Chapter 10

Abstract

In the midst of the Bilbao crisis, an event occurred which created a wave of outrage and, over 60 years later, still symbolises the Spanish Civil War. On the afternoon of Monday 26 April 1937, German aircraft destroyed Guernica, the spiritual centre of Basque nationalism. Other towns in the Basque country had been bombed, but none was so completely destroyed as Guernica. It was the use of incendiary bombs (rather than the high explosive which would have been appropriate for demolishing bridges, the ostensible reason for the bombing) which demonstrated the intention to obliterate Guernica as part of the war against the Basque nation itself.