The Fascist's Aerial Bombing of Barcelona

Barcelona was one of the first ever major cities to experience mass aerial bombardment. During the Spanish Civil War Mussolini's Italian air force launched an extensive aerial bombing campaign on the Spanish city in support of Franco's fascist forces.

The people of Barcelona responded by building over a thousand underground public air raid shelters (refugis aeris), These shelters helped to save thousands of civilian's lives. However the repeated waves of air strikes by the fascists on the city ended up killing over a thousand innocent civilians.

800 Days Under Bombs is an interactive map which shows where fascist bombs were dropped on the Catalan city. The map also shows the location of the air raid shelters built in response to the air attacks. The map uses data from Joan Villarroya i Font’s book 'Els bombardeigs de Barcelona durant la Guerra Civil 1936-1939'.

If you click on a bomb marker on the map you can view the date and time of when the bomb was dropped on the city.



You can also view an animated map of the fascist bombing campaign on Barcelona. Barcelona Sota Les Bombes provides an animated chronological account of when and where the fascists dropped bombs on the city. As the map plays dates and photos of the bombing are shown in the map sidebar and a running total updates to show the total number of people killed by the bombs during the air attacks.

The fascist aerial campaign against Barcelona was a war of terror aimed not at military targets but at innocent civilians. The campaign was condemned by other countries around the world. However only a few years later, during the Second World War, the tactic was used by both the Nazi and Allied forces.