You should be carefull with your tantrum, Someguy.
Scientist started to detect and understand radiation and the effects of it since Marie Curie and her husband experimented with it at the end of the 19th century. Even though the whole concept of nuclear science and it's dangers was not completely understood, the scientists had a vague idea that radiation, beeing a very potent form of energy, was dangerous. Many people died directly or indirectly from radiation even before WW1, to believe that no one ever cared about it or understood the potential, is silly.
Yes, they also treated nuclear technology very often in a lax way - but this was definetly NOT(!) only limited to the 1950s, but actually for a very long time, particularly in the military, even up to the 1980s. Scientists regularly warned officials, military leaders and politicans about the dangers and effects of nuclear technology.
Don't assume everyone in the 1950s was some kind of mongoloid when it comes to technology and nuclear science. Even though they didn't knew everything, and hence made many mistakes, not just out of hubris or ignorance. But because of preasure. Particularly political preasure. They perfectly well understood the dangers and exposition with nuclear tests, which is one of the reasons why they would usually not detonate nuclear bombs if the wind was moving in highly populated areas. They very well understood the dangers. But it was simply a calculated risk in their eyes, which they accepted to beat the Soviets. Particularly since the Soviets had already the nuclear bomb in 1949, at least 5-6 years earlier than expected. Which created a very high preasure on the scientists to create new technologies, and more importantly, new weapons, as fast as possible, to stay on the edge against the Soviets. And the Soviets did the same. You find this lax in many areas, not just nuclear technology. Look at the whole space programm of the 1960s with all of the accidents and mistakes. Simply because everyone wanted to be the first in the race to the moon.
It is true, many effects of radiation have been not understood in the 1950s, particularly long term effects of very low yields of radiation, and the relation to certain kinds of sickness, like some rare kinds of cancer. But to say that people had no general knowledge about the dangers of radiation in the 1950s would be very wrong. Tests and particularly the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have told the scientists and military personal that much.
Political preasure and fear of the other side happend in the west just as it did in the east, which has lead to a lot of mistakes, just as well as ignorance and naivity did. Today we can only laugh about many of the 1950s ideas and concepts, particularly the kind of protection and measures they taught to the public. But many scientists, and in fact as we know today, even a large part of the public, didn't really believe that it was possible for the large part of the civilian population to survive a full nuclear war.
And I say this again. If robots, power armors, and pretty ANYTHING else that works on fusion/fission in Fallout doesn't explode in nuclear mushroom clouds, it is save to assume that cars would neither. Simply because in the 2070s of Fallout, they would have found a way to make that technology save. Even if the 1950s have been not allways about safety. There is no reason to assume the 2070s of Fallout would be exactly the same and the exact mirror of the 1950s. The 1950s had also the idea that the people of the future would have mastered the atom and everything around it to such a degree that we could manipulate it as easily like building a radio or bicycle.
Turns out the fine details of the depiction of nuclear power in 1950's american pop culture does not take up too much space in german curriculi.
To be fair, historically speaking this missconception and naivity was also true for Germany. At least for some.
But I think this had more to do with the fact that certain people, like Adenauer and Stauß hoped to arm the newly founded German Bundeswehr with it's own nuclear arsenal. In that sense, Adenauer once described nuclear weapons, naively as just another form of artillery. Now, maybe he was really believing it and didn't saw anything more in it than just a new kind of weapon, with more reach. But I somehow doubt it.
We know from Strauß that he saw nuclear weapons as the weapons of the future, and that a nation who want's to be equall with all the other powers, needs nuclear weapons, which I think was not too far from reality. All sides had a huge fear of nuclear weapons and saw a very high potential in it. This allone shows us that anyone with a brain, knew about the dangers.
The German population though was never all to happy about nuclear weapons.
