Nearly 10,000 citizens of Germany, Austria and Italy are believed to have gone to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War as part of the leftist “International Brigades.” Considering the direct support Germany and Italy gave to Franco in the war, how concerned were Axis intelligence services about these veterans? Were returning fighters shot, imprisoned or simply monitored? What efforts were taken to account for the Polish and Czech Spanish Civil War veterans from German occupied territories? And given the close nature of Soviet-German relations at the moment, how did the USSR handle German citizens from the International Brigades that defected to Russia instead of returning home?
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