"The Last Legion " Topic

"As the new volunteer assault brigades of the Waffen-SS deployed to the front in early 1944, the last foreign legion joined the German Army. An anachronism, given the gigantic replacement problems facing the army, the Spanish Legion nevertheless salved Spanish honor and simultaneously allowed the withdrawal of the considerably larger and more effective 250th (Spanish) Infantry Division.

The Spanish Legion officially was born on 19 November 1943, when the first volunteers transferred to the former Soviet Army barracks at Jamburg (Kingisepp), on the banks of the Luga River some fifteen miles east of Narva. Army Group North published an official table of organization the following day. 2 It established the Legion as a command group with three banderas. The bandera was a small battalion-sized unit, immediately traceable to the Spanish Foreign Legion in origin. The first two of these units each consisted of three rifle companies and a machine-gun company. The third was a support unit made up of an infantry gun company, an anti-tank company, and a mixed company of communication, scout, and engineer personnel. The total strength on paper was to have been 2133 men, but a more reasonable estimate of the maximum strength of the Legion seems to have to be about 1650. The German Army furnished a liaison staff of twelve officers and seventy-three men, including translators…"
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Amicalement
Armand

If I understand the situation correctly. Many Nationalist Spanish[supported by the Nazis] survivors of the SCW, were very anti-Communists. And they fought against the Republican Spanish forces, supported and supplied by the USSR. And the Republicans were very much socialists in their outlook, IIRC. So the seeds of this unit was sown years before.

Yes, they were my friend…

Amicalement
Armand

A few months back the Arm Chair General magazine. Had a very good article about this unit of Spanish troops that stayed to fight the Russians. After Franco pulled out his one division.