EIB Étoile

Mention européenne – Terminale

M. Georges

THE BLITZ

I. TIMELINE (SEPT 7, 1940 – MAY 11, 1941)

DEFINITION
Intense bombing campaign undertaken by Nazi Germany against the United Kingdom during
World War II. For eight months the Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and other strategic
cities across Britain. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg
(“lightning war”).
CONTEXT
With the surrender of France in June 1940, Germany’s sole remaining enemy lay across the
English Channel. On July 16, 1940, Hitler issued a directive ordering the preparation and, if
necessary, execution of Operation Sea Lion, the amphibious invasion of Great Britain.
With Britain’s powerful Royal Navy controlling the surface approaches in the Channel and the
North Sea, it fell to the Luftwaffe to establish dominance of the skies above the battle zone.
On August 2, Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring issued his “Eagle Day” directive, laying
down a
plan of attack in which a few massive blows from the air were to destroy British air power and so
open the way for the invasion.
During the first day of the Blitz, in just a few hours, 430 people were killed and 1,600 were badly
injured. The first day of the Blitz is remembered as Black Saturday. Beginning on Black Saturday,
London was attacked on 57 straight nights.
BUSINESS AS USUAL ?
Londoners, while maintaining the work, business, and efficiency of their city, displayed
remarkable fortitude. During the whole period, although the city’s operation was disrupted in
ways that were sometimes serious, no essential service was more than temporarily impaired. No
significant cut was made in necessary social services, and public and private premises, except
when irreparably damaged, were repaired as speedily as possible.
In many cases the daily life of the city was able to resume with delays of only hours.
The raids on London primarily targeted the Docklands area of the East End. This hub of
industry and trade represented a legitimate military target for the Germans, and some 25,000
bombs were dropped on the Port of London alone. However, the Docklands was also a densely
populated and impoverished area where thousands of working-class Londoners lived in run-
down housing. The raids hurt Britain’s war production, but they also killed many civilians and left
many others homeless.
The Luftwaffe saturated the city. Air-raid damage was widespread; hospitals, clubs, churches,
museums, residential and shopping streets, hotels, public houses, theatres, schools, monuments,
newspaper offices, embassies, and the London Zoo were bombed.
BLITZ EXPANDS OUTSIDE OF LONDON
The Germans expanded the Blitz to other cities in November 1940. The most heavily bombed
cities outside London were Liverpool and Birmingham. Other targets included Sheffield,
Manchester, Coventry, and Southampton. The attack on Coventry was particularly destructive.
On November 14, 1940, a German force of more than 500 bombers destroyed much of the old
city centre and killed more than 550 people. The devastation was so great that the Germans
coined a new verb, “to coventrate,” to describe it.
In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. Raids
between February and May pounded Plymouth, Portsmouth, Bristol, Newcastle upon Tyne, and
Hull in England; Swansea in Wales; Belfast in Northern Ireland; and Clydeside in Scotland.

Londoners enjoyed three weeks of uneasy peace until May 10–11, the night of a full moon, when
the Luftwaffe launched the most intense raid of the Blitz. London seemed ablaze from the docks
to Westminster, much damage was done, and casualties were high.
More than 500 German planes dropped more than 700 tons of bombs across the city, killing
nearly 1,500 people and destroying 11,000 homes. The House of Commons, Westminster Abbey,
and the British Museum were severely damaged, and The Temple was almost completely
destroyed.
Although there were some comparatively slight raids later in 1941, the most notable one on July
27, the May 10–11 attack marked the conclusion of the Blitz.

II. FACING THE BLITZ

SEEKING FOR SHELTERS
When the Blitz began, the government enforced a blackout in an attempt to make targeting more
difficult for German night bombers. Streetlights, car headlights, and illuminated signs were kept
off. People hung black curtains in their windows so that no lights showed outside their houses.
When a bombing raid was imminent, air-raid sirens were set off to sound a warning.
Very early in the German bombing campaign, it became clear that the preparations—however
extensive they seemed to have been—were inadequate. Many of the surface shelters built by local
authorities were flimsy and provided little protection from bombs, falling debris, and fire.
Some 27 percent of Londoners utilized private shelters, such as Anderson shelters, while the
remaining 64 percent spent their evenings on duty with some branch of the civil defense or
remained in their own homes.
Days later a group of East Enders occupied the shelter at the upscale Savoy Hotel, and many
others (up to 180 000 people) began to take refuge in the city’s underground railway, or Tube,
stations. This option had been forbidden by city officials, who feared that once people began
sleeping in Underground stations, they would be reluctant to return to the surface and resume
daily life. As more and more people began sleeping on the platforms, however, the government
relented and provided bunk beds and bathrooms for the underground communities. The use of
the Tube system as a shelter saved thousands of lives, and images of Londoners huddled in
Underground stations would become an indelible image of British life during World War II.
Dissatisfaction with public shelters also led to another notable development in the East End—
Mickey’s Shelter. After his optician business was destroyed by a bomb, Mickey Davies led an
effort to organize the Spitalfield Shelter. As many as 5,000 people had packed into this network
of underground tunnels, which was dangerously overcrowded, dirty, and dark. Guided by Davies,
the people of the shelter created an ad hoc government and established a set of rules. Davies also
set up medical stations and persuaded off-duty medical personnel to treat the sick and wounded.
The success of Mickey’s Shelter was another factor that urged the government to improve
existing “deep shelters” and to create new ones.
OUTCOME
The Blitz was devastating for the people of London and other cities. In the eight months of
attacks, some 43,000 civilians were killed. This amounted to nearly half of Britain’s total civilian
deaths for the whole war. One of every six Londoners was made homeless at some point during
the Blitz, and at least 1.1 million houses and flats were damaged or destroyed.
Nevertheless, for all the hardship it caused, the campaign proved to be a strategic mistake by the
Germans. Hitler’s intention had been to break the morale of the British people so they would
pressure their government to surrender.
Morale did suffer amid the death and devastation, but there were few calls for surrender. The
phrase “Business as usual,” written in chalk on boarded-up shop windows, exemplified the
British determination to “keep calm and carry on” as best they could.
From a purely military perspective, the Blitz was entirely counterproductive to the main purpose
of Germany’s air offensive—to dominate the skies in advance of an invasion of England.
By mid-September 1940 the RAF had won the Battle of Britain, and the invasion was postponed
indefinitely. Air power alone had failed to knock the United Kingdom out of the war.
On May 11, 1941, Hitler called off the Blitz as he shifted his forces eastward against the Soviet
Union.

III. THE MYTH OF THE BLITZ

A MYTH
The account of the Blitz - as Britain's major cities experienced a sustained and unrelenting
bombardment by Nazi Germany - has been etched into our country's conscience ever since the
war years. The question has to be asked, however, as to whether the subsequent victory in the
war, and the following 60 years, have coloured the way in which it is now generally seen?
The myth is that we all pulled together, that spirits were up as young and old, upper and lower
classes muddled through together with high morale under the onslaught of the Nazis.
But the 'Myth of the Blitz' is just that - a myth. As members of the establishment were able to
take refuge in country houses, in comfort and out of the way of the bombs, or in expensive
basement clubs in the city, the lower-middle and working classes were forced to stay in the cities
and face up to the deadly raids with inadequate provision for shelter.
It was a time of terror, confusion and anger.
In its attempts to cover up low morale, the government tried to show that life in London was
carrying on as normal, and there was much coverage in the press of people going to parties,
dining out and clubbing in the West End. This propaganda certainly backfired in London.
The majority of the population, particularly in the East End, were not dining and partying in
reinforced basement clubs. For them, shelter was either completely non-existent, or extremely
poor.
Since 1945 the contours of British memory have been shaped by a particular cultural-historical
interpretation of the Second World War which gives prominence to the summer of 1940 as a
transformative episode in British society.
It is this orthodox view which Angus Calder sought to confront with the publication of ‘The
Myth of the Blitz’ in 1991.
Calder’s primary contention relates to the manner in which representations of the war in Britain –
which he suggests are centred on the mythological triad of Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain and the
Blitz – are predicated upon the acceptance and internalisation of wartime propaganda.
In essence, the rhetorical oratory of Churchill, the scripted radio broadcasts and the staged
cinematography, have been used by academics, politicians and laymen alike as a factual guide to
the realities of the war. This has led to a narrow, nostalgic and politically malleable collective
memory of 1940 which reinforces a certain form of British identity.
In a sense the quantitative empiricism of The Myth of the Blitz can be seen as a continuation of a
wider trend of European revisionism which emerged in the 1960s, concerned as it was with
renegotiating the realities of the Second World War. Calder’s most noteworthy addition to the
field, then, was to highlight how memory evolves and is appropriated to define national identity
and give meaning to contemporary situations.
The Myth of the Blitz remains an important milestone in the critical analysis of the memory of
the Second World War in Britain.