The 'failure' stemmed from their refusal to accept the surrender terms, not from misunderstanding them.
...but various parties attempts to negotiate showed that they didn't accept/understand that the Allied position WAS clear and final. In this case - not accepting
is the same as misunderstanding; misunderstanding that the Allies REALLY meant what they said.
As to why they would accept it, the psychological effect of such a weapon would undermine any resolve they held on to.
Hitler's resolve held on through quite a lot of major hammerblows!
But their belief and continued resistance means little because the allies aren't held to any deadline. So what if there is a span of 6 months between the second and third bombs. What matters is ...
....don't forget WHY they Atomic Bomb was eventually used on the Home Islands - to prevent the otherwise great loss of life in OLYMPIC/CORONET. Even if the Allies haven't managed to force an expensive break-in onto the Continent by the time the Bomb was ready - they'll still be heam.....heamhor....
bleeding trained aircrew and aircraft day by day. Another six full months of USAAF bombing by day, Bomber Command by night...
at full 1943-44 loss rates?
Could they
really keep
that up through 1945?
So what if there is a span of 6 months between the second and third bombs.
Six months? That's a long time for the Germans to study the side-effects of the
first bomb - and plan accordingly...
A/ stockpile civil defence equipment just outside city centres, so it's not destroyed in the blast;
B/ have heavy moving equipment to hand to clear debris blocked streets...dozer blades on obsolete tanks?;
C/ prepare for thousands of burn casualties;
D/ establish a people-heavy monitoring network to monitor fallout drift and spread and disseminate information
E/ embark on a morale-boosting campaign minimising the potential effects of a Bomb - what's German for "
Duck and Cover"?
...in fact, time to embark on all the things the Americans and British did when the Atomic Age began!
They're
already long through the process of moving vital war factories and installations underground, and building huge civilian shelters in urban areas...
Then there's the
other little issue...you've just proven to the Germans that an Atomic Bomb
CAN work, it is NOT a huge hundred ton-plus airdropped reactor allowed to go critcal and then somehow airdropped - as Heisenberg thought it was
initially! Remember how short a time it took him to work out what the Bomb REALLY was when imprisoned at Farm Hall after the war -
once he knew it COULD be carried in a plane??? And that was the ONLY datum he needed....
Remember too that these were the same Germans who had quite a lot of laboratory-enriched uranium to hand by the end of the war
....!
Think giving them six months would be a good idea?
Twenty years ago we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Cash, no Hope and no Jobs....
Lord, please keep Kevin Bacon alive...