ABSTRACT
In May of 1941, as new theaters of operations opened in the Balkans and in eastern Europe, the German assault on Britain quickly tapered off. Furthermore, the British inability to mount severe raids into Germany in 1941 had led Hitler to see supplementary advantages in the restricted air activity imposed on him by the Russian campaign. It is likely that Hitler in fact saw himself as the beneficiary of voluntary British restraints over the latter portion of 1941, and that he was overestimating the technical ability of the Royal Air Force to mount an offensive at this time. The American precision bomber offensive, in turn, was prosecuted primarily on the assumption that it would more directly and effectively disarm Nazi Germany. An exaggerated hope of the earlier British air planners thus had outlived exaggerated fears disproven in the Biitz, Only a greater German care in preserving the Luftwaffe's image of bomber strength might have perpetuated the balance of exaggerations.
