They started it! The myth that Germany bombed this country first during the Second World War

There is a very strange and mistaken idea that it was that it was the Germans who began bombing British cities in 1940 and that this country then retaliated. In fact, Britain attacked Germany by air long before the Blitz.

[CarlAquaForce]

At 50 years old after watching the current state of the world, I question everything that I ever learned as a child.

[mortimersnerd]

We had sent 27 or 29 bombing raids before Germany responded. Hitler did not want to bomb our cities as he still hoped to make a pact with England. I went through the blitz as a child, I was so shocked to find this fact when I researched WW2. History is certainly written by the winners.

[homeistheearth]

Look at old papers around 1930s where Germany moved away from central banking -- and see who really declared war on who first...

[coolhandlukeful]

Same as the Cuban missilery crisis I didn’t realise the actual cause of the problem was America had put missiles in Turkey and the soviets responded by putting missiles in Cuba this was news to me and shows how manipulated we have been and how our media has been used .

[stukavonferno]

I was in Dresden around 10 years ago and noticed how old the buildings looked, I said to mein host, "how come the buildings look so old? I thought we flattened Dresden". She said, "you did but the city was rebuilt to the original plans". To which I replied, "you flattened Coventry and we replaced everything with concrete boxes", which she found highly amusing!

[alexmay]

This is not the only Lie we have been taught about WW2..

[Tubehead]

It is a fact that more German civilians died in the proceeding years after the war than during the war.And that’s including Dresden.Let that sink in.

[swansong]

The older I get the more naive I’m feeling.

[MaisyK]

100% correct Mr Webb - History is a set of lies agreed upon - Napoleon

[septembersurprise]

"The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice."
- Mark Twain

[dancancade]

"History is a set of lies agreed upon" - Napoleon Bonaparte

[pda]

My father was a pilot in WW-2.. During my final years at school we were given a modern history project regarding the early years of WW-2 and how it changed peoples lives in England. I asked my Dad about his recollections and he glibly mentioned that the RAF bombed German towns before the Germans bombed our towns & cities. My contribution was about the effects of the 'Blitz' on the civilian population in the worst hit places like London Coventry and Plymouth. I did add that it might have been different had the British not started bombing civilians in Germany, but our teacher skipped over that bit ! He was also a former RAF wartime pilot.. Hmmm !

[PauloZunguze]

I wonder why i never heard of this story up until now

[oO-_-_-_-Oo]

"History isnt what happened. History is just what historians tell us" Julian Barnes

That said, I dislike very much how they withold, omit or otherwise ignore information about our past.

[eddysgaming]

I have seen history warped and twisted within my own lifetime. And it's always for a political purpose.

[kulturfreund]

I was born 1966 in Nuremberg. I saw and read a fair amount of quality material (mostly German) on the Nazi-era, but this information never came to my knowledge.
Looks like the German political class doesn’t want to capitalize on the wrongdoings or questionable actions by the UK and the USA, in order not to provoke any new conflicts with the Western Allies, or which could disturb the harmonious picture that’s drawn of the US as the "generous liberator" in our schoolbooks.

Your podcast reminds me of a talk I had with an English retiree on a camping site cafeteria in Portugal around ten years ago.
He served for 12 years on a British submarine before his second career as a real estate agent.
He told me that the British were launching gas grenades first in World War I, which had been the opposite of what we Germans get told by our media at home.

Thank you for being truthful and objective.

[kevinjones]

Tricked all of the good men into death and trauma. Leaving us with the soft underbelly. And the fable that these men needed replacing with imports.

[Occident.]

"Judea declares War on Germany". Headline in the British Newspaper The Daily Express. 24th March 1933.

[driggo]

This is exactly what Hitler told in one of his official speeches. He said that he didn't give the order even the Luftwaffe commanders told him to strike back against England. But a raid after raid after raid he had to come into action because he could not remain passive in his position forever. Germany didn't want a war against England but England wanted this war against Germany.

[pcojedi]

I have a minor in history and most of my classes were military. I have one of the largest military history libraries of anyone I know and it was about three years ago I looked at the bombing dates and realized England bombed Germany months before the Germans retaliated in kind. What people also fail to realize that with the total destruction of German infrastructure there was no food for the German people past 1945, all people see of Germans at that time were concentration camp survivors. If you had the choice to feed your children or prisoners, we know who would get fed, yet no one blames the allies for the bombings which also affected the concentration camps.