It has been a long year since I last posted. This was mainly due to my final year studies at University as I could not publish any of my work until I had graduated. But I am excited to be back posting Historical content and what better place to start with my dissertation.
My dissertation was about destabilizing the common myth of the Blitz held by the government and media. Over the next few weeks I am excited to share my research over why I believe there was a myth created during the Blitz and why it has been upheld until today.
This first blog post gives an introduction into the myth of the Blitz and why it is so important to destabilize this myth.
Churchill's intense desire to uphold high civilian morale and resilience, gave rise to the term ‘Blitz spirit’. I argue the ‘Blitz spirit’ has been exaggerated by popular memory and historians, when in reality there was much civilian suffering and hardship, depleting morale. There was intense public fear during the Blitz which began on 7th September 1940 and finished 11th May 1941. Some 43,000 citizens were killed, meaning it was unlikely that there was anyone in Britain who did not know of someone who was killed or badly injured.
The legacy of people suffering during the Blitz has been written out in favor of nostalgia for a war, in which society supposedly all came together to fight Nazism. Regardless of whether the ‘Blitz spirit’ is a myth or not, it is too simplistic to cast the same level of morale over all areas of Britain.
My focused case study was the East End, where there was the most destructive and sustained bombardment. The docks being the industrial heart of London meant they were a continuous primary target for the Luftwaffe (German Bombers). The East End was the first part of London the Luftwaffe came to and the River Thames became a clear path to guide in the bombers. This explains why the East End suffered a disproportionate amount of bombardment. East Enders were labelled by the media as heroic survivors, an image belied by personal accounts which show the inherent struggle.
Britain’s experience during the Blitz is often remembered by historians through rose tinted glasses of national unity. This nationalist pride was driven by government propaganda produced at the time encouraging steadfastness, cheerfulness, and self-sacrifice. Traditional wartime historians such as Richard Titmuss, Robert Mckay and John Ray have concealed any sense of civilian struggles as they judge the public’s response to the bombings as magnificent, without considering the primary evidence. They give a broad overview of the nation’s mood, which is misguided, as different areas of the country were catastrophically more affected by the bombs than others. Through my research, I have found evidence of people feeling anything but heroic as they lived in fear and misery.
Since the 1990’s, revisionist historians such as Angus Calder have destabilized this notion of ‘Blitz spirit’. He argues a myth has been created post-war that civilians upheld high morale, which obscures the reality of war. I strongly support Calder’s argument, as to gain an accurate understanding of morale you have to look at all the evidence provided, rather than gauge a general consensus based on government propaganda.
Films, art and literature were guilty of presenting the British public in the Blitz as self-sacrificing and relentlessly cheerful, whilst ignoring the vast cases of human suffering. Such propaganda images repeated in the media, and endorsed by national leaders, are the ones that have found their place in the popular mythology of the Blitz. There has been continued debate as to whether these formidable attitudes remained so resilient through such a trying time.
Michal Shapira acknowledges the psychological impact on civilians, as the Blitz subjected millions of people to terror, destruction and loss. Shapira highlights how during World War Two, there was little development of psychoanalysis. Contrary to pre-war fears, the psychiatric wards were not over-run. Yet, mental distresses can present themselves in different ways and the lack of psychiatric knowledge could explain why an illusion of high morale was created, as signs of depression and anxiety could not be as easily diagnosed like today.
Analysing private memoirs gives us a more realistic view of how ordinary people coped with the atrocities at the time, rather than the propaganda image created by government. The use of individual testimonies enables a more thorough and synthesized study of morale. Memoirs tell us less about the events and more about the emotional impact of them.
Examining Home Intelligence Reports (HIR) in conjunction with personal memoirs shows there was more hardship than initial studies show. Kenneth Clark, Controller of Home Publicity in the Ministry of Information (MOI), explains that there was greater trauma than government revealed:
'In retrospect the only interesting feature was the amount of evidence that came in on how low morale in England was, much lower than anybody had ever dared to say. But there was obviously nothing that we could do about it.'[1]
It is apparent that the government was aware of the suffering, yet they chose to ignore it during and after the war, which was a tactical political act. There was a lack of support from government to prevent the breakdown of morale; instead, they focused on intense propaganda campaigns which made many suffer in silence. The focus of this dissertation will therefore highlight the lack of provisions and support given to civilians from government, which caused fluctuations in morale.
Overall, this dissertation aims to argue there were declines in morale throughout the Blitz by giving a voice to those who suffered. By focusing on the most bombed area of London, the East End, a rather different picture emerges. The primary evidence deployed will demonstrate that the popular myth of the ‘Blitz spirit’ is at odds with the reality.
[Note: This article is not an exact copy of my dissertation. Edits have been made for blog purposes]
[1] T. Harrison, Living Through the Blitz, (London, 1976), p.288.
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