Qualla: Battle of Krasny Bor

Battle of Krasny Bor: Introduction

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aristarkh Lentulov, Public domain. At precisely 6:45 on the morning of 10 February 1943, a thousand Soviet guns and mortars opened fire along the eastern flank of Army Group North, south of Leningrad. The shelling came down on the trenches and dugouts of the 250th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht — better known by the color of its old uniform tunics, the Spanish Blue Division. Forty-nine hundred Spanish volunteers, dispatched by Franco's regime to fight Bolshevism on someone else's frozen plain, were buried in their bunkers under a two-hour bombardment. Then the artillery shifted onto the village of Krasny Bor itself, and 33,000 Soviet soldiers of the 55th Army began walking forward through the snow.

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Image: Aristarkh Lentulov | Public domain

Battle of Krasny Bor: Why Spanish soldiers were dying outside Leningrad

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Blue Division — División Española de Voluntarios in Spanish, 250. Infanterie-Division on Wehrmacht rolls — was the strangest formation on the Eastern Front. Spain was officially neutral in the Second World War. Franco, who owed Hitler and Mussolini his victory in the Spanish ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Battle of Krasny Bor: Operation Polar Star

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gdr at English Wikipedia Later version(s) were uploaded by Zocky, Falcorian at en.wikipedia.. The original uploader was Gdr at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0. Three weeks earlier, on 18 January 1943, Operation Iskra — Spark — had cracked open a narrow corridor into besieged Leningrad. After eighteen months of starvation in the city, supplies began moving along a rail line built through the gap. Georgy Zhukov, promoted to marshal of the...

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Image: Gdr at English Wikipedia Later version(s) were uploaded by Zocky, Falcorian at en.wikipedia.. The original uploader was Gdr at English Wikipedia. | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Krasny Bor: Two hours of shelling, then the wave

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zoll, CC BY-SA 3.0 de. Pinned in their bunkers by the artillery, many of the Spanish forward positions were physically unable to retreat when the bombardment lifted. The 63rd Guards Rifle Division and the 45th Guards Rifle Division came forward with tanks, advancing on Staraia Mysa, Krasny Bor, Raikele...

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Image: Zoll | CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Battle of Krasny Bor: Why the Soviet attack stalled

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Emden1945, CC BY-SA 4.0. The shocking thing, from the Soviet perspective, was that the offensive failed anyway. By the second day, the German 4th SS Police Division was moving up to plug the gap. Battle groups from the 11th, 21st, 212th, 215th, and 227th Infantry Divisions were pulled in. By 13 February ...

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Image: Emden1945 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Krasny Bor: What the soldiers were fighting for

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0 de. It is worth saying clearly what the Blue Division was: a unit fighting alongside the Wehrmacht, in a war of conquest and racial extermination, against a country that had not attacked Spain. The Spanish volunteers were not innocents. But many of them were also young men who had be...

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Image: Zell | CC BY-SA 3.0 de