Franco's authoritarian regime remained officially non-belligerent in World War II but sympathised with the Axis powers.

Franco ensured that Spain was neutral at the start of World War II but seriously contemplated joining the conflict as a German ally in the aftermath of the Fall of France in 1940.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union led to renewed interest in participating in what Spanish officials saw as an "anti-communist crusade".

Although disappointed that Spain had not declared war on the Soviet Union, the German regime accepted the Spanish offer on 24 June 1941.

[5] Franco struggled to balance the demands of the Spanish Army and Falangist factions, both of which attempted to influence the new unit, himself siding with the former.

Aviator volunteers formed a Blue Squadron (Escuadrillas Azules) which, using Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Focke-Wulf Fw 190s, claimed to have shot down 156 Soviet aircraft.

The Blue Division was first deployed on the Volkhov River front, with its headquarters in Grigorovo, on the outskirts of Novgorod.

It was in charge of a 50-kilometre (31 mi) section of the front north and south of Novgorod, along the banks of the Volkhov River and Lake Ilmen.

Peter and Paul Church in Kozhevniki, and the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the Antoniev Monastery were taken to Germany at the end of 1943.

[10] According to the museum curator in the Church of the Transfiguration on Ilyina Street, the division used the high cupola as a machine-gun nest.

Vladimir Kovalevskii, one of the division's White Russian emigre interpreters, left a particularly acerbic memoir account describing the low discipline and the crimes committed by the Spanish volunteers.

Despite very heavy casualties, the Spaniards were able to hold their ground against a Soviet force seven times larger and supported by tanks.

The division remained on the Leningrad front where it continued to suffer heavy casualties due to weather and to enemy action.

[14] Eventually, the Allies and many Spaniards began to press Franco to withdraw troops from the quasi alliance with Germany.

Spaniards also joined other German units, and fresh volunteers slipped across the Spanish border near Lourdes in occupied France.

Another 372 members of the Blue Division, the Blue Legion, or volunteers of the Spanische-Freiwilligen Kompanie der SS 101 were taken prisoner by the Red Army; 286 of these men remained in captivity until 2 April 1954, when they returned to Spain aboard the ship Semiramis, supplied by the International Red Cross.

In 1954, after the death of Stalin, the French Red Cross arranged the ship Semiramis [es] to bring those prisoners who desired repatriation to Barcelona.

Like Spain, Portugal under the Salazar regime remained neutral during World War II in agreement with the United Kingdom in accordance to the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373 and more openly sympathized with Western Allies.