The Bombing of Guernica

[Sylvester Stadler]

Recently the Military Channel featured a 30-minute program entitled Weapons of World War 2: Heavy Bombers in which the narrator claimed that the Luftwaffe began terror bombing of civilians during the Spanish Civil War with the raid on Guernica. The narrator claimed that there were no military targets in Guernica and that the bombing was clearly intended to kill only civilians, although no evidence was provided. The mention of this bombing raid was intended to excuse the later Allied bombing of German civilians and several times the narrator quoted and also showed "Bomber" Harris stating that "The Germans had sown the wind, now they must reap the whirlwind."

The book Guernica: How Hitler's Air Force Destroyed a Spanish City for Franco in Practice for World War II clearly states that the city had as a legitimate target Republican military forces in and around the town. Another source, Hitler's Luftwaffe in the Spanish Civil War, which uses original German sources including von Richthofen's diaries, basically states there is no evidence that the raid was to intimidate civilians and that it was part of a strategy to trap Republican ground forces during the Nationalist advance to Bilbao.

The Spanish Republicans may have lost the civil war but they and their Communist cohorts have won the propaganda war which still goes on today with British sources like the TV program mentioned above repeating this lie.

[mars]

Please correct me if I was wrong,Guernica was part of Basque region, and in the spanish civil war, it was territory of the Basque National force, scince when Basque become part of communist?

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Sylvester Stadler

The Spanish Republicans may have lost the civil war but they and their Communist cohorts have won the propaganda war which still goes on today with British sources like the TV program mentioned above repeating this lie.

Perhaps one shouldn't expect much in the way of historical insight from anyone who picks a pseudonym from the bloody SS but even so ...

Let's remind ourselves of a few facts. Franco was in illegal rebellion against an elected government (not an institution an SS-fan might care for even though they tend to outperform totalitarian regimes on every count). Germany had not declared war on Spain. The Condor Legion was deployed under false pretences ("volunteers") in support of that illegal rebellion. It's very presence in Spain was illegitimate, it had no legal business bombing anything at all.

[Bruce Dennis]

Well said, Nick.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Franco being illegal or not, but has either Nick or Bruce actually cared to ponder what would have happened if Stalinists had won? Probably a bloodpath on unimaginable proportions, country in total ruins. It is very easy to compare the state in which each respective regimes left their lands after falling. The Spain as left by Franco was far and above anything that the bolsheviks and their lackeys left after falling everywhere else, like in Eastern Europe.

But the stronghold of leftists among academia is so strong that these questions are so rarely raised. Another example of the bolshie-leftist influence is how the USSR and the RSA are compared. During the recent Football World Cup we heard again how reporters and everyone who wanted to be "in" were applauding how FIFA ejected the so evil apartheid South Africa from their tournaments while conveniently forgetting to wonder why the very same FIFA of great moral fiber had no trouble in keeping in the USSR, the number 1 human rights violator of all times. What was going in RSA at that time was peanuts in comparison. And considering the facts that ever since the bakcks took over RSA, the sole beacon in the whole continent has sunken in the bottom with vast increase in corruption, crime, economic instability. These facts are again so unpleasant to the Red academia.

[mars]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

Franco being illegal or not, but has either Nick or Bruce actually cared to ponder what would have happened if Stalinists had won? Probably a bloodpath on unimaginable proportions, country in total ruins. It is very easy to compare the state in which each respective regimes left their lands after falling. The Spain as left by Franco was far and above anything that the bolsheviks and their lackeys left after falling everywhere else, like in Eastern Europe.

But the stronghold of leftists among academia is so strong that these questions are so rarely raised. Another example of the bolshie-leftist influence is how the USSR and the RSA are compared. During the recent Football World Cup we heard again how reporters and everyone who wanted to be "in" were applauding how FIFA ejected the so evil apartheid South Africa from their tournaments while conveniently forgetting to wonder why the very same FIFA of great moral fiber had no trouble in keeping in the USSR, the number 1 human rights violator of all times. What was going in RSA at that time was peanuts in comparison. And considering the facts that ever since the bakcks took over RSA, the sole beacon in the whole continent has sunken in the bottom with vast increase in corruption, crime, economic instability. These facts are again so unpleasant to the Red academia.

I would not call pre-civil war spanish government as "Stalinist", majoriy of this left wing spanish were socialist and anarchist, neither were friends of Soviet, and as far as I know neither Stalin nor Hilter had direct role of the breaking out of the spanish civil war, that tragic war was a result of almost 100 year long bloody conflict between left wing and right wing of the spanish society. It was a conflict between liberal vs conservative, rather than Fascist vs communist

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

has either Nick or Bruce actually cared to ponder what would have happened if Stalinists had won?

I'm capable of distinguishing Stalinism from other more genuinely socialist beliefs. Apparently that isn't a distinction you care to make but that still didn't entitle the Luftwaffe to bomb Guernica.

[Bruce Dennis]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

Franco being illegal or not, but has either Nick or Bruce actually cared to ponder what would have happened if Stalinists had won? .

Hello Jukka,
Thanks for asking, I have spent a fair part of my life looking at what happened and, more importantly, what the alternatives were.

So there is no confusion about it, now or later, I do not subscribe to the 'official' version of history, and also have little patience with those who are blindly partisan no matter which side they support: the 20th century was a messy, bloody period and every episode from that era I have looked at so far is rich in hypocrisy and jingoism. The fact that enormous sacrifices were made by people all over the planet does not, to me at least, distract from the equally established fact that entire populations were lead to believe lies, and I hope that our work as (amateur) historians will make it harder for this to happen on such a scale again. The leadership of Germany gained credibility in important circles by joining the fight against the Left in Spain, and this is hopefully something we can all agree on: they benefitted and no-one stopped them.

Did the Luftwaffe or any other Air Force have any right to bomb any part of Spain? Absolutely not. Did any other country effectively block the German actions? Absolutely not. Did the plight of Spain get used throughout the world to rally support for the causes representing both sides? Absolutely.

Messy time, the 20th century.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Originally Posted by Bruce Dennis

Messy time, the 20th century.

That´s a statement I can agree 100%. A few general observations:

1) In the recent von Manstein biography by Mungo Melvin the author makes an interesting statement that from 1870 to 1945 German Army allways had a low tolerance for any kind of civilian resistance. Sadly the author does not ponder why it was so. I, for one, understand the policy perfectly: if civilians of an occupied country wish to be treated like civilians, they must also behave like civilians and by the definitions on the international law in effect at that time it meant that they refrain from any form of resistance. Period. Most of the battlefield atrocities in the West were rooted in the aforementioned tradition.

2) As far as the Eastern Front is considered, it is most interesting to note how few authors have asked the big question, i.e. why didn´t the Soviets evacuate their civilian population from the battle zones? And I believe that the answer lies in the mindset of bolshevik leadership. They simply ruthlessly calculated that the partisan warfare that was part and parcel of bolshevik way of war would surely lead to harsh countermeasures and that in turn to increased support for the partisans. And the plan worked perfectly, though at the expense of the poor civilians. That does not exonerate the NS responsibility for the massacres éntirely, or even mostly, but does show that the war on the Eastern Front was a different war from the beginning. And shows that the NS people were their own worst enemies as they simply failed to grasp that their plocies were in total opposition to their main goal, making Germany a BIG player. In short, the NS leadership lacked true statemanship. In this context it is interesting to note that Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated for exactly the same reason. Heydrich had managed to pacify the protectorate so that the British leadership wasn´t happy for the lack of saboteur activity there. So they carried out the assassination in the belief that Hiter will be enraged and will order excessive countermeasures. And again the plan worked like a charm. And again the poor civilians paid the price. And again the NS folks screwed up.

3) It is also quite interesting to note that the books by Polish historian Bogdan Musial have not been translated into English while every second rate holocaust book is. Musial´s findings are simply not too pleasant for the left dominated academia and political establishment as he has shown that while the Soviets were retreating in 1941, NKVD was fully committed to liquidate large number of people Stalin considered as his enemies.

4) And it is interesting too to note how Sylvester Stadler is harped upon due to his choice of a name. I am pretty certain that had he selected e.g. Ivan Konev as his name, no harping upon would take place. Yet, if the careers of these two are compared, one will note that Stadler spent his entire NS era career as a career military man, while Konev began his career as a political commissar who e.g. took action against anti-Bolshevik uprisings. And if Franco was an illegal entity, then the Soviet regime was even more illegal.

[Bruce Dennis]

[quote=Jukka Juutinen;111524]That´s a statement I can agree 100%. A few general observations:

... Heydrich had managed to pacify the protectorate so that the British leadership wasn´t happy for the lack of saboteur activity there. ...QUOTE]

I am sorry, Jukka, but to rationalise the bombing of Guernica with a statement that, somehow, the evil butcher Heydrich was doing good is beyond me.

Bruce