sign in sign up
<<
Home , April 1937, August 1937, Bombing of Guernica, Condor Legion, Emilio Mola, George Steer

50 BBC History Magazine The bombing of the Basque town during the heralded a terrible new age of warfare. But who was the main culprit – Hitler or Franco? Paul Preston considers the evidence

Modern barbarism ’s searing interpretation of the on 26 . The raid triggered worldwide revulsion and inspired one of the most devastating denunciations of warfare in the history of art ALAMY

BBC History Magazine 51 The destruction of Guernica

rom 4.40 to 7.45 in the late The choice of think as we do.” Rebel forces did precisely that afternoon of Monday 26 April projectiles aimed in all of south-west , the conservative 1937, the small Basque town of areas of Old Castile, and Galicia in the north. Guernica was destroyed by to cause the greatest Franco’s principal objective was the sustained bombing attacks by Republican capital, , but it held out Hitler’s and possible number of and, in mid-, his own troops and Mussolini’s Aviazzione those of Italian leader were Legionaria.F The operation was supervised by civilian casualties defeated at the battle of Guadalajara (40 miles Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, the Condor north-east of the capital). It was now that Legion’s chief of staff, a brilliant and ruthless Franco made a strategic volte-face. Prussian aristocrat with a doctorate in With the Republic concentrating its best aeronautical engineering. the streets wandered the animals brought to troops in the centre of Spain and neglecting A cousin of the First World War fighter ace market, donkeys, pigs, chickens. other fronts, Franco accepted the case for ‘the Red Baron’ Manfred von Richthofen, In the midst of that conflagration we saw victory by instalments elsewhere. Colonel Wolfram had planned the entire operation as people who fled screaming, praying, or Juan Vigón, chief of Mola’s general staff, an experiment in terror – as he would later gesticulating against the attackers… I had argued for priority to be given to operations mastermind the in Poland and other bombing experiences later in England in the north to strengthen the rebel war effort France. His choice of projectiles aimed to during the Second World War. But I never felt by the seizure of the coal, iron and steel cause the greatest possible number of civilian so unprotected and so much a defenceless reserves and armaments factories of the victims. A combination of explosive bombs victim as on that April 26th of 1937.” Basque province of Vizcaya. The commander and incendiaries rained on the residential The exact number of victims of the of the German Condor Legion, General Hugo sector of the town, which was largely made of bombing that day will never be known Sperrle, agreed, promising that Basque wood. And to prevent the fires being put out, because of the immediate chaos and the fact resistance would crumble under concerted the municipal water tanks and the fire-station that forces of General – airborne attacks. were the first targets. leader of the military uprising that had Terrified civilians fleeing to the surround- triggered the Spanish Civil War the previous Rapid denials ing fields were herded back into Guernica by summer – occupied the town three days later. By the end of March, Mola had gathered a the machine-gun strafing of No effort was made to clear debris until large army backed by the air support of fighters that circled the town in what after the end of the Civil War in 1939. All the Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Richthofen called “the ring of fire”. evidence of the bombing was removed, and Legionaria, all under Richthofen’s command. Monday was market day in Guernica. no record was kept of bodies recovered. Mola issued a threat that was both broadcast Between the townspeople, refugees, peasants Estimates as to how many people died in and printed in a leaflet dropped on the bringing goods to the market, and train loads Guernica have varied widely. Pro-Franco main towns: “If your submission is not of people from coming to buy food, accounts suggest that the number was below immediate, I will raze Vizcaya to the ground, there were at least 10,000 people crammed 200. But, based on the testimony of medical beginning with the industries of war. I have into the town that day. They were attacked by personnel in Guernica on the day and in ample means to do so.” He then unleashed a 28 German and three Italian nearby hospitals that received casualties, the massive four-day artillery and aircraft together with 10 Heinkel He 51 and 12 Fiat estimated that 1,645 bombardment of eastern Vizcaya in which the CR32 fighters and possibly six of the people were killed and a further 889 injured small country town of Durango was de- first ever Messerschmitt Bf109s. It was an in the attack. (It’s thought that hundreds died stroyed. One hundred and twenty seven operation on a scale that could hardly have asphyxiated in bomb shelters as the fires civilians were killed and a further 131 died been organised by the Germans behind the sucked up available oxygen.) The most recent shortly after of their wounds. Franco’s backs of the Spanish staff, with whom there research suggests that the truth lies near to, headquarters in denied the was, in any case, constant liaison. The town or even higher than, the Basque government’s bombing and attributed the damage to the had no anti-aircraft defences. estimate. themselves. Whatever the true death toll, as the first Franco was delighted to have the crack Diabolic forces near-total destruction of an ‘open’ town Condor Legion as part of his forces. He The horror unleashed that day was captured in European history, Guernica was burned allowed Sperrle and Richthofen a free hand to in the eyewitness account of the Basque priest into the continent’s conscience as Franco’s liaise directly with Mola and Vigón. This gave Father Alberto Onaindía. “The explosion of great crime. the Germans the decisive voice in the the bombs, the fires which were beginning to What happened at Guernica was consistent campaign. Sperrle wrote in 1939: “All break out and the harassment of the machine- with threats made by General , suggestions made by the Condor Legion for gunning planes forced us to take cover under the man who masterminded the military the conduct of the war were accepted trees, under house entrances, dropping to the coup that aimed to unseat Spain’s Republican gratefully and followed.” ground in the field when we saw a plane government. “It is necessary to spread terror,” While the advance was being planned, approaching. There was no anti-aircraft he declared on 19 , just a day after Richthofen wrote in his diary on 24 March: defence, no defence of any kind, we were the coup began. “We have to create the “We are practically in charge of the entire encircled and corralled by diabolic forces in impression of mastery, eliminating without business without any of the responsibility.”

pursuit of defenceless inhabitants. Through scruples or hesitation all those who do not On 28 March he added: “I have established BATTLEFIELDDESIGN

52 BBC History Magazine effective ground/air command.” In expecting Vizcaya to fall in three weeks, Franco and Mola had underestimated the determination of the Basques. Steep, wooded hills, poor roads and heavy rain and fog had helped the retreating Gudaris (Basque The attack on Guernica, which sits 260 miles north of Madrid, was soldiers) to delay the attacking forces. With central to the Nationalist plan to Franco and Sperrle frustrated by the slowness demoralise the Basque population of the advance, Richthofen used terror bombing to break the morale of the civilian population and to destroy communications where roads passed through towns. That was A French the purpose of the destruction of Durango poster invokes and the intense bombing on 4 April of the Jesus Christ to condemn the Basque town of Otxandiano. barbarity of the Sperrle, Richthofen, Mola and Vigón now bombing talked increasingly of reducing Bilbao to “debris and ash”. By 24 April, after merciless air bombardment and artillery pounding, the Basque forces were falling back in disarray. On 25 April, Vigón agreed to Richthofen’s plan to combine the tactical objective of blocking the retreat south of Guernica near Nationalist general Emilio Mola Marquina with the broader strategic coup of declared that it the devastating blow announced by Mola. was “necessary That night, rebel radio at Salamanca broad- to spread terror” cast the following warning to the Basque people: “Franco is about to deliver a mighty blow against which all resistance is useless. Basques! Surrender now and your lives will be spared.” A day later, Guernica would feel the full force of Mola’s threat.

Distraught officials General Franco (centre) pictured in . The general’s On 26 April 1937, four journalists covering attempts to deny responsibility for the bombing of Guernica the conflict – the Australian Noel Monks of turned into a public relations disaster for his forces the , the Scotsman Christopher Holme of Reuters, the South African of and the Belgian Mathieu Corman of the Parisian Ce Soir – spent 15 minutes in a bomb crater west of Guernica being strafed by the machine-guns of six Heinkel 51s. Later that night, they were having dinner when a distraught Basque official came in with news that Guernica was burning. They abandoned their table and drove to the town, which was still ablaze when they arrived at 11pm. They watched helplessly as weeping Gudaris frantically tried to dig out the bodies from the ruins. Steer interviewed survivors in the smoking ruins until the early hours of the 27th – The ruins of Guernica “my authority for all that I have written”, in the wake of the as he later noted. He returned to Bilbao, bombing. Hundreds spoke to more survivors and then drove died in the attack, many from asphyxia the 15 miles back to Guernica to view the as fires sucked up damage in daylight. available oxygen Steer found three silver tubes of German

MARY EVANS/GETTY IMAGES incendiary devices which accorded with

BBC History Magazine 53 The destruction of Guernica

Richthofen’s diary entry about the “complete technical success” of his selection of the unusual bombload of explosive ‘splinter’ and incendiary bombs. His innovative thinking was that, while bomb craters in roads could be filled, massive destruction of buildings was a more effective obstacle to retreating troops. Steer’s account of what he witnessed was published on 28 April in The Times and repro- Short-term gains Republican troops celebrate victory at the battle of Guadalajara, near duced in the Times. Subdued and Madrid, in March 1937. Defeat for nationalist forces here persuaded unsensational in tone, it provoked a world- Franco to concentrate his firepower on Basque resistance wide storm of concern and was one of the most important reports filed by a newsman during the Spanish Civil War. More than any other commentator at the time, Steer managed to incorporate into his despatch a vivid sense of the scale of the atrocity. “In the form of its execution and the scale of the destruction it wrought, no less than in the selection of its objective, the raid on Guernica is unparalleled in military history. Guernica was not a military objective. A factory producing war material lay outside the town and was untouched. So were two barracks some distance from the town. The town lay far behind the lines. The object of the bombardment was seemingly the demoralisation of the civil population and the destruction of the cradle of the Basque race. “The whole town of 7,000 inhabitants, plus 3,000 refugees, was slowly and systematically pounded to pieces… In a street leading downhill from the Casa de Juntas I saw a A new kind of warfare Condor Legion aircrew with their Heinkel plane during the place where 50 people, nearly all women and Spanish Civil War. The events of 26 April 1937 made the Luft- children, are said to have been trapped in an waffe’s capacity to raze towns and spread terror abundantly clear air raid refuge under a mass of burning wreckage. Many were killed in the fields, and altogether the deaths may run into hundreds.” (George Steer’s name was, incidentally, placed on the Gestapo’s Special Wanted List of 2,820 persons to be detained after a future German occupation of Britain.)

Wholesale arson Steer’s perception that this was a new kind of warfare ensured that his despatch would have a deeply disturbing impact on both sides of the Atlantic. editorial on the following day condemned “wholesale arson and mass murder, committed by rebel airplanes of German type”. It was reprinted in full on 29 April in the French communist daily L’Humanité, where it was read by Pablo Picasso. At the time, Picasso was working on a commission by the Spanish Republican government to provide a mural for the great Paris exhibition planned for summer 1937. Already affected by Louis Delaprée’s des- Speaking truth to power

patches about the bombing of Madrid, he George Steer in Abyssinia in 1935. The Times journalist’s account of IMAGES GETTY the hellish aftermath of the Guernica raid triggered worldwide 54 revulsion and landed him on the Gestapo’s Special Wanted List Göring hoped to began work on what would become his most famous painting (see box right). show Hitler that terror Why Picasso painted Despite, or rather because of, the over- whelming verisimilitude of Steer’s report, the bombing was the most Guernica’s pain rebels immediately denied that Guernica had happened. The head of their foreign press National-Socialist way Largely thanks to Pablo Picasso’s searing bureau, Luis Bolín, claimed that Guernica painting, Guernica is now remembered had been dynamited by Basque saboteurs. of winning a war as the place where a new and horrific The Condor Legion sent in a team to modern warfare came of age. Picasso remove bomb fins, unexploded bombs and had previously avoided creating explicitly other signs of the bombardment. Franco political art but the Spanish Republic was issued a statement that: “Units of our front of Germany’s war industries. As such, it keen to get the world’s most famous line requested the air-force to bomb the seems that he played a key role in the decision artist to identify himself with its cause. In , he responded positively crossroads, a request fulfilled by German and to bomb Guernica. to an invitation to contribute to the Italian aircraft, and because of poor visibility The German, Italian and Spanish high Spanish pavilion at the World Fair in Paris caused by smoke and clouds of dust, bombs commands agreed that the best way to break scheduled for later in the year. That hit the town. Therefore it is not possible to the stubborn resistance of Bilbao was the contribution would be Guernica. permit an investigation. The reds took annihilation of a Basque town. The date for In fact the painting, begun on 1 May, advantage of the bombing to set fire to town.” the attack was dictated by the fact that the four days after the bombing, is not just What was most striking was the admission Monday market day was when most civilians about what happened in the Basque that the raid was requested by the Spaniards. would be present. It has been suggested that town. There were three prior influences: That the target could have been the Göring had initially favoured an attack on 19 the savage bombing of Madrid in October crossroads, or the nearby stone Renteria April, the day before Hitler’s 48th birthday. and and again throughout April 1937; the suffering of bridge over the river Mundaca – as Franco Because the necessary additional aircraft had refugees who were bombed and strafed also claimed – is contradicted by the weight of not arrived in time, the operation was delayed as they fled in from bombs dropped, and the preponderance of by one week, as indeed were the celebrations Picasso’s native Málaga to Almería; and incendiaries, ineffective on stone. in Berlin of the führer’s birthday. the bombing of Durango on 31 March. Franco had, of course, admitted his own The journalist Louis Delaprée’s moving Human catastrophe involvement. On 18 September 1970, when he articles on Madrid, published in Paris on The Basque army was indeed retreating along presided over the world championships of the 8 January 1937 as Le Martyr de Madrid, the roads towards Guernica, but it had not yet Basque sport jai-alai in San Sebastian, Joseba had a profound impact on Picasso, reached the town. Franco and Bolín clearly Elosegui, a Basque nationalist, set fire to manifested first through his series of prints Dream and Lie of Franco and did not wonder why the Basques would himself. Elosegui had been in command of subsequently in Guernica. Poignant dynamite the town and do precisely what the unit of Gudaris present in Guernica on 26 photos of the suffering of the refugees Richthofen hoped to do – cut off the retreat by April 1937. By hurling himself in flames in from Málaga were published in the placing a massive human catastrophe in their front of the dictator, Elosegui hoped to make pamphlet The Crime on the Road path. Nor did they seem to ask themselves him understand what the Basque people had distributed in France in March 1937. why dynamiters allegedly carrying out a suffered in their flesh during the rebel Articles on the bombing of Durango scorched-earth policy left the small arms campaign. Franco remained coldly impassive appeared in the French press in the first factory and the crucial bridge intact. as the badly burned Elosegui was taken away. week of April and the powerful pamphlet Franco’s claims were also contradicted by His disregard for the fate of the Basques was Durango, Ville Martyre on 30 April. eyewitnesses, who testified that the conven- as harsh in 1970 as it had been in 1937. George Steer’s account of the Guernica raid of was reprinted in full on tional bombers used over Guernica flew low 29 April in L’Humanité and read by enough to have been able to drop bombs with Paul Preston is Príncipe de professor Picasso. Two days later – already some accuracy but flew too wide apart for of contemporary Spanish history at the London affected by Louis Delaprée’s despatches concentration on a specific target. In fact, School of Economics. His books include and the pamphlets on Málaga and under the Renteria bridge was the safest place The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution and Durango – Picasso began work on what to be in Guernica during the bombing. Revenge (William Collins, 2016) would become his most The only controversy still swirling around famous painting. the atrocity is the question of who should DISCOVER MORE shoulder the greatest blame – Franco’s high command or the Nazi Condor Legion? It is MUSEUM E Pablo Picasso’s Guernica is on display at Pablo Picasso was certainly the case that the head of the the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina appalled by the , Hermann Göring, hoped to Sofía in Madrid. museoreinasofia.es/en suffering of show Hitler that terror bombing was the best Spain’s LISTEN AGAIN refugees and the most National-Socialist way of E You can listen to first-hand accounts of winning a war. Convincing Hitler of the the Guernica bombing on the BBC World destructive capacity of the Luftwaffe would Service programme Witness. advance Göring’s ambition of taking control .co.uk/programmes/p00g47ty

BBC History Magazine 55