Can anyone recommend any informative books on the Spanish blue division? Thanks guys.. Darren
Books on division azul
Can anyone recommend any informative books on the Spanish blue division? Thanks guys.. Darren
Gerald Kleinfeld wrote the best book in English on the Spanish Blue Divison.
Also good, by a very fine expert, but auf Deutsch.
Yes I'm afraid that one won't be possible..
As above, if you read one then read the one recommended above. It is the best in English IMO. There is a more detailed one on just the administrative side of the division which is worth getting for the pictures if you can find it at a reasonable price...
The Military Intervention Corps of the Spanish Blue Division in the German Wehrmacht 1941-1945: Organization, Uniforms, Insignia, Documents
Also if you ever get to Madrid in the military museum, tucked away in a corner, behind a closed door (when I went at least) is a very nice display of original uniforms and documents donated from the blue division members .......they don't advertise it but it's still part of their military history.
cheers
Tony
I am glad you agree with me, Tony, your opinion matters to me greatly.
I am sure there are other sources, and the Kleinfeld book is hardly hot off the presses, but there you are.
And, I note, when a serious person seeks a book here, we offer a good book and not a common book full of errors and so forth.
And Tony writes fine books, which I salute....
Others here whose level of ambition is limitless and whose tendency to criticize others is as great do not go the final step and put their knowledge in the conventional form.
To have the courage to do so is a special mark of a person, and a level of courage and diligence which is very special.
That is why I am so unstinting of my praise for Wim. And Messr. Phillipe here has also written a fine book on the Felbluse.
When I was getting my doctorate, one of my most beloved teachers gave a seminar on modern Spanish history. I guess it was Spain and Italyby spandau
for good measure, but I focused on Spain in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a very compelling story, and the role of the army is a central part of this story.
For that, though I know much of Europe pretty well, I have never been to Spain, but have many colleagues seconded to Spanish forces and so on.
The cult of the Blue Division is alive and well, but, as with all aspects of World War II, it is a weaponized thing, as is so much else in all of Europe now,
and on and on.
Thanks FB, you are too generous. I do think that sometimes the old texts cannot be beaten for content and just capture the nature and context of the time so well. The more digital offerings sometimes over egg the story.
Hitler's Spanish Legion still sets the bench mark for books on this subject.
Enjoy your research into the subject Darren, the Division served with distinction on the Eastern Front and many were veterans of the fiercest battle from the Civil War. Franco was a canny politician and domestic policy manipulator and he had other agenda's so be sure to look at the rationale why he sent the most ardent of the Falange supporters to their fate on the Eastern Front....
cheers
Tony
Thanks. To me, of course, Kleinfeld is not old, he is my world. My world is old.
Moreover, there has followed an odd transformation of the second world war, in part visible in this digital thing, with which I am not at all
on common terms. That is, a tendency to see all of this in such abstract terms that human reality is lost.
Since I am old, I lived a large chunk of my life with these people, in the German and Austrian case, and in the US case, too, of course.
I think all the NATO democracies should reintroduce conscription so as each one of you can experience military life, with its ups and downs.
To understand the context in Spain to which Tony refers, read the books to which I allude by the fine scholar Stanley Payne.
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