George
Steer, the son of a newspaper editor, was born in South
Africa in 1909. He was educated at Winchester
and at Christ College, Oxford,
where he obtained a double first in classics.
Steer
became a war correspondent and covered several wars for The
Times and the Daily Telegraph.
In 1935 he covered the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.
The poorly armed Ethiopians were no match for Italy's modern tanks
and aeroplanes. During the war Steer reported on how the Italians
were using mustard gas on the home forces.
In
1937 Steer was sent to cover the Spanish
Civil War where he reported on the bombing of Guernica.
He was then sent to Finland where he
witnessed the Red Army invasion.
Steer
published eight books including Caesar in
Abyssinia and A Tree in Guernika.
In one article he wrote "A
journalist is not a simple purveyor of news, whether sensational or
controversial, or well-written, or merely funny. He is a historian
of every day's events ... and as a historian must be filled with the
most passionate attachment and most critical attachment to the truth,
so must the journalist, with the great power that he wields, see that
the truth prevails."
In
1940 Steer took over the running of the Ethiopian Forward Propaganda
Unit. Later, in the Second World War he was
appointed as head of the Indian Field Propaganda Unit. George Steer
was killed in a car crash in Bengal on 25th December, 1944.
(1)
George Steer, The
Times (27th April,
1937)
Guernica, the most ancient town of the Basques
and the centre of their cultural tradition, was completely destroyed
yesterday afternoon by insurgent air raiders. The bombardment of this
open town far behind the lines occupied precisely three hours and
a quarter, during which a powerful fleet of aeroplanes consisting
of three German types, Junkers and Heinkel bombers and Heinkel fighters,
did not cease unloading on the town bombs weighing from 1,000lb. downwards
and, it is calculated, more than 3,000 two-pounder aluminum incendiary
projectiles. The fighters, meanwhile, plunged low from above the centre
of the town to machine-gun those of the civilian population who had
taken refuge in the fields.
The whole of Guernica was
soon in flames except the historic Casa de Juntas with its rich archives
of the Basque race, where the ancient Basque Parliament used to sit.
The famous oak of Guernica, the dried old stump of 600 years and the
young new shoots of this century, was also untouched. Here the kings
of Spain used to take the oath to respect the democratic rights (fueros)
of Vizcaya and in return received a promise of allegiance as suzerains
with the democratic title of Señor, not Rey Vizcaya. The noble
parish church of Santa Maria was also undamaged except for the beautiful
chapter house, which was struck by an incendiary bomb.
At 2 a.m. today when I
visited the town the whole of it was a horrible sight, flaming from
end to end. The reflection of the flames could be seen in the clouds
of smoke above the mountains from 10 miles away. Throughout the night
houses were falling until the streets became long heaps of red impenetrable
debris. Many of the civilian survivors took the long trek from Guernica
to Bilbao in antique solid-wheeled Basque farm carts drawn by oxen.
Carts piled high with such household possessions as could be saved
from the conflagration clogged the roads all night. Other survivors
were evacuated in Government lorries, but many were forced to remain
round the burning town lying on mattresses or looking for lost relatives
and children, while units of the fire brigades and the Basque motorized
police under the personal direction of the Minister of the Interior,
Señor Monzon, and his wife continued rescue work till dawn.
In the form of its execution
and the scale of the destruction it wrought, no less than in the selection
of its objective, the raid on Guernica is unparalleled in military
history. Guernica was not a military objective. A factory producing
war material lay outside the town and was untouched. So were two barracks
some distance from the town. The town lay far behind the lines. The
object of the bombardment was seemingly the demoralization of the
civil population and the destruction of the cradle of the Basque race.
Every fact bears out this appreciation, beginning with the day when
the deed was done.
Monday was the customary
market day in Guernica for the country round. At 4.30 p.m. when the
market was full and peasants were still coming in, the church bell
rang the alarm for approaching aeroplanes, and the population sought
refuge in cellars and in the dugouts prepared following the bombing
of the civilian population of Durango on March 31, which opened General
Mola’s offensive in the north. The people are said to have shown
a good spirit. A Catholic priest took charge and perfect order was
maintained.
Five minutes later a single
German bomber appeared, circled over the town at a low altitude, and
then dropped six heavy bombs, apparently aiming for the station. The
bombs with a shower of grenades fell on a former institute and on
houses and streets surrounding it. The aeroplane then went away. In
another five minutes came a second bomber, which threw the same number
of bombs into the middle of the town. About a quarter of an hour later
three Junkers arrived to continue the work of demolition, and thenceforward
the bombing grew in intensity and was continuous, ceasing only with
the approach of dusk at 7.45. The whole town of 7,000 inhabitants,
plus 3,000 refugees, was slowly and systematically pounded to pieces.
Over a radius of five miles round a detail of the raiders’ technique
was to bomb separate caserios, or farmhouses. In the night these burned
like little candles in the hills. All the villages around were bombed
with the same intensity as the town itself, and at Mugica, a little
group of houses at the head of the Guernica inlet, the population
was machine-gunned for 15 minutes.
(2)
Leah Manning wrote about meeting
George Steer during the Spanish Civil
War in her autobiography, A Life For
Education (1970)
I had arrived in Bilbao on April 24 and on
the next day had gone to Mass with the Foreign Secretary and his family,
spending the rest of the day in his office. The morning of the 26th
I spent quietly at the office of Asistencia Social, discussing in
outline the plans for evacuation.
In the afternoon I made
my way down to La Prensa where a group of journalists had invited
me for a drink, among them Philip Jordan and George Steer, who during
the next few weeks were to prove towers of strength and encouragement
to me. A day begun so quietly was to end in indescribable horror and
dismay.
"A raid's coming
up," said Jordan. "Do you want to go down to the shelter?"
I shook my head, so we went outside. Phil's ear had caught the sound
of bombers in the air, although there had been no warning. Across
the hills to the east the air was alive with Heinkels as wave after
wave drove in from the sea. They were followed by Junkers. Horror-striken,
the Basques amongst us shouted, "Guernica! they're bombing Guernica!"
It seemed incredible that such a monstrous thing
could happen to this quiet little market town, renowned from time
immemorial as the home of Basque liberation where, before the famous
oak tree, rulers of Spain had traditionally sworn to observe Basque
local rights. Helpless to do anything we watched from the hills. Until
nearly eight in the evening, incendiary bombs and high explosives
rained down every twenty minutes. The town was open and defenceless;
it was crowded with market day visitors and as people fled
from the destruction they were dive-bombed and machine-gunned from
the air. The roads out of the town were jammed with dead and injured:
1,654 killed; 889 injured.
