Yakov Dzhugashvili - biography, information, personal life. What really happened to Yakov Dzhugashvili The usual course of things

Perhaps, in the history of our country there are so many great odious personalities that it can be difficult to understand the intricacies of the myths and legends surrounding them. An ideal example from the recent past is Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. Many believe that he was an extremely insensitive and callous person. Even his son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, died in a German concentration camp. His father, according to many historians, did nothing to save him. Is it really?

General information

More than 70 years ago, on April 14, 1943, Stalin's eldest son died in a concentration camp. It is known that shortly before that, he refused to exchange his son for Field Marshal Paulus. The phrase of Joseph Vissarionovich is known, which struck the whole world then: “I don’t change soldiers for generals!” But after the war, foreign media circulated rumors with might and main that Stalin still saved his son and sent him to America. Among Western researchers and domestic liberals, there was a rumor that there was some kind of “diplomatic mission” of Yakov Dzhugashvili.

Allegedly, he was captured not just like that, but to establish contacts with the German commanders in chief. A sort of "Soviet Hess". However, this version does not withstand any criticism: in this case, it would be easier to throw Yakov directly into the German rear, and not engage in dubious manipulations with his captivity. In addition, what kind of agreements with the Germans in 1941? They irresistibly rushed to Moscow, and it seemed to everyone that the USSR would fall before winter. Why should they negotiate? So the veracity of such rumors is close to zero.

How did Jacob get captured?

Yakov Dzhugashvili, who at that time was 34 years old, was captured by the Germans at the very beginning of the war, on July 16, 1941. This happened during the confusion that reigned during the retreat from Vitebsk. At that time, Yakov was a senior lieutenant who had barely managed to graduate from the artillery academy, who received the only parting word from his father: "Go, fight." He served in the 14th tank regiment, commanded an artillery battery of anti-tank guns. He, like hundreds of other fighters, was not counted after the lost battle. At that time, he was listed as missing.

But a few days later, the Nazis presented an extremely unpleasant surprise by scattering leaflets over the Soviet territory, which depicted Yakov Dzhugashvili in captivity. The Germans had excellent propagandists: “The son of Stalin, like thousands of your soldiers, surrendered to the troops of the Wehrmacht. That is why they feel great, they are fed, full.” It was an undisguised allusion to mass surrender: “Soviet soldiers, why should you die, even if the son of your supreme boss has already surrendered himself ...?”

Unknown pages of history

After he saw the ill-fated leaflet, Stalin said: "I have no son." What did he mean? Maybe he was suggesting disinformation? Or did he decide not to have anything to do with the traitor? Until now, nothing is known about this. But we have recorded documents of Yakov's interrogations. Contrary to the widespread "expert opinions" about the betrayal of Stalin's son, there is nothing compromising in them: the younger Dzhugashvili behaved quite decently during interrogations, did not give out any military secrets.

In general, at that time, Yakov Dzhugashvili really could not know any serious secrets, since his father did not tell anything like him ... What could an ordinary lieutenant say about the plans for the global movement of our troops? It is known in which concentration camp Yakov Dzhugashvili was kept. First, he and several especially valuable prisoners were kept in Hammelburg, then Lübeck, and only then transferred to Sachsenhausen. One can imagine how seriously the protection of such a “bird” was put. Hitler intended to play this "trump card" if one of his especially valuable generals was captured by the USSR.

Such an opportunity presented itself to them in the winter of 1942-43. After the grandiose defeat at Stalingrad, when not only Paulus, but also other high-ranking officers of the Wehrmacht fell into the hands of the Soviet command, Hitler decided to bargain. Now it is believed that he tried to contact Stalin through the Red Cross. The refusal must have surprised him. Be that as it may, Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich remained in captivity.

Svetlana Allilluyeva, Stalin's daughter, later recalled this time in her memoirs. Her book contains the following lines: “Father came home late at night and said that the Germans offered to exchange Yasha for one of their own. He was then angry: “I will not bargain! War is always hard work. Just a couple of months after this conversation, Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich died. There is an opinion that Stalin could not stand his eldest son, considered him a rare loser and neurotic. But is it really so?

Brief biography of Jacob

It must be said that there are certain grounds for such an opinion. So, Stalin, in fact, practically did not participate in the process of raising his eldest offspring. He was born in 1907, at only six months old he remained an orphan. The first Kato Svanidze, died during a raging typhus epidemic, and therefore his grandmother was engaged in raising Jacob.

My father practically did not visit the house, wandering around the country, carrying out the instructions of the party. Yasha moved to Moscow only in 1921, and at that time Stalin was already a prominent person in the political life of the country. At this time, he already had two children from his second wife: Vasily and Svetlana. Yakov, who at that time was only 14 years old, grew up in a remote mountain village, spoke Russian very poorly. No wonder it was very difficult for him to study. As his contemporaries testify, the father was constantly dissatisfied with the results of his son's studies.

Difficulties in personal life

He also did not like Jacob's personal life. At the age of eighteen he wanted to marry a girl of sixteen years old, but his father forbade him to do so. Yakov was in despair, he tried to shoot himself, but he was lucky - the bullet went right through. Stalin said that he was a "hooligan and blackmailer", after which he completely removed him from himself: "Live where you want, live with whom you want!" By that time, Yakov had a relationship with student Olga Golysheva. The father took this story even more seriously, since the offspring himself became a dad, but he did not recognize the child, he refused to marry the girl.

In 1936, Yakov Dzhugashvili, whose photo is in the article, signs with the dancer Yulia Meltzer. At that time, she was already married, and her husband was an NKVD officer. However, for obvious reasons, Jacob did not care. When Stalin's granddaughter Galya appeared, he thawed a little and gave the newlyweds a separate apartment on Granovsky Street. The further fate of Yulia was still difficult: when it turned out that Yakov Dzhugashvili was in captivity, she was arrested on suspicion of having links with German intelligence. Stalin wrote to his daughter Svetlana that: “Apparently, this woman is dishonest. We'll have to hold her until we figure it out completely. Let Yasha's daughter live with you for now ... ". The proceedings lasted less than two years, at the end Yulia was nevertheless released.

So did Stalin love his first son?

Marshal after the war in his memoirs said that in fact Stalin was deeply worried about the captivity of Yakov Dzhugashvili. He spoke about an informal conversation that he had with the commander in chief.

"Comrade Stalin, I would like to know about Yakov. Is there any information about his fate?" Stalin paused, after which he said in a strangely muffled and hoarse voice: “It will not work to rescue Yakov from captivity. The Germans will definitely shoot him. There is evidence that the Nazis keep him isolated from other prisoners, campaigning for treason.” Zhukov noted that Joseph Vissarionovich was deeply worried and suffered from the inability to help at a time when his son was suffering. They really loved Yakov Dzhugashvili, but there was such a time ... What would all the citizens of a warring country think if their commander-in-chief entered into an enemy about the release of his son? Be sure that the same Goebbels certainly would not have missed such an opportunity!

Attempts to get out of captivity

Currently, there is evidence that he repeatedly tried to free Jacob from German captivity. Several sabotage groups were sent directly to Germany, before which this task was set. Ivan Kotnev, who was in one of these teams, spoke about this after the war. His group flew to Germany late at night. The operation was prepared by the best analysts of the USSR, all the weather and other terrain features were taken into account, which allowed the aircraft to fly unnoticed into the German rear. And this is 1941, when the Germans felt themselves the sole masters of the sky!

They landed very well in the rear, hid their parachutes and prepared to set out. Since the group jumped out over a large area, they gathered together before dawn. We left in a group, then there were two dozen kilometers to the concentration camp. And then the residency in Germany handed over a cipher, which spoke about the transfer of Yakov to another concentration camp: the saboteurs were literally a day late. As the front-line soldier recalled, they were immediately ordered to return. The return journey was difficult, the group lost several people.

The notorious Spanish communist Dolores Ibarruri also wrote about a similar group in her memoirs. To make it easier to penetrate the German rear, they obtained documents in the name of one of the officers of the Blue Division. These saboteurs were abandoned already in 1942 to try to save Yakov from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. This time everything ended much sadder - all the abandoned saboteurs were captured and shot. There is information about the existence of several more similar groups, but there is no specific information about them. It is possible that this data is still stored in some secret archives.

Death of Stalin's son

So how did Yakov Dzhugashvili die? On April 14, 1943, he simply ran out of his barracks and ran to the camp fence with the words: “Shoot me!” Yakov rushed straight to the barbed wire. The sentry shot him in the head... That's how Yakov Dzhugashvili died. The Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was kept, became his last refuge. Many "specialists" say that he was kept there in "tsarist" conditions, which were "inaccessible to millions of Soviet prisoners of war." This is a blatant lie, which is refuted by the German archives.

At first, they really tried to talk him into conversation and persuade him to cooperate, but nothing came of it. Moreover, several "brood hens" (decoy "prisoners") managed to find out only that "Dzhugashvili sincerely believes in the victory of the USSR and regrets that he will no longer see the triumph of his country." The Gestapo did not like the stubbornness of the prisoner so much that he was immediately transferred to the Central Prison. There he was not only interrogated, but also tortured. The materials of the investigation contain information that Yakov tried to commit suicide twice. The captive captain Uzhinsky, who was in the same camp and was friends with Yakov, spent long hours after the war writing down his testimony. The military was interested in Stalin's son: how he behaved, how he looked, what he did. Here is an excerpt from his memoirs.

“When Yakov was brought to the camp, he looked terrible. Before the war, seeing him on the street, I would say that this man had just suffered a serious illness. He had a gray earthy complexion, terribly sunken cheeks. The soldier's overcoat simply dangled from his shoulders. Everything was old and worn out. His food did not differ in frills, they ate from a common cauldron: a loaf of bread for six people a day, a little bit of soup from rutabaga and tea, the color of which resembled tinted water. The holidays were the days when we got some potatoes in their uniforms. Yakov suffered greatly from the lack of tobacco, often changing his portion of bread for shag. Unlike other prisoners, he was constantly searched, and several spies were placed nearby.

Job, transfer to Sachsenhausen

Prisoner Yakov Dzhugashvili, whose biography is given on the pages of this article, worked in a local workshop along with other captives. They made mouthpieces, boxes, toys. If the camp authorities ordered a bone product, they had a holiday: for this purpose, the prisoners received boned bones, completely cleaned of meat. They were boiled for a long time, making "soup" for themselves. By the way, Yakov showed himself in the field of "artisan" just fine. Once he made a magnificent set of chess out of bone, which he exchanged for several kilograms of potatoes from the guard. On that day, all the inhabitants of the barracks had a good meal for the first time in their captivity. Later, some German officer bought the chess from the camp authorities. Surely this set now occupies an important place in some private collection.

But even this "resort" was soon closed. Having not achieved anything from Yakov, the Germans again threw him into the Central Prison. Again torture, again many hours of interrogation and beatings ... After that, the prisoner Dzhugashvili is sent to the infamous Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Isn't it difficult to consider such conditions "royal"? Moreover, Soviet historians learned about the true circumstances of his death much later, when the military managed to capture the necessary German archives, saving them from destruction. Surely for this reason, until the end of the war, there were rumors about the miraculous salvation of Yakov ... Stalin took care of his son's wife Yulia and their daughter Galina until the end of his life. Galina Dzhugashvili herself subsequently recalled that her grandfather loved her very much and constantly compared her with her dead son: “It looks like it is similar!” So Yakov Dzhugashvili, the son of Stalin, showed himself to be a true patriot and son of his country, not betraying it and not agreeing to cooperate with the Germans, which could save his life.

Historians cannot understand only one thing. German archives claim that, at the time of his capture, Yakov immediately told the enemy soldiers about who he was. Such a stupid act is puzzling, if it ever took place. After all, he could not understand what the exposure would lead to? If an ordinary prisoner of war still had a chance to escape, then Stalin's son would be expected to be guarded "on the highest level"! One can only assume that Jacob was simply handed over. In a word, there are still enough questions in this story, but we obviously won’t be able to get all the answers.

His eldest son, from his first marriage, Yakov, also lived in Stalin's apartment. For some reason, he was never called anything other than Yashka. He was a very reserved, silent and secretive young man; he was four years younger than me. He looked busy. I was struck by one of his features, which can be called nervous deafness. He was always immersed in some kind of secretive inner experiences. You could turn to him and say - he did not hear you, he looked absent. Then he suddenly reacted that they were talking to him, he caught himself and heard everything well.
Stalin did not like him and oppressed him in every possible way. Yashka wanted to study - Stalin sent him to work at the factory as a worker. He hated his father with a secret and deep hatred. He always tried to remain unnoticed, did not play any role before the war. Mobilized and sent to the front, he was captured by the Germans. When the German authorities offered Stalin to exchange some major German general for his son, who was in their captivity, Stalin replied: "I have no son." Yashka remained in captivity and at the end of the German retreat was shot by the Gestapo.

Source: Website: CHRONOS
Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich - Stalin's son from his first marriage to Ekaterina Svanidze. Born in with. Badji of the Kutaisi province (according to other sources - in Baku). Until the age of 14, he was brought up by his aunt - A.S. Monasalidze in Tbilisi. According to Ya.L. Sukhotina - in the family of his grandfather Semyon Svanidze in the village. Badzhi (Ya Sukhotin. Son of Stalin. The life and death of Yakov Dzhugashvili. L., 1990. P. 10). In 1921, at the insistence of his uncle A. Svanidze, he came to Moscow to study. Yakov spoke only Georgian, was silent and shy.
His father met him unfriendly, but his stepmother, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, tried to take care of him. In Moscow, Yakov studied first at a school on the Arbat, then at an electrical school in Sokolniki, from which he graduated in 1925. He married the same year.
But “the first marriage brought tragedy. Father did not want to hear about the marriage, did not want to help him ... Yasha shot himself in our kitchen, next to his small room, at night. The bullet went right through, but he was sick for a long time. Father began to treat him even worse for this ”(Alliluyeva S. Twenty letters to a friend. M., 1990. P. 124). On April 9, 1928, N.S. Alliluyeva received the following letter from Stalin: “Tell Yasha from me that he acted like a hooligan and blackmailer, with whom I have and cannot have anything else in common. Let him live where he wants and with whom he wants” (APRF, f. 45. On. 1. D. 1550. L. 5 // Stalin in the arms of the family. M., 1993. P. 22).
Leaving the Kremlin hospital three months later, Yakov and his wife Zoya, on the advice of S.M. Kirov, left for Leningrad. Lived at S.Ya. Alliluyev and his wife Olga Evgenievna (in apartment 59 of house number 19 on Gogol street). Yakov graduated from the courses and became an assistant fitter. He worked as an electrician on duty at the 11th substation (Karl Marx Ave., 12). Zoya studied at. At the beginning of 1929 a daughter was born to them, who died in October; soon the marriage broke up.
In 1930, Yakov returned to Moscow, entered them. F.E. Dzerzhinsky at the Faculty of Thermal Physics, from which he graduated in 1935. In 1936-1937. worked at the plant's CHP. Stalin. In 1937 he entered the evening department of the Artillery Academy of the Red Army, from which he graduated before the war. In 1938 he married J. Meltzer.

In 1941 he joined the party.
From the first days of the war he went to the front. On June 27, the battery of the 14th howitzer artillery regiment under the command of Y. Dzhugashvili as part of the 14th armored division entered combat operations in the offensive zone of the 4th tank division of the Army Group Center. On July 4, the battery was surrounded in the Vitebsk region. On July 16, 1941, Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili was taken prisoner. Berlin radio informed the population of “amazing news”: “From the headquarters of Field Marshal Kluge, a report was received that on July 16 near Liozno, southeast of Vitebsk, German soldiers of the motorized corps of General Schmidt captured the son of dictator Stalin - Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili, commander of an artillery battery from 7th Rifle Corps General Vinogradov. The place and date of Y. Dzhugashvili's capture became known from German leaflets. On August 7, 1941, the political department of the North-Western Front sent a member of the Military Council A.A. Zhdanov in a secret package three such leaflets dropped from an enemy aircraft. On the leaflet, in addition to the propaganda text calling for surrender, there is a photograph with the caption: "German officers are talking with Yakov Dzhugashvili." On the back of the leaflet was reproduced the manuscript of the letter: “Dear father! I am a prisoner, healthy, and will soon be sent to one of the officer camps in Germany. Handling is good. I wish you good health, hello to everyone, Yakov. A.A. Zhdanov informed Stalin about what had happened. (Kolesnik A. Chronicle of Stalin's family. Kharkov, 1990. P. 24). See photo Yakov Dzhugashvili in captivity.
But neither the protocol of interrogation (stored in "Case No. T-176" in the Archives of the US Congress, nor the German leaflets give an answer to the question of how Y. Dzhugashvili was captured. There were many soldiers of Georgian nationality, and if this is not a betrayal ", then how did the Nazis know that it was Stalin's son? Of course, there can be no talk of voluntary surrender. This is confirmed by his behavior in captivity and the unsuccessful attempts of the Nazis to recruit him. One of the interrogations of Yakov at the headquarters of Field Marshal Günther von Kluge Conducted on July 18, 1941 by Captain Reshlet Here is an excerpt from the protocol of interrogation:
- How did it become clear that you are the son of Stalin, if no documents were found on you?
- I was betrayed by some servicemen of my unit.
- What is your relationship with your father?
- Not so good. I do not share his political views in everything.
- ... Do you consider captivity a disgrace?
Yes, I think it's a shame...
(Sukhotin Ya.L. Son of Stalin. The life and death of Yakov Dzhugashvili. L., 1990. S. 78-79).
In the autumn of 1941, Jacob was transferred to Berlin and placed at the disposal of the Goebbels propaganda service. He was placed in the fashionable Adlon Hotel, surrounded by former Georgian counter-revolutionaries. Probably, this is where the picture of Y. Dzhugashvili with Georgy Scriabin, allegedly the son of Molotov, the then chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, was born. At the beginning of 1942, Yakov was transferred to the Oflag KhSh-D officer camp located in Hammelburg. Here they tried to break him with mockery and hunger. In April, the prisoner was transferred to Oflag XC in Lübeck. Jacob's neighbor was a prisoner of war, Captain Rene Blum, the son of Leon Blum, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of France. By decision of the meeting, Polish officers provided Yakov with food every month. However, Yakov was soon taken to the Sachsenhausen camp and placed in a department where there were prisoners who were relatives of high-ranking leaders of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. In addition to Yakov and Vasily Kokorin, four English officers were kept in this barracks: William Murphy, Andrew Walsh, Patrick O'Brien and Thomas Cushing. The German high command offered Stalin to exchange him for Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus, taken prisoner in 1942 under Stalingrad's official response, transmitted through the chairman of the Swedish Red Cross, Count Bernadotte, read: "You don't change a soldier for a marshal."
In 1943 Yakov died in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The following document has reached us, compiled by former prisoners and stored in the archive of the memorial of this concentration camp: “Yakov Dzhugashvili constantly felt the hopelessness of his situation. He often fell into depression, refused to eat, he was especially affected by Stalin's statement that "we have no prisoners of war - there are traitors to the Motherland" that was repeatedly broadcast on the camp radio.
Perhaps this prompted Jacob to take a reckless step. On the evening of April 14, 1943, he refused to enter the barracks and rushed into the "dead zone". The sentry fired. Death came instantly. “An attempt to escape,” the camp authorities reported. The remains of J. Dzhugashvili were burned in the camp crematorium ... In 1945, in the archive captured by the Allies, a report was found by SS guard Harfik Konrad, who claimed that he had shot Yakov Dzhugashvili when he rushed to the barbed wire fence. This information was also confirmed by a prisoner of war British officer Thomas Cushing, who was in the same barracks with Yakov.
Director D. Abashidze made the film "War for All War" about Yakov Dzhugashvili. The poet Nikolai Dorizo ​​wrote the tragedy "Yakov Dzhugashvili", for which he collected materials for ten years. The work was first published in the Moscow magazine (1988).
On October 28, 1977, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, for his steadfastness in the fight against the Nazi invaders, courageous behavior in captivity. However, this Decree was closed, people knew nothing about it. The feat of Yakov Dzhugashvili is immortalized on the memorial plaques of the deceased graduates of the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers and the Artillery Academy. F.E. Dzerzhinsky. An urn with ashes and earth taken from the site of the former crematorium of the Sachsenhausen camp has been installed in the MIIT museum (for more information about Yakov Dzhugashvili, see: Sukhotin Y.L. Son of Stalin. The life and death of Yakov Dzhugashvili. L., 1990; Apt S. Son of Stalin / / Podvig. Voronezh, 1989. No. 4, 5).

The Alliluyev family warmly accepted Yakov, loving him for his sincerity, kindness, calm and balanced character. Even during his studies, Jacob decided to get married. The father of this marriage did not approve, but Yakov acted in his own way, which caused a quarrel between them. A.S. did not approve of a hasty marriage either. Svanidze. He wrote to Yasha that you should build your family only when you become an independent person and can provide for your family, and he does not have any moral right to marry based on parents, although they occupy a high position. Yakov and his wife leave for Leningrad, settling in the apartment of his grandfather, Sergei Yakovlevich Alliluyev. Decided to work at the thermal power plant. A daughter was born, but she lived very little and soon died. The marriage broke up. Yasha returned to Moscow, finished his studies at the institute and began working as an engineer at one of the Moscow factories. In December 1935, he marries a second time and again against the will of his father, who did not approve of his son's choice. It is clear that relations between them could only worsen. In 1938, Yakov's daughter Galina is born. During these years, the impending breath of war was already felt. In one of his conversations with his son, Stalin said this bluntly and added that the Red Army needed good commanders. On the advice of his father, Yakov entered the Military Artillery Academy, from which he graduated just before the war in the summer of 1941. Academy graduate senior lieutenant Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili was then 34 years old ...

The last time father and son saw each other was on June 22, 1941. “Go and fight,” Stalin said in parting to Yakov. The very next day, Senior Lieutenant Y. Dzhugashvili, along with other graduates of the academy, was sent to the front, which turned out to be too short for him. July 16, near Vitebsk, he is captured. In his book "Memories and Reflections" G.K. Zhukov says that at the beginning of March 1945 he was at Stalin's Near Dacha.

“During a walk, I.V. Stalin suddenly began to tell me about his childhood. So at least an hour passed after the conversation. Then he said:

Let's go have some tea, we need to talk about something. On the way back I asked:

Comrade Stalin, I have long wanted to know about your son Yakov. Is there any information about his fate? He did not immediately answer this question. After walking a good hundred paces, he said in a muffled voice:

No, Jacob would prefer any death to treason. He seemed to care deeply for his son. Sitting at the table, I. V. Stalin was silent for a long time, not touching the food. Then, as if continuing his reflections, he said bitterly:

What a tough war! How many lives it took of our people. Apparently, we will have few families left whose loved ones have not died ... "

At that time, Stalin did not yet know that two years had already passed since his eldest son was not alive. He received this terrible news shortly after the war from V. Peak, who came to Moscow. Now the name of the camp where he was shot is known - Sachsenhausen, other concentration camps through which Yakov had to go are also known. "Case * T-176" with German pedantry recorded everything, down to the names of the killers. In 1978, in "Literary Georgia" in * 4 in the essay "Prisoner of Sachsenhausen" I. Andronov told about the story of the death of Y. Dzhugashvili. In "Case * T-176" there is one curious document - a telegram from Acting US Secretary of State Grew, sent to US Ambassador to the USSR Harriman dated June 30, 1945.

"Now in Germany, a joint group of experts from the State Department and the British Foreign Office is studying important German secret documents about how Stalin's son was shot dead, who allegedly tried to escape from a concentration camp. On this account, it was discovered: Himmler's letter to Ribbentrop in connection with this incident, photographs, several pages of documentation.The British Foreign Office recommended that the British and American governments hand over the originals of these documents to Stalin, and to do this, instruct the British ambassador to the USSR Clark Kerr to inform about the Molotov documents found and ask Molotov for advice on how best to give the documents to Stalin. Kerr could claim that this is a joint Anglo-American find and present it on behalf of the British Ministry and the US Embassy. There is an opinion, however, that the transfer of documents should be made not on behalf of our embassy, ​​but of the State Department. Without handing over the documents to Stalin, it would be desirable to know in the State Department. You can refer to Molotov if you find it useful. Work with Clark Kerr if he has similar instructions. Gru."

However, none of this happened. The ambassador soon received instructions of a completely different content, and the documents themselves were delivered from Frankfurt am Main to Washington on July 5, 1945 and were classified for many years in the archives of the US State Department. Only in 1968, when the statute of limitations for the secrecy of wartime documents expired, did the archivists of the State Department prepare a certificate of the following content to justify the concealment from the Soviet leadership of "Case * T-176":

"After a thorough study of the case and its substance, the British Foreign Office proposed to reject the original idea of ​​handing over the documents, which, because of their unpleasant content, might upset Stalin. The Soviet officials were not told anything, and the State Department informed Ambassador Harriman in a telegram dated August 23, 1945 that an agreement has been reached not to give the documents to Stalin."

Of course, it was not the fear of "disappointing" Stalin, as Iona Andronov rightly notes, that forced Truman's and Churchill's inner circle to hide "Case * T-176" in a secret archive. Most likely, they themselves were very upset, having learned from the case about courageous behavior in the captivity of Yakov. They, who stood at the origins of the Cold War, were much more satisfied with the rumors discrediting the son of the commander-in-chief, launched by Goebbels' propaganda. It is no coincidence that after the war, many versions appeared about the fate of Yakov Dzhugashvili, who was allegedly seen either in Italy or in Latin America. A host of "eyewitnesses" and clever impostors appeared to the world. Fantasies continue to walk through the pages of the press in our days, do not hesitate to retell them or compose new and domestic journalists.

One of the "fresh" versions is the tale that Jacob naturalized in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein is his son.

However, the documents of "Case * T-176" leave no room for speculation. They record that Yakov was captured on July 16, 1941, did not reveal his name, but the Nazis learned about him on July 18 through some prisoner of war. At first, Major of the German army intelligence Walter Holters from the headquarters of Field Marshal von Kluge was engaged in Yakov. He recorded in his interrogation protocols that Yakov Dzhugashvili considered captivity a disgrace and if he had discovered in time that he had remained isolated from his own, he would have shot himself. He is convinced that the new arrangement in Soviet Russia is more in line with the interests of the workers and peasants than in former times, and advised the Abwehr officer to ask the Soviet people about it himself. Dzhugashvili said that he did not believe in the possibility of the capture of Moscow by the Germans. On the offer to write to the family, Yakov refused. He resolutely rejected the proposal to broadcast his appeal home on the radio.

When he was hinted that an agitation campaign could be set up here on his behalf and appeal to Soviet soldiers to surrender, he mockingly laughed: "No one will believe this!" Realizing that cooperation with Y. Dzhugashvili would not take place, he was transferred to the headquarters of the group of troops of Field Marshal von Bock. Here he was interrogated by Captain V. Shtrik-Shtrikfeld, a professional intelligence officer who was fluent in Russian. His secret super-task included the recruitment of captured military leaders into the service of the occupation authorities.

V. Shtrik-Shtrikfeld, who lived safely in the FRG until his death in 1977, left memories of how he unsuccessfully tried to recruit Yakov to the place subsequently occupied by General Vlasov.

In particular, he talked about Jacob's resolute rejection of his arguments about the spiritual and racial superiority of the German nation. "You look at us as if we were primitive islanders of the southern seas," Dzhugashvili retorted, "but I, being in your hands, did not find any reason to look up at you." Yakov did not get tired of repeating that he did not believe in the victory of Germany. Now Ya. Dzhugashvili is being transferred to the Goebbels department. To begin with, he is settled in the luxurious Adlon Hotel under the vigilant guard of the Gestapo and a new round of processing is carried out, but they again fail and are transferred to the officer concentration camp Lübeck, and then to the concentration camp Hammelburg. Captain A.K. Uzhinsky, a Muscovite, was then in this camp. Once, in front of his eyes, the guard began to draw the letters "SU" ("Soviet Union") on Yakov's clothes, he outlined it all, right down to the cap. While the "artist" was working, Yasha turned to the captured officers crowding nearby and shouted loudly: "Let him paint! "Soviet Union" - such an inscription does me honor. I am proud of it!" There are eyewitnesses to such words of the general

Killed during the Great Patriotic War in German captivity. The life and fate of the first-born “father of nations” is tragic and does not correspond to the “lubok” idea of ​​an exemplary son, as Soviet propaganda would like to present him. Yakov Dzhugashvili was an ordinary person - contradictory, restless and alive, and the status of the offspring of the generalissimo rather hindered than helped him in life.

Childhood and youth

Stalin's firstborn was born in March 1907 in northern Georgia, in the village of Badji, not far from Kutaisi. Yakov did not remember mother Ekaterina Svanidze: the woman died of typhoid fever 8 months after the birth of her son.

Until the age of 14, the nephew was in the care of his own aunt Alexandra, his mother's sister. The nearest school from Badji was in a neighboring village, 7 kilometers away, and every day Yasha walked the way to Badji and back. The father took the first child to Moscow in 1921. In the same year, a son was born to the future Generalissimo, and in 1922 Joseph Vissarionovich was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RKPP (b).

In the capital, a teenager who came from a remote Georgian province was confused. In the new family of his father, he felt superfluous, remained silent and kept in the background, for which Stalin called Yakov a wolf cub. warmed the boy with maternal warmth and found an approach to him.

Yakov Dzhugashvili graduated from school on the Arbat, then went to an electrical engineering school in Sokolniki. In 1925, the young man received a specialized secondary education, but refused to enter the institute, although he received high grades.

The secret marriage of 17-year-old Yakov to a classmate Zoya Gunina, a priest's daughter, who was a year younger, brought down the wrath of his father on the young man's head. A quarrel with a parent ended in a suicide attempt: Dzhugashvili shot himself, but the bullet went right through.

After his recovery, Yakov and his wife left for Leningrad on advice and found shelter in the Alliluyev family. Zoya entered the Mining Institute, and the young Dzhugashvili, with the help of Kirov, got a job at the substation as an assistant electrician.

Yakov fulfilled his father's demand and returned to the capital in 1930. Nothing kept him in Leningrad: a year earlier, they had a girl with Zoya, but a few months later the child died. The family broke up.

In Moscow, Yakov Dzhugashvili became a student at the Institute of Transport Engineers, where until 1936 he studied at the Faculty of Thermal Physics. For a year, the leader's firstborn worked at the power plant of the plant that bore the name of his father, as a turbine engineer on duty. Iosif Vissarionovich dreamed of a military career for his sons, and Yakov relented: in 1937 he became a student at the academy that trained artillerymen.

Dzhugashvili graduated from the academy on the eve of the war. In May 1941 he was appointed battery commander and member of the CPSU(b).

Military service

Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili got to the front at the end of June 1941. He fulfilled his father's parting words to go and fight, leading a battery of a howitzer regiment in the tank division of the 20th Army. A week later, on July 4, part of Dzhugashvili fell into the German encirclement near Vitebsk, and on July 7, Yakov, along with other fighters, was presented for a reward for the battle near the Belarusian city of Senno.

In mid-August 1941, an article was published in Krasnaya Zvezda about the courage and heroism of the battery commander, who fought the enemy with the soldiers to the last shell. At the time of the publication of the newspaper issue, Yakov had already been a prisoner of the Germans for a month. He came to the Nazis, breaking through from the enemy encirclement, in mid-July.

For the first time, the son of the Generalissimo was interrogated on July 18, 1941. The protocol of interrogation was found after the war in Berlin, in the archive. Today, the document is stored in Podolsk, in the repository of documents of the military ministry. During the interrogation, the son of the head of the Soviet state behaved with dignity, but could not resist the words of disappointment with the tactics of the Red Army.

For two years, Yakov Dzhugashvili wandered around the camps: from the Bavarian Hammelburg he was transported to the north of Germany, to Lübeck, and from there in 1942 to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg.

In all likelihood, the German command tried to exchange the son of the Generalissimo for a captured Wehrmacht. For the first time, Jacob's half-sister wrote about this. According to her, her father told her about the proposed exchange and his unwillingness to bargain with the enemy in the winter of 1943-44.

The version about the German proposal to exchange Yakov for Friedrich Paulus was not confirmed, and the leader’s words that he would not exchange a soldier for a field marshal may turn out to be a beautiful legend of Stalin’s biographers for history. But attempts by the Germans to make a profitable exchange are likely.

In the memoirs written in the post-war period, he shared that Joseph Vissarionovich knew about the sad fate of Yakov. At the meeting, he dropped that his son could not get out of the camp, the Germans would shoot him. In the military drama The Fall of Berlin, director Mikhail Chiaureli intended to show the first-born Generalissimo as a tragic hero of the Great Patriotic War, but Stalin forbade it.

Personal life

In the mid-1930s, Yakov Dzhugashvili went to Uryupinsk, where he spent his holidays. Acquaintance with Olga Golysheva happened with relatives of Nadezhda Alliluyeva. A fleeting romance broke out, which never ended in an official marriage.

A year later, in 1936, Olga gave birth to Yakov's first child, who was named Eugene. At that time, Dzhugashvili was already in official relations with ballet dancer Yulia Meltzer. In February 1938, the wife gave her husband a daughter, Galina.

The grandson of Joseph Vissarionovich - Evgeny Dzhugashvili - graduated from the Suvorov Military School in Kalinin, then the Air Force Engineering Academy. After the death of his grandfather, the grandson was assigned a personal bonus until the end of his education.

Eugene defended his Ph.D. thesis and taught at the military departments in the 1970s and 80s. In the early 1990s, he retired with the rank of colonel. He wrote a book about the famous grandfather and played Joseph Vissarionovich in Devi Abashidze's film "Yakov, son of Stalin."

Yevgeny Dzhugashvili had two sons - Vissarion and Yakov. The first became a director, the second - an artist. Stalin's great-grandchildren live in Tbilisi.

Galina Dzhugashvili graduated from Moscow State University and worked at the Institute of World Literature as a junior researcher. In 1970, she gave birth to a son from an Algerian - a UN expert. Stalin's great-grandson was named Selim.

Death

White spots remain in the history of the death of Yakov Dzhugashvili. The official version says that the leader's firstborn died in Sachsenhausen in April 1943. He jumped out of the barracks window and threw himself on the security wire. Died from electric shock. Before his death, Yakov answered the shout of the sentry: “Shoot!”.

The corpse of Dzhugashvili was burned in the camp crematorium. The urn with the accompanying documents about the death of Yakov and the results of the investigation of his death disappeared from the Main Directorate of Imperial Security of the Third Reich. A photograph has been preserved in the German archives, which depicts the deceased Yakov Dzhugashvili, but experts are not sure that the corpse of the Generalissimo's son is in the picture.

Monument to Yakov Dzhugashvili in the agricultural town of Kopti near Vitebsk

After the end of the war, the Secretary General was brought written testimonies of Yakov's fellow campers, as well as the testimony of the commandant and the guard, from which Stalin learned about the courage of his son.

The adopted son of the leader - - denies the death of Yakov in Sachsenhausen, although in the summer of 2007 the FSB of Russia officially confirmed the death of Dzhugashvili in a concentration camp. Sergeev claims that the named brother died at the front in July 1941.

Memory (film incarnations)

• 1969-1971 - "Liberation"
• 1990 - "Jakov, son of Stalin"
• 1992 - "Stalin"
• 2006 - “Stalin. live"
• 2013 - "Son of the Father of Nations"
• 2017 - “Vlasik. Shadow of Stalin

He often fell into depression, refused to eat, he was especially affected by Stalin's statement that "we have no prisoners of war - there are traitors to the Motherland" that was repeatedly broadcast on the camp radio.
Perhaps this prompted Jacob to take a reckless step. On the evening of April 14, 1943, he refused to enter the barracks and rushed into the "dead zone". The sentry fired. Death came instantly. “An attempt to escape,” the camp authorities reported.

Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich (1907-1943).1) Stalin's son from his first marriage to Ekaterina Svanidze. Born in with. Badji of the Kutaisi province (according to other sources - in Baku). Until the age of 14, he was brought up by his aunt - A.S. Monasalidze in Tbilisi. According to Ya.L. Sukhotina - in the family of his grandfather Semyon Svanidze in the village. Badzhi (Ya Sukhotin. Son of Stalin. The life and death of Yakov Dzhugashvili. L., 1990. P. 10). In 1921, at the insistence of his uncle A. Svanidze, he came to Moscow to study. Yakov spoke only Georgian, was silent and shy.

His father met him unfriendly, but his stepmother, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, tried to take care of him. In Moscow, Yakov studied first at a school on the Arbat, then at an electrical school in Sokolniki, from which he graduated in 1925. He married the same year.

But “the first marriage brought tragedy. Father did not want to hear about the marriage, did not want to help him ... Yasha shot himself in our kitchen, next to his small room, at night. The bullet went right through, but he was sick for a long time. Father began to treat him even worse for this ”(Alliluyeva S. Twenty letters to a friend. M., 1990. P. 124). On April 9, 1928, N.S. Alliluyeva received the following letter from Stalin: “Tell Yasha from me that he acted like a hooligan and blackmailer, with whom I have and cannot have anything else in common. Let him live where he wants and with whom he wants” (APRF, f. 45. On. 1. D. 1550. L. 5 // Stalin in the arms of the family. M., 1993. P. 22).

Leaving the Kremlin hospital three months later, Yakov and his wife Zoya, on the advice of S.M. Kirov, left for Leningrad. Lived at S.Ya. Alliluyev and his wife Olga Evgenievna (in apartment 59 of house number 19 on Gogol street). Yakov graduated from the courses and became an assistant fitter. He worked as an electrician on duty at the 11th substation (Karl Marx Ave., 12). Zoya studied at the Mining Institute. At the beginning of 1929 a daughter was born to them, who died in October; soon the marriage broke up.

In 1930, Yakov returned to Moscow, entered the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers. F.E. Dzerzhinsky at the Faculty of Thermal Physics, from which he graduated in 1935. In 1936-1937. worked at the plant's CHP. Stalin. In 1937 he entered the evening department of the Artillery Academy of the Red Army, from which he graduated before the war. In 1938 he married Yu. Meltzer. In 1941 he joined the party.

From the first days of the war he went to the front. On June 27, the battery of the 14th howitzer artillery regiment under the command of Y. Dzhugashvili as part of the 14th armored division entered combat operations in the offensive zone of the 4th tank division of the Army Group Center. On July 4, the battery was surrounded in the Vitebsk region. July 16, 1941 2) Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili was taken prisoner.

Berlin radio informed the population of “amazing news”: “From the headquarters of Field Marshal Kluge, a report was received that on July 16 near Liozno, southeast of Vitebsk, German soldiers of the motorized corps of General Schmidt captured the son of dictator Stalin - Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili, commander of an artillery battery from 7th Rifle Corps General Vinogradov. The place and date of Y. Dzhugashvili's capture became known from German leaflets.

On August 7, 1941, the political department of the North-Western Front sent a member of the Military Council A.A. Zhdanov in a secret package three such leaflets dropped from an enemy aircraft. On the leaflet, in addition to the propaganda text calling for surrender, there is a photograph with the caption: "German officers are talking with Yakov Dzhugashvili." On the back of the leaflet was reproduced the manuscript of the letter: “Dear father! I am a prisoner, healthy, and will soon be sent to one of the officer camps in Germany. Handling is good. I wish you good health, hello to everyone, Yakov. A.A. Zhdanov informed Stalin about what had happened. (Kolesnik A. Chronicle of Stalin's family. Kharkov, 1990. P. 24).

But neither the protocol of the interrogation (which is kept in "Case No. T-176" in the Archives of the US Congress 3)), nor the German leaflets give an answer to the question of how Y. Dzhugashvili got captured. There were many warriors of Georgian nationality, and if this is not a betrayal, then how did the Nazis know that it was Stalin's son? Voluntary surrender, of course, is out of the question. This confirms

Xia his behavior in captivity and the unsuccessful attempts of the Nazis to recruit him. One of the interrogations of Yakov at the headquarters of Field Marshal Günther von Kluge was conducted on July 18, 1941 by Captain Reshle. Here is an excerpt from the interrogation protocol:

How did it turn out that you are the son of Stalin, if no documents were found on you?

I was betrayed by some servicemen of my unit.

What is your relationship with your father?

Not so good. I do not share his political views in everything.

Do you think captivity is a disgrace?

Yes, it's a shame...

(Sukhotin Ya.L. Son of Stalin. The life and death of Yakov Dzhugashvili. L., 1990. S. 78-79).

In the autumn of 1941, Jacob was transferred to Berlin and placed at the disposal of the Goebbels propaganda service. He was placed in the fashionable Adlon Hotel, surrounded by former Georgian counter-revolutionaries. This is probably where the picture of Y. Dzhugashvili with Georgy Skryabin 4) was born - allegedly the son of Molotov, then Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. At the beginning of 1942, Yakov was transferred to the Oflag KhSh-D officer camp located in Hammelburg. Here they tried to break him with mockery and hunger. In April, the prisoner was transferred to Oflag XC in Lübeck. Jacob's neighbor was a prisoner of war, Captain Rene Blum, the son of Leon Blum, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of France. By decision of the meeting, Polish officers provided Yakov with food every month. 5)

However, Yakov was soon taken to the Sachsenhausen camp and placed in a department where there were prisoners who were relatives of high-ranking leaders of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. In addition to Yakov and Vasily Kokorin, four English officers were kept in this barracks: William Murphy, Andrew Walsh, Patrick O'Brien and Thomas Cushing. The German high command offered Stalin to exchange him for Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus, who was captured in 1942 under Stalingrad's official response, transmitted through the chairman of the Swedish Red Cross, Count Bernadotte, read: "You don't change a soldier for a marshal."

In 1943 Yakov died in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The following document has reached us, compiled by former prisoners and stored in the archive of the memorial of this concentration camp: “Yakov Dzhugashvili constantly felt the hopelessness of his situation. He often fell into depression, refused to eat, he was especially affected by Stalin's statement that "we have no prisoners of war - there are traitors to the Motherland" more than once broadcast on the camp radio.

Perhaps this prompted Jacob to take a reckless step. On the evening of April 14, 1943, he refused to enter the barracks and rushed into the "dead zone". The sentry fired. Death came instantly. “An attempt to escape,” the camp authorities reported. The remains of J. Dzhugashvili were burned in the camp crematorium ... In 1945, in the archive captured by the Allies, a report was found by the SS guard Harfik Konrad, who claimed that he shot Yakov Dzhugashvili when he rushed to the barbed wire fence. This information was also confirmed by a prisoner of war British officer Thomas Cushing, who was in the same barracks with Yakov.

Director D. Abashidze made the film "War for All War" about Yakov Dzhugashvili. The poet Nikolai Dorizo ​​wrote the tragedy "Yakov Dzhugashvili", for which he collected materials for ten years. The work was first published in the Moscow magazine (1988).

On October 28, 1977, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, for his steadfastness in the fight against the Nazi invaders, courageous behavior in captivity. However, this Decree was closed, people knew nothing about it. The feat of Yakov Dzhugashvili is immortalized on the memorial plaques of the deceased graduates of the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers and the Artillery Academy. F.E. Dzerzhinsky. An urn with ashes and earth taken from the site of the former crematorium of the Sachsenhausen camp has been installed in the MIIT museum (for more information about Yakov Dzhugashvili, see: Sukhotin Y.L. Son of Stalin. The life and death of Yakov Dzhugashvili. L., 1990; Apt S. Son of Stalin / / Podvig. Voronezh, 1989. No. 4, 5).

Experts from the FSO and the Ministry of Defense at the beginning of the 2000s proved that Yakov Dzhugashvili's letters from captivity to his father, Joseph Stalin, were fake. As well as the German propaganda photographs of Yakov, under which there was an appeal to Soviet soldiers to surrender, "like the son of Stalin." Some Western versions say that Yakov was alive after the war.

Yakov Dzhugashvili was not the favorite son of Joseph Stalin.

Stalin did not see his eldest son for 13 years. The last time before a long separation, he saw him in 1907, when Yakov's mother, Ekaterina Svanidze, died. Their son was not even a year old then.

Ekaterina Svanidze's sister, Alexandra, and brother Alyosha, together with his wife Mariko, took care of the child. He raised his grandson and grandfather, Semyon Svanidze. All of them lived in the village of Badzi near Kutaisi. The boy grew up in love and affection, as often happens when the closest relatives try to compensate for the absence of his father and mother.

Joseph Stalin saw his first child again only in 1921, when Yakov was already fourteen.

Stalin was not up to his son, and then a new marriage with Nadezhda Alliluyeva and children from him. Yakov fought his way through life on his own, only occasionally did his father help him with money.

On the advice of his father, Yakov enters the artillery academy.

From the attestation of a fourth-year student of the command faculty of the artillery academy, Lieutenant Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich:

“He is devoted to the party of Lenin, Stalin and the socialist Motherland, sociable, his academic performance is good, but in the last session he had an unsatisfactory grade in a foreign language.

The foreman of the group is Captain Ivanov.

Let us pay attention to this unsatisfactory mark in a foreign language received in 1940. A year later, in the 41st, the Germans, drawing up a protocol for the interrogation of the captured Yakov Dzhugashvili, would write literally the following:

Dzhugashvili speaks English, German and French and gives the impression of a very intelligent person.”

This is where the mismatch comes in. From the house on Granovsky Street on June 23, 1941, Yakov Dzhugashvili went to the front. He did not get to see his father. He just called him on the phone and heard the blessing:

Go and fight.

Yakov Dzhugashvili did not have time to send a single message from the front. The daughter of Galina Dzhugashvili keeps the only postcard sent by her father to his wife Yulia from Vyazma on her way to the front. It is dated June 26, 1941:

“Dear Julia. Take care of Galka and yourself. Tell her that Papa Yasha is fine. At the first opportunity, I will write a longer letter. Don't worry about me, I'm fine.

All your Yasha.

Much has been written about what happened in mid-July near Vitebsk. According to the generally accepted version, on July 16, 1941, such a trump card fell into the hands of the Germans, which they could not even dream of. The news that the son of Stalin himself had surrendered to them instantly spread through all the units and formations on both sides.

So, on July 11, 1941, the Germans broke into Vitebsk. As a result, three of our armies were immediately surrounded. Among them is the 14th howitzer-artillery regiment of the 14th tank division, in which senior lieutenant Dzhugashvili served as battery commander.

The command did not forget about Yakov Dzhugashvili. It understood what could happen to a commander of any rank in the event of the death or capture of Stalin's son. Therefore, the order of the division commander, Colonel Vasiliev, to the head of the special department to take Yakov into his car during the retreat was tough. But Jacob would not be himself if he had not refused this offer. Upon learning of this, Divisional Commander Vasiliev again orders, in spite of any objections from Yakov, to take him to the Lioznovo station. As follows from the report of the chief of artillery, the order was carried out, but on the night of July 16-17, when the remnants of the division broke out of the encirclement, Yakov Dzhugashvili was not among them.

Where did the son of Stalin disappear to?

Here comes the first oddity. If at the moment of leaving the encirclement, despite the chaos, they so stubbornly tried to take him out, then why after the disappearance they did not search for four days and only on July 20 did an intensive search begin, when an encryption was received from Headquarters. Zhukov ordered to immediately find out and report to the front headquarters where Senior Lieutenant Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich was.

The order to report the results of the search for Yakov Dzhugashvili was carried out only on July 24. Four more days later.

The story of the motorcyclists sent in search of Yakov looks like an attempt to completely confuse the situation. So, the motorcyclists, led by the senior political officer Gorokhov, meet the Red Army soldier Lapuridze at Kasplya Lake. He said that he was leaving the encirclement with Yakov. On July 15, they changed into civilian clothes and buried their documents. After making sure that there are no Germans nearby, Yakov decides to take a break, and Lapuridze goes further and meets the same group of motorcyclists. The senior political instructor Gorokhov, as if not understanding who he is looking for, comes back, deciding that Dzhugashvili has already gone to his own.

Doesn't sound very convincing.

The situation becomes clearer from a letter from a close friend of Yakov Dzhugashvili, Ivan Sapegin. The letter was sent to Yakov's brother Vasily Stalin on August 2, 1941.

“Dear Vasily Osipovich! I am a colonel who was at your dacha with Yakov Iosifovich on the day of departure for the front. The regiment was surrounded. The division commander abandoned them and left the battle in a tank. Passing by Yakov Iosifovich, he did not even ask about his fate, but he himself broke through the encirclement in a tank along with the head of artillery of the division.

Ivan Sapegin.

Until August 13, 1941, there was no information about what really happened to Stalin's son. In addition to the Red Army soldier Lapuridze, the special officers of the Western Front did not find a single witness capable of shedding light on the mysterious disappearance of Yakov.

Information received on 13 August. A German leaflet was delivered to the political department of the Sixth Army of the Southern Front. It has a resolution:

Head of the Political Department, Brigadier Commissar Gerasimenko.

There was a photograph on the flyer. On it is an unshaven man, in a Red Army overcoat, surrounded by German soldiers, and below was the text:

“This is Yakov Dzhugashvili, Stalin's eldest son, battery commander of the 14th howitzer artillery regiment of the 14th armored division, who surrendered on July 16 near Vitebsk along with thousands of other commanders and fighters. Follow the example of the son of Stalin, and you too!”

The fact that Yakov was in captivity was immediately reported to Stalin. For him it was a very strong blow. To all the troubles of the beginning of the war, this personal one was added.

And the Germans continued their propaganda attack. In August, another leaflet appeared, which reproduced a note from Yakov to his father, delivered to Stalin by diplomatic means:

Dear father, I am in captivity, healthy. Soon I will be sent to one of the officer camps in Germany. Handling is good. I wish you health. Hello to all.

Tons of leaflets continued to be dropped on Soviet troops and front-line territories, on which Stalin's son was depicted next to senior officers of the Wehrmacht and German special services. Under the photographs are calls to lay down arms. No one then noticed that in some photographs the light falls on one side, and the shadow on the other, that Yakov's tunic is buttoned on the left side, like a woman. That in hot July, for some reason, Jacob is in an overcoat. That he doesn't look at the camera in any of the pictures.

On May 31, 1948, in German Saxony, while dismantling archives, the Soviet military translator Prokhorova found two sheets of paper. This was the record of the first interrogation of Yakov Dzhugashvili on July 18, 1941.

“Since no documents were found on the prisoner of war, and Dzhugashvili pretends to be the son of the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Joseph Stalin-Dzhugashvili, he was asked to sign the attached application in two copies. Dzhugashvili speaks English, German and French.”

What kind of person was this, whose interrogation protocol was found by a military translator? Was it really Yakov Stalin or someone who pretended to be the leader's son and thus hoped to mitigate the fate of German captivity?

Interrogation protocols are full of clichés. It follows from them that Yakov refused to cooperate with the Germans. He is sent to Berlin at the disposal of the Goebbels department. The supervision of the captured son of Stalin is carried out by the Gestapo. After several unsuccessful attempts to force Yakov Dzhugashvili to participate in propaganda actions, he was transferred first to the Lubeck officer camp, and then to the Homelburg concentration camp.

But this looks strange. Was there really no place in Berlin for Stalin's son? Did the Germans really refuse to use such a trump card in the game, which, undoubtedly, was the son of the Supreme Commander of the opposing country? Hard to believe.

Joseph Stalin did not cease to be interested in the fate of his son. Therefore, Soviet foreign intelligence tracked all the movements of Yakov Dzhugashvili. Or a man posing as Stalin's eldest son.

For some reason, during the two years of captivity, the German secret services and propagandists did not take a single frame of newsreel, even from around the corner, even with the help of a hidden camera. As, however, there is not a single recording of the voice of Yakov Dzhugashvili. It is strange that the Germans missed such an opportunity to say hello to Stalin.

Several memoirs of those who lived with Yakov in the same barracks in Luebeck and Homelburg, and in the last place of Dzhugashvili's stay - in the special camp "A" in Sachsenhausen, have been preserved. But the fact is that none of these people knew or saw Yakov before the war.

It seems that we are dealing with one of the most sophisticated operations of the German secret services. With one blow, they killed two birds with one stone: they kept Stalin in suspense and waited for the enemy in their rear. It is known about several groups that received the task from the Soviet leadership to release Yakov from captivity. All these attempts ended in failure. But the Germans got the opportunity to trace the connections and contacts of the underground workers operating in their rear.

The circumstances of Jacob's death became known after the war from a discovered letter from Reichsführer SS Himmler to Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, and then from the published testimony of Konrad Harfik, a guard at Special Camp A in Sachsenhausen.

It follows from Harfik's testimony that at about 20:00 on April 14, 1943, he was ordered to lock the door in the wire fence that separated the barracks from prisoners of war. Suddenly, Yakov Dzhugashvili, shouting "Sentry, shoot!" rushed past Harfik to the wire through which the high voltage current passed. Harfik tried to reason with Yakov for some time, but when he nevertheless grabbed the wire, he shot him in the head from a distance of 6-7 meters. Dzhugashvili unclenched his hands and leaned back, left hanging on the wire.

Imagine the contact of a person with a wire carrying a voltage of 500 volts. Death from paralysis should be instantaneous. Why else was it necessary to shoot, and not at the legs, not at the back, but immediately at the back of the head? Doesn't this mean that Yakov, or the person posing as Yakov, was first shot and then thrown onto the wire?

Why did the unexpected death of Yakov coincide with the moment when negotiations on the exchange of Field Marshal Paulus for Yakov Dzhugashvili intensified through the Red Cross? Is this a coincidence? And finally, why is the photograph of Yakov hanging on a wire, presented in the criminal case file of the Imperial Criminal Police Department of Nazi Germany, so fuzzy?

In the spring of 2002, after an official appeal to the Federal Security Service, several examinations of photographs, leaflets and notes by Yakov Dzhugashvili were carried out.

First of all, it was necessary to establish the authorship of a note allegedly written by Yakov Dzhugashvili in captivity on July 19, 1941 and addressed to Stalin. Experts from the Center for Forensic and Forensic Examinations of the Ministry of Defense had authentic texts written by Stalin's eldest son shortly before and in the first days of the war. In a comparative analysis, in particular, it turned out that there is no inclination when writing the letter “z” in the disputed text - Yakov always wrote this letter with an inclination to the left; the letter "d" in a note sent from captivity has a loop-shaped curl in the upper part, which is absolutely not typical for the handwriting of Stalin's son; Yakov always seemed to flatten the upper part of the letter "v" - in a note addressed to Stalin, it is spelled out classically correctly.

Experts have identified 11 more inconsistencies!

The forensic medical expert Sergey Zosimov then said:

Having a sufficient amount of handwritten material performed by Dzhugashvili, it is not difficult to combine such a note from separate alphabetic and digital characters.

Consultation reference number 7-4/02 from the expert opinion:

“A letter on behalf of Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili dated July 19, 1941, beginning with the words “dear father”, was executed not by Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, but by another person.

Specialists Victor Kolkutin, Sergey Zosimov.

So, Yakov Dzhugashvili did not write to his father from captivity, did not call for laying down arms, it was done for him by another or others.

The second question: who is depicted in the photographs taken by the Germans in the period from July 1941 to April 1943 during the possible stay in captivity of Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili?

In the photographs obtained from the German archives, after research by the method of comparison and scanning, traces of photomontage and retouching were clearly recorded.

Forensic medical expert Sergei Abramov in the film "Golgotha" said:

The image of the face was cut out, transferred to the picture instead of the head of another person, this head was transferred.

They just forgot to change the shape of the tousled hair, and the length of the shadows from the two figures shown in the picture does not correspond to the location of the light source, they are painted on.

German propagandists also made a mistake by editing a photograph where Stalin's son was allegedly captured during interrogation. If the image of the two German officers is beyond any doubt, they are real, then the photo of the man posing as Yakov Dzhugashvili is not perfect. There are traces of retouching, and the man is dressed very strangely: his tunic is buttoned on the left side, in a feminine way. It turns out that when making this picture, a mirror image of another picture of Yakov Dzhugashvili was used, but the German specialists forgot to turn it back.

Help-consultation number 194/02 from the expert opinion:

“The pictures were made by photomontage. The image of the head of the subject under study was transferred from other images and retouched.

Forensic medical expert Sergei Abramov.

The chief forensic expert of the Ministry of Defense Viktor Kalkutin in the film "Golgotha" said:

So far, only one thing can be stated with absolute certainty: Stalin's eldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, who went to the front on June 23, 1941, did not return home. Whether he was killed immediately after his capture, taken to the West, or simply died in battle - now it is unlikely that it will ever be known.

Relatives did not believe in Jacob's death for a very long time. For many years it seemed to Svetlana Stalin that her brother, whom she loved more than Vasily, did not die. There was some invisible connection between them; as she wrote, an inner voice told her that Jacob was alive, that he was somewhere in America or Canada.

In the West, after the end of the war, many were sure that Yakov Dzhugashvili was alive. And they gave proof of this version.

1. So, in the TASS report for the beginning of 1945, only Stalin and Molotov were reported:

"Broadcast. London, Polish government broadcast, Polish, February 6, transcript. A special correspondent of the Daily Mail newspaper reports: The German authorities have allocated 50-60 thousand Allied prisoners of war as hostages, among them is King Leopold, Churchill's nephew, Schuschnigg, Stalin's son and General Boer. General Boer is imprisoned in Berchtesgaden, and the Germans are trying in every possible way to get General Boer to speak out against Russia. However, all their attempts were in vain.

2. “Radio broadcast. Rome, Italian, May 23, 7:30 p.m., transcript. Zurich. Major Yakov Dzhugashvili, the son of Marshal Stalin, who was released from one of the concentration camps, arrived in Switzerland.”

3. In August 1949, an article about Stalin's children was published in the Danish newspaper Informashon. There was also a paragraph about Jacob.

“About the eldest son of Stalin - Yakov, who was taken prisoner by the Germans during the war, they say that he is in exile in Switzerland. The Swedish newspaper "Arbetaren" published an article by Ostrange, who allegedly knew Yakov Stalin personally. It is alleged that Yakov, in his youth, was in opposition to his father.

In the West, the topic of the life and death of Yakov Dzhugashvili in captivity is still of interest to many historians and the media. Proof of this is the intensity of the discussion between the German journalist and historian Christian Neef, who believes that Stalin's son deliberately surrendered himself as a prisoner, and the Russian-French artist and publicist Maxim Kantor. This discussion