Idealism, hungry ... 70 years ago thousands of English fought alongside the Nazis.
Jorge M. Reverte have been tracked in a comprehensive book
Manuel de la Fuente, March 10, 2011
'Germany, Italy, Romania and Finland declared war on Russia, "ABC full-page headline on June 24, 1941. Only forty-eight hours before, Hitler had decided to attack his former ally Stalin. The two beasts they are going to see face to face. Holders of privileged information, three very own hierarchy and names of the Franco regime, Ramon Serrano Suner, Ridruejo Dionisio Manuel Mora and lunch at the Ritz Madrid. Almost before anyone else knows the news and decide to act accordingly. It's time to take the side of Nazi Germany offered to return the favor and start a new crusade against communism.
Since the current, the dictator gives its approval. Spain will not go to war but sent troops to support the Germans. Thousands of miles, Hitler takes cognizance, satisfied and accepts the news from Madrid. Blue Division was born (the 250 of the Wehrmacht), the first contingent will march towards Eastern Europe just three weeks later, on 13 July. At the end of the war had taken part in it forty-five thousand volunteers that nearly five thousand were killed. Eighteen thousand compatriots were part of the first draft, under the command of General Munoz Grandes.
Jorge M. Reverte, divisional son (Jesus M. Tessier), has followed the footsteps of these men who gave their youth, when no life on the icy steppe Soviet, in "The Blue Division. Russia, 1941-1944 "(Ed. RBA), nearly 600 pages full of documentation, firsthand accounts of small battles and huge suffering. A track that has not always been pursued in the field of battle. Far from the trenches were fought other battles, diplomatic, intelligence and political Regime consectores facing each other, feats of war (the terrible defense KrasniBor) and deeds of the heart as "The Notebooks of Russia 'literary testimony of those terrible months in front of the Winter General Dionisio own Ridruejo.
huge bounty
That evening at the Ritz in a long time seething minds in the Regime. "Almost all the ruling class Franco was convinced at that time that could not waste the opportunity to be next to Germany," says Jorge. M. Reverte. Perhaps, even, Franco was more cautious, but the Nazis appeared as would be the victors of the war and Franco's leaders thought of a huge bounty: French Africa, the Orandesado, and even Gibraltar, something like a return to Spain's imperial past. "
Maybe hard to believe, but the Blue Division had more sources other than the idealism of many of its members. "Another thread that handled it very well Franco-Reverte continues," was the radical and pro-Nazi Falange, who considered that the scheme was soft, not evolved as expected and to be raised if not a coup it a of direction. The general came to him very well these Phalangists to go away, to Russia, which is vented and even to disappear and with them their opposition. " Those first volunteers came from, as the author of "the most revolutionary of the Falange, almost all of the SEU in Madrid, but eventually the national-Catholic presence would also be much stronger."
Many volunteers believe in good faith in what they did, but who was also there for the salary ("it was not bad which gave the Germans'), people who wanted to be forgiven, but above all people" they had no idea what they would find, they were convinced that three months would parade in Moscow and met with a walk of a thousand miles, a terrible war and horrific weather conditions. " A story full of bitterness over the land of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy (freezing temperatures, summary executions, mass killings of Jews), to the German distrust "were well received, but in many ways was an unfortunate army which resulted in mistrust between the Wehrmacht . The English, to earn their respect, was only the value. And there were officers who delayed a withdrawal or lengthened a battle just to stay certificate that value. "
Men and names like Cabo, Masip, Patiño, Salamanca, Soriano, Palacios, Linares, Sánchez Fraile ... compatriots who were face to face with the horror and terror. Like thousands of his comrades, English in the crossfire between Stalin and Hitler, two crazed beasts. English as Jesus M. Tessier, the father of Reverte: "It took a lot to tell me something, he kept within himself a serious pain, a terrible memory," recalls the writer. A memory that will surely beats still in some small corner of Spain. As in Consuegra, Toledo, where, as reported yesterday a note on ABC, died Afrodisio Word Cross, veteran of the Blue Division. Skiers company. Were two hundred, only a dozen survived.
0 comments:
Post a Comment