Death from the skies : how the British and Germans survived bombing in World War II / Dietmar Süss ; translated by Lesley Sharpe and Jeremy Noakes.

Originally published in German as Tod aus der Luft. Kriegsgesellschaft und Luftkrieg in Deutschland und England.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Cover; DEATH FROM THE SKIES: HOW THE BRITISH AND GERMANS SURVIVED BOMBING IN WORLD WAR II; Copyright; Acknowledgements; Preface to the English Edition; Contents; List of Illustrations; Introduction; War from the Skies; The Battle over Morale: Methods and Perspectives; Aerial War, the National Community, and the People's War: Research Problems; 1: The War of the Future 1900-1939; The Shock of London; Visions of Aerial Warfare; Air Defence and the Nation; Germany; The Lessons of Guernica; Britain; 2: Bombing, the Public Sphere, and Morale; The Struggle to Win Trust and Maintain Morale.

Mass Observation and moraleThe 'air defence community'; The Policy on Rumours and the Representation of the State; A shift away from hushing things up; Evacuations and Rumours; Evacuation in the Third Reich; The Image and Memory of the War; Visualizing the Blitz; The British public and the bombing of Germany; Retaliation, Word of Mouth Propaganda, and the Struggle to Win Over a Sceptical Population; 3: Social Organization under a State of Emergency; Institutions for Dealing with Emergencies; Führer rulings and special agencies; The State and the National Emergency.

Marginalization of institutions by agents of the FührerJustice and Repression; Looting and criminal justice in Britain; War Damages and Wartime Morale; War damage compensation in Germany; 4: Cities at War; Preparations for War; Local government and the state in Britain; 'The national community at war' and air defence; Plunder and Aid; Local government and coping with crisis in Britain; The Extent of Damage and Interregional Strategies for Dealing with Crisis; German cities under a 'state of emergency'; Local Authorities, Coping with Crisis, and the Mobilization of the Nazi Party.

The Air War as an Opportunity: Planning and Reconstruction'Grand Designs' for the Modern British City; 5: The Churches and the Air War; A Just War, with Just Bombing?; Why Us? The Theology of War and the Destruction of the 'Homeland'; Day-to-Day Religious and Pastoral Practice; Pastoral care in Britain; Christian Iconography and Ecumenical Experience; Ecumenical practice in Nazi Germany; Loss, Guilt, and Reconstruction; 6: Fear and Order: Life in Air-Raid Shelters; Security and Unrest; Fortress and national community; Underground; The Organization of Fear; Races, Classes, and Genders.

Sites of protection, control, and violenceIconography of the Underworld; Sickness and Health; Shelter illnesses; 7: Experiences of the Air War; Wartime Morale as an Object of Research; War and illness in Germany; Speaking and Remaining Silent; A Time for Feelings; Everyday alarms; The threat from miracle weapons; Habituation and violence; Guided memory; Masculine and feminine emotions; Keeping on working; Children in the Air War; Fear and discipline; Children and their teachers; 8: Death in the Air War; Simulations; Recovering the Dead; Learning from catastrophe; Death and Mourning.

The German 'Blitz' that followed the Battle of Britain killed tens of thousands and laid waste to large areas of many British cities. And although the destruction of 1940-1 was never repeated on the same scale, fears that Hitler possessed a secret weapon of mass destruction never entirely died, and were partially realized in the VI and V2 raids of 1944-5. The British and American response to the 'Blitz', especially from 1943 onwards, was massive and incomparably more devastating - withapocalyptic consequences for German cities such as Hamburg, Dresden, and Berlin, to name but the most prominen.

Translated from the German.

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