Blue division (Second world war)

See also: Blue Division

The blue Division (or be División Azul in Spanish, of German Blaue Division in ) was a body of: 18000 Spanish volunteers (to which a few hundreds of joined Portuguese) created at the end of the month of June 1941 by the general Francisco Franco and placed at the disposal of the Wehrmacht of the Nazi Germany, which was to equip them, to fight on the face of the East. Division was thus called because of the color of the shirts worn by its members. One sends it in the Northern group of army to replace the 126e division of infantry on the river Volkhov in the sector of Novgorod to supplement the surrounding of Leningrad.

Throughout the countryside of winter and war the volunteers show a great combativeness. The first combat of division engages the second company of the 269e regiment which breaks the attempt at a Soviet battalion to cross Volkhov. The first winter is marked by the effects of the cold but the Spaniards do not have more important losses in proportion than their German allies. January 7th, 1942, the Red Army lance another offensive to break the surrounding of Leningrad, which creates projecting beyond Volkhov. Azul division takes part between March and June in the victorious attack to reduce this projecting. It is sent in the sector of Demniansk to reconsider the face of Leningrad where one entrusts to him a face of 75 kilometers in the area of Pouchkine. Whereas the standard for a division is of ten kilometers of face, one sees with this distribution at the same time the lack of German manpower in a war of position and the value of the Spanish volunteers. Last times of division on the Russian Face are most expensive. In January 1943, division is sent to Krasny Bor. Division delivers its most difficult combat to it. On February 10th and 11th, it undergoes an artillery stopping three hour old and an attack of 44.000 infantrymen supported by 100 tanks. Division holds and loses 3.645 men for 11.000 killed Soviets. Exhausted, Azul division is raised in April by the 254e Division of German infantry. During 18 engagements where it takes part, division collects 2.359 iron Crosses of Second class, 138 of first class, 2 gold Crosses and 2 Knights with sheets of Oak.

Escadrilles Azul and volunteers of the marine

In parallel, of the volunteer-pilots the flotilla Azul ( Escuadrilla Azul ) forms. They are in fact five escadrilles which followed one another on the Face of the East under the term of the 15 Spanische Staffel . The flotilla Azul is integrated into the JG 27 as a 15 (span) /JG 27 of the general von Richtoffen who had ordered Legion Condor during the Spanish civil war. For lack of suitable apparatuses, these escadrilles Hispanic receives fighter plans Messerschmitt Bf 109F and Focke-Wulf FW 190A, is a score of apparatuses for as many pilots and 130 crawling whose uniform is inspired rather oddly by Kriegsmarine and not by Luftwaffe. The First Flotilla ordered by Angel Salas Larrazabal leaves Spain on July 24th, 1941 for Berlin. It gains its first operational station on September 24th on the aerodrome of Moschina close to Smolensk. It fights then in front of Moscow since the base of Byélov and in various sectors where the Red Army deploys its offensive of winter. It lost 4 pilots for 14 shot down enemy apparatuses. The following year, the first flotilla is successively replaced by the second then third ordered by Diaz Benjumea and Carlos Ferrandiz. During the year 1943, the fourth flotilla with the orders of Mariano Cuadra Medina is particularly illustrated on FW 190A by destroying 74 enemy planes for the loss of 7 pilots. The Flotilla Azul cut down nearly 156 Soviet planes either less than the undergone material losses. In addition to the material aid brought, the rotation of Escadrilles Azul makes it possible Spain as well as possible to train the pilots of combat and to assimilate German techniques. It is in the same spirit that the Spanish Navy sends volunteers near the Kriegsmarine and operates in the Baltic at various stations from November 1942 in January 1943. Negociations take place to build 6 submarines of the Type VII in the port of Carthagène between 1944 and 1945, but the German defeat makes this project null and void.

Repatriation of Division Azul and voluntary Spanish of the S

The German defeats so much in North Africa than on the Russian face lead the Spanish government to reconsider the situation. It is not any more question for Franco of promising << a million soldiers espagnols>> if Soviet goes on the capital of the Reich . In addition, the Anglo-Saxons exert increasing pressures on Spain which depends on its raw material imports. Gradually, Franco dislocates the phalangists of the governmental stations to show its ideological distance of the fascistic powers. The withdrawal of the general Muñoz Grandes replaced by his Esteban-Infantes assistant is explained by this context. July 1943 sees the collapse of Mussolini in Italy after the Anglo-American unloading.

Division Azul leaves its positions on October 6th, 1943 and its replacement by 2 German divisions (81ème and 123ème DI) pleads for the Iberian value. It is dissolved on November 17th, 1943.

On: 37000 men having been useful in this unit: 4954 died and: 8700 were wounded. 321 was prisoners, they returned to Spain the 2 April 1954 on board the Semíramis , which, started from Odessa, joined Barcelona.

Free the accent put on the fact that this battalion was composed of volunteers, and not of members of the Spanish army. Thus Spain was not in war against the Soviet Union. To define the attitude of Spain during the intervention of Blue Division, Franco spoke about non-belligerency , intermediate position enters the Neutralité and the participation in the war.

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