During the Spanish Civil War in the, Francisco Franco forbade the Basque language, stripped rights from the Basques, and ordered the destruction of the Basque city of Guernica. Pío Moa: Guernica.
In: Pío Moa: Los mitos de la Guerra Civil. Guernica, in full Guernica y Luno, official Spanish-Basque composite Gernika-Lumo, city, just northeast of Bilbao, Vizcaya provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Basque Country, northern Spain.The city, on the Río de Plencia (Butrón) near the inlet of the Bay of Biscay, is the statutory capital of the former lordship of Vizcaya, sacred to the Basques. Standing at 3.49 meters (11 ft 5 in) tall and 7.76 meters (25 ft 6 in) wide, the painting shows the suffering of people wrenched by violence and chaos. To commemorate the painting’s 80th year, ... 80 years on from the Guernica bombing, Spain should be using this anniversary to remember its past and honour the victims of war. Fields denoted with an asterisk (*) are required . The region’s resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler’s air force. Editorial Planeta DeAgostini S.A., Barcelona 2005, ISBN 84-674-1473-1, S. 369–390.
In April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica is a mural-sized oil painting many art critics consider to be one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history. Guernica, large oil painting by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso named for the Spanish city that German aircraft bombed in 1937. Spain has specific laws on protecting historical memory, and yet some would rather forget about them altogether. The 1936–39 Spanish Civil War took a brutal turn with the April 26, 1937, bombing of that Republican-held medieval Basque town by German and Italian planes with the permission of Nationalist Generalissimo Francisco Franco. The work received mixed reviews when it was shown at the world’s fair in Paris, but it became an icon as it traveled the world in ensuing years. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques – a group who had withstood the advances of the army since the Spanish Civil War begun in 1936. It was carried out, at the behest of Francisco Franco’s nationalist government, by its allies, the Nazi German Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria, under the code name Operation Rügen. Spain was embroiled in a convulsive civil war that had begun in July 1936 when the right-wing Nationalists led by General Francisco Franco sought to overthrow Spain's left-wing Republican government. Fontana Press, London 1996, ISBN 0-00-686373-6.