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On 26 April 1937, the Basque town of Guernica (Gernika in Basque) was aerially bombed during the Spanish Civil War. 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.
The bombing of Guernica was a brutal and unprovoked attack on a civilian target. It was not defended by any aircraft and did not have any air defenses. It was considered an easy target. The bombing of Guernica was condemned around the world it was widely seen as a crime against humanity.
Flying in three-plane wedges, the Ju 52s dropped a mix of high explosive and incendiary bombs on Guernica for approximately fifteen minutes, while the escorting fighters strafed ground targets in and around the town. Departing the area, the bombers returned to base as the town burned.
On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the Nazis tested their new air force on the Basque town of Guernica in northern Spain. One-third of Guernica’s 5,000 inhabitants were killed or wounded. Pablo Picasso exposed the horror of the bombing in his famous anti-war painting called Guernica.
The bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War heralded a terrible new age of warfare. But who was the main culprit – Hitler or Franco? Paul Preston considers the evidence...
The bombing of Gernika is largely remembered because it signalled the start of the systematic attack on civilians as a strategy of war, a kind of rehearsal of the so-called ‘total war’ against the population.
Guernica, the most ancient town of the Basques and the centre of their cultural tradition, was completely destroyed yesterday afternoon by insurgent air raiders.
During the Spanish Civil War, the German military tests its powerful new air force—the Luftwaffe— on the Basque town of Guernica in northern Spain.
Guernica had served as the testing ground for a new Nazi military tactic - blanket-bombing a civilian population to demoralize the enemy. It was wanton, man-made holocaust.
The bombing of a small town in northern Spain by units of the German Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). On April 26, 1937, Guernica, a Basque town in northern Spain with a population of about 7,000 people, was almost totally devastated.