Thousands of Spaniards continued to fight each other, and brought their civil war to the vast expanses of the Soviet Union. Here, the Republicans, who had been defeated in Spain, were finally able to take revenge on the Francoists.
In the spring of 1939, the brutal and bloody civil war in Spain was over. But far from all Spaniards had laid down their arms. Although in the world war that soon followed the country proclaimed its neutrality, thousands of Spaniards went to fight in the battlefields of Europe.
There, once again they found themselves on opposing sides. Some joined the Allied armies to take revenge on the Italians and the Germans for the death of the Republic, in which those two countries had played a no small part. Others, however, joined the German army that was advancing on the USSR, driven by the desire to repay the Communists for interfering in Spanish affairs during the civil war.
Revenge on Bolsheviks
Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 caused quite a stir in Spain. On the same day, Foreign Minister Serrano Suner informed the German ambassador to Madrid that his country welcomed the attack and was ready to assist the Third Reich with volunteers.
The motivation of volunteers signing up to go to the Eastern Front was different. Some wanted to get even with the Russians for their interference in Spanish affairs; others sincerely hated communism. There were also those who thus tried to 'make up' for their Republican past, and even those who, secretly remaining faithful to the defeated Republic, hoped to defect to the Red Army once they were at the front.
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