Hitler was aware that to defeat the British, he needed to assistance from the British. After conquering most of Western Europe he was not expecting such a great opponent in Britain, and so creating an environment where the British people would want to surrender seemed to most reasonable idea. His logic in these attacks to come was that if the British people witnessed their homes destroyed and their loved ones killed, then they would surely force the government to come to terms with Hitler’s demands. Although he claimed that his targets were industrial areas and places where weapons were created, he attacked most British cities, nearly all with the greatest populations within cities throughout Britain, such as London, Glasgow, Belfast, Birmingham, Manchester, Coventry and many more. Even when he ended the Blitz in main London, he still managed to destroy the maximum amount of people possible. He ended the Blitz in Britain with the heaviest raid of all on the 10th May 1941, in which nearly 1500 people lost their lives. He was ruthless in his attacks, and across Britain the German’s dropped, on average 200 tonnes of bombs every twenty-four hours. These bombs came in a variety of forms, each as deadly as the next. The most common were incendiaries, which were small bombs that burst into flames when they hit the ground. Others were high explosives bombs, and, the most dangerous of all, land mines. These were sent to the land using parachutes and designed to explode later. All these had devastating effects on Britain, where thousands of people’s lives were lost, and many more made homeless. Sometimes whole families where destroyed overnight, or else only a few members would survive, and now and then it was only the children who lived to fight another day. The Blitz only ended when the German fighters needed to be collected before the attack on the Soviet Union.
Between June and September 1940, Hitler created the Battle of Britain. This was where German fighters attacked British fighter’s using their own Air Force. The British RAF was so powerful that the German’s were eventually defeated, and so Hitler needed another form of attack on Britain if he stood any chance of conquering us, and then the world; this lead to the creation of the Blitz. Hitler waited until the German bombers were under the cover of nightfall before sending then across Britain, dropping bombs of mass destruction and obliterating many of the British people and their homes. “Operation Sealion” was an attempt to invade Britain in September 1940. However, this was postponed and so again Hitler was reminded that other tactics were required if the Nazis were ever going to beat Britain. Many German generals were completely against Hitler’s ideas of invasion since the shipping needed to transport land armies from Germany to Britain for such an attack were no longer available to the Germans. This was due to the loss of many ships during the invasion of Norway, although the people of Britain did not know this at the time. Germany had to use methods of attack that they had not yet been required to use when conquering other countries in Europe. They needed a system of assault on Britain that would cause the most impact to both the people in Britain and the industry in Britain.
Hitler’s justification of the Blitz was that the bombers only assaulted areas of military targets (such as training camps, factories producing weapons, etc). However this was not true. Although he did start the Blitz by attacking the docks in London, he swiftly began to move up the Thames and commenced attacks on the East End. These attacks did not stop there however. With ports in towns such as Plymouth, Portsmouth, etc, he also felt the need to attack further into the country and destroy people’s lives and homes. He extended to most of the afore mentioned major cities of Britain, showing that’s this was not just an industrial attack. However, he did still destroy many industrial areas in Britain for example railway lines, junctions, power stations and gas holders; all these of vital importance to the run of the country, especially in a dire time when industry is of utmost importance. He managed to destroy so much industry as many factories were situated in or around the major towns and cities of Britain. He also sent bombers to military sites and factories where weapons were created. This had the biggest impact that it could have had on the defence of Britain, with so many vital industries being destroyed in weeks.
So, in summary of this information, Hitler’s only aim for the Blitz was to force the British to surrender to him, as all the other countries he had invaded previously had already done. There were three main reasons for choosing bombing or the Blitz as his method of attack. The first was to try and force the normal people of Britain into such a desperate situation that they would actually propel the British Government to surrender to Hitler and his fascist terms. The second was that bombing Britain under the cover of darkness was an alternate method of attack on Britain in an attempt to conquer her. He had already tried other forms of attack, and this was the one that he stayed with for so long. Finally, Hitler needed to destroy British industry as much as possible and therefore obliterate most of the army, navy and air force’s resources if he stood any chance of defeating them, and conquering the world.