Bombing of Guernica
It was carried out at the behest of Francisco Franco's rebel Nationalist faction by its allies, the Nazi German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria, under the code name Operation Rügen.It was also depicted in a woodcut by the German artist Heinz Kiwitz,[9] who was later killed fighting in the International Brigades,[10] and by René Magritte in the painting Le Drapeau Noir.[11] The bombing shocked and inspired many other artists, including a sculpture by René Iché, one of the first electroacoustic music pieces by Patrick Ascione, musical compositions by Octavio Vazquez (Gernika Piano Trio), René-Louis Baron and Mike Batt (performed by Katie Melua), and poems by Paul Eluard (Victory of Guernica), and Uys Krige (Nag van die Fascistiese Bomwerpers, English translation from the Afrikaans: Night of the Fascist Bombers).Prior to the Condor Legion raid, the town had not been directly involved in the fighting, although Republican forces were in the area; 23 battalions of Basque army troops were at the front east of Guernica."[17][verification needed] James Corum states that a prevalent view about the Luftwaffe and its Blitzkrieg operations was that it had a doctrine of terror bombing, in which civilians were deliberately targeted in order to break the will or aid the collapse of an enemy.According to Payne:[22] Guernica was selected as a target by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen (younger cousin of the “Red Baron” of World War I), chief of staff of the Condor Legion, for several reasons.It housed several battalions of troops and three arms factories, lay near the front lines, and was connected by means of an adjacent bridge to the road flanking the main Basque defensive position, along which the defenders might have to retreat.Richthofen’s chief goal was to block a main junction near the front to stymie Basque troop movements and permit Mola to break through, encircling the forces farther north...Pinpoint bombing was impossible with the existing technology, and the only way to hit the targets was to carpet much of the area.Richthofen, understanding the strategic importance of the town in the advance on Bilbao and restricting Republican retreat, ordered an attack against the roads and bridge in the Renteria suburb.César Vidal says that at this point, the damage to the town was "relatively limited... confined to a few buildings", including the church of San Juan and headquarters of the Izquierda Republicana ("Republican Left") political party.Vidal notes: If the aerial attacks had stopped at that moment, for a town that until then had maintained its distance from the convulsions of war, it would have been a totally disproportionate and insufferable punishment.The study by Joan Villarroya and Josep M. Solé i Sabaté in their book España en Llamas: la Guerra Civil desde el Aire states that there were 300 dead.[17][verification needed] These studies, cited by historians such as Stanley Payne and Antony Beevor, as well as media such as the BBC and El Mundo, provide the currently recognized death toll in those numbers.[citation needed] The Nationalist junta gave a patently false description of the events, claiming that the destruction had been caused by Republicans burning the town as they fled, and seemed to have made no effort to establish an accurate number.George Steer, a reporter for The Times, who was covering the Spanish Civil War from inside the country, authored the first full account of events.There was coverage in other national and international editions also: Noel Monks, an Australian correspondent in Spain for the London Daily Express, was the first reporter to arrive on the scene after the bombing.Stanley Payne observes that the presence of Steer was the reason for Guernica becoming a major media event; the town of Durango had been bombed a few days before and suffered higher casualties yet received comparatively little attention.[22] After the attack, José Antonio Aguirre published the following press note:[38] "German airforces, following orders of the Spanish fascists, have bombed Guernica, setting the historical villa, that so much veneration has among the Basques, on fire.They wanted to hurt us in the most vulnerable spot of our patriotic sentiment, proving once again what Euzkadi may expect from those who won't hesitate in destroying the sanctuary that commemorates centuries of our freedom and democracy... Before God and before history, which will judge us all, I assure you that the German planes bombed the population of Guernica, with unprecedented viciousness, for three hours, reducing the historical villa to ashes.[38] On 27 April, the day after the bombing, Nationalist general Gonzalo Queipo de Llano broadcast a statement through Union Radio Seville accusing the local population and "the reds" of having deliberately burned and dynamited Guernica, while calling international reporters liars.[citation needed] On 29 April, in view of the outrage caused by the bombing in European public opinion, Franco's propaganda service issued an official statement parroting Llano's claims.[41] While Republican forces had pursued a scorched earth strategy in the past (notably in Irun, which was dynamited), Steer's reporting was supported by other journalists who witnessed the same levels of destruction.Furthermore, there were objective proofs available at the time of the falsehood of Llano's version: the bad weather he mentioned happened hours after the attack had been perpetrated, and the city's weaponry as well as the bridge to get to it were among the few buildings which had not been destroyed.To illustrate this point, military historian James Corum cites an excerpt from a 1938 Condor Legion report on this use of this tactic: We have had notable results in hitting the targets near the front, especially in bombing villages which hold enemy reserves and headquarters.A tapestry copy of Picasso's Guernica is displayed on the wall of the United Nations building in New York City, at the entrance to the Security Council room.On the 70th anniversary of the bombing, the president of the Basque Parliament met with politicians, Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, and deputies from Hiroshima, Volgograd, Pforzheim, Dresden, Warsaw, and Oswiecim, as well as several survivors from Guernica itself.[57] On 1 April 1937, at 17:20, the Spanish city of Jaén, one of the few areas in Andalusia under Republican control at that point of the Civil War, was bombed by 6 German bombers.The order for the Jaén bombing was written and signed by General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, and is preserved in the Spanish National Archives.Three Tupolev SB-2 aircraft departing from the Fuente Alamo airfield (some 300 km away) and operated by Spanish crews performed a single raid; they dropped some 1.8 tons of explosives.[61] The extremely high death-to-bombs ratio (60 dead per 1 ton of explosives) was the result of 250-kg bombs exploding on the central square, crowded during the usual morning food market.
Spanish Civil WarAerial bombingGuernicaNationalist SpainCondor LegionLegionary Air ForceBasque Autonomous CommunityBackgroundList of battlesJuly 1936 uprisingRevolutionMelillaTetouanSeville1st BarcelonaCuartel de la MontañaGijónOviedoCuartel de LoyolaGerman interventionGuadarramaAndalusiaAlcázarExtremaduraConvoy de la VictoriaAlmendralejoSigüenza1st MéridaBadajozMajorcaSierra GuadalupeCórdobaGipuzkoaMonte PeladoTalaveraSantuario de Nuestra Señora de la CabezaGuineaCerro MurianoCape SpartelSeseñaMadridCiudad Universitaria1st Corunna RoadVillarrealUrsulaAceitunaLopera2nd Corunna Road3rd Corunna RoadMálagaRoad massacreJaramaCape MachichacoGuadalajaraPozoblancoWar in the NorthBiscayDurangoBilbaoSantanderAsturiasEl Mazuco2nd BarcelonaDeutschlandAlmeríaSegoviaHuescaAlbarracínBruneteZaragoza1st BelchiteCape CherchellSabiñánigoTeruelAlfambraCape PalosAragon3rd Barcelona2nd Lérida1st GandesaLevanteBalaguerLos BlázquezAlicanteGranollersBielsa2nd Mérida2nd GandesaCantabriaSant Vicenç de CaldersCataloniaValsequilloXàtivaLa GarrigaMinorcaCartagenaFinal offensiveBasqueaerially bombedFrancisco FrancoNationalist factionNazi GermanLuftwaffeFascist ItalianAviazione Legionariawar crimeUSAF Air War CollegePablo PicassoSpanish RepublicHeinz KiwitzInternational BrigadesRené Magrittea sculptureRené IchéPatrick AscioneOctavio VazquezRené-Louis BaronMike BattKatie MeluaPaul EluardUys KrigeAfrikaansAlain ResnaisBasque peopleGernikako ArbolaAstra-Unceta y Cía