The Battle of Britain Was The First Defeat For The German Luftwaffe.

[kendo65]

Finally, had to comment on all this.

Stern, in order to defend your basic thesis that there was no winner in the Battle of Britain you seem to have reached a position where your logic has become so stretched it is in danger of snapping completely.

If I understand your argument you are now saying that the BOB wasn't a British victory because essentially no battle is ever a victory, and the only outcome that matters is final victory in the war.

Obviously the Allies lost many battles on the long road towards final victory in 45, and ultimately that is the key strategic goal of any conflict. But to say that no individual battle can be called as win or defeat is bending words and logic too far.

I also want to comment on your point about the propaganda aspect of the battle - how it was built and used by the British at the time. It's undoubtedly true that they made maximum mileage out of the battle - and for totally understandable reasons. To understand the significance it is important to leave aside the recent scholarly debate as to whether the Germans had the capacity to mount a successful invasion or whether Hitler even intended to, and to look at the situation as it was understood in Britain in June 1940.

Germany had smashed through France and the Low Countries in a matter of weeks. The BEF had been routed and had abandoned most of their equipment in France. Germany at that point seemed to be invincible, possessed of overwhelming strength, and sitting just across what to British eyes was an uncomfortably small stretch of water.

Once again, leave aside recent debate as to the true capacity of the German forces to mount an assault or the intentions of the German High Command. As far as the British were concerned in 1940 the situation was grave and of the utmost seriousness. People expected an invasion to come. This was no mere skirmish or sideshow - the country viewed it as a fight for its very existence.

That the RAF was able to resist the Luftwaffe offensive and ultimately force cancellation/abandonment of the German capacity for invasion was viewed as a victory. The nation collectively held its breath in Summer 1940, and let out a sigh of relief when it became apparent that the invasion threat was receding.

This was a key point in the early stages of the war - for the first time the Germans had not emerged with a clear victory. The effect on British morale was obviously huge and this was built up deliberately with wartime propaganda. The Battle of Britain assumed a kind of mythic significance in the British psyche. Funnily enough given your distaste, Bungay's book does a great job of peeling back the mythic element cast in 1940 and succeeding years and re-evaluating the events from new perspectives - that's a key element in his book and one that I thought was done very successfully.

I also have to say that I am a little concerned that some of our German friends seem to have great trouble dealing with the trauma caused to their own national psyche by WW2. There seems to be a split between distaste and revulsion at what the Nazis represented, and an understandable patriotic urge to support their own country. So we seem to get an almost hysterical defensiveness mixed with shame concerning Germany's defeat. It seems apparent that some (maybe the younger ones) harbour a worrying tendency to want to refight the battles, justify or rationalise away the events of the war.

Sorry for the cod psychology, but I'm just commenting honestly on what I've read in this thread. No offense intended.