archived at the Diplomatic Archives Collection, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan), Suemasa Okamoto, Japan’s envoy to the neutral Sweden at the time, wrote that he was able to discern pangs of conscience among the citizenry of the Allied nations in the readers’ column of a British newspaper and elsewhere, suggesting that, “There is still room to hit the enemy’s weaknesses if we use everything at our disposal, such as legislatures and media, to skillfully announce the extreme inhumanity [of the atomic bombings].”
Mixed in the telegram’s message was his intent to change public opinion in the Allied nations, which had desired “rather draconian measures” (as written in the telegram) taken against Japan, by emphasizing the inhumane nature of the weapon. Clause 10 of the Potsdam Declaration, which was accepted by Japan, states that, “Stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners.”
According to a U.S. report on the interception of a telegram dated September 15, a September 13 telegram from Foreign Minister Shigemitsu to the envoys of three neutral countries, including Switzerland, stated that the United States was criticizing Japan for mistreating prisoners of war and that Japan should use the issue of the atomic bombings as part of a propaganda campaign. However, on September 19, the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers (GHQ) issued a press code that would restrict reporting on the atomic bombings. Ultimately, even Japan’s diplomatic missions in neutral countries closed, leading to abandonment of the idea.
(Originally published on October 24, 2024)