The Brooklyn Record
Hitler’s Spanish Legion, subtitled The Blue Division in Russia, by Gerald R. Kleinfeld and Lewis A. Tambs chronicles the war Franco’s “volunteers” fought in Spain. Volunteers is put in quotes because toward the end, replacements were not volunteers at all. However, there can be no question that in the beginning, the 16,000 men and officers set off Don Quixote-like or conquistador-like to rid Russia of the great evil of communism.
The book is very disappointing in the sense that it hardly ever questions the morality of these men in aiding Hitler’s war effort. The most you get here and there is the comment that these men never stopped to question as to whether the Russian people wanted these men to liberate them. It is noted that though many Russians did treat them as liberators, others inflicted some 22,000 casualties on them. It is estimated that Hitler murdered 10,000 Jews every day the war went on.
If so, and we merely assume that the Blue Division prolonged the war two days, they were responsible for more deaths than their whole strength. This not to mention the Russians they killed. The legion had two generals. The first, Munoz-Grandes so fell under Hitler’s spell that he wanted the Führer to do whatever was necessary to force France to enter the war on Hitler’s side. He was eventually replaced by Esteban-Infantes, much less of a fighting general, but more loyal to Franco. Munoz-Grandes eventually realized he had better move out of the way, and he belatedly somewhat cooled on Hitler. I have not even mentioned that these men fought to hold the siege of Leningrad. It is estimated that 1,000,000 Russians starved to death in that siege.
How many more deaths on their consciences? Kleinfeld and Tatnbs estimate the Spanish dead at 4,500. At the end the authors wonder if the two generals thought it was worth it. The authors make the claim, and requestion it, that if Hitler thought of invading Spain to force its entry into the war, the Spanish Legion’s fighting ability convinced him it would not be worth it. These authors certainly give Franco more credit for skill in keeping Spain out of the War than Paul Preston did in his biography of Franco. Certainly, there were ideologues more rightist who did not care about Spain’s depleted population after its own war. For that matter, they didn’t care about the arms Spain did not have. Hitler promised to arm Spain if it entered the war, but couldn’t even deliver for the Blue Division.The book has little about what did happen to these men after the war and that’s a fault as well. However, the authors make no bones about it, this is a war story.
There the book cannot be faulted. Every battle and engagement the Blue Division fought in is detailed with maps, you can almost feel the frightful cold. You can say this about the Blue Division and their Nazi allies: courage was not in short supply even though both shook hands with the devil. Obviously, courage is not always a virtue.