why did the Germans dropped bombs on Britain from 1940 onwards?

Answer 1

The Germans were planning to invade England in 1940, and the bombing attacks initially were a way to prepare for the invasion (Operation Sea Lion) by softening British defenses and destroying the Royal Air Force. However, they were unable to destroy the Royal Air Force, and were forced to call of the invasion because of that. After that point, the Germans switched to bombing cities from attacking strategic targets.

Answer 2

Initially, this was an accident. A lone German bomber, which was lost and off course, unloaded it's bombs before heading home. It did so over London. In retaliation to this the RAF, in defiance of Herman Georings public assurances that no enamy planes would fly over Reich teritory, sent a small bombing force to drop bombs on Berlin.

Hitler was furious and ordered the mass bombing of London. It should have stopped there and, if Hitler was smart, the Luftwaffe should have continued to attack British air bases and naval ports. However, Hitler hoped to break the will of the British people by bombing the cities and ensuring that his vision of total war truly envolved non combatants as well as the armed forces. It was believed that the will of the public would be broken and that they would withdraw support for a long term war.

Try watching "The Battle of Britain", a rather good film about the conflict.

Luck

Answer 3

Germany plan to invade Great Britain.And it was important that there were no resistance when they landed.The RAF must fought down for this.And Göring said my name will be Meier when the german Luftwaffe couldn´t do all for an invade.In the next years the German Luftwaffe lost a lot of planes on the Battles all over europe.Than they started more the attack by Rocket´s V2.But Britain had dropped more bombs on Germany. bad drop was on Dresden.There wasn`t so much soldiers of the german Army and the most factories was destroy.

Answer 4

Initially, the bombing (by both Britain and Germany) was intended to reduce the ability of the other side to prosecute the war.

Targets were ports, railway yards, and the factories that produced the machinery of war, and military targets such as navy ships, harbours, airfields, gun emplacements and radar stations.

Civilian targets were avoided at the outset, but the close proximity of military and ordnance targets to domestic areas, naturally led to civilian bombing. There appears to have been an unwritten agreement by both sides not to bomb each other's capitals, but after a homeward bound German bomber lost its way, and dropped its "no longer required" ordnance over London, Churchill ordered the bombing of Berlin. That took it down the road of intentional civilan bombing, and the cities and towns became targets.

Later in the war, Britain carried out 1000 bomber raids which completely overwhelmed the German defences on German towns, and used incendiary bombs to start fire storms which was intended to reduce the German people's morale and motivation to continue the war.

In the last year of the war, Germany developed the V1 and V2 rockets which were fired from German occupied posts near the channel and aimed at large towns ( as they were not very accurate). The V1, often called a "Doodlebug" could be heard approaching, and when the engine cut out, as it ran out of fuel, people below were warned of an imminent bombing. The V2 was the liquid fuelled supersonic rocket which, fired from transportable launching pads, carried a tonne of explosive, and fell out of the sky without warning, to explode when it hit the ground. Both were very destructive, and killed many civilians, but as the were not guided to target, were more feared than effective.

During this last phase of the war, Britain and USA bombing was targetting fuel production facilities and the railways in Germany and the occupied countries to reduce or prevent the Germans from moving supplies and munitions from to the fighting front.

Answer 5

Because they were at war. Hitler was determined to take England but was unsuccessful as he pointed his efforts toward the Soviet Union to take Russia (was also unsuccessful).

The bombing destroyed parts of the country, including some beautiful churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren, an English architect.

Let's put it this way; Britain has NEVER been successfully invaded since 1066. It has come dangerously close, though.

Answer 6

The Nazis, having defeated all of Western Europe, had only one country left to conquer in the year 1940 and that was Britain.

Britain being an island is not somewhere you can just walk or march into. You need boats, lots of boats.

The Germans are not a maritime nation. Britain is a very maritime nation and this is what so shocked the Germans. The ability of the British to spirit their army from the beaches of Dunkirk and have most of them back in Britain so quickly.

One former member of the Nazi German Army of WW2 said was both socked and surprised to find no British soldiers left in Dunkirk by the time his regiment had managed to get there.

You all got on the last ferry home mate.

Winston Churchill went on the radio at the BBC and told the nation that France had fallen and that soon the Battle of Britain will begin, for Hitler knows that he must defeat us in this island. We will fight them on the beaches etc.

The bombing started about September 1940 but the Nazi Luftwaffe was unable to get on to of th RAF. We had a very efficient network of Radar Stations which gave early warning of Nazi bombers taking off in France to hit targets in UK.

The Nazi Luftwaffe could quite easily have won the Battle of Britain. At first they concentrated all their efforts hitting the RAF airfields and putting them and their fighters out of action.

Very stupidly the Nazi Luftwaffe leader, Hermann Goering, decided to turn his attention to London and began bombing that instead.

This enabled the RAF to rebuild and go back into action.

Result - the Battle of Britain was won by the Royal Air Force, which comprised squadrons from the free nations, including, the Polish Squadron RAF and the Eagle Squadron RAF [Americans] - there were also Canadians, French, Czechs and even one fighter pilot from Palestine.

Had the Nazis then began to invade UK they would have been unaware that the Royal Navy Home Fleet were stationed at Scapa Flow, well out of range of any Nazi Luftwaffe bombers, even those from Norway.

The Royal Navy would have been in the English Channel by dawn of day two - the massive Home Fleet with it's unstoppable capital ships would have blasted the Nazis out of the water and destroyed anything on both shores, England and France.

In addition the British had already demonstrated their ability to set fire to the sea and had massive oil reserves which were simply pumped along pipe lines which lead to the sea burners where the oil was set ablaze.

Any Nazi army advancing towards Britain would be burnt to a crisp. Those who managed to get ashore would have to fight every inch of the way. The British Isles had been turned into a series of killing fields. Every town and village had it's machine gun nests, mined fields and also an enormous 'secret army' to deal with. Every village in England had it's own unit of the 'secret army'. It's job was to delay the Nazi advance.

Meanwhile the British kept one army south of Croydon in huge deep underground bunkers. The plan was that if the Nazis got as far as Croydon, the army would rise out of the ground. The two British armies, army one in Croydon and army two in London, would then bombard the Nazis would would now be trapped between Croydon and the River Thames.

VICTORY.

Answer 7

I agree with Saunter too, I think that's right, up to a point. A bomber dropped bombs on London by mistake and we retaliated by bombing Berlin and that really started it. I personally remember very well the first real bombing of London, it happened on a Saturday and for what its worth I was very frightened, we were living ten miles from London but could clearly see the docks burning, they were attacked again on the Sunday. Santer was right it was the preparation of the invasion of England

Answer 8

To try and terrorise the British into surrendering, break their will to resist etc. And also it was an act of frustration, as Germany failed to defeat the RAF in the Battle of Britain.

Another reason was to knock out British industry, so cities that had armament and aircraft factories were targeted, London, Portsmouth, Hatfield, Coventry etc etc.

Answer 9

becuase international conflict 2 began in sep 39 and finished in august forty 5! form of explains y bombs gto dropped over frnace germany and them enormous 2 in japan additionally! (all the bombs wer related in a international conflict)

Answer 10

First bombs were actually dropped by Germany during the first world war by Zeppelins in 1916.

Dont forget during W.W.2 we dropped bombs on Germany too, we did far more damage than they did.