If the Luftwaffe’s bombing led to ‘eight million going mad’ in London, Hitler mused on 14 September, it would force Britain out of the war and make an invasion unnecessary. Two days later, Göring ordered the Luftwaffe to focus on night-time bombing, and on the 17th Hitler shelved his plans for the invasion indefinitely. The public was not told. Instead, on 18 September, the radio commentator Hans Fritzsche warned in his ‘front reports’ that London had to choose ‘between the fate of Warsaw and Paris’ – between being blasted from the skies or declaring itself an ‘open’ city and surrendering. By
...more
