ART FOR A CHANGE - Posters of the Spanish Civil War

BACK TO SPAIN

This painting was published as a postcard in Mussolini's Italy, and it portrays a member of the Italian fascist blackshirt militia using a rock to crush the "Jew Communist" threat posed to take over Spain. This artwork clearly illustrates the anti-semitic politics of those who worked to destroy the republican movement.

The fascist governments of Germany and Italy not only recognized General Franco as the legitimate leader of Spain... they also sent arms and troops to help assure his victory. Mussolini sent 47,000 soldiers to assist Franco, and also provided tanks and trucks. Hitler's Nazis backed Franco with their mighty air force.

On April 26, 1937, Nazi Germany's Condor Legion air force assisted General Franco by conducting a saturation bombing of Guernica, the ancient capital of the Basques. It was the first ever mass scale aerial bombardment of defenseless civilians. The fascist air strikes killed some 1,600 people and injured many more. Nazi bombs completely destroyed Guernica, and the act became an International scandal that outraged people across the globe. Pablo Picasso expressed this universal condemnation in his painting Guernica. Picasso's huge Cubist painting portraying the Nazi terror bombing of the Basque town was first exhibited in Paris in 1937. The artwork went on to become the most famous painting of the war.