Portuguese volunteers

[Wittmann]

Hi,

I wrote a post about this subject a couple of years ago in the "old" forum.
What I´m trying to know is if any of you knows if there were portuguese volunteers in the German Army or SS. I've heard and read rumours that there were about 50 portuguese in the Blue Division. My Grandfather, who at the time was in the Military Academy, told me that he heard on those days something about that but couldn´t confirm it as nobody seems to.
Thanks for your time.

[Paco_El_Picadillo]

Hello Wittman. As I know, there were some portugueses in the 250 div., may be about 150-200. They all were profesional soldiers in the Tercio de la Legión Española. This is not a political mitilia but an army unit, without recruits, their members are volunteers who fought, and fight, as volunteers for a salary. In that time, there were a lot of foreing members in the Tercio. It must be said about the 250 Division that its origin isn´t misterious or dark, it´s very clear: 250 D was a german division, in the sense it was made for fighting in the ranks of the wehrmacht and for the wehrmacht, with german uniforms and weapons. But it was spanish 100%in the sense that since the general division to the last soldiers all were spanish, their military code of Justice was the spanish, the MP was the Guardia Civil and spanish were the Sanity, and the the most important thing: 250 was recruited for fighting in the East Front, exclusively, they coudn´t fight against other enemy than the Soviet Union: political affairs, and Spain was a virtual neutral country. 250 D was, in some way, a payment of Franco to Hitler for his help in the spanish war. All the officials and sub-officials were volunteers from the spanish army, exclusively spanish professional military men. The rest of soldiers were civilian or volunteer soldiers. Thence, in such condition, it would be impossible had been portugueses serving in the 250D as portugueses, except those portugueses who came from the Tercio, who weren´t considered foreings. And other question: Spain and Portugal are very close geogrfically, but usually they kept a cold and distant courtesy. And Franco was a dictator, Salazar too, but Franco had a fascist government, Salazar not and the most important: Portugal always had a good friendship with GBritain, and Soviet Union was an allied of GBritain, even an inconvenient allied, but an allied.

Here you can see something:
http://www.geocities.com/divazul/portug ... nazul.html

Un saudo.

[Wittmann]

Well, first of all thank you Paco. It's the most important piece of info on this subject since I started questioning everybody about this. Unfortunately my Grandfather passed away in May so my biggest source of information about that time was lost.
I'll look to that link you sent.
Thanks again for your time and for your valuable explanation.
By the way, glad to know you are Gallego, it has been quite some time since my last visit to Coruña.

[panzermahn]

There is the Legion Viriato (Green Legion) inside the Blue Division consisted of around 200 Portuguese soldiers. When the Blue Division is recalled back, around 40-50 stay behind with the Blue Legion to continue the fight against the Bolsheviks with their Spanish comrades.

But I am not sure if any of those remaining Portuguese soldiers were transferred to the Waffen SS or to the Spanish Volunteer Company 101 at Stablack.

I learn that there were several Portuguese members of the SD but I had no idea of their fate after the war

JC

[Ricardo Silva]

I'm doing a research about those men, i'm still in the beginning, but have already compiled some good info about them. They were mostly veterans of the spanish civil war, the Viriatos, and despite being portuguese, most of the information i am getting is abroad, at NARA, and in several archives in spain. Within a year or so i hope to have concluded this research. If anyone as usefull info to share, i'll be thankfull to receive it.

Ricardo