The Tree of Gernika

Steer,George Lowther.The Tree of Gernika: A Field Study of Modern War.

London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, 1938.

With the striking and uncommon dust jacket printed in black on calque paper. 23 plates, 7 folding maps.

Pale browning, light foxing to the fore-edge, minor encroachment to the margins, but overall a very good copy with a few small chips.

First edition, first impression of Steer’s “masterpiece…a firsthand account of the struggle of the Basques in the Spanish Civil War, from the burning of Irun to the fall of Bilbao. During this campaign Steer filed his most important dispatch to the Times ( London) and the New York Times, about the destruction of the Basque town of Gernika, (Guernica) on 26th April 1937, when Nazi aircraft, with Franco’s approval, fire-bombed the buildings and machine-gunned the people. This controversial story caused international outrage and denial, prompted Picasso’s ‘Guernica’, and embarrassed the Times, whose line was the appeasement of Germany.

The only journalist to return to Guernica the day after the bombings to report his findings to the world was put on the Gestapo’s ‘black list’. As much as Franco tried to manipulate the situation by suggesting it was the actions of ‘Red seperatists’ his absurd accusations fell on deaf ears as a result of Steer’s reports.

In October of 2010 Bilbao paid tribute to Steer for alerting the world to the Basque fate by naming a central street after him in the neighbourhood of Atxuri.

The dedication-” To Margarita, snatched away” is a reference to the death of Steer’s wife and unborn child at the London Clinic in January of 1937.