Battle of Krasny Bor - Aftermath and Consequences

Aftermath and Consequences

The failure by the 55th Army to follow through on its initial success meant that the encirclement of the German forces in the Mga sector had lost its northern pincer. Failures by the other attacking armies, for similar reasons, led to the overall failure of the grandly conceived Operation Polar Star. It would take almost another year before 18th Army withdrew from the direct approaches to Leningrad. The German 50th Corps, and there in particular the 250th (Spanish) Infantry Division had managed to hold the Red Army inside the perimeter of the siege of Leningrad, at a heavy cost in casualties.

On 15 February the 250th Infantry Division reported casualties of 3,645 wounded or killed and 300 missing or taken prisoner, which amounted to a 70–75% casualty rate of the troops engaged in the battle. It claimed 11,000 Soviet troops of the 55th Army had been killed in the five days beginning 9 February. Because of these heavy losses and Allied pressure on the Spanish government, the Blue Division was withdrawn to Germany and later disbanded. A new volunteer formation called the Blue Legion (Legión Azul) remained in combat on the Eastern Front, attached to 121st Infantry Division until March 1944, when it also was disbanded and the majority of the volunteers sent back to Spain. The 55th Army eventually took part in breaking the siege of Leningrad, securing the Leningrad-Moscow line in 1944. Afterwards, it advanced into Estonia and fought against the Courland pocket until 1945.

Those captured in the battle, on the Spanish side, were sent to gulag camps, primarily in Siberia, and were not repatriated to Spain until 1954. Krasny Bor remains, for the most part, an obscure battle in modern historical knowledge relating to this devastating war. The Blue Division was awarded a Combat Service Medal, personally designed by Adolf Hitler, for its defense of Army Group North's precarious eastern flank.