The outbreak of the Second World War [in Europe], and particularly the [Fascist] invasion of France, was enthusiastically saluted by hundreds of Francoists, who even expressed their admiration for Hitler in private letters. The latter was viewed as the man sent by Providence to restore Europe’s unity, defeat the traditional enemies of Spain (France and Great Britain), and push back Soviet expansionism. Spanish Fascists’ fascination for [the Third Reich] peaked in June 1941, after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa.

Even devout [anticommunist] Catholics who disliked the ‘pagan’ orientation of [German Fascism] praised God for Hitler and expected that, by fighting the devil, the Third Reich would redeem itself of its sins.¹ This was not only a direct outcome of [Fascist] directives to spread war propaganda abroad, but also a reflection of the sympathy for Germany already present in Spanish conservative circles since the First World War, which now acquired new meanings.

As consequence of the pro‐[Axis] alignment of the Franco régime — which maintained a policy of non‐belligerency while clearly expecting [the Axis] to win the war — a Spanish Division of Volunteers was set up in early summer, 1941. Unlike other foreign units integrated within the Waffen‐SS and the armed forces of the allies of the Third Reich, the Spanish contingent enjoyed a special status within the […] Wehrmacht.²

This division was to take part in [Operation Barbarossa] as a unit — the 250th Spanish Volunteers Division — integrated within the […] Wehrmacht. From 24 June through to the first week of July 1941, hundreds of volunteers joined what would become known as the División Azul, or ‘Blue Division’ (BD), initially composed of around 17,000 combatants. They were recruited by the Falange, which provided more than half of the rank‐and‐file soldiers; and the Army, which supplied the officer and two thirds of the non‐commissioned officer corps.

Most volunteers enlisted in the summer of 1941 and throughout 1942 were strongly motivated by anti‐communism; and up to 20–25 percent also shared Fascist views. High casualties created the need for replacements and nearly 30,000 more volunteers were sent from Spain to Russia throughout late autumn of 1943, where they were first deployed at the Volkhov front and later (from August 1942 to November 1943) at the Leningrad front.³

All recruits spent between 2 and 8 weeks on German soil, at the training camps in both Grafenwöhr (until December 1941) and Hof (until the end of 1943), as well as in various Spanish military hospitals spread throughout the German rear‐guard, from Königsberg to Hof and Berlin.

More than a few Iberian anticommunists had romantic images of the Third Reich:

Falangists regarded in the Third Reich a model of a State that had accomplished a high degree of social justice based on the principle of national solidarity, a combination of nationalism and socialism that stayed loyal to the revolutionary principles of fascism without making concessions to the Church, landowners or bourgeoisie. This was what they felt still had to be done in Spain.³²

(Hopefully this goes without saying, but the personal impressions of Iberian anticommunists regarding German Fascism’s presumed solution to capitalism’s contradictions should be taken with a grain of salt. Some antisocialists will tell you with a straight face that ‘there is no poverty in America’.)

Iberian soldiers were good for the Reich’s economy:

A similar pattern was noticed in Hof, where the relief expeditions from Spain arrived from early 1942, and which also served as barrack of the Blue Division in the German rear. Local merchants and shopkeepers benefited greatly from the regular presence of Spanish soldiers in the town, who were eager to acquire consumer goods and even souvenirs to take back to Spain.

However, Iberian volunteers also promoted the growth of the black market for coffee, liqueurs, and tobacco, and triggered several incidents in bars and restaurants, among them a big fight with a group of German soldiers.⁴⁴

It is also interesting to note that

Most former divisionarios shared the view that only the SS troops and a bunch of [Reich] leaders had been responsible for atrocities and war crimes, while Werhmacht soldiers had fought for similar principles to those of NATO in the ensuing Cold War: anti‐communism and the defence of Christian civilization. Only those who had fought shoulder to shoulder with Germans were entitled to criticize them (Ruiz Ayúcar, 1981: 156).

After 1950, the associations of Blue Division’s war veterans, which became a firm supporter of the Falangist principles within an increasingly defascistized régime, frequently protested at the negative image of the Third Reich painted by Spanish media. A certain sympathy persisted among former divisionarios towards the achievements of the regime founded by ‘that crazy genius who was Hitler’, while his criminal goals were unknown to “most of the German Armed Forces” and to the German people’.⁶⁴

The overwhelming majority of Spanish post‐war veteran accounts attempted to detach Germany’s tradition from the legacy of [Fascism]. Therefore, they constantly argued that Germans, as a community, continued to bear similar virtues after the fall of the Third Reich. The post‐war Wirtschaftswunder in the Federal Republic of Germany was deemed to be further confirmation of this, as the Spanish veterans who visited Grafenwöhr after 1950 testified.⁶⁵

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

The suggestion that most of the men who participated in Operation Barbarossa were merely anticommunist (rather than specifically fascist) really doesn’t make ordinary anticommunists look better at all: even if a fighter did not directly commit an atrocity, surely he was still complicit in a horrific campaign of colonization and extermination.