Guernica had an estimated population of 5,000 at the time of the attack.

It was
market day, however, and this number was swollen by the large number of
outsiders visiting the town.

The Bombing of Guernica,

1937
The German and the Franco governments vehemently denied that the atrocity had
taken place, claiming that fog had grounded their planes at the time of the attack.
Monks' report was initially received with skepticism by his superiors.

The German bombers appeared in the skies over Guernica in the late afternoon
of April 26, 1937 and immediately transformed the sleepy Spanish market town
into an everlasting symbol of the atrocity of war. Unbeknownst to the residents of
Guernica, they had been slated by their attackers to become guinea pigs in an
experiment designed to determine just what it would take to bomb a city into
oblivion.

Spain was embroiled in a convulsive civil war that had begun in July 1936 when
the right-wing Nationalists led by General Francisco Franco sought to overthrow
Spain's left-wing Republican government. It did not take long before this bloody
internal Spanish quarrel attracted the participation of forces beyond its borders -
creating a lineup of opponents that foreshadowed the partnerships that would
battle each other in World War II. Fascist Germany and Italy supported Franco
while the Soviet Union backed the Republicans. A number of volunteers made
their way to Spain to fight and die under the Republican banner including the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade from the United States.

Hitler's support of Franco consisted of the Condor Legion, an adjunct of the

Luftwaffe. The Condor Legion provided the Luftwaffe the opportunity to develop
and perfect tactics of aerial warfare that would fuel Germany's blitzkrieg through
Europe during 1939 and 1940. As German air chief Hermann Goering testified at
his trial after World War II: "The Spanish Civil War gave me an opportunity to
put my young air force to the test, and a means for my men to gain experience."
Some of these experimental tactics were tested on that bright Spring day with
devastating results - the town of Guernica was entirely destroyed with a loss of
life estimated at 1,650. The world was shocked and the tragedy immortalized by
Pablo Picasso in his painting Guernica.
Rehearsal for War

Noel Monks was a correspondent covering the civil war in Spain for the "London
Daily Express." He was the first reporter to arrive on the scene after the bombing.
We join his story as he and other reporters drive along a dusty Spanish road:

"We were about eighteen miles east of Guernica when Anton pulled to the side of
the road jammed on the brakes and started shouting. He pointed wildly ahead,
and my heart shot into my mouth, when I looked. Over the top of some small
hills appeared a flock of planes. A dozen or so bombers were flying high. But
down much lower, seeming just to skim the treetops were six Heinkel 52 fighters.
The bombers flew on towards Guernica but the Heinkels, out for random plunder,
spotted our car, and, wheeling like a flock of homing pigeons, they lined up the
road - and our car.

Anton and I flung ourselves into a bomb hole, twenty yards to the side of the
road. It was half filed with water, and we sprawled in the mud. We half knelt, half
stood, with our heads buried in the muddy side of the carter.

After one good look at the Heinkels, I didn't look up again until they had gone.
That seemed hours later, but it was probably less than twenty minutes. The planes
made several runs along the road. Machine-gun bullets plopped into the mud
ahead, behind, all around us. I began to shiver from sheer fright. Only the day
before Steer, an old hand now, had 'briefed' me about being strafed. 'Lie still and
as flat as you can. But don't get up and start running, or you'll be bowled over for
certain.'

When the Heinkels departed, out of ammunition I presumed, Anton and I ran
back to our car. Nearby a military car was burning fiercely. All we could do was
drag two riddled bodies to the side of the road. I was trembling all over now, in
the grip of the first real fear I'd ever experienced."

"... I saw the reflection of Guernica's flames in the sky."

Monk and his fellow reporters drive on, traveling near Guernica where they can
hear what they think may be the sounds of bombs. They continue to the city of
Balboa, where after filling his report to London, Monk joins his colleagues for
dinner. His story continues as his dinner is interrupted by the news from
Guernica:

"...a Government official, tears streaming down his face, burst into the dismal
dining-room crying: 'Guernica is destroyed. The Germans bombed and bombed
and bombed.' The time was about 9.30 p.m. Captain Roberts banged a huge fist
on the table and said: 'Bloody swine.' Five minutes later I was in one of
Mendiguren's limousines speeding towards Guernica. We were still a good ten
miles away when I saw the reflection of Guernica's flames in the sky. As we drew
nearer, on both sides of the road, men, women and children were sitting, dazed. I
 saw a priest in one group. I stopped the car and went up to him. 'What I
happened, Father?' I asked. His face was blackened, his clothes in tatters. He
couldn't talk. He just pointed to the flames, still about four miles away, then
whispered: 'Aviones. . . bombas'. . . mucho, mucho.'

...I was the first correspondent to reach Guernica, and was immediately pressed
into service by some Basque soldiers collecting charred bodies that the flames
had passed over. Some of the soldiers were sobbing like children. There were
flames and-smoke and grit, and the smell of burning human flesh was nauseating.
Houses were collapsing into the inferno.

In the Plaza, surrounded almost by a wall of fire, were about a hundred refugees.
They were wailing and weeping and rocking to and fro. One middle-aged man
spoke English. He told me: 'At four, before the-market closed, many aeroplanes
came. They dropped bombs. Some came low and shot bullets into the streets.
Father Aroriategui was wonderful. He prayed with the people in the Plaza while
the bombs fell.'..

...The only things left standing were a church, a sacred Tree, symbol of the
Basque people, and, just outside the town, a small munitions factory. There hadn't
been a single anti-aircraft gun in the town. It had been mainly a fire raid.

...A sight that haunted me for weeks was the charred bodies of several women
and children huddled together in what had been the cellar of a house. It had been
a refugio."

References:
Noel Monks' account appears in: Monks, Noel, Eyewitness (1955); Thomas,
Hugh, The Spanish Civil War (1977).

How To Cite This Article:

"The Bombing of Guernica, 1937," EyeWitness to History,
www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2005).

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/guernica.htm

Comparison to subsequent historical events

[edit] Bombing of Dresden

On 13 February 2003, during the commemoration of the 58th anniversary of the Bombing of Dresden,
inhabitants of Dresden, Germany, including survivors of the firestorm of 1945, joined together with
witnesses of the bombing of Guernica to issue an appeal to the people of the world:[30]
 As our television sets show bombers preparing for war against Iraq, we survivors of
Guernica and Dresden recall our own helplessness and horror when we were flung into the
inferno of bombing – we saw people killed. Suffocated. Crushed. Incinerated. Mothers
trying to protect their children with only their bodies. Old people with no strength left to
flee from the flames. These pictures are still alive in our memory, and our accounts capture
indelibly what we went through. For decades we – and survivors from many other nations –
have been scarred by the horror, loss and injuries we experienced in the wars of the 20th
century. Today we see that the beginnings of the 21st century are also marked by suffering
and destruction. On behalf of all the victims of war throughout the world we express our
sympathy and solidarity with all those affected by the terror of 11 September in the USA
and the war in Afghanistan. But is that very suffering now also to be inflicted upon the
people of Iraq? Must thousands more die in a rain of bombs, must cities and villages be
destroyed and cultural treasures obliterated?

Though the Dresden 1945 website is written only in German, the group's joint appeal with Guernica
Survivors against war in Iraq is available in German, English, and Spanish.

[edit] Bombing of Hiroshima

On 26 April 2007, Dr. Tadatoshi Akiba, Mayor of Hiroshima and President of Mayors for Peace
compared the experience of Guernica to Hiroshima:[31]
Human beings have often sought to give concrete form to our powerful collective longing
for peace. After World War I, that longing led to the League of Nations and numerous rules
and taboos designed to govern warfare itself. Of these, the most important was the
proscription against attacking and killing civilian non-combatants even in times of war.
However, the second half of the twentieth century has seen most of those taboos broken.
Guernica was the point of departure, and Hiroshima is the ultimate symbol. We must find
ways to communicate to future generations the history of horror that began with
Guernica.... In this sense, the leadership of those here in Guernica who seek peace and have
worked hard to bring about this memorial ceremony is profoundly meaningful. The
solidarity we feel today derives from our shared experience of the horror of war, and this
solidarity can truly lead us toward a world beyond war.

[edit] Iraq War

On 5 February 2003, a large blue curtain was used to cover up a tapestry copy of Picasso's Guernica
hanging at the entrance to the Security council room, so that it would not be visible in the background
when Colin Powell and John Negroponte gave press conferences at the United Nations justifying why
the United States of America must go to war with Iraq. [32]
Laurie Brereton, an Australian Labor MP and U.N. delegation member, reflected on the draped-over
Picasso after Powell's Wednesday speech:[33]
There is a profound symbolism in pulling a shroud over this great work of art.... We may
well live in the age of the so-called `smart bomb,' but the horror on the ground will be just
the same as that visited upon the villagers of Guernica .... Innocent Iraqis — men, women
and children — will pay a terrible price. And it won't be possible to pull a curtain over that.

On the following day, it was claimed that the curtain was placed there at the request of television news
crews, who had complained that the wild lines and screaming figures made for a bad backdrop, and that
a horse’s hindquarters appeared just above the faces of any speakers. Diplomats did, however, on
condition of anonymity, tell some journalists later that the Bush Administration leaned on UN officials
to cover the tapestry, rather than have it in the background while Powell or other U.S. diplomats argued
for war in Iraq.[34]

[edit] Operation Cast Lead

Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, likened Operation Cast
Lead, an Israeli military operation in Gaza, to Guernica in an article entitled Palestine's Guernica and
the Myths of Israeli Victimhood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica