Fake News 1937:
Germany disputes the bombing of Guernica

At 16:40 today, 26 April 2017, the bells will ring out again in the small Basque town of Guernica. It will be exactly 80 years since the first planes of the German Condor Legion appeared over the town and began a bombardment lasting three and a half hours which reduced it to rubble. The air strike of 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, has entered the history books as the first time that an undefended European town, not directly involved in fighting, was subjected to carpet bombing. What we now regard as historical truth, however, was long hotly disputed. For decades, those chiefly responsible attempted to conceal their guilt with “fake news” or ostentatious silence. It was only in 1997 that the Federal Republic of Germany admitted the “culpable involvement of German pilots” and sought reconciliation with survivors and descendants.