Sara Porter
Coursework Question 3.
‘In what ways did the British government attempt to hide the effects of the Blitz from the people of Britain?’
The British government attempted to hide the effects of the Blitz from the British people in many ways. The most common was censorship. The government banned anything that would demoralise the public. They did not want to print anything that would make people feel as if they were being defeated. Many photographs and stories were not published until after the Blitz had ended. These actions were imposed after the Treachery Act was set up in 1940. It gave the government the right to imprison anyone who seemed likely to threaten the safety of the country. Therefore, anyone who did something that may demoralise people was imprisoned as a demoralised country was more likely to surrender. This Act stopped radio and newspapers revealing the full story of incidents. However, the public did not agree with the Act and it was quietly dropped but censorship still continued. The public knew they were not being told the whole story but they did not know how much was being kept from them. Propaganda was also used widely to combat bad news and to keep people’s spirit up. It was needed greatly when the Germans started dropping leaflets on England with demoralising content. English propaganda had to counter this before it made too much of an impact on the people.
Newspapers were the medium that was affected most by the government’s attempts. They had to mix censorship with propaganda and make it believable to the public. Many photographs that showed death or destruction were censored but some mild ones were allowed to be shown. If all photographs concerning the Blitz were censored, the public would become suspicious and this could have a more damaging effect than the photographs would. Also, people from surrounding towns could see fires and bombing occurring in the cities. There would have been no point in denying it. Many stories that could have upset and demoralised people greatly would not have been printed. There are several incidents that were not revealed until a much later date. Examples of these were the Balham tube station accident and the Catford Girls’ School bombing. Both disasters were never mentioned at the time. The newspapers also didn’t report on the trekking that people did. This would have shown that people were giving up and would have tempted more people to give up as well. The news that was reported was often altered to sound better than it really was. Any victories were exaggerated and the voluntary services were made to sound like heroes, particularly the Auxiliary Fire Service (A.F.S). They were nicknamed ‘heroes of the night’ by the media. This was mainly to reassure the people that everyone was coping and that Britain was slowly winning. Some stories were invented for propaganda purposes. These were particularly about the victories of the voluntary services and the armed forces. These were done to raise the people’s morale. More news about victories would have made the people feel good about the war. They would have felt like they were winning.
