A town in northern
Spain with a primarily
Basque population, where, on
April 26th,
1937, the
German Luftwaffe commited the greatest atrocity of the
Spanish Civil War, a horrific air raid on the city of little military value that killed hundreds of civilians.
Using a combination of
incendiary bombs and
high explosives, the Germans set the town ablaze, destroying all but a few factories that were thought to be of interest to
Franco (despite theories that
Hitler was to blame for the slaughter, most historians agree that Franco was in fact culpable). Germans also machine gunned helpless civilians as the fled the town.
Although, mild by today's standards of the horrors of modern
war, in a world still unready for
World War II, it was a horrible shock. More than five percent of the town's populace was killed by the attack, a figure that is astronomical by most comparisons.
Later,
Pablo Picasso painted a work in black and white, representing the horrors of the bombing, entitled Guernica. The
painting became as much a part of the
anti-war sentiment as the
dove, and is recognized by some as Picasso's
masterpiece. Hidden in the work are serveral figures, including
skulls and a
bulls head.