How the British Government Attempted to Hide the Effects of the Blitz from the People of Britain

How the British Government Attempted to Hide the Effects of the Blitz from the People of Britain

During the Blitz the British government had to employ many tactics to

keep the morale of its citizens up. The main and most wide spread was

propaganda. The propaganda was so successful; in fact, it even brought

about new sayings such as "The spirit of the Blitz". The second

frequently used tactic was censorship. The newspapers, the radio

stations, the news reels, and everything else which reported about the

war effort was censored; so that either only victories were reported

in the news, or that terrible losses were reported in such a way that

they no longer seemed so bad.

The worst hit areas were East London and Coventry. There around 13,000

dead in Londonalone and around 10,000 in the rest of Britain. 5,000 of

which died in one night after a bombing of a factory in Coventry. Due

to this many people went to seek shelter. "Trekking" was a popular way

to escape the bombings. People who lived in cities, especially

northern ones, would go into the country side with some of their

valuables and spend their time in the open until the bombings ended.

The second mainly occurred in London. Thousands of people, even after

the government had said not to, went to Underground stations and

camped there on the platforms.

In 1914 WW1 the act called defence of realm was brought out, this was

to protect the country from war-time evils such as low morale, which

the government feared would lead to low productivity, scepticism, and

inefficiency throughout the country. This act was also put into effect

during World War 2, but only after 41 nights of fierce bombings by the

Germans.

The methods employed by the government were "Black Outs", curfews, the

watering down of alcohol alongside earlier closing times for pubs,

originally the closing of all sources of entertainment, all topped off

by the censoring of any news that would get to the public.

"Black Outs" were introduced under the premise that the German