Word: hitler
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Hitler could not believe it. The French had been defeated, the war won, and the British must see reason. In a speech to the Reichstag, he jeered at the idea of Churchill's fighting on in Canada, but he offered to make peace. "I can see no reason why this war must go on," he said. Churchill decided not even to answer, leaving it to Lord Halifax to declare, "We shall not stop fighting until freedom is secure." Hitler was again lying. Just three days before his "peace speech" on July 19, he had officially told his commanders, "I have...
...have enough ships for such a broad front, and those it did have would be overwhelmed by the stronger British fleet. And who had control of the skies? If there was any doubt, said Goring, his Luftwaffe could smash the Royal Air Force within a few weeks. Hitler thereupon ordered the Luftwaffe "to overcome the British air force with all means at its disposal," so that the invasion could begin Sept...
...were the defenders and their bases. Then there occurred another one of those almost accidental twists. Two German bombers on their way to attack aircraft factories at Rochester strayed over central London and dropped their bombs on the hitherto unattacked capital. Churchill promptly ordered several retaliatory raids on Berlin. Hitler, unaware of his increasing success against the R.A.F. installations, made the mistake of ordering further retaliations against London. And so, while the R.A.F. won a vital reprieve, the citizens of London had to undergo the blitz, the greatest bombardment any city until then had ever suffered...
...Just as Hitler had thought that Britain would give up after the fall of France, he now thought that nightly bombing would make the English rise in revolt against Churchill's pursuit of the war. (It was a miscalculation that the Allies were to repeat in their subsequent bombing of German cities.) Londoners instead took pride in their ability to endure the blitz, to spend long hours in the subway bomb shelters, to put out the fires and go on with their lives. "I saw many flags flying from staffs," Edward R. Murrow reported to America one night over...
...R.A.F. not only shot down many of the German bombers but also kept smashing the German invasion fleet being assembled in France. On one September night 84 barges were hit. Hitler was finally convinced. On Sept. 17 he formally decided "to postpone Sea Lion indefinitely." But the Battle of Britain went on. Between July and November, the Germans lost 1,733 aircraft, the British 915. Though the blitz continued until the following spring, costing about 30,000 lives in London alone, the essential result was that for the first time, Hitler's military power had been beaten back...