Germans fighting Spaniards, France 1940

[Andy H]

Could anyone tell me what German unit reported coming under attack by Spanish 'soldiers' during the 1940 campaign in France?

With the French, 1940
On the outbreak of WWII the French recruited heavily from Republican refugees of the recently ended Civil War. The choice for these men was remain in French internment camps, or join the French army. The French took between 5,000 and 8,000 Republicans into the French Foreign Legion, and 10,000 went to the Infantry. In addition 55,000 Republicans were drafted into labour battalions, and at least some of these saw combat during the Fall of France (1940); English officers saw one Spanish labour battalion attack the advancing Germans with weapons seized from a fleeing French unit. During the course of the war Republicans fought in most theatres, for example at Narvik, in the raid on Brest, with the Long Range Desert Group, Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division, the British SAS, and the French resistance.

http://www.balagan.org.uk/war/iberia/19 ... rench_1940

Regards

[Soldat12thSS]

was this southern france? and what army group and division reported this?

[Marc Rikmenspoel]

I don't have information about the 1940 fighting, but as that quoted piece mentions, many Spanish Republican exiles were in the Maquis in southwest France. These men were often Communists, and were joined by Russians and other Soviet citizens who were sometimes ordinary men who fled from Ost Bataillonen, and were sometimes agents who were allowed to become German prisoners expressly so that they could infiltrate German Ost units and/or join up with Communist cells in western Europe.

These Spaniards, and a much lesser number of Russians, were active in the Dorgogne. It isn't discussed much in the literature about events there in 1944, but I've long suspected that these non-Frenchmen put the good of the Communist cause ahead of the good of the French population. Thus they were willing to carry out acts that they knew would lead to German reprisals, while the more French dominated resistance in other regions was more hesitant to commit acts that would result in reprisals. This is a shadowy area, and I'm sure some people are annoyed with me for even bringing it up, but if anyone has more information on this aspect of the Maquis, I'd very much like to learn about it as more than just the hints and rumors that I've encountered over the years.

[Soldat12thSS]

I could see Spanish Republican exiles doing it as last ditch effort aganst the nazis for there help in spain that threw them out of power.

yea i would love to see more info on this too

[Loïc]

The history of the Spanish Republicans was usually magnified but I think that I have identified something about these "British seeing Spaniards Military Workers against Germans" : in Tourcoing near Lille, end of may 1940 (so the Nord Pas-de-Calais just where was concentrated the British Army in France in 1940) some 50 men from a spanish labour company resisted to the Germans, "even the Franquist Radio praised them"
this anecdote seems mentionned by various books about the Republican Spain
En la frontera franco-belga, a fines de mayo de 1940 un grupo de trabajadores españoles resistió heroicamente el avance alemán; se ampararon en una bandera republicana. La radio franquista de Barcelona alabó el gesto. El suceso ocurrió en Tourcoing

I did not found this company with the official list of fightings units 1939-1945 published by the French Ministry of War, among ~300 foreign labour companies raised only 3 foreign labour companies were allowed in this list, and all were with the Flanders Fortified Sector in Dunkerque, not with the Lille Fortified Sector.


thread about Spanish Units in the French Army 1939-1940
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... anish+1940

[Bronsky]

I'm pretty sure that there were Spaniards as well among the rag tag troops that fought Guderian on the Gravelines to St Omer line just before Hitler's halt order.