During the early 1900’s, in the times of World War I, Spain had been under the rule of Miguel Primo de Rivera. Primo de Rivera went into power on September 13, 1923, and his dictatorship lasted for seven years, until his death in 1930. (Shlomo 65) And, in 1931, Spain “attempted to establish a parliamentary republic whose governments would reflect the outcomes of honest election. ” (Jackson 272) And, through this republic, the government tried to establish democratic reforms to help the county deal with some problems they had been facing, such as the “long-standing political, economic, and social problems” (273).
It wasn’t until five years after the republic was formed that the start of the Spanish Civil War broke out. The Nationalist rebels wanted to overthrow the elected Republican government to put an end to these reforms and to merge the Church and the government back together like it was during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. The Church was separated from the government during the years of the Second Republic to lessen the power the Roman Catholic Church had over Spain during the times of the old dictatorship. (272-273) This revolt by the Nationalists pushed Spain into a civil war, it was the leftist
Republicans against the right-winged Nationalists. The Republican side was aided by the Soviet Union and International Brigades, while the Nationalist Party, which was ruled by Francisco Franco, gained support from fellow Fascist countries, such as Nazi Germany and Italy. The win for the Fascists would not have been possible without the aid of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. However, Germany’s involvement in the war was nothing compared to the help Italy supplied for the Nationalists. It is said that Italy “dispatched between sixty and seventy thousand troops as well as vast supplies of arms and planes” (Simkin).
Even though Germany did not offer as much help, Adolf Hitler agreed to help the Nationalist forces for a few reasons. Hitler thought by aiding Franco in the fight for Fascism, it would stop any more European countries from undergoing “communist barbarism”, it would give him another Fascist ally, as well as give his armed forces a sort of practice to “test out his commanders, weapons and tactics. ” (Simkin). And, this was evident on April 26, 1937, when Hitler tested out his Luftwaffe on the Basque town of Guernica, Spain.
On the day of April 26, 1937, it was a peaceful, market day in the town, increasing the population from its normal 5,000 nhabitances. However, the town was no longer peaceful when in late afternoon German Luftwaffe aircraft start to bomb the town of Guernica. The reason for the airstrike was to supposedly take out a major bridge and railroad, which “would prevent the arrival of Republican reinforcements and make difficult any retreat by their forces”. Yet, after the attack was over, the bridges and military targets were not destroyed in the bombing, indicating that this airstrike was an attack on innocent, unarmed civilians. Hickman)
This attack was used as a practice run for the Luftwaffe because many historians agree that the tactics used o bomb the town of Guernica were also tactics used by the Germans in World War II (Meisler 1). Also, besides it being a test run for the Germans, it was thought that the real reason for the attack on this unarmed town was because Guernica held a lot of importance to the Basque people, as their sacred “tree of Guernica” was located there, so bombing their town would show the strength of the Nationalists party to the Republicans (“Guernica”).
However, they did not only drop bombs onto the civilians in town, but the airplanes were also shooting at the people below (Hickman). It was estimated that at least 100,000 ounds of bombs were dropped on the town of Guernica, killing at least, 1,000 people (Meisler 1). The thing that is still in question to this day was Franco’s involvement in this bombing and if he was the one that ordered it to happen in the first place.
Some historians say that the bombing was done by the Germans own doing and that Franco was not informed of the damage that had been done until after the attack was over and was supposedly “enraged at the Germans for doing it on their own” (Meisler 1). However, this claim was disputed by Angel Vinas, who is a historian from the University of Alcala. He said, The records show that Franco was in very direct and very intense contact with the Condor Legion. ” Also, according to Vinas, “Adolf Hitler sent the Condor Legion to Spain with the understanding that it act only in coordination with Franco’s army, not on its own. (Meisler 2)
Even though, it has not been identified who sent in the orders, it still caused “international outrage”. The bombing caused the town to be flattened into rubble and the whole city was up into flames. (Hickman) Both Franco and the Nationalists, and Hitler and the Germans tried to deny their involvement in this atrocity, but evidence shows that hey were both guilty in this horrific act. One eyewitness accounts, “In the Plaza, surrounded almost by a wall of fire, were about a hundred refugees. They were wailing and weeping and rocking to and fro.
One middle-aged man spoke English. He told me: ‘At four, before the-market closed, many aeroplanes came. They dropped bombs. Some came low and shot bullets into the streets. Father Aroriategui was wonderful. He prayed with the people in the Plaza while the bombs fell. ‘. ” (“The Bombing of Guernica, 1937,”) However, Franco and the Nationalists had won the Civil War and Franco’s regime was in ffect in Spain from 1936 until his death in 1975 (Hickman). The bombing of Guernica inspired Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, to create one of his largest and most famous paintings of his career.
Picasso was assigned by the Spanish Republican government to present a mural at the Paris Exhibition in the Summer of 1937. Even though Picasso already started a mural for the exhibition, he scraped it as soon as he heard of the tragedy that occurred in Spain, a country where he was born and raised. The mural he was working on before was not anything he was passionate about, so finding a new profound nspiration let his imagination run wild. The painting, Guernica, is very abstract and holds a lot of symbolism; symbolism that Picasso never really revealed the true meaning behind to the public.
The mural is 11 feet tall by 25. 6 feet wide, and he only uses a dark color palette of black, white, and grey to symbolize and add to the effect of darkness and suffering that occurred that day during the Spanish Civil War. Two of the main characters in his piece of work are a bull, which is off to the far left of the painting and seems to be causing all the rampage, and a horse in the middle of the painting who is showing xpressions of fear and pain as it is screaming either for help or in pain. According to an art historian, Patricia Failing, “The bull and the horse are important characters in Spanish culture.
Picasso himself certainly used these characters to play many different roles over time. This has made the task of interpreting the specific meaning of the bull and the horse very tough. Their relationship is a kind of ballet that was conceived in a variety of ways throughout Picasso’s career. ” (“Guernica, 1937 by Pablo Picasso. “) Even though all the symbols in the painting Guernica have not been completely revealed, it is said that Picasso did eveal the symbolism for these two figures. Picasso used the bull “to represent the dark forces, while the horse stood for the Spanish people” (Wischnitzer 153).
The painting also depicts at least six more people, including a mother with her dead child in her arms, suffering in what looks like a burning room. The mural of Guernica had to be transported all around the world due to the fact that the painting would not have been accepted and kept safe in Franco’s Spain. However, after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, the mural was transported from the New York Museum of Modern Art to its rightful home in the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, where it can still be seen there today (“Guernica, 1937 by Pablo Picasso”).
Some say that without the mural created by Pablo Picasso, the bombing of Guernica would have been a forgot piece of history. The mural can represent all types and times of suffering in the world. Those people who had lost their lives that day during the senseless cruelties of the war deserve to be remembered and their suffering should be a reminder of the terrible things that humans can inflict onto other humans. Hopefully, through Picassos painting we can remember this atrocity and use it as a way to prevent such crimes again.
