The Spanish Blue Division on the Eastern Front, 1941-1945: War, Occupation, Memory

Cover
Half-Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: The Blue Division, the Franco Regime, and the Second World War
	Placing the Blue Division within New Military History
	Enemies and Friends: Russia, Germany, and Spanish Fascism (1917–41)
		From the Imagined Russian to the Real Russian (1917–41)
	Hitler, German Nazism, and Spanish Fascism (1930–41)
		Italian and German Echoes (1924–36)
		Fascinated by the Third Reich (1936–41)
2 Russia Is Guilty!
	Extermination and Brutalization: Operation Barbarossa and a Different Kind of War
	Allies in the “European Crusade against Bolshevism”
		European Volunteers against Bolshevism: Myth and Reality
	Spanish Volunteers against the USSR: Recruitment, Sending, and the Nature of the Blue Division
	Who Volunteered for the Blue Division?
		The “Fever” of the Summer of 1941
		The Replacements of 1942–3: Mercenaries, Conscripts, or Volunteers?
		Social and Prosopographic Profile of the Volunteers
		Falangists, Ex-combatants, and “Wartime Francoists”
		Clearing Your Military Record ... or Deserting
	“Spain on the Volkhov”: Falangism in the Blue Division
3 A Long March: From Central Europe to the Volkhov Front
	The Wehrmacht and Spanish Soldiers
		The Admired Wehrmacht: An Egalitarian Army?
		Spanish and German Soldiers: Stereotypes, Coexistence, and Conflict
	On the German Home Front
		The “Achievements” of the Third Reich: Spanish Impressions
		Iberians and Bavarians
		German Girls: “A Taste of Paganism and Nature”
	Occupied Populations on the March to the Front: Spaniards, Poles, and Baltic Peoples
4 The Blue Division on the Front
	Lost Victories: The Volkhov Front (October 1941–August 1942)
	War of Positions in the Siege of Leningrad (September 1942–November 1943)
	The Short-Lived Blue Legion (December 1943–March 1944)
	Life on the Front: The Daily Experience of Spanish Combatants
		Cold, Filth, Boredom … and Peril
		Jünger or Remarque?
		Comradeship and the Cult of the Fallen
5 Occupation Practices of the Blue Division in Northwest Russia
	Another Image of the Enemy
		From “the Horde” to “the Ruski”
	Victims, Exotics, and Noble Savages: Russian Civilians
		A “Stinking and Depraved Poverty”
		The Karamazov Revived?
		A Pseudo-Asiatic People?
		The Noble Savage: An Opportunity for Redemption
	An Idyllic Relationship? The Occupiers and the Occupied
		Colourful and Undisciplined Occupiers
		Sleeping with the Enemy
		Ugly Panienkas, Idealized Katiushas, and the Children
		Dealing with Partisans: Benevolence or Inefficacy?
	The Spanish Division and the “Jewish Question”
		Anti-Semitism without Jews
		Encountering the Eastern European Jews, 1941–3
		Grodno, Oshmiany, Vilnius, and Riga
		Protectors or Bystanders?
6 The Last Crusaders of the Nazi New Order (1944–5)
	Spaniards in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS (1944–5)
	Nazis, Radical Falangists, and Survivors
7 War Veterans and Memories from the Eastern Front in Franco’s Spain (1942–75)
	Prosopography of the Trajectories of BD Returnees
	Agents of Memory: Blue Division Veterans’ Associations
	The Blue Division Post-war Narrative
		Clichés in Blue Division Memory
		An Unpleasant Topic: The Holocaust
		Epilogue: “We Were Right!” The “Conversion” of Russia
8 Conclusion: A Spanish Exception in the War of Extermination?
Notes
Sources and References
Index
Toronto Iberic