Double Helix: Blueprint of Nations
Welcome to 'Double Helix: Blueprint of Nations,' the podcast where we analyze and look at the events, people and actions that have shaped the nations of our world . From revolutions to treaties, conflicts to triumphs, we explore the historical blueprints that continue to influence the way nations think and act today.
Double Helix: Blueprint of Nations
The Spanish Civil War: Terror From Above (Part 5)
Franco, with the support of his German allies, introduces a terrifying new weapon of modern warfare: terror bombing. The unsuspecting Basque town of Guernica becomes the first grim stage for this tactic, its destruction a brutal message to both enemies and civilians alike. For the first time, the deliberate targeting of a civilian population by aerial bombardment shocks the world and forever changes the nature of war.
As the conflict grows more mechanized and ruthless, the skies over Spain darken with the shadow of planes—tools of destruction aimed at breaking not just armies but the spirit of entire communities.
Meanwhile, in Madrid, resistance remains unyielding. The city weathers relentless attacks—first from Franco’s ground forces, and later from his bombers, as terror bombing arrives at its doorstep. Yet, even under the rain of fire and steel, Madrid endures, its defiance a symbol of the Republic’s will to survive against impossible odds.
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Imagine yourself in Garnica on the morning of April 26, 1937. The sun is warm on your face. As you walk through the Monday market, the ancient Basque town is alive with activity. Farmers from the hills are arranging their spring produce on wooden tables. Craftsmens are displaying their work beneath striped awnings. Children are weaving through the crowds playing traditional Basque games. Beside you, an old woman is teaching her granddaughter how to select best tomatoes, passing down knowledge that's flowed through generations. Nearby, a group of men are discussing politics in hushed voices. Near the Casa de Juntas, the traditional meeting house where Basque leaders have gathered for centuries, bobden spreads the great oak of Kernika, the sacred symbol of Basque liberty, under which Spanish kings once swore to protect Basque rights. Under which Spanish kings once swore to protect Basque rights. It's 4.25 in the afternoon. In the market square, a farmer named José Larrañaga checks his watch, thinking about packing it up for the day. His daughter wants him home early. It's her 14th birthday. Near the church, 13-year-old Luis Iriondo is playing marbles with his friends. By the fruit stalls, maria Oñate is haggling over the price of apples, her 2-year-old son asleep in her arms.
Speaker 1:4.29 pm. Some people are looking up now, shading their eyes against the spring sun. Others have started to move towards the air-raid shelters. They've learned from previous alerts. Many stay where they are. After all, guernica has no military targets. Surely they wouldn't. 4.30pm, the first bombs fall.
Speaker 1:This is part 5 of the Spanish Civil War story Terror from Above. You know how they say you can't understand someone until you walk a mile in their shoes. Well, I'd argue you can't understand a nation until you've walked through its history, not just the highlight reel or the sanitized version you find in textbooks. I mean really getting into its DNA, those defining moments that shaped everything that came after, those moments where paths were chosen, where decisions were made in palaces and backrooms and city streets that changed the course of millions of lives. I'm your host, paul, and this is Double Helix Blueprint of Nations, where we unravel the genetic code of countries through their most transformative moments. Think of it like ancestry testing, but for entire nations. We dig deep into the historical DNA, finding those crucial moments that made countries who they are today. Welcome back. If you haven't listened to our previous episodes, I highly encourage you to go back and give them a listen for additional context. In addition, you might hear me pronounce the name of the city in northern Spain called Guernica as Guernica, which is the name in Basque. So just for awareness. We are now into the first six to seven months of the Spanish Civil War and the Nationalists and their allies have unleashed a terrible new weapon onto the world and the Republican-held cities in Spain. Also, before we continue with today's story, if you've been following our journey through Spain's Civil War and you're finding value in these stories, please take a moment to rate and review Double Helix wherever you get your podcasts. Your support helps other history enthusiasts discover these important stories and your feedback helps us create better episodes in the future.
Speaker 1:Okay, standing in the modern market square of Guernica watching children play where bombs one fell, one can't help but think about Luis Iriondo, that 13-year-old marble player who survived the bombing. He was interviewed a few years before he passed away. The hardest part, he says with his hands shaking slightly as he pours his coffee, wasn't the bombs or the fire. It was the planes hunting us in the streets. They came so low we could see the pilots' faces. I've always wondered what did they see when they looked at us, and that question haunts me. What did those pilots see? What were they thinking as they transformed this ancient market town into what one German officer would later call the perfect laboratory for their experiments in terror. But to understand why Guernica became that laboratory we need to step back a few months.
Speaker 1:Franco's attempt to take Madrid had stalled. The capital's defiant slogan no Pasaran they shall not pass had proven true, at least for now. His generals were pushing for a new strategy. Picture yourself in Franco's headquarters in February of 1937. Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, commander of the German Condor Legion, is pointing at a map of northern Spain. Commander of the German Condor Legion is pointing at a map of northern Spain. The vast country, he explains, is the republic's industrial heart. Its factories produce weapons and ammunition. Its ports receive supplies from abroad. Its banks hold much of Spain's gold reserves. Take the north, he tells Franco, and Madrid will fall like a ripe fruit. Franco nods, but his mind is already moving beyond the military calculations. The Basque country represents everything he despises about modern Spain Regional autonomy, distinct cultural identity, progressive politics. His vision of Spain is singular, centralized, traditional. There can be no room for difference.
Speaker 1:The northern campaign begins in March 1937, and let me paint a picture of the forces involved. Franco had assembled 28,000 infantry, including the feared Navarese Carles, the infamous Requetes, who see this as a holy war against their Basque neighbors 200 artillery pieces positioned in the mountains, overlooking the Basque towns and, most crucially, overwhelming air power German bombers, italian fighters and Spanish reconnaissance planes. The Republic, meanwhile, has withdrawn most of its aircraft to defend Madrid. The skies over the north belong to Franco and his allies, but the Basques have something powerful on their side the mountains themselves and a determination to defend their ancient freedoms that goes back centuries. In a small village outside Durango, an old Basque shepherd watches German bombers practice their runs. He turns to his grandson and he says they forget. These mountains have seen many armies come and go and we're still here Three days later. Both grandfather and grandson will die when those same bombers destroy their village.
Speaker 1:And this is where we need to understand something crucial about the German Condor Legion. This wasn't just a military unit. It was a testing ground for theories that would reshape modern warfare forever. Colonel von Richthofen, cousin of the famous Red Baron, had a particular interest in what he called the psychology of terror. He wanted to prove that air power alone could break civilian morale. The Legion had already experimented on smaller towns, but Guernica offers something unique a chance to test their theories on a target of deep symbolic importance. Think about what Guernica means to the Basque. The ancient oak tree had witnessed the evolution of one of Europe's oldest democracies. Under its branches, basque leaders had met in council since before Columbus sailed to America, spanish kings had sworn to respect Basque rights on that very spot. So when the bombers came that Monday afternoon, they weren't just attacking a town, they were striking at the heart of Basque identity itself.
Speaker 1:The attack itself was a masterpiece of military precision and an atrocity of unprecedented scale. The first wave of German He-111 bombers appeared at 4.30 in the afternoon, their shadows sliding over the marketplace like dark birds. Luis Siriondo, our young marble player, would later say how time seemed to slow in that moment. Someone shouted planes and we all looked up. He remembered they were so beautiful, gleaming in the sun. Then the first bombs fell and beauty turned to horror. The bombers had practiced this choreography for weeks High explosives first to crack open the streets and break the water mains, then incendiaries to start fires, finally fighter planes swooping low to strafe anyone trying to flee or fight the flames. They called it the roadblock tactic Trap people between the fires and the bullets tactic. Trap people between the fires and the bullets In the marketplace, maria Oñate clutched her two-year-old son and ran for the nearest shelter.
Speaker 1:She found herself in a crowded basement with 30 others. We could hear the buildings above us collapsing. She would write in her diary years later. A woman started praying the rosary, then another joined in. Soon, we were all praying together Catholics, socialists, nationalists, basque separatists. In that moment, politics didn't matter. We were just people trying to survive.
Speaker 1:When the attack finally ended, at 7.45 pm, gernika had been transformed. The town that had stood for seven centuries was basically gone, and its place was a landscape that would soon become tragically familiar across Europe Rubble flames, scattered bodies, shocked survivors wandering like ghosts through the ruins of their world. But here's what's extraordinary the sacred oak of Guernica survived, standing in its shade. Today, you will still see bullet holes in the ancient trunk. The Basque will tell you that it survived because it had to like their culture, their language, their identity. It just refused to die. The world's reaction was immediate. George Steer, a correspondent for the Times of London, reached Guernica the next morning. His report, published on April 28, broke through the fog of propaganda that had surrounded the war thus far. The insurgents' objective, he wrote, is seemingly the demoralization of the civil population and the destruction of the cradle of the Basque race.
Speaker 1:In Paris, pablo Picasso read Stier's article over breakfast at his favorite café. The Spanish artist had been struggling with a commission for the Paris World Fair. The Spanish Republic wanted something that would draw attention to their cause. That morning he began sketching what would become his masterpiece, guernica. But while Pablo Picasso was transforming horror into art, another city was preparing to face its own ordeal from the skies. Madrid, the city that had already withstood Franco's ground assault, was about to experience what Guernica had pioneered.
Speaker 1:I want you to picture Madrid in the summer of 1937. The elegant capital of Spain has become something else entirely. The Gran Vía, once known as Spain's Broadway, is now crossed with tank traps and barricades. The Telefónica building, spain's first skyscraper, has become a fortress and an observation post. Its height offers the perfect vantage point to spot incoming aircraft, but also make it the perfect target.
Speaker 1:Antonio Ruiz was a teenager then working as a spotter on the Telefonica roof. The hardest part wasn't spotting the planes, he says when he was interviewed later in life. The hardest part was knowing that when you rang the warning bell, people down below would have only minutes to find shelter. You felt responsible for every life. Those warnings became part of Madrid's daily rhythm. Julia Manzanal, who worked in a munitions factory, described it in her memoirs.
Speaker 1:You learned to read the sounds. The German Heinkels had a different engine noise than the Italian Savoyas. The dive bombers made a screaming sound we call the Trumpet of Jericho. Children would play games guessing which planes were coming. Imagine that, making a game of the things trying to kill you.
Speaker 1:But Madrid refused to break. When bombs destroyed buildings, people cleared the rubble and built barricades with it. When foot ran short, they shared what they had. A network of underground shelters developed. The metro stations became underground cities with their own governments, entertainment and even romance. I met my husband in the Bilbao station shelter. One woman recalled he was teaching children to read while we waited for the all-clear. I thought anyone who could think about education during an air raid must be special.
Speaker 1:Ernest Hemingway, reporting from Madrid for the North American Newspaper Alliance, captured a scene that perfectly illustrates the city's defiance. He wrote about watching a play at the Teatro de la Zarzuela when the air raid sirens began. The actors paused while the bombs fell nearby, thus sifting down from the ceiling. Not a single person in the audience moved towards the exits. When the all clear sounded. The play simply continued, as if to say this is our city, we don't leave our seats for you.
Speaker 1:The international brigades brought their own perspective to Madrid's resistance. An English volunteer, john Comfort, wrote in his last letter home Madrid is the eyes of the world. What happens here will determine what happens everywhere. Every broken window, every child's cry, every old woman's curse at the bombers, it all matters more than we can know. In the working class district of Vallecas, a school teacher kept a detailed diary of daily life under the bombs. Diary of Daily Life Under the Bombs. She wrote of how her students would do their arithmetic exercises in the metro station during the raids, using sound of explosions to practice counting. Today she noted little. Miguel said he preferred division to multiplication because the bombing divisions, the ones that came in groups of three, were less scary than the multiplication squadrons that came in waves of 12.
Speaker 1:Franco's forces had initially expected Madrid to fall quickly under this aerial assault. Colonel von Richthofen, fresh from his success at Guernica, promised that systematic bombing would break civilian morale within weeks. But something unexpected happened. The more they bombed Madrid, the more its people adapted. Arturo Barea, working as a censor in the Telefónica building, described this transformation in his memoir the Forging of a Rebel.
Speaker 1:Madrid learned to live a double life. Above ground we cleared rubble, fought fires, buried our dead. Below ground in the metro stations, life went on. People fell in love, children were born, all men played endless games of chess. We created a whole civilization in those tunnels while another civilization tried to destroy us from above.
Speaker 1:The physical transformation of the city was remarkable. A visiting journalist in the late 1937 season wrote Every brick from every bomb building has been repurposed. They become barricades, they repair other buildings, they fill sandbags. Madrid wastes nothing, not even its own destruction. But the psychological transformation was even more profound. Dolores Ibarurri we've mentioned her before la pasionaria captured this in a speech to factory workers. They think that they can break us with bombs. They don't understand that each explosion makes us stronger, each crater makes our roots go deeper. Madrid is no longer just a city. It is an idea, and you cannot bomb an idea.
Speaker 1:By early 1938, franco had to acknowledge that terror bombing alone wouldn't take Madrid. He switched to a strategy of siege, trying to starve the city into submission. Food became more precious than ammunition. In her diary, a housewife named Carmen Martin detailed the everyday struggle. Today I traded my wedding ring for two potatoes and an onion. Miguel doesn't know. The children must eat. We adults can live on with coffee made from roasted barley, but growing children need real food.
Speaker 1:The siege would continue until the end of the war, but Madrid had already proven something crucial Civilian populations could withstand systematic bombing. Their spirits could survive even when their buildings did not. A British military observer wrote in his report the Spanish Civil War has disproven the theory that air power alone can win wars. Madrid demonstrates that the human spirit, properly motivated, can withstand anything that comes from the sky. What happened in Guernica and Madrid will soon be replicated across Europe. Rotterdam, london, coventry, hamburg, dresden the list of cities that would face terror from the sky grew longer with each passing year of World War II.
Speaker 1:But something born in Spain's civil war would also spread the knowledge that civilians could resist, adapt and survive. As you walk through Madrid today, you can still find reminders of those years. There are buildings that wear their scars, proudly refusing to patch over their bullet holes and bomb damage. In the metro stations there are still arrows pointing to where the air raid shelters were, and if you know where to look, you can find small plaques marking where people died, but perhaps the most powerful reminder isn't physical at all. It's in the Spanish word resistencia resistance.
Speaker 1:After Guernica, after Madrid, it came to mean more than just opposing an enemy. It meant maintaining your humanity when others tried to bomb it out of existence. It meant finding hope in the darkest shelters, teaching children in the midst of chaos, playing theater while explosions shook the walls. The legacy lives on, not just in Spain, but wherever people face overwhelming force, with nothing but courage and conviction, as one Madrid survivor wrote years later they had the planes, but we had the one thing they could not bomb our refusal to be afraid Next time on Double Helix. As Madrid endures under siege, the war spreads across Spain. Franco launches new offensives while the Republic struggles with internal divisions. The international dimension deepens as Hitler, mussolini and Stalin increase their involvement and ordinary Spaniards face an increasingly desperate struggle for survival. The international legions make their appearance in earnest throughout Spain. Until then, thank you for listening and we will see you soon. © transcript Emily Beynon.
