Alberti, Agostino/Merli, Luca I Blitz

Le offensive aeree della Luftwaffe sul Regno Unito

Traditional historiographyat least in our languagehas consistently downplayed, if not disparaged, the history of the Luftwaffes air raids on Great Britain. In short, the prevailing view was that the Germans lacked the means for a strategic bombing campaign. The indomitable British peoplewhose morale was supposedly unshaken by the enemy air offensivewere said to have seen the situation through. Fundamentally, the Blitz was regarded as merely a minor side note to the Battle of Britain. This study, however, demonstrates that this was not the case. In 194041, the Luftwaffe was the finest air force in the world and was fully capable of planning and executing a strategic air offensive. At that time, no one possessed the necessary resources for such an air operation. Yet, it is both unfair and conceptually flawed to compare the events of the early war years with the achievements of Bomber Command and the US Eighth Air Force in 1944 and 1945. In reality, during the era of the "Blitz Spirit," British civilian morale was on the verge of collapse by late spring 1941. Drawing on primary documents and an extensive English-language bibliography, this study also examines two other Luftwaffe air offensives: the Baedeker raids of spring 1942 and the "Baby Blitz" of 1944.