Barrage Balloons in Britain

In 1938, the British Balloon Command was established to protect cities and key targets such as industrial areas, ports and harbours. Balloons were intended to defend against dive bombers flying at heights up to 5,000 feet, forcing them to fly higher and into the range of concentrated anti-aircraft fire — anti-aircraft guns could not traverse fast enough to attack aircraft flying at low altitude and high speed. By the middle of 1940 there were 1,400 balloons, a third of them over the London area.

While dive-bombers were devastatingly effective against undefended targets, such as Guernica and Rotterdam, they were very vulnerable to attack by fighter aircraft, and their use by Germany against Britain with its effective Royal Air Force was rapidly discontinued. Balloons proved to be of little use against the German high-level bombers with which the dive-bombers were replaced, but continued to be manufactured nonetheless, until there were almost 3,000 in 1944. They proved to be mildly effective against the V-1 flying bomb, which usually flew at 2,000 feet or lower but had wire-cutters on its wings to counter balloons. Two hundred and thirty-one V-1s are officially claimed to have been destroyed by balloons.

Many bombers were equipped with devices to cut barrage balloon cables. Britain used large numbers of balloons, so Germany developed the most capable cable-cutters. Their systems consisted of small C-shaped devices attached to the leading edge of the wing. When a cable entered the device after sliding down the wing, it triggered a small explosive charge that drove a blade through the cable. British bombers were also equipped with cable-cutters although the Germans used few barrage balloons.

The British added two refinements to their balloons, "Double Parachute Link" (DPL) and "Double Parachute/Ripping" (DP/R). The former was triggered by the shock of an enemy bomber snagging the cable, causing that section of cable to be explosively released complete with parachutes at either end; the combined weight and drag bringing down the aircraft. The latter was intended to render the balloon safe if it broke free accidentally. The heavy mooring cable would separate at the balloon and fall to the ground under a parachute; at the same time a panel would be ripped away from the balloon causing it to deflate and fall independently to the ground.

“Peace In Our Time”

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is shown arriving at Heston airport after the Munich Conference in September 1938. He was to declare infamously that the agreement promised “Peace in Our Time.” When Hitler invaded and seized the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Chamberlain felt betrayed by the breaking of the Munich Agreement and decided to take a much harder line against the Nazis, declaring war against Germany upon their invasion of Poland.

Hitler Reviews the Troops — 1938

German Führer and Chancellor Adolf Hitler receives the salute of the Columns in Adolf Hitler Platz during the Reichs Party Congress in Nuremburg, Germany — September 1938.

Kristallnacht

“Kristallnacht,” or “Night of the Broken Glass,” took place on the night of November 9, 1938. Terror attacks were made on Jewish businesses and property as bands of Nazis looted and destroyed seven and a half thousand Jewish shops, claiming the attacks were the public’s reaction to the murder of Ernst von Rath, Third Secretary of the German Embassy of Paris, by a Polish Jew.

On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old German Jew enraged by his family's expulsion from Germany, walked into the German Embassy in Paris and fired five shots at the junior diplomat. Two days later, he died and Germany was in the grip of skillfully orchestrated anti-Jewish violence. In the early hours of November 10, coordinated destruction broke out in cities, towns and villages throughout the Third Reich.

The consequences of this violence were disastrous for the Jews of the Third Reich. In a single night, Kristallnacht saw the destruction of more than 200 Synagogues, and the ransacking of tens of thousands of Jewish businesses and homes. It marked the beginning of the systematic eradication of a people who could trace their ancestry in Germany to Roman times, and served as a prelude to the Holocaust that was to follow.

On a single night, 92 Jews were murdered, and 25,000–30,000 were arrested and deported to concentration camps.

Reich Party Congress, 1938

An adoring crowd greets their beloved Führer at the opening of the Reich Party Congress in Nuremburg on September 6, 1938. After inspecting his personal bodyguard, Hitler drove through the beflagged city to the sound of church bells and cheering crowds.

Hitler Youth — 1938

Hitler Youth are seen here in Graz Austria in 1938. The Hitler Jugend, or HJ, was the male branch of the Nazi’s youth movement. Established in 1933, the HJ numbered over seven million five years later, under the command of Reichsjugendfuhrer (Reich Youth Leader) Baldur von Schirach. Indoctrinating German youth in the practicalities of war was a top priority in the Third Reich. Indeed, many in this photo may have died on the battlefields just a few short years later.

SA Campers March — 1938

Today’s photo is of an SA Camp at Nuremburg, during the Reich Party Congress of 1938. The Sturmabteilung, or “Storm Troopers” of the Nazi Party, also called the “Brownshirts,” began as squads of roughnecks under Ernst Rohm, formed to protect Nazi mass meetings from rivals. In the “Night of the Long Knives” in June 1934 (which was undertaken to rid the Reich of Nazi enemies), the SA were purged by the SS and Rohm was murdered.