George Steer, author of "The Guernica Tree" will be honored by the inhabitants of the Basque town.
Here you have the note that appeared at no other place but Steer's publishing home, The Times:
The Times
Guernica honours Times man for telling its story
Too bad not The Times nor any other news outlet had the chance to come up with other brave reporters willing to tell the world what was done to the Basques from 1937 through 1975.GEORGE STEER, the journalist for The Times whose report of the German bombing of Guernica outraged the world and inspired Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece, is honoured today in the Basque town where the massacre happened.
Exactly 69 years after the Luftwaffe Condor Legion squadron attacked the civilian population of the Basque town on a busy market day, a bronze bust of Steer will be unveiled and a street named after him.
As part of the build-up to the 70th anniversary next year, the Basque authorities wanted to remember the journalist whose report brought the news of the massacre to the world.
Underneath Steer’s bust, in Basque, Spanish and English, are the words: “George Steer, journalist, who told the world the story about Guernica.”
Calle George Steer is finally to become a street name in the ancient capital of the Basques after a 25-year campaign by a group dedicated to reminding the world of the horror that was unleashed by the German bombers.
Steer, who was covering the Spanish Civil War for The Times, was among the first journalists to reach Guernica just hours after more than 1,600 civilians were killed by the bombing and subsequent firestorm on April 26, 1937.
He waited to find proof that the Nazis were responsible before filing a report on the attack: three small bomb cases stamped with the German Imperial Eagle.
At this point, Nazi Germany had signed the Non-Intervention Pact and German troops were officially playing no role in the war.
But Steer’s report uncovered the lie. It read: “Guernica was not a military objective . . . the object of the bombardment was seemingly the demoralisation of the civil population and the destruction of the cradle of the Basque race.” It appeared in The Times, was syndicated to The New York Times and went round the world.
When Picasso, who was in exile in Paris, read the news he was outraged and changed a canvas that he was preparing for an exhibition.
The result was Guernica, the black-and-white painting that has come to symbolise the horror of war.
Every year, the authorities in Guernica mark the anniversary of the bombing, remembering the dead at the cemetery in the town.
After the ceremony, the bust by a Romanian artist, Septimiu Jugrestan, 23, will be unveiled.
Nicholas Rankin, the British author and former journalist for the BBC, who has written a biography of Steer called Telegram from Guernica, will be at the ceremony along with Steer’s son, George Barton Steer.
Mr Rankin told The Times: “Steer told the world the Germans were secretly bombing Spain which caused outrage around the world. It was a great story, like the Iran-Contra scandal.
“Picasso read his report, was outraged and started on Guernica on May 1, 1937. His black and white painting was not a photograph but almost like that. It was his response to this news story.”
He added: “Steer did a fantastic job. His was not the first report but it was the one which caused the most impact. It is a real pleasure to be able to honour him.”
Alberto Gadeka, of the Commission for the Investigation of Guernica, which has campaigned for a street to be named after Steer, said: “He reported the truth of what happened here to the world.
“His extensive report brought it home to people. He deserves to be honoured after so long.”
Steer went on to write a book about his experience in the Basque town, called The Guernica Tree, named after the former meeting place of the region’s parliament.
Born in 1909 in South Africa, Steer was the son of a newspaper manager, who studied at Oxford.
He reported on the Ethiopian war with Italy for The Times and came to know Emperor Haile Selassie.
Steer was then sent to Spain to cover the civil war between the Republican forces and General Francisco Franco’s Nationalists.
He also covered the Winter War in Finland, before joining up when the Second World War started.
He served in Ethiopia in a propaganda unit and then was transferred to India where he fought the Japanese.
Steer was killed in a car crash in 1944.
If that have happened, then the infamous line of "the 800" had never seen the light.
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