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The 250th Infantry Division (German: 250. Infanterie-Division), better known as the Blue Division (Spanish: División Azul, German: Blaue Division), was a unit of volunteers from Francoist Spain operating from 1941 to 1943 within the German Army (Heer) on the Eastern Front during World War II.
The Spanish Blue Division faced a major Soviet attempt to break the siege of Leningrad in February 1943, when the 55th Army of the Soviet forces, reinvigorated after the victory at Stalingrad, attacked the Spanish positions at the Battle of Krasny Bor, near the main Moscow-Leningrad road. Despite very heavy casualties, the Spaniards were able ...
Krasny Bor remains, for the most part, an obscure battle. The division was awarded a Blue Division Medal, personally designed by Adolf Hitler. Spanish casualties in all of the Soviet-German conflict totalled 3,934 battle deaths, 570 disease deaths, 326 missing or captured, 8,466 wounded, 7,800 sick, and 1,600 frostbitten.
Emilio Esteban-Infantes Martín (18 May 1892 – 6 September 1962) was a Spanish officer who served during the Spanish Civil War, and later in World War II as commander of the Blue Division (Spanish: División Azul, German: Blaue Division), or the 250th Infantry Division of the German Wehrmacht.
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: – the Blue Division or División Azul under Agustín Muñoz Grandes – including an air force squadron – the Blue Squadron, 18,104 men in all, with 2,612 officers and 15,492 soldiers.
The Spanish Volunteer Medal formally known as the Commemorative Medal for Spanish Volunteers in the Struggle Against Bolshevism (German: Erinnerungsmedaille für die spanischen Freiwilligen im Kampf gegen den Bolschewismus), commissioned 3 January 1944, was awarded by the Third Reich to recognize the men of the Blue Division who served at the Russian front during World War II. [1]
Gonzalo Miguel Ezquerra Sánchez (January 10, 1913 – October 29, 1984) was a Spanish Falangist, soldier and volunteer member of the Waffen-SS. He fought in the Spanish Civil War and in the Second World War, in a battalion of the Spanish Blue Division or 250. Infanterie-Division as it was known in the German Army.
The Blue Legion (Spanish: Legión Azul; German: Blaue Legion), officially called the Spanish Volunteer Legion (Spanish: Legión Española de Voluntarios; German: Spanische Freiwilligen-Legion), was a volunteer legion created from 2,133 falangist volunteers who remained behind at the Eastern Front after most of the Spanish Blue Division was withdrawn in October 1943 because Francisco Franco had ...