The Blitz refers to the carpet-bombing conducted by the Germans against cities in England from September 1940 through to May 1941. The Blitz began after Hitler gave up his attempt to invade Britain in September 1940. This had been called 'Operation Sealion'. The first German attack on London occurred by accident. On the night of August 24th 1940, Luftwaffe bombers aiming for military targets on the outskirts of London actually dropped their bombs on the centre of London destroying homes and killing civilians. Hitler believed bombs could knock out a country in weeks. The Prime Minister Winston Churchill believed it was a deliberate attack and ordered Berlin to be bombed the next evening. Night raids held up productions of munitions.
Around 40 bombs hit Berlin but inflicted minimal property damage. A second British bombing raid on 28/29 August resulted in Germans killed on the ground and two nights later, a third attack occurred.
The Nazi's were outraged. In a speech on September 4th, Hitler threatened "...When the British Air Force drops two or three or four thousand kilograms of bombs, then we will in one night drop 150-, 230-, 300- or 400,000 kilograms. When they declare that they will increase their attacks on our cities, then we will raze their cities to the ground. We will stop the handiwork of those night air pirates, so help us God!" This was a terror campaign to frighten the enemy not to do something. Hitler felt bombing would make people go mad and would lead to demands for surrender.
On September 7th 1940, London was bombed. Luftwaffe had targeted Royal Air Force airfields and support installations and had nearly destroyed the entire British air defence system. The next night, German bombers came again, attacking the London Docks.
Hitler justified the Blitz by claiming that German bombers were attacking military targets. German propaganda described attacks on war factories and installations, but most German bombing was at night and was indiscriminate.
The Blitz was an attempt to destroy industry. The docks were attacked in London regularly. The Luftwaffe also tried to hit railway lines, junctions, power stations and gasholders.
Other British important cities attacked during the Blitz included; Portsmouth, Southampton, Plymouth's naval base, Exeter, Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Birmingham, Coventry, Nottingham, Norwich, Ipswich, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Hull, Middlesborough, Sunderland, Newcastle and also Glasgow, Scotland and Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The success in bombing London by night encourages Germans to try and attack during the day. On 15th September they attacked London during daylight. This was the biggest raid of the war so far.
Hitler's intention was to break the morale of the British people so that they would pressure Churchill into negotiating. However, the bombing had the opposite effect, bringing English people together to face an enemy.
By the end of 1940, German air raids had killed 15,000 British civilians. One of the worst attacks occurred on the night of November 14th against Coventry, an industrial city east of Birmingham. 449 German bombers dropped 1,400 high explosives bombs and 100,000 incendiaries, which destroyed 50,000 buildings and killed 568 people. Churchill had been told in advance of this raid because the secret intelligence centre had been able to decode monitored Luftwaffe orders with it's German "Enigma" coding machine. Churchill had been unable to increase Coventry's defences or give warning.
Attacks died down in May 1941 as the Germans moved planes east to prepare for the invasion of the Soviet Union.