Was Blitz Spirit Really A Thing?: The London History Show

During the Second World War, Londoners were subjected to a bombing campaign we call "The Blitz". Today, we associate "Blitz Spirit" with high morale, upstanding citizenship, and being a good neighbour. But how much of that actually went on? Let's investigate.

In each episode of The London History Show, we'll be looking at a different statue, plaque, building or feature of London's landscape that you can find for yourself, and we'll tell its story. Watch the whole series here: https://tinyurl.com/ybzud2wm

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Sources and further reading:

Conditions in the Blitz:
Atkins, E. A. 2005. “You must all be Interned”: Identity Among Internees in Great Britain during World War II. https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/ghj/vol4/iss1/5
British Newspaper Archive, 2015. Crime and the Blitz. https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2015/07/17/crime-and-the-blitz/
Budanovic, N. 2018. The Milkman: The Story Behind One Of The Most Iconic Images Of The Blitz. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/the-milkman-the-story-behind-blitz.html
Campbell, D. 2010. London In The Blitz: How Crime Flourished Under Cover Of The Blackout. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/aug/29/blitz-london-crime-flourish-blackout
Doyle, P. 2011. The Blitz.
Gardiner, J. 2010. The Blitz.
Karpf, A. 2002. We’ve Been Here Before. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jun/08/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices
Keane, A. 2003. Making A Difference: Experiences of a Black British Serviceman. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/96/a1921196.shtml WW2 People's War is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC. The archive can be found at bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar
London Can Take It, 1940. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLgfSDtHFt8
Middelboe, P., Fry, D., & Grace, C. 2011. We Shall Never Surrender: Wartime Diaries 1939-1945.

The “Blitz Spirit” narrative:
Calder, A. 1991. The Myth Of The Blitz.
Geoghegan, T. 2010. Did the Blitz really unify Britain? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11213968
Overy, R. 2020. The dangers of the Blitz spirit. https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/the-dangers-of-the-blitz-spirit/

Examples of comparisons between the COVID-19 lockdown and the Blitz:
Fullfact.org. 2020. It’s incorrect to say there was no resistance to safety measures around the Blitz. https://fullfact.org/online/blitz-spirit-tweet/
Hancock, M. 2020. We must all do everything in our power to protect lives. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/14/must-do-everything-power-protect-lives/
Jones, E. 2020. The psychology of protecting the UK public against external threat: COVID-19 and the Blitz compared. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30342-4
Overy, R. 2020. Why the cruel myth of the “blitz spirit” is no model for how to fight coronavirus. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/19/myth-blitz-spirit-model-coronavirus
Parkinson, J. BBC News. 2020. Coronavirus: At-home civil servants “showing Blitz spirit”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53660963

Examples of comparisons between Brexit and the Blitz:
Buchan, L. 2017. Brexit will be “like the Blitz”, OECD chief tells UK. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-brexit-blitz-spirit-oecd-chief-stay-calm-economy-business-trade-gdp-a8004981.html
Macdonald, A. 2019. May evoked Blitz spirit to show EU Brexit progress. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-blitz/may-evoked-blitz-spirit-to-show-eu-brexit-progress-idUKKCN1RN26Z
Moran, C. 2019. So Brexit will be all about the “Blitz spirit”. Was the Blitz so great really? https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/caitlin-moran-will-hardship-actually-bring-us-together-5h09b9kg8
Stanley, T. 2019. Why no-deal makes us want to dig for victory: A Brexit blitz spirit excites because many voters are willing to endure a little hardship to be free. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/02/05/no-deal-brexit-makes-us-want-dig-victory-life-gdp/
Ross, T. 2016. Boris Johnson: The EU wants a superstate, just as Hitler did. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/14/boris-johnson-the-eu-wants-a-superstate-just-as-hitler-did/
Walker, A. 2019. Do mention the war: the politicians comparing Brexit to WWII. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/04/do-mention-the-war-the-politicians-comparing-brexit-to-wwii

00:00 Introduction
06:34 Examining Blitz Spirit
27:24 Blitz Spirit For The 21st Century

Видео Was Blitz Spirit Really A Thing?: The London History Show канала J. Draper