The bombing of Guernica - a war crime?

[BuddaBell123]

Can someone who knows about this in more detail help me answer these question?

1. Was there a plan or order (either by the Germans, Italians or the Spanish) to specifically bomb the inhabitants? Sub-Question: And if there was an order what did it say? One side suggests that the inhabitants were specifically targeted to test out the new 'terror bombing' tactic. Others suggest that the specific target(s) were the bridge (that either does or doesn't run through the town) and the roads leading out of the town to slow down the enemies retreat (the town was apparently a road junction that could allow masses of enemy forces to escape/retreat through)?

2. Did both German and Italian bomber and fighter planes strafe civilians and possibly military personal in the town itself (so in the streets etc), outside the town in the surrounding fields and roads leading out of the town and the bridge? I haven't heard of any orders to do this (specifically strafe both civilian and non-civilians in and outside the town) and if strafing did occur could it have been used as another way to smash up the roads to make them unusable (but I also question this as machine-gun fire wouldn't have much effect on a road)?

3. The bombing went on for a few hours with an number of waves of both bomber and fighter aircraft doing their bombing runs. Surely if there wasn't an order to bomb the town completely/mostly or to bomb the inhabitants one of those pilots must have realized that this was not a bombing of a bridge and some roads, but the whole town more or less?

4. Over 5000 bombs (correct me if I am wrong) were dropped in the bombing which is a lot for one bridge. There was a large number of incendiary bombs dropped too and I can't think of why they were used unless the bombs failed to destroy the bridge/roads or the rubble that came from the buildings around the bridge failed to block it. Apart from that the fire from these bombs could only have been used as a third way of blocking the bridge for a certain amount of time. But, I question the use of incendiary bombs when only bombing a supposed bridge and roads?

I hope someone can help me with some information to answer these 4 question one this controversial topic.

Thanks in advance,

Oliver.

[Paul Lantos]

Whether the bombing of Guernica was or wasn't a war crime is still up for debate.

How is there any doubt that it's a war crime based on your own synopsis of it? The Nazis used the Spanish Civil War basically to train the Luftwaffe. One doesn't need live humans underneath the bombs in order to practice flying and bombing.

[BuddaBell123]

I can see what you mean and I will edit my post accordingly. It was a war crime, but I am discussing what happened (so the what were the orders and were civilians really strafed)

[fredleander]

4. Over 5000 bombs (correct me if I am wrong) were dropped in the bombing which is a lot for one bridge.

I hope someone can help me with some information to answer these 4 question one this controversial topic.

Thanks in advance,

Oliver.

The figure of "5.000 bombs" implies that each bomber carried more than 100 1kg-bombs (if 40 planes it was). Hardly correct if these weren't small anti-personell bombs. 40 bombers of that vintage killing 1.600 people would have to be some sort of record as to efficiency. To me, the other loss figure mentioned here seems much more realistic.

None of this decides whether it was a war crime or not.

That said, Guernica was a key city for the Republicans in that area, a traffic center with several arms factories, one of them Astra y Unceta (which wasn't hit), placed within the city boundaries. It was only approx. 10 km. behind the frontlines. These were much the same parameters which were used as justification for the bombing of Dresden. It was an important railhead with many strategic factories, particularly optics products.

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Wikipedia:

Bombs to casualty ratio

"Issues with the originally released figures were raised following an appraisal of large scale bombing raids during the Second World War. A comparison of the Guernica figures with the figures of dead resulting from air attacks on major European cities during the Second World War exposed an anomaly. It came to be posited[who?] that the figures for Guernica were somewhat inflated. Corum uses the figure of forty tons of bombs dropped on Guernica, and calculates that if the figure of 1654 dead is accepted as accurate then the raid caused 41 fatalities per ton of bombs. By way of comparison the Dresden air raid during February 1945 which saw 3,431 tons of bombs dropped on the city caused fewer deaths per ton of bombs: 7.2–10.2 fatalities per ton of bombs dropped. Corum, who ascribes the discrepancy between the high death toll reported at Guernica and in other cases such as Rotterdam to propaganda, goes on to say that for Guernica:
300–400 fatalities in Guernica. This is certainly a bloody enough event, but reporting that a small town was bombed with a few
...a realistic estimate on the high side of bombing effectiveness (7–12 fatalities per ton of bombs) would yield a figure of perhaps hundred killed would not have had the same effect as reporting that a city was bombed with almost 1,700 dead"

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Knowing that many of the Dresden victims were killed by the firestorm following the concentrated bombing the Guernica figures seem even more inflated. There were no firestorm in Guernica.

What happened there was bad enough.

Fred

[Ironmachine]

The figure of "5.000 bombs" implies that each bomber carried more than 100 1kg-bombs (if 40 planes it was). Hardly correct if these weren't small anti-personell bombs. 40 bombers of that vintage killing 1.600 people would have to be some sort of record as to efficiency. To me, the other loss figure mentioned here seems much more realistic.

They (the German bombers) indeed carried more than 100 1kg-bombs. The Ju-52s carried 288 of those bombs each. This was standard practice since 1936, and have been previously used in other bombardments (for example, against Madrid), so it is difficult to support the idea that Guernica was attacked to learn how to attack cities.
On the other hand, there were no 40 bombers. On that day, Guernica was attacked by 3 Savoia S-79, 3 independent German bombers (1Do-17, 1 He-111and another one of unknown model) and about 18 Ju-52s (perhaps 17 or 19, at most 21).
The loss figuere of 1.600 dead is a gross exageration. The most accurate accounts talk about 120-200 dead.

]That said, Guernica was a key city for the Republicans in that area, a traffic center with several arms factories, one of them Astra y Unceta (which wasn't hit), placed within the city boundaries. It was only approx. 10 km. behind the frontlines. These were much the same parameters which were used as justification for the bombing of Dresden. It was an important railhead with many strategic factories, particularly optics products.

Indeed. The military value of Guernica, considering its war industries, its location and its military "resources", can not be questioned.

Knowing that many of the Dresden victims were killed by the firestorm following the concentrated bombing the Guernica figures seem even more inflated. There were no firestorm in Guernica.

In fact, most of the damage caused by the fire was produced after the bombing (mostly due to the lack of resources employed in fire fighting), when the people of Guernica have had time to evacuate the village.

[Topspeed]

Can someone who knows about this in more detail help me answer these question?

1. Was there a plan or order (either by the Germans, Italians or the Spanish) to specifically bomb the inhabitants? Sub-Question: And if there was an order what did it say? One side suggests that the inhabitants were specifically targeted to test out the new 'terror bombing' tactic. Others suggest that the specific target(s) were the bridge (that either does or doesn't run through the town) and the roads leading out of the town to slow down the enemies retreat (the town was apparently a road junction that could allow masses of enemy forces to escape/retreat through)?

2. Did both German and Italian bomber and fighter planes strafe civilians and possibly military personal in the town itself (so in the streets etc), outside the town in the surrounding fields and roads leading out of the town and the bridge? I haven't heard of any orders to do this (specifically strafe both civilian and non-civilians in and outside the town) and if strafing did occur could it have been used as another way to smash up the roads to make them unusable (but I also question this as machine-gun fire wouldn't have much effect on a road)?

3. The bombing went on for a few hours with an number of waves of both bomber and fighter aircraft doing their bombing runs. Surely if there wasn't an order to bomb the town completely/mostly or to bomb the inhabitants one of those pilots must have realized that this was not a bombing of a bridge and some roads, but the whole town more or less?

4. Over 5000 bombs (correct me if I am wrong) were dropped in the bombing which is a lot for one bridge. There was a large number of incendiary bombs dropped too and I can't think of why they were used unless the bombs failed to destroy the bridge/roads or the rubble that came from the buildings around the bridge failed to block it. Apart from that the fire from these bombs could only have been used as a third way of blocking the bridge for a certain amount of time. But, I question the use of incendiary bombs when only bombing a supposed bridge and roads?

I hope someone can help me with some information to answer these 4 question one this controversial topic.

Thanks in advance,

Oliver.

I think BuddhaBell123 is pretty close in solving this mystery.

I want to point out that indeed civilian town was keps a human shield, but since new kinda incendiaries were tested more than one bridge needed to be destroyed we cannot consider that the amount of collateral damage could have keen kept justifyiable just to reach the military objective of knocking down the bridge.

If killing innocent civilians is not a war crime then what is ?

[Topspeed]

In light of the threads I've just started for discussions on the war crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War, I'm starting this separate thread on the bombing of Guernica as it is the most famous even often labeled as a crime so it deserves special attention.

Please post facts on the bombing here with information on the sources used.

/Marcus

Good lord.........If Guernica is considered a warcrime, what the hell is Hamburg to be considered as.

Tony

Undoudabtly a major war crime.

[wm]

At that time war crimes (without mentioning the name) were defined by the Hague Conventions.
The Conventions regulated armed conflicts between nations, and the Spanish Civil War was, as the name says a Civil War - everything what happened there was internal matter of Spain. So the bombing could be, or not a crime according to the Spanish law, but can't be a war crime.
And the fact that foreign volunteer corps took part in the fightings doesn't change anything, still it was a Civil War.

If killing innocent civilians is not a war crime then what is ?

Killing innocent civilians, except those under your control - on your territory, wasn't a war crime.
But attacking places you know as a fact were defenseless, and didn't and wouldn't contribute to the war effort of your enemy was.

In fact there was no such a thing as an innocent civilian. There were combatants, non-combatants, prisoners of war and inhabitants of a territory.

[Topspeed]

At that time war crimes (without mentioning the name) were defined by the Hague Conventions.
The Conventions regulated armed conflicts between nations, and the Spanish Civil War was, as the name says a Civil War - everything what happened there was internal matter of Spain. So the bombing could be, or not a crime according to the Spanish law, but can't be a war crime.
And the fact that foreign volunteer corps took part in the fightings doesn't change anything, still it was a Civil War.

If killing innocent civilians is not a war crime then what is ?

Killing innocent civilians, except those under your control - on your territory, wasn't a war crime.
But attacking places you know as a fact were defenseless, and didn't and wouldn't contribute to the war effort of your enemy was.

In fact there was no such a thing as an innocent civilian. There were combatants, non-combatants, prisoners of war and inhabitants of a territory.

Are you saying innocent civilian cannot be innocent since we all are sinners by the definition written in the bible ? I think a new born baby is pretty innocent.

I think the military has lost the focus if they start bombing civilians that have no defence and cannot change the outcome of the war.

I also think the Dresden and Hamburg etc bombings just escalated new horrors. Just as did the Coventry / London bombings....and Guernica.

Also the Helsinki bombing in November 30th 1939 just unified the people against a common enemy despite the class differences.

[4thskorpion]

This was the first major war-action in the modern era where the attacking force clearly showed absolutely no concern for civilians, whether or not one believes that the purpose of the raid was the killing of civilians. It is quite clearly a war crime

"...The first strategic bombing in history was also the first instance of bombs being dropped on a city from the air. On 6 August 1914 a German Zeppelin bombed the Belgian city of Liège."

"...The first extended campaigns of strategic bombing were carried out against England by the German Empire's fleet of airships, which were then the only aircraft capable of such sustained activities so far from their bases."

"...In May 1917 the Germans began using heavy bombers against England using Gotha G.IV and later supplementing these with Riesenflugzeuge ("giant aircraft"). The targets of these raids were industrial and port facilities and government buildings, but few of the bombs hit military targets, most falling on private property and killing civilians."

Below: German airship Schütte Lanz SL2 bombing Warsaw in 1914.

German_airship_bombing_Warsaw.JPG (33.99 KiB) Viewed 1052 times

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_ ... orld_War_I

[wm]

Are you saying innocent civilian cannot be innocent since we all are sinners by the definition written in the bible ? I think a new born baby is pretty innocent.

No, the main distinction was between those killed wantonly, with no military purpose in mind, and the others. It wasn't like kill the guilty, spare those non-guilty.

I think the military has lost the focus if they start bombing civilians that have no defence and cannot change the outcome of the war.

The question is why they were defenseless, where was their army? Isn't the main purpose of any armed forces to defend their country, and their civilians? If that wasn't possible they should have handed over the territory with those defenseless people to the enemy. The other possibility was to capitulate and to end the war.

[Topspeed]

The question is why they were defenseless, where was their army? Isn't the main purpose of any armed forces to defend their country, and their civilians? If that wasn't possible they should have handed over the territory with those defenseless people to the enemy. The other possibility was to capitulate and to end the war.

I don't get it..so its okay in a war to kill civilians as much you like is this how it goes ?

Here is a soviet partisan ( a decorated hero ) slaughtered finnish female..is this ok ?

[4thskorpion]

A War Crime often relating to civilians is codified as "....wantonly destroying cities, towns, villages, or other objects not warranted by military necessity"

These circular arguments involve varying interpretations of "not warranted by military necessity."

[Kurt_Steiner]

The question is why they were defenseless, where was their army? Isn't the main purpose of any armed forces to defend their country, and their civilians? If that wasn't possible they should have handed over the territory with those defenseless people to the enemy. The other possibility was to capitulate and to end the war.

The army was retreating to defend Bilbao, the recent losses of the Republican Air Force made air d efence im0possible and there was no reason to expect that Gernika was to be bombed.

The city was defenceless and, almost, open for the enemy to take it.

Instead of doing that, the Legion Condor just destroyed it.

[Kurt_Steiner]

The question is why they were defenseless, where was their army? Isn't the main purpose of any armed forces to defend their country, and their civilians? If that wasn't possible they should have handed over the territory with those defenseless people to the enemy. The other possibility was to capitulate and to end the war.

I don't get it..so its okay in a war to kill civilians as much you like is this how it goes ?

Let me sum it up to you. What Wm suggest is that the fault was on the poeple of Gernika and the Basque auhorities for not surrendering to Franco as they were almost defeated. So, everything that happened to them was their fault, for being too stubborn, I guess.

Indeed, a quite disgusting "theory".