This past Thursday the 26th of April marked the 75th anniversary
of the bombing of Guernica. Guernica is a beautiful town in
northern Spain, very close to the Bay of Biscay and about an
hour’s drive from the French border. It was then and is today
the heart and soul of Basque society. That fateful day in 1937,
a Monday, was a market day when the town was filled with people,
a street market and local farmers. At around 4:30 PM German
dive-bombers of the Condor Division, in support of the Fascists
forces of General Franco, began to strafe and bomb the village.
They first destroyed the roads and bridges sealing off all
routes of escape. The result was a bloodbath with great loss of
life. Hitler used his support of Franco to test his war
machinery and the tactics of Blitzkrieg that he would soon
deploy across Europe. The Spanish Civil War ended in April 1939,
and a few months later Hitler invaded Poland. Franco eventually
prevailed against the second attempt at a Spanish democracy and
with his victory established