Blue Division The Blue Division ( , , officially designated as División Española de Voluntarios by the Spanish Army and 250 . Infanterie - Division in the German Army ) was a unit of Spanish volunteers that served in the German Army on the Eastern Front of the Second World War . Origins . Although Spanish dictator Field Marshal ( " Generalísimo " ) Francisco Franco did not enter World war II on the side of Nazi Germany , he permitted volunteers to join the German Army ( " Wehrmacht Heer " ) on the clear and guaranteed condition they would fight exclusively against Bolshevism ( Soviet Communism ) on the Eastern Front , and not against the Western Allies or any Western Europe an occupied populations . In this manner , he could keep Spain at peace with the Western Allies whilst simultaneously repaying Adolf Hitler for his support during the Spanish Civil War ( see Condor Legion ) . Spanish foreign minister Ramón Serrano Súñer made the suggestion to raise a volunteer corps , and at the commencement of Operation Barbarossa , Franco sent an official offer of help to Berlin . Hitler approved the use of Spanish volunteers on June 24 , 1941 . Volunteers flocked to recruiting offices in all the metropolitan areas of Spain . Cadets from the officer training school in Zaragoza volunteered in particularly large numbers . Initially , the Spanish government was prepared to send about 4 , 000 men , but soon realized that there were more than enough volunteers to fill an entire division : 18 , 104 men in all , with 2 , 612 officers and 15 , 492 soldiers . Fifty percent of officers and non - commissioned officers ( NCOs ) were professional soldiers , many of them veterans of the Spanish Civil War . Many others were members of the Falange ( the Spanish Fascist party ) . Others felt pressure to join because of past ties with the Republic or — like Luis García Berlanga , who later became a well - known cinema director — to help their relatives in Franco ' s prisons . General Agustín Muñoz Grandes was assigned to lead the volunteers . Because the soldiers could not use official Spanish army uniforms , they adopted a symbolic uniform comprising the red berets of the Carlists , khaki trousers used in the Spanish Legion , and the blue shirts of the Falangists – hence the nickname " " Blue Division . " " This uniform was used only while on leave in Spain ; in the field , soldiers wore the German Army ( " Wehrmacht Heer " ) field grey uniform with a shield on the upper right sleeve bearing the word " " España " " and the Spanish national colours . Deployment and action . Germany : training and organization of the Division . On July 13 , 1941 , the first train left Madrid for Grafenwöhr , Bavaria for a further five weeks of training . There they became the Heer ' s 250th Infantry Division , and were initially divided into four infantry regiment s , as in a standard Spanish division . To aid their integration into the German supply system , they soon adopted the standard Heer model of three regiments . One of the original regiments was dispersed amongst the others , which were then named after three of the Spanish cities that volunteers largely originated from — Madrid , Valencia and Seville . Each regiment had three battalion s ( of four companies each ) and two weapons companies , supported by an artillery regiment of four battalions ( of three batteries each ) . There were enough men left over to create an assault battalion , mainly sub - machine gun armed . Later , due to casualties , this was disbanded . Aviator volunteers formed a Blue Squadron ( " Escuadrillas Azules " ) which , using Bf 109 s and FW 190 s , was credited with 156 Soviet aircraft kills . To the Russian front ( August – October 1941 ) . On 31 July , after taking the standard personal oath to Hitler , under whose authority they were to be fighting , the Blue Division was formally incorporated into the " Wehrmacht " as the 250th Division . It was initially assigned to Army Group Center , the force advancing towards Moscow . The division was transported by train to Suwałki , Poland ( August 28 ) , from where it had to continue by foot on a 900 km march . It was scheduled to travel through Grodno ( Belarus ) , Lida ( Belarus ) , Vilnius ( Lithuania ) , Molodechno ( Belarus ) , Minsk ( Belarus ) , Orsha ( Belarus ) to Smolensk , and from there to the Moscow front . While marching towards the Smolensk front on September 26 , the Spanish volunteers were rerouted from Vitebsk and reassigned to Army Group North ( the force closing on Leningrad ) , becoming part of the German 16th Army . Volkhov ( October 1941 – August 1942 ) . The Blue Division was first deployed on the Volkhov river front , with its headquarters in Grigorovo , on the outskirts of Novgorod . It was in charge of a 50 km section of the front north and south of Novgorod , along the banks of the Volkhov river and Lake Ilmen . According to the museum curator in the church Spasa Preobrazheniya on Ilyin Street , the division used the high cupola as a machine - gun nest . As a result , much of the building was seriously damaged , including many of the medieval icons by Feofan the Greek . View area Leningrad ( August 1942 – October 1943 ) . In August 1942 , it was transferred North to the Southeastern flank of the Leningrad siege , just South of the Neva near Pushkin , Kolpino and Krasny Bor in the Izhora River area . View Area After the collapse of the German front following the Battle of Stalingrad , more German troops were deployed southwards . By this time , general Emilio Esteban Infantes had taken command . The Blue Division faced a major Soviet attempt to break the siege of Leningrad in February 1943 , when the Soviet Army 55 , reinvigorated after the epic victory at Stalingrad , attacked the Spanish positions at the Battle of Krasny Bor , near the main Moscow - Leningrad road . Despite heavy casualties , the Spaniards were able to hold their ground against a Russian force 7 times larger and supported by tanks . The assault was contained and the siege of Leningrad was maintained for a further year . This victory established the reputation of the Blue Division with the German general staff . It remained on the Leningrad front where they suffered heavy casualties both due to cold and to enemy action . Franco dispatched more reinforcements , which in time included conscripts in addition to volunteers . Through rotation , as many as 47 , 000 Spanish soldiers served on the Eastern Front . They were awarded both Spanish and German military awards , and were the only division to be awarded a medal of their own , commissioned by Hitler . Disbandment and the Legión Azul . Eventually , the Allies and conservative Spaniards ( including many officials of the Roman Catholic Church ) began to press Franco for the withdrawal of troops from the Eastern Front quasi - alliance with Germany . Franco initiated negotiations in the spring of 1943 and gave an order of withdrawal on October 10 . Some Spanish soldiers refused to return . Some believed that Franco gave his unofficial blessing as long as their number was below 1 , 500 . But the Spanish Government on November 3 , 1943 , ordered all troops to return to Spain . In the end , the total of " non returners " was close to 3 , 000 men , mostly Falangists . Spaniards also joined other German units , mainly the Waffen - SS , and fresh volunteers slipped across the Spanish border near Lourdes in occupied France . The new pro - German units were collectively called the " Legión Azul " ( " Blue Legion " ) . Spaniards initially remained part of the 121st Infantry Division , but even this meagre force was ordered to return home in March , 1944 , and was transported back to Spain on March 21 . The rest of the volunteers were absorbed into German units . Platoons of Spaniards served in the 3rd Gebirgs Division and the 357th Infantry Division . One unit was sent to Latvia . Two companies joined the Brandenburger Regiment and German 121st Division in Yugoslavia to fight against Tito ' s partisans . Fifty pro - Fascist Spaniards ( some of whom were former Spanish Communist militiamen of the Second Spanish Republic ) entered the French Pyrenees to combat the French Resistance . The 101st Company ( " Spanische - Freiwilligen Kompanie der SS 101 " , " Spanish Volunteer Company of the SS Number 101 " ) of 140 men , made up of four rifle platoons and one staff platoon , was attached to 28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division " Wallonien " and fought in Pomerania and Brandenburg as Soviet troops invaded eastern Germany . Later , as part of 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland and under command of " Hauptsturmführer der SS " Miguel Ezquerra , the Company fought the last days of the war against Soviet troops in Berlin itself . The casualties of the Blue Division and its successors included 4 , 954 men killed and 8 , 700 wounded . Another 372 members of the Blue Division , the Blue Legion , or volunteers of the " Spanische - Freiwilligen Kompanie der SS 101 " were taken prisoner by the victorious Red Army ; 286 of these men were kept in captivity until April 2 , 1954 , when they returned to Spain aboard the ship " Semiramis " , supplied by the International Red Cross . Awards . Soldiers and officers of the Blue Division were awarded : Legacy . Hitler referred to the division as " equal to the best German ones " . During his table talks , he also said : " To troops , the Spaniards are a crew of ragamuffins . They regard a rifle as an instrument that should not be cleaned under any pretext . Their sentries exist only in principle . They don ' t take up their posts , or , if they do take them up , they do so in their sleep . When the Russians arrive , the natives have to wake them up . But the Spaniards have never yielded an inch of ground . One can ' t imagine more fearless fellows . They scarcely take cover . They flout death . I know , in any case , that our men are always glad to have Spaniards as neighbours in their sector . Later when Hitler considered an invasion of Spain to remove Franco and replace him with Agustín Muñoz Grandes he decided against it , saying " The Spaniards are the only tough Latins . I would have a guerrilla war in my rear . " Many of the generals who perpetrated the attempted coup d ' état against the Spanish government on February 23 , 1981 , had served in the Blue Division during World War II . Amongst them were generals Alfonso Armada and Jaime Milans del Bosch . Other Blue Division veterans , including Director of the Guardia Civil José Luis Aramburu Topete and José Gabeiras , remained loyal to the legal democratic government under the young King Juan Carlos I . The Cross of Saint Sophia of Novgorod . During the German occupation of Velikiy Novgorod , the Kremlin suffered heavy battle damage . However , the Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sophia itself survived . The large cross on the main dome ( which has a metal bird attached to it , perhaps symbolic of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove ) had fallen during shelling of the city while it housed the headquarters of the División Azul during World War II . The cross was carried back to Spain , first to Burgos and afterwards to the Spanish Army Engineers Academy in Hoyo de Manzanares near Madrid . It remained in the Madrid Military Engineering Academy Museum until 16 November 2004 , when it was handed back to the Russian Orthodox Church by the Spanish minister of defense José Bono . Sources . Gustavo Morales y Luis Togores " La División Azul : las fotografías de una historia " . La Esfera de los Libros , Madrid , 2019 , segunda edición .