The bombers roared in low on a sunny afternoon. Unopposed by antiaircraft fire or fighter defenses, they pounded away for almost 3½ hours, Heinkel-111s in the lead, followed by ponderous Junkers-52 trimotors. As fighter planes wove in and out, strafing people on the ground, the bombers unloaded some 100,000 lbs. of high-explosive, fragmentation and incendiary bombs on a small Basque town in the green hills of northern Spain. When the bombers left, a town had been smashed to rubble, but a symbol was born—still evoked for many by Pablo Picasso's best-known and most terrifying canvas.
The date was April 26, 1937, the place Guernica, spiritual home of the Basques and Basque nationalism, site of a revered oak tree under whose branches Basques had elected their representatives since the Middle Ages. The Spanish Civil War was in its ninth month, and troops of the provisional Basque government were fighting alongside Republican forces against Francisco Franco's Nationalists. The fragile front was about 15 miles from Guernica, a target of at best limited military value.
How Many Died? To this day, no one knows how many of Guernica's 7,000 inhabitants and about 3,000 refugees in the town died under the bombs and in the resulting fire storm: estimates have ranged from 200 to as many as 1,600. Nor does anyone have proof of who, ultimately, was responsible for a raid that was the prototype of World War IPs massive bombing campaigns. Within hours of the death of Guernica, the Nationalists charged that Basques themselves had set the town afire—a lie that would persist for much of Franco's reign.
This week the rebuilt town prepares to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing with a memorial Mass, a photo exhibition and a gathering of historians. Madrid has stalled giving its approval to the ceremonies, in part because the Guernica controversy remains alive. Basques know that the Franco regime permitted a revisionist version of Civil War history: aircraft belonging to the Condor Legion, a Luftwaffe contingent supporting the Nationalists, had carried out the raid, but the Nationalist high command was not involved.
Former German air force officers have conceded that the Luftwaffe was responsible for Guernica; they have also insisted that the raid was a monumental error, caused by bad visibility and inexperience. The real target, they have claimed, was a tiny, 60-ft. stone-and-steel bridge over the narrow Mundaca River, a funnel for retreating Basque troops. But why incendiaries against a stone bridge? And why so massive a raid against so small a target? The Renteria Bridge, in any case, was never touched. Nor were the sacred oak and the adjoining Casa de Juntas (assembly hall) of the Basques, nor an important small-arms factory on the outskirts of town.
The bridge still spans the sluggish, greenish Mundaca, touching directly on the new Guernica that has replaced the flattened core of the old town, much of it laid out along original streets. The population has grown to some 17,000, reinforced by many non-Basque migrants from other parts of Spain. Unemployment is relatively low: the three silverware factories and the old arms plant are doing acceptable business. Monday —the day the bombs came—is still market day. Basque is spoken widely, and the old folks say that the young are more radical than anyone in their pursuit of Basque rights and Basque autonomy.