Bombing of Guernica

The bombing of Guernica (April 26, 1937) was an aerial attack on the Basque town of Guernica, Spain, causing widespread destruction and civilian deaths, during the Spanish Civil War. The raid by planes of the German Luftwaffe "Condor Legion" and the Italian Fascist Aviazione Legionaria was called Operation Rügen.

The number of victims of the attack is disputed; The Basque government reported 1,654 people killed, although modern speculations suggests between 126 to 400 civilians died. Russian archives reveal 800 deaths on May 1, 1937, but this number may not include victims who later died of their injuries in hospitals or whose bodies were discovered buried in the rubble. The bombing has often been considered one of the first raids in the history of modern military aviation on a defenceless civilian population, although the capital (Madrid) had been bombed many times previously. The bombing was the subject of a famous anti-war painting by Pablo Picasso. It was depicted by Heinz Kiwitz, a German artist who made a woodcut of it and later was killed fighting in the International Brigades. The bombing shocked and inspired many artists: Guernica is also the name of one of the most violent of René Iché sculptures, one of the first electroacoustic music by Patrick Ascione, of a musical composition by René-Louis Baron and a poem by Paul Eluard (Victory of Guernica). There is also a short film from 1950 by Alain Resnais entitled Guernica.