Question 1
Why were the major cities of Britain bombed by the Germans in 1940-41?
Between September 1940 to mid-1941, Britain had come under heavy fire from German aircraft on some of the most historic and essential city in the nation. There were a number of key points which caused this devastating implication to the civilians of Britain.
One reason why the Luftwaffe commenced these attacks is due to the failure of Operation Sealion. Hitler was beginning to get impatient because of the number of German planes he had lost. This was due to the British having a piece of cutting edge technology in the form of RADAR. The Blitz therefore started because Hitler was afraid that the Battle of Britain would end up causing more damage than could be repairable soon enough. Hitler was under the impression that changing tactics to the Blitz would save planes which could be used to create lebensraum (living space) in the USSR. He intended to invade the Soviet Union in a planned attack following the expected British surrender. It was due to this fear of losing planes, Hitler decided the Blitz should be carried out at night because the planes would be less easily detectible.
Another reason why the Blitz started was because of the British bombing of Berlin. Hitler became enraged and wanted revenge. The Blitz led to disorder, rioting and looting of shops. Hitler also hoped that morale would be down after the bombing of cultural sites of historic importance like Coventry. This was successful to a certain extent however it wasn't as low overall as Hitler had hoped. Hitler wanted morale to be virtually dead and this would hopefully cause civilians to see that resistance is useless.
Hitler also anticipated that people would demand the government to surrender and stop the bombing. As well as abolishing morale, Hitler wanted to destroy ports so Germany would have an advantage at sea. He eventually hoped to achieve control of land, air and sea with the help of the blitz...