In June 1941, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Francoist regime formed the Blue Division (División Azul), a volunteer unit of Spanish soldiers who fought on the Eastern Front alongside the German Wehrmacht. The division, which was composed of Falangist volunteers and regular army officers, fought in the siege of Leningrad and other major battles, suffering heavy casualties. The division was a symbol of Franco's ideological alignment with Nazi Germany, even as Spain remained officially neutral.

The Blue Division inspired a body of nationalist poetry that celebrated the Spanish volunteers as crusaders against communism. The poetry of the Blue Division often drew on the rhetoric of the Spanish Civil War, framing the conflict in the East as a continuation of the crusade against the Republic. The division also inspired poems by exiled Republicans, who condemned the volunteers as fascist mercenaries.