George Steer

Ruins of Guernica

In 1937 he was sent to report on the Spanish Civil War. His first reports from the Basque country described how British merchant ships beat the Nationalist blockade of Bilbao to bring food to the starving people of the town and surrounding region. He also visited the front line on several occasions to report directly on the fighting.

He won prominence with his scoop report on the bombing of Guernica on 26 April 1937. His telegram to London described German bomb casings (inscribed with the words Rheindorf 1936, with the German eagle insignia), and the use of thermite as an incendiary to create a firestorm in the center of the town. High explosive bombs were used to create blast damage to wooden structures, which could then be ignited more easily by the incendiaries. His reporting[2] did much to inspire Pablo Picasso to record the atrocity for posterity in his massive painting. It also alerted western governments to the way the Germans were preparing to use terror bombing as a way to intimidate civilians. His reports were directly contradicted by the Nationalists, who said that the damage was caused by the Government forces themselves, as they had at Ita earlier in the conflict, although a League of Nations investigation concluded that neither the terror bombing theory nor the Nationalist's version of intentional arson were accurate.[3] Steer responded to such reports by providing details of the damage in the town (such as bomb craters) and the Luftwaffe aircraft used in the attack, such as Heinkel He 111 bombers. Although he was not an eye-witness to the bombing itself, he arrived soon afterwards, and so was able to see the effects and talk to some of the survivors. He was one of the last journalists to leave Bilbao as the Nationalists advanced, and fled to Santander to the west.

A tiled wall in Gernika claims "Guernica" Gernikara, "The Guernica (painting) to Gernika."

The anti-Fascist tone of Steer's reporting led The Times to dispense with his services; the newspaper's editorial stance on the war was anti-Republican, whilst its editor, Geoffrey Dawson, privately sympathised with the Nationalists under Francisco Franco. However the newspaper had a general policy of appeasement when it came to Germany, the Nazis and Fascism. Steer returned to South Africa and, in his book Judgment on German Africa, documented Germany's attempts to subvert its former African colonies, especially the Cameroon, South West Africa (now known as Namibia), Tanganyika and Togoland.

Finnish ski troops in Northern Finland on 12 January 1940.

Street signal in Bilbao (Spain).

After the outbreak of World War II, the Daily Telegraph dispatched Steer to Finland to cover the Winter War, when Finland was attacked by the Soviet Union in November 1939. Steer saw the effects of aerial bombing of several Finnish towns by the Soviets, attempts made to intimidate the population, just like at Guernica. But by contrast with Ethiopia and Spain, western countries such as Britain and France (and nazi Germany) were only too eager to offer arms and equipment as well as volunteers to assist the Finns. The war was of relatively short duration owing to the disparity in armed might, although the Russian casualties were much greater than those of the Finns. An armistice was signed in March, 1940 and Finland lost about 10% of her territory to the Soviets.

When Italy declared war on Britain, plans were laid to invade Ethiopia from Kenya and the Sudan, with the aim of toppling the Italian regime and re-instating Hailie Selassie as Emperor. Steer was appointed as an officer in the Intelligence Corps of the British Army, initially to chaperone Selassie from London to the Sudan (under the pseudonym, "Mr Smith" since the position of the Emperor had to be kept secret from the Italians). He was then put in charge of a mobile propaganda unit to undermine the Italian garrisons by leafletting, loudspeaker attacks and so on. The campaign was remarkably successful, with many Italian troops deserting to become prisoners, and Ethiopians transferring allegiance. Steer broadcast light Italian operas and news from the Italian front in Libya, where the British army had great successes against much larger Italian forces in 1941. The military campaign waged by British and Ethiopian soldiers was very successful, using a combination of regular troops and irregular forces led by Orde Wingate. They entered Addis Ababa in triumph in April 1941 to accept the defeat of the Italians.