Yugoslav volunteers in the Spanish Civil War

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (March 2012) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Spanish article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Brigadistas yugoslavos en la Guerra Civil Española]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|es|Brigadistas yugoslavos en la Guerra Civil Española}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

The Yugoslav volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, known as Spanish fighters (Croatian: Španjolski borci, Slovene: Španski borci, Serbian: Шпански борци / Španski borci) and Yugoslav brigadistas (Spanish: brigadistas yugoslavos), was a contingent of volunteers from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that fought for the Republicans (in support of the Second Spanish Republic) during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).

An estimated 1,664^[1] "Yugoslav brigadistas" fought in the war, including about 800 who were killed in action. According to Spanish statistics, 148 Yugoslav volunteers received the officer rank during the conflict.

Most of them fought in the battalions Dimitrov and Đuro Đaković of the International Brigades, and many of them participated and perished during the Battle of Ebro in 1938. They were recruited by the outlawed Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) in their home regions, or through the recruitment centre of the Comintern that Josip Broz Tito managed in Paris. There were four airmen among the volunteers, the most notable being fighter pilot Božidar "Boško" Petrović who attained the status of "flying ace."

After the war, those who managed to flee across the Pyrenees fell captive in internment camps in France, with many being repatriated illegally by the Yugoslav communist organisation. Some of them later became leaders of the resistance against the Nazi occupation.

Three former members of the International Brigades ended up commanding armies of the Yugoslav Partisans during World War II: Peko Dapčević (1913–1999), Kosta Nađ (1911–1986) and Petar Drapšin (1914–1945). Koča Popović (1908–1992) was another prominent Partisan commander who fought for the Spanish Republicans.^[2]