Schlag und Awe


Cursor reminds me that this week marks the 70th anniversary of the Nazis firebombing Guernica.

But as the world learned from then air force head Hermann Göring during the post-war Nuremberg Trials, the army's mission in Spain had also been to gain experience and to practice. There was an "opportunity to test under fire whether the materiel had been adequately developed," Göring said. In 2003, DER SPIEGEL published a document long thought to have been lost which proved that the primary reason the Germans were fighting on the Iberian Peninsula was to test out modern war materiel and tactics under realistic conditions.

The secret document was produced by Joachim von Richthofen, not related to his commander of the same name. He wrote a report for the Condor Legion as to the efficacy of German, Spanish and Italian bombs and provided suggestions as to how their performance could be enhanced. He described Guernica as a planned operation: "First came the incendiary bombs which set a number of roofs on fire." After that, he wrote, "followed the 250-kilogram heavy explosives" in order to "destroy water pipes thus hindering the extinguishing of the fires." He complained that the number of direct hits wasn't terribly high and could be improved. He said nothing, however, about the fact that numerous bridges and factories survived the raid unharmed.

Since then, it has been clear that the Germans saw the Spanish Civil War merely as a gigantic training camp. Some 19,000 soldiers -- officially all were volunteers -- were cycled through the war zone by the Nazis. "Two years of combat experience are more useful than 10 years of peacetime training," a German general summarized.

The commander of Condor Legion, Wolfram von Richthofen, eventually rose to the position of field marshal in Hitler's military machine. He died just weeks after the end of World War II. In his journal about the Spanish operation, he noted on April 28, 1937: "In the evening came the report that Guernica had been razed to the ground. No plans so far for tomorrow."