After the re-training on the Bf 109 D at Barth in August 1937 he was transferred to the Luftwaffe's ‘Condor Legion’ which was to be sent to aid General Francisco Franco's Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War along with other notable personalities like Adolf Galland and Werner Mölders.
This sculpture, as well as some drawings with the same theme that the author made during his second period in Mendoza, is a powerful denunciation of Nazi air raids during the Spanish Civil War and a symbol of the sufferings inflicted by war.
Gruppe Thoma formed part of Gruppe Imker, the ground formations of the German Condor Legion, who fought on the side of Franco's Nationalists.
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The bombing of the Basque town of Guernica in Spain by planes of the German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion in 1937 made politicians realise the potential for destruction in British cities should another war with Germany break out in Europe.