George Steer, South African-English journalist and author (born 1909)

George Lowther Steer was a South African-born British journalist, author and war correspondent who reported on wars preceding the Second World War, especially the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and the Spanish Civil War. During those wars, he was employed by The Times, and his eyewitness reports did much to alert Western nations of war crimes committed by the Italians in Ethiopia and by the Germans in Spain although little was done to prevent them by the League of Nations. His 1937 exclusive on the bombing of Guernica inspired Pablo Picasso to paint his anti-war masterpiece, Guernica. He returned to Ethiopia after the start of the Second World War and helped the campaign that defeated the Italians and restored Hailie Selassie to the throne.