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Bombing of Guernica - Nazis' test


 * From PBS: "Guernica had served as the testing ground for a new Nazi military tactic - blanket-bombing a civilian population to demoralize the enemy. It was wanton, man-made holocaust."

"Guernica would be a test experiment in the Spanish Civil War, which had become Hitler's laboratory into new methods of fighting."
 * Nick Shepley ("creator of the Explaining History series of e-book") in his book:

The test as Goering testified:


 * From Reuters, When on trial in Nuremberg after the war, Hermann Goering, chief of the German Air Force, testified that “the Spanish Civil War gave me an opportunity to put my young air force to the test, and a means for my men to gain experience.” It’s not clear, even now, what Goering (and Benito Mussolini’s) young men were getting experience in; it certainly wasn’t precision bombing. The strategic targets were the bridge and an arms factory. Neither were damaged – nor was the Tree of Guernica, an oak, the original of which was planted in the 14th century, under which the lords of the Basque country swore to uphold freedom for the people. But the 1937 attack killed at least 200 inhabitants (the exact figure is still disputed) and wounded hundreds more. The town, a center of Basque cultural life, was largely destroyed.  There’s a majority view that the attack was a practice exercise for blitzkrieg, the “lightning war” of terror from the air much used by the Luftwaffe to demoralize civilian populations in World War Two. Wolfgang Schmidt, an expert on the air force at the Military History Research Institute in Potsdam, says that "for the German air force, Guernica was a trial run on how one can spread horror and distress through attacks on cities and towns.”

"As German air chief Hermann Goering testified at his trial after World War II: 'The Spanish Civil War gave me an opportunity to put my young air force to the test, and a means for my men to gain experience.' Some of these experimental tactics were tested on that bright Spring day with devastating results - the town of Guernica was entirely destroyed with a loss of life estimated at 1,650. The world was shocked and the tragedy immortalized by Pablo Picasso in his painting Guernica."
 * From EyeWitness to History:


 * From Sky HISTORY TV Channel: "Nazi military leader Hermann Göring described involvement in Spain as an “opportunity to test under fire whether [war] material had been adequately developed”. Nazi commander Wolfram Von Richthofen described the carnage: “Guernica, a city with 5,000 residents, has been literally razed to the ground. Bomb craters can be seen in the streets. Simply wonderful.” This was the first use of Blitzkrieg (a technique later seen in London) and was the climax of Hitler’s German re-armament programme. But it wasn’t just a military training run. Historian Paul Preston told the BBC in 2003, “Germany and Italy were in it [the Spanish Civil War] because they wanted to weaken Britain and France, seeing it as an opportunity to change the balance of power.” In strategic terms a Facist Spain was good news for the Nazis: it ensured Europe’s third largest country would be sympathetic to their aims of imperialism. WW2 in Europe was underway."