New Made Item: High quality woven uniform patch worn by Spanish volunteers in the German Army during WW2.

Approximate dimensions:

3.25" H x 2.75" W

Although the Spanish State remained neutral throughout World War II, it was ideologically aligned with NSDAP Germany and Fascist Italy. There was also a "debt" for the help that these regimes had given to the military uprising. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Franco, pressured by the Germans, offered Spanish manpower to help in civilian warwork and military volunteers to fight against the allies.

This was accepted by AH and, within two weeks, there were more than enough volunteers to form a division - the Blue Division or División Azul under Agustín Muñoz Grandes - including an air force squadron - the Blue Squadron. The Blue Division was trained in Germany and served, with distinction, in the Siege of Leningrad, and notably at the Battle of Krasny Bor, where General Infantes' 6,000 Spanish troops threw back some 30,000 Soviet troops. In October 1943, under severe Allied diplomatic pressure, the Blue Division was ordered home leaving a token force until March 1944. In all, about 45,000 Spanish served on the Eastern Front, mostly committed volunteers, and around 4,500 died. Joseph Stalin's desire for revenge against Franco was frustrated at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, when his attempt to make an Allied invasion of Spain the conference's first order of business was rejected by Harry S. Truman and Winston Churchill. War weary and unwilling to continue the conflict, Truman and Churchill persuaded Stalin to instead settle for a full trade embargo against Spain.