Since Uncle Misha forbids copy-pasting threads from a fake site, then I copy-paste this thread from the fun site YaP

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On the eve of Victory Day, we remember not only friends, but also enemies. The Red Army had to fight not only with the German Wehrmacht, but also with a whole horde of Hitler's allied armies and national units, representing at least half of Europe.
Here are just a few of them.

13 photo and some text.

Hitler's most western military ally was formally neutral Francoist Spain, which sent a volunteer "Blue Division" to the Eastern Front. The Spaniards fought against the Red Army near Novgorod until October 1943 and received quite high marks from their German "colleagues". After the disbandment of the Blue Division, many of its fighters moved to the German Foreign Legion. In encircled Berlin, 7,000 Spaniards fought before the surrender.


Not the largest, but the most combat-ready army in the camp of Hitler was the Finnish army, led by Marshal Mannerheim, a former general of the Russian army.


Finland was the only democratic country from the satellites of the Reich and pretended to be fighting against the USSR as if by itself, during the Winter War of 1939-40. However, this did not prevent the Finns from occupying a huge part of Karelia, and even the regions of the Leningrad and Vologda regions. In relation to the Russian population, the Finns behaved worse than the Germans, in Karelia they thought of sending all Russian men from the age of 15 behind barbed wire.

It was extremely difficult to fight the Finns, and only in the summer of 1944 was it possible to recapture part of the occupied territory from them, after which a truce was concluded between the USSR and Finland.

Finnish infantry on the march


The Hungarians also turned out to be a rather stubborn enemy for the Red Army, who sent several divisions to the southern sector of the Soviet-German front.

Hungarian soldiers, 1941


Hungarian soldier in Budapest, 1939

One of the most numerous armies that fought on the side of Hitler was the Romanian. The Romanians participated in the siege of Odessa and reached Stalingrad with the Germans, where they were entrusted with covering the flanks of the Paulus army.

Romanian infantry circa 1943

The largest of the satellite armies was the Italian one, but it was never known for its fighting efficiency.
Already in July 1941, Mussolini agreed to send Italian troops to Russia, where they ingloriously ended their journey in the snow near Stalingrad. The surviving Italians were recalled home in April 1943

Bulgaria also found itself in the camp of the enemy, but its army was not sent to fight in Russia. It was the only ally of Germany that did not fight against the USSR, despite all the persuasion of Hitler.

Bulgarian soldiers, March 1941.


Nevertheless, Bulgaria's participation in the occupation of Greece and Yugoslavia and military operations against Greek and Yugoslav partisans freed up German divisions to be sent to the Eastern Front. In addition, on December 6, 1941, Bulgarian patrol ships sank the Soviet submarine Shch-204 near Varna.

Bulgarian soldier, March 1941


In addition to the regular armies of the satellite countries, many national units from the occupied states and territories fought on the side of Hitler, which would have to be listed for a very long time.

Among the best known to us is the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS.


And here are the soldiers from the Legion of French Volunteers in Smolensk, 1941.
It is known that they were even specially dragged to the Borodino field, in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bwhich in the fall of 1941 there were heavy battles.


In addition to national combat units, there were all kinds of police and collaborator units, some kind of "self-defense units", etc. formations that actively fought against the partisans and helped the Germans to terrorize the civilian population of the occupied territories.

This picture shows a policeman in Kyiv in the autumn of 1941.