The Real Story Behind Pablo Picasso’s Most Famous Masterpiece

13. A Generals’ Rebellion

Many of the German weapons and tactics that played a key role in WWII were first tested and fine-tuned in the Spanish conflict. So were many of the horrors, such as the terror bombing of civilians, in a deliberate bid to break their morale and will to resist. Most notorious of those horrors was the Condor Legion’s bombing and destruction of a small Basque town in northern Spain, which inspired Pablo Picasso to paint what is perhaps his most famous masterpiece, Guernica. Spain’s generals rose up against their democratically elected government in July, 1936, and soon thereafter, their leader, General Francisco Franco, sent emissaries to Hitler, requesting aid. They found the German dictator feeling bullish and brimming with confidence, as 1936 had been a good year for the Fuhrer, and it was barely half over.

12. Hitler’s Decision to Help Spain’s Rebels

In March, 1936, Hitler had successfully stared down Britain and France. The Fuhrer sent German troops into the Rhineland, in blatant violation of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and faced no consequences aside from feeble protests. A few months later, the Berlin Olympics had been a huge success, and the games burnished the image of the Third Reich and its leader. Franco’s envoys were fortunate that the meeting took place at the annual Bayreuth Festival in honor of Hitler’s favorite composer, Wagner. The German dictator was in a particularly good mood, and inclined to be generous when the Spanish emissaries requested help to transport their veteran forces from Spanish Morocco to Spain’s mainland. Franco wanted 10 German transport aircraft, with air and ground crews. Hitler doubled that, and sent him 20 Junkers Ju 52s.

11. The First German Military Contingent Sent to Spain

Three million Reichsmarks were earmarked to fund an ostensibly private joint Spanish-German enterprise, the Spanish-Moroccan Transport Company, created to provide cover and conceal German involvement. Over the next few months, German pilots operating German airplanes carried out an airlift codenamed Operation Magic Fire, to fly Franco’s soldiers to Spain. Ju 52s crammed with Spanish troops transported about 13,500 veteran soldiers, plus 36 artillery pieces and 126 machine guns. It was the world’s greatest airlift until then. Magic Fire finally ended in October, when the fascists won control of the sea lanes between North Africa and Spain. That enabled them to transport troops and equipment more economically in ships. In the meantime, the Germans were busy recruiting and organizing volunteers to help Franco. On August 1^st, 1936, a first contingent of 86 men, accompanied by antiaircraft guns, six fighter airplanes, and about 100 tons of supplies, was sent to Spain.

10. The Birth of the Condor Legion

The first German arrivals formed the nucleus of what became the Condor Legion. A month later, they were reinforced with 40 tanks, plus bombs for the steadily growing German air force in Spain: by October, Germany had dispatched about 120 airplanes to the conflict. The German expeditionary force was initially intended as a training and supply mission. However, its role soon evolved from training and supply to overt combat. After the Third Reich officially recognized Franco’s rebels, German efforts in Spain were expanded and reorganized, and their forces were formed into a new unit that was briefly called the Iron Rations, then the Iron Legion, before Hermann Goering renamed it the Condor Legion. The Condor Legion, particularly its air arm, played an oversized role in helping Spain’s fascists secure victory.

9. The Spanish Civil War as a Weapons and Tactics Proving Ground

The Spanish Civil War became a proving ground for German weapons and tactics. The opposing Republican forces became de facto guinea pigs upon whom the Germans experimented and worked out how to best coordinate their air, armor, and infantry forces. The result was witnessed soon after the guns fell silent in Spain, in the devastating German blitzkrieg that overran much of Europe early in WWII. As to the Condor Legion, its most notorious action occurred in April, 1937, in the Basque region of northern Spain. Fighting, which began there on April 20^th, was going badly for the Basque defenders. Between the aerial superiority of the Condor Legion, and the incompetence and indiscipline of the Republican side, their front was on the verge of collapse. They were only saved by the hesitancy of the fascist Spanish commanders, who failed to seize the moment and finish off their reeling foes.

8. The German Commander Who Took Out His Frustration on a Basque Town

The Condor Legion’s aerial commander at the time, Wolfram von Richthofen, was seriously upset when his Spanish allies let slip a great opportunity created by the hard work and risks run by German airmen. Wolfram nursed his anger, and a few days later, took out his frustration on the Basque town of Guernica. On April 25^th, demoralized Republican troops fell back on Guernica, roughly six miles behind the front. The population was around 7000 at the time, plus an estimated 3000 refugees. About 4:30 on the afternoon of the following day, Monday the 26^th, church bells rang to warn of an expected air attack. It was the customary market day, and many farmers were in the town with their sheep and cattle. Guernica’s citizens, plus visitors and refugees who had flooded in to escape the advancing armies, rushed into cellars that had been designated as air raid shelters.

7. The Onset of Guernica’s Doom

Guernica’s population was in good spirits when the alarm first sounded, and maintained good order as a Catholic priest took charge. About five minutes later, a single Condor Legion Heinkel He 111 arrived. Unchallenged by any air defenses, it circled the town at a low altitude, before it finally dropped six heavy bombs in the town’s center, apparently intended for the train station, and disappeared. The bombs missed the station, but struck nearby houses and other buildings. People emerged from the shelters, and many began to clear the rubble and help the injured. Five minutes later, another German bomber arrived, and dropped another six heavy bombs on Guernica’s center. About fifteen minutes later, three more German warplanes, Junkers Ju 52s converted into bombers this time, struck. They dropped bombs of varying sizes as they subjected the town to carpet bombing – a tactic invented by the Condor Legion.

6. A Steadily Intensifying Aerial Onslaught

The bombing grew ever more intense and continuous, and systematically demolished Guernica and the surrounding region up to a five mile radius. The attack finally stopped when it grew too dark to fly, around 7:45 PM. People rushing back to the shelters were choked by dust and smoke, and grew alarmed when it became clear that the cellars were not strong enough to protect them from heavy bombs. They stampeded to the open fields surrounding the town, but Heinkel 51 fighters swept over, strafing the fleeing men, women, and children, as well as the livestock. The major part of the aerial onslaught had not even begun. Bombers continued to arrive over Guernica in systematic twenty minute relays, for two and a half hours. Their loads ranged from small antipersonnel 20 pound bombs, to 550 pound heavier bombs, plus incendiaries in 2 pound aluminum tubes that were sprinkled down like confetti.

5. The Deliberate Destruction of a Town

Witnesses described apocalyptic scenes: whole families buried in the ruins of their houses; blackened humans staggering about or scrabbling through the rubble, desperate to dig out friends and relatives; sheep and cattle, set ablaze by white phosphorous, running crazily between the burning buildings until they perished. The manner of Guernica’s destruction had no parallels in military history. The town itself was not a military objective, and the nearest military targets, two barracks plus a factory that produced war materials, lay miles outside Guernica. They all went untouched, as the Nazi and fascist warplanes unleashed their wrath on purely civilian targets in the town. According to local authorities, about a third of the population became casualties, with 1654 killed, and 889 wounded. That night, Guernica was a horrific sight, as a seemingly continuous conflagration engulfed the town from end to end.

4. Aftermath of the Horror

Charred and burned out houses continued to fall, until the streets became mounds of impassable debris. The roads out were clogged by refugees seeking shelter and often elusive safety elsewhere, their few household possessions that had been saved from the flames piled high on cars, trucks, or wooden and wooden wheeled farm carts drawn by oxen. Many others were forced to stay in Guernica, where they slept on mattresses atop the debris, or frantically searched for missing children and loved ones. Firemen, police, and others who lent a hand continued to perform rescue work until dawn. The smoke and flames from the burning town were visible from more than ten miles away. The following day, April 27^th, news of Guernica’s destruction appeared in the international press. It triggered widespread condemnations of the atrocity. Franco’s fascists labeled it “fake news”.

3. The Fascists Initially Labeled Guernica’s Destruction “Fake News”

Franco’s propaganda claimed that Guernica was destroyed by its defenders as they withdrew. Per Franco and his minions, the Republicans then falsely blamed the heroic fascist air forces. Spain’s Catholic Church, a mainstay of the Spanish fascist camp, backed Franco’s claims completely. Indeed, its professor of theology in Rome went so far as to claim that there was not a single German in Spain, because the local fascists needed only Spanish soldiers, who were second to none in the world. It was too ludicrous even for Franco’s supporters abroad to sustain. Especially after Condor Legion personnel acknowledged that they had bombed Guernica, claiming to have been aiming at a stone bridge just outside the town, only for strong winds to blow their bombs into Guernica. In reality, the bridge was never hit, there was virtually no wind, and antipersonnel bombs, incendiaries, and machine gun strafing are useless against stone bridges.

2. Guernica’s Destruction Was a Live Experiment to Test the Effectiveness of Terror Bombing

Contra fascist propaganda, Wolfram von Richthofen’s diary noted that the attack had been planned with the Spanish fascists, with the aim of disrupting the Republican withdrawal through Guernica. It is quite possible that one of the attack’s goals had been to block the roads leading through the town. However, all else points to the raid having been conducted as a live experiment on the effects of aerial terror bombing. A few years later, many European cities shared Guernica’s fate beneath German bombers, including Warsaw in 1939, Rotterdam and Coventry in 1940, Belgrade in 1941, and Stalingrad in 1942 – the last one a raid so devastating that it claimed the lives of more than 40,000 civilians in a single day. Among those greatly moved by the fate of Guernica was Pablo Picasso. Feverishly working in his Paris apartment, Picasso completed a mural-sized masterpiece on canvas in June, 1937.

1.     Immortalizing the Horror on Canvas

Guernica depicts the horrors visited upon the Basque town. Twenty five and a half feet wide by eleven and a half feet tall, the composition prominently features a gored bull, a horse, plus people amidst the flames, and captures the fear and agony of innocents caught up in the chaos and devastation of war. The painting, which was exhibited at the 1937 Paris World Fair and other venues around the world, became an immediate sensation, and is Picasso’s most widely recognized work. It is considered by many art critics to be one of the most moving and powerful antiwar paintings in history. Unsurprisingly, the Germans were not thrilled with the masterpiece. After France fell to the Germans in 1940, a Gestapo officer reportedly barged into Picasso’s apartment in Paris, and pointing at a photo of Guernica, asked: “Did you do that?!” The painter coolly replied: “No. You did“.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Beevor, Antony – The Battle For Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 ­(2006)

Guardian, The, March 26^th, 2009 – In Praise of… Guernica

History Collection – 16 Times Artist Pablo Picasso Would Have Been Called Out During the #Me Too Movement

History Net – Spanish Civil War: German Condor Legion’s Tactical Air Power

Independent, The, April 27^th, 2017 – Eighty Years Later, The Nazi War Crime in Guernica Still Matters

Times, The, April 28^th, 1937 – The Tragedy of Guernica: Town Destroyed in Air Attack

ThoughtCo. – Spanish Civil War: Bombing of Guernica