Calle de los Caídos de la División Azul
Recalls the Spanish volunteers of the Blue Division who died fighting on the Russian front alongside Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1943.
The name recalls the soldiers of the Blue Division, the volunteer unit Franco sent in 1941 to fight alongside Nazi Germany in the invasion of the Soviet Union. Close to 45,000 Spaniards passed through the Russian front, above all in the siege of Leningrad, where they endured winters of up to forty degrees below zero. Franco dissolved it in 1943 under Allied pressure, and thousands of those who left never returned.
The street was at the centre of one of the loudest disputes over Madrid’s street map. Manuela Carmena’s city council renamed it Memorial 11 de Marzo de 2004, in tribute to the victims of the 11-M attacks. The change ended up in court and was annulled in 2021, so the original name returned to the plaques.