Overview
- He was accompanied by Spain’s King Felipe VI as they laid a wreath at a mausoleum in Guernica and observed a minute of silence.
- Steinmeier met two survivors of the bombing, Crucita Etxabe and María Carmen Aguirre, who were children at the time.
- Local media reported small protests by Basque nationalists outside the town’s Peace Museum during the visit.
- Historians attribute the 26 April 1937 destruction to Germany’s Legion Condor, with death toll estimates ranging from about 200 to 1,700, and Picasso’s painting cementing the event’s global symbolism.
- The commemoration builds on a 1997 acknowledgment by President Roman Herzog of German culpability, yet no German head of state had traveled to Guernica until now.