June 1941 was an extraordinary period in German history. Millions of German soldiers, as well as Romanians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Norwegians, and Spaniards, formed a large, well-equipped land regiment that launched an offensive against the Soviets. This was the Soviet-German war. The smoke from the battlefield has dissipated for more than half a century, but some of the final echoes of the war still echo in Europe.
What we are going to focus on today is the "Blue Army" from Spain. Before the outbreak of World War II, Spain first set off a civil war, and with the help of Germany, Franco laughed to the end, so Franco was indebted to the Germans. But in World War II, Spain remained neutral, did not participate on either side, and could make a small fortune. Franco was still afraid that Adolf would be provoked to beat him, so Spain had to symbolically form a "volunteer division". That is, whoever wanted to help Germany fight could participate, but could only fight the Soviet army on the Eastern Front.
This was really the mentality of some people, so about 15,000 Spaniards joined the volunteer division, and after a simple training, the division was given the number of the 250th Division (which was not very good) and came to the Eastern Front to fight. Because they all wear symbolic blue tops, they also have the nickname "Blue Corps".
The Blue Legion, a foreign legion, was very tenacious in the fight against the Soviet Union, because they themselves came for this purpose. In the Leningrad battlefield, the blue corps was very prominent, and it also paid a large number of casualties. The force fought until the autumn of 1943, when germany decided to abandon Leningrad, and the Blue Legion was also recalled to Spain by Franco, ending their conquest in World War II.
Perhaps even the Spaniards themselves have forgotten the team, but the Germans have not forgotten. This Blue Legion, a total of 3334 people were killed, the number of wounded reached 8466, and other casualties were accurate to single digits. The casualty rate of up to 75% made the Germans feel that it was within five. So after the end of World War II, these Blue Legion soldiers and their families will receive a pension and pension, which has persisted to this day.
Although the cost of adding hundreds of thousands of euros a year, the Germans thought it was worth it. What do you think?