The Russian winter of 1941-1942 hit with terrible ferocity. Battling the deadly, numbing cold as well as the massive numbers of Red Army troops were soldiers from sunny Spain. Yet the men, who were more accustomed to sipping sangria on a Mediterranean beach than trying to survive in a white, sub-zero arctic hell, were giving as good as they got. They were the men—volunteers all—of the Division Azul, or Blue Division, led by 45-year-old Maj. Gen. Agustin Muñoz-Grandes, himself one of the heroes of the Spanish Civil War.
The Tenacity of Spanish Guripas
In a battle on December 4, 1941, in which Soviet troops outnumbered the Spaniards 2-to-1, the temperatures plunged to -40 degrees Centigrade, the Blue Division fought bravely and regained some lost territory. When the fight was over, the Spaniards discovered a grotesque pile of snow-covered bodies—hundreds of their comrades who had been taken prisoner by the Soviets and tortured to death.
