April 26, 1937
is a date that should be burned in the soul of every human being.
From the standpoint of the Condor Legion of the Luftwaffe, it was an opportunity to test out tactics that would in the vast war to follow in less than 3 years be an essential part of Blitzkrieg - lightening war.
It was the deliberate targeting of a civilian population by military air power.
It unleashed that as a tactic used by both sides in World War II - think here of firebombings of Hamburg and Dresden to say nothing of the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The former may have been justified as retaliation for the bombings of British cities by the Luftwaffe, the latter were given ex post factojustification as saving lives by making unnecessary an invasion of the Japanese homeland, even though Japan had already broached surrender talks on a basis fairly similar to the terms to which they agreed on the deck of the USS Missouri.
Today is the anniversary of Guernica, as the world know the town which in the Basque language of Pablo Picasso is known as Gernika.
It is because of Picasso that we know of Guernica.
From the standpoint of the Condor Legion of the Luftwaffe, it was an opportunity to test out tactics that would in the vast war to follow in less than 3 years be an essential part of Blitzkrieg - lightening war.
It was the deliberate targeting of a civilian population by military air power.
It unleashed that as a tactic used by both sides in World War II - think here of firebombings of Hamburg and Dresden to say nothing of the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The former may have been justified as retaliation for the bombings of British cities by the Luftwaffe, the latter were given ex post factojustification as saving lives by making unnecessary an invasion of the Japanese homeland, even though Japan had already broached surrender talks on a basis fairly similar to the terms to which they agreed on the deck of the USS Missouri.
Today is the anniversary of Guernica, as the world know the town which in the Basque language of Pablo Picasso is known as Gernika.
It is because of Picasso that we know of Guernica.