Stalin and his son in captivity. Yakov Dzhugashvili - biography, photo, personal life of Stalin's son. The usual way of things

03.03.2020

The life of Stalin's eldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, has been poorly studied to this day, it contains many conflicting facts and "blank spots". Historians argue both about Jacob's captivity and about his relationship with his father.

Birth

In the official biography of Yakov Dzhugashvili, the year of birth is 1907. The birthplace of Stalin's eldest son was the Georgian village of Badzi. Some documents, including the protocols of camp interrogations, indicate a different year of birth - 1908 (the same year was indicated in the passport of Yakov Dzhugashvili) and another place of birth - the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku.

The same place of birth is indicated in the autobiography written by Yakov on June 11, 1939. After the death of his mother, Ekaterina Svanidze, Yakov was brought up in the house of her relatives. The daughter of her mother's sister explained the confusion in the date of birth in this way: in 1908 the boy was baptized - this year he himself and many biographers considered the date of his birth.

Son

On January 10, 1936, the long-awaited son Evgeny was born to Yakov Iosifovich. His mother was Olga Golysheva, the civil wife of Yakov, whom Stalin's son met in the early 30s. At the age of two, Evgeny Golyshev, allegedly due to the efforts of his father, who, however, never saw his son, received a new surname - Dzhugashvili.

Yakov's daughter from his third marriage, Galina, spoke extremely categorically about her "brother", referring to her father. He was sure that "he does not have and cannot have any son." Galina claimed that her mother, Yulia Meltzer, financially supported the woman out of fear that history would reach Stalin. This money, in her opinion, could be mistaken for alimony from her father, which helped to register Yevgeny under the name Dzhugashvili.

Father

There is an opinion that Stalin was cold in relations with his eldest son. Their relationship, indeed, was not simple. It is known that Stalin did not approve of the first marriage of his 18-year-old son, and compared Yakov’s unsuccessful attempt to take his own life with the act of a hooligan and blackmailer, ordering him to convey that the son can “from now on live where he wants and with whom he wants.”

But the most striking “evidence” of Stalin’s dislike for his son is the famous “I don’t change a soldier for a field marshal!” Said according to legend in response to a proposal to save a captive son. Meanwhile, there are a number of facts confirming the father's concern for his son: from financial support and living in the same apartment to the donated "emka" and the provision of a separate apartment after marrying Yulia Meltzer.

Studies

The fact that Yakov studied at the Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy is undeniable. Only the details of this stage in the biography of Stalin's son are different. For example, Yakov's sister Svetlana Alliluyeva writes that he entered the Academy in 1935 when he arrived in Moscow.

If we proceed from the fact that the Academy was transferred to Moscow from Leningrad only in 1938, the information of Stalin's adopted son Artem Sergeev turns out to be more convincing, who said that Yakov entered the Academy in 1938 "immediately, either in the 3rd, or in the 4th course ". A number of researchers draw attention to the fact that not a single photograph has been published in which Yakov was captured in military uniform and in the company of fellow students, just as there is not a single recorded memory of his comrades who studied with him. The only picture of Stalin's son in a lieutenant's uniform was presumably taken on May 10, 1941, shortly before being sent to the front.

Front

According to various sources, Yakov Dzhugashvili, as an artillery commander, could have been sent to the front in the period from June 22 to June 26 - the exact date is still unknown. During the fighting, the 14th Panzer Division and the 14th Artillery Regiment included in it, one of the batteries of which was commanded by Yakov Dzhugashvili, inflicted significant damage on the enemy. For the battle of Senno, Yakov Dzhugashvili was presented to the Order of the Red Banner, but for some reason his name at number 99 was deleted from the Decree on the award (according to one of the versions, on the personal instructions of Stalin).

Captivity

In July 1941, separate units of the 20th Army were surrounded. On July 8, while trying to get out of the encirclement, Yakov Dzhugashvili disappeared, and, as follows from the report of A. Rumyantsev, they stopped looking for him on July 25.

According to a widespread version, Stalin's son was taken prisoner, where he died two years later. However, his daughter Galina stated that the story of her father's captivity was played out by the German special services. Widely circulated leaflets depicting Stalin's son, who surrendered, according to the plan of the Nazis, were supposed to demoralize Russian soldiers.

In most cases, the "trick" did not work: as Yuri Nikulin recalled, the soldiers understood that this was a provocation. The version that Yakov did not surrender, but died in battle was also supported by Artem Sergeev, recalling that there was not a single reliable document confirming the fact that Stalin's son was in captivity.

In 2002, the Department of Defense Forensics Center confirmed that the photographs posted on the flyer had been falsified. It was also proved that the letter allegedly written by the captive Yakov to his father was another fake. In particular, Valentin Zhilyaev in his article “Yakov Stalin Was Not Captured” proves the version that another person played the role of Stalin's captive son.

Death

If, nevertheless, we agree that Yakov was in captivity, then according to one version, during a walk on April 14, 1943, he threw himself on barbed wire, after which a sentry named Khafrich fired - a bullet hit his head. But why shoot an already dead prisoner of war who died instantly from an electric discharge?

The conclusion of the medical examiner of the SS division indicates that death was due to "destruction of the lower part of the brain" from a shot to the head, that is, not from an electrical discharge. According to the version based on the testimony of the commandant of the Jagerdorf concentration camp, Lieutenant Zelinger, Yakov Stalin died in the infirmary at the camp from a serious illness. Another question is often asked: did Yakov really not have the opportunity to commit suicide during the two years of captivity? Some researchers explain Jacob's "indecisiveness" with the hope of liberation, which he had until he found out about his father's words. According to the official version, the body of the “son of Stalin” was cremated by the Germans, and the ashes were soon sent to their security department.

The version that Yakov did not surrender, but died in battle, was also supported by Artem Sergeev, recalling that there was not a single reliable document confirming the fact that Stalin's son was in captivity.

In 2002, the Defense Ministry's Forensic Center confirmed that the photographs posted on a German leaflet had been falsified. It was also proved that the letter allegedly written by the captive Yakov to his father was another fake. In particular, Valentin Zhilyaev in his article “Yakov Stalin Was Not Captured” proves the version that another person played the role of Stalin's captive son.

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 on the results of the search for Yakov Dzhugashvili - was executed 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 out of 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. Hi 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?

The 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 recollections of those who lived with Yakov in the same barracks and in "Lübeck", and in "Homelburg", and in the last place of Dzhugashvili's stay - in 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 8 p.m. 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 photo 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 Sergei 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 comparisons 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.

On April 14, 1943, a prisoner jumped out of the window of barrack No. 3 of Special Camp A at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Ignoring the call of the sentry, he rushed to the wire fence.

Current beat the bullet

A high voltage electric current was passed through the barbed wire. The prisoner lunged at her a second before the guard's shot rang out.

According to the autopsy report, the bullet hit the head four centimeters from the right ear and crushed the skull. But the prisoner at that moment was already dead - he was killed by an electric shock.

Sachsenhausen Camp Commandant Anton Kaindl was in a bad mood. In a special camp "A" prisoners of war were kept, who, according to the German command, were of the greatest value. The deceased, perhaps, was the most important trophy of Germany on the Eastern Front. This was the eldest son Joseph Stalin Yakov Dzhugashvili.

A German leaflet from 1941 that used Yakov Dzhugashvili to promote captivity. Source: Public Domain

"Follow the example of Stalin's son"

“Do you know who this is?” asked a German leaflet from 1941. This is Yakov Dzhugashvili, Stalin's eldest son, battery commander of the 14th howitzer artillery. regiment, 14th armored division, who on July 16 surrendered near Vitebsk, along with thousands of other commanders and fighters.

“Follow the example of Stalin’s son, he is alive, healthy and feels great,” German propagandists assured.

The photo on the leaflet showed a captured Soviet soldier talking to the German military.

For some Red Army soldiers in the difficult period of 1941, such leaflets really became an excuse to surrender. However, there were more skeptics. Some believed that the photo on the leaflet was fake, others believed that Stalin's son could really be captured, but his cooperation with the Nazis is definitely a fiction.

Be that as it may, the leaflet soon ceased to work, and the Germans did not have any new convincing materials with Stalin's son in their hands.

Documents "sensational" and real

It was difficult for Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili in life, not just after death. Five years ago, the journalists of the German publication Der Spiegel released a sensational article, claiming that Stalin's son really surrendered voluntarily. Subsequently, according to German reporters, he did not die in the camp, but survived until the end of the war, refusing to return to the USSR. Allegedly, Stalin's son hated the Soviet regime, was an anti-Semite and shared the views of the leaders of the Third Reich.

Where is the evidence for this, you ask? “The secret dossier of Yakov Dzhugashvili on 389 pages, discovered in Podolsk, was at the disposal of the Der Spiegel journalists,” the authors of the sensational material claimed. Judging by the fact that in subsequent years no evidence was presented, no one, except for German journalists, saw the “secret dossier” in the eye.

Meanwhile, all archival materials related to the fate of Yakov Dzhugashvili have long been declassified. In 2007, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation through Vasily Khristoforov, Head of the Registration and Archival Collections Department of the FSB stated: “According to our archival documents, Yakov Dzhugashvili was indeed in captivity, for which there is numerous evidence ... Stalin’s son behaved there with dignity.”

Complicated Relationships

The firstborn of the revolutionary Joseph Dzhugashvili and his wife Ekaterina Svanidze was born in the Georgian village of Badzi on March 18, 1907. The boy was only six months old when his mother died of tuberculosis. Joseph, who was madly in love with his Kato, threw himself into the grave after the coffin at the funeral. For the future leader, the death of his wife was a major shock.

However, revolutionary activity, associated with arrests and exile, did not allow him to raise his son. Yakov Dzhugashvili grew up among his mother's relatives.

The father was given the opportunity to educate Yakov only in 1921, in Moscow, when the boy was already 14 years old.

The character of the son went to his father, but they could not find mutual understanding. Having grown up virtually without a father, Yakov, who entered the era of youthful maximalism, often irritated his father, who was loaded with state affairs, with his behavior.

A really serious conflict between father and son occurred in 1925, when a graduate of an electrical school, Yakov Dzhugashvili, announced his desire to marry a 16-year-old Zoya Gunina.

Stalin categorically did not approve of the early marriage of his son, and then the quick-tempered young man tried to shoot himself. Fortunately, Yakov survived, but he lost his father's respect completely. Stalin ordered to tell his son that he was a "hooligan and blackmailer", while, however, allowing him to live as he himself sees fit.

"Go fight!"

If Stalin himself did not show great affection for his eldest son, then his children from his second marriage, Vasiliy and Svetlana, reaching out to their brother. Svetlana felt affection for Yakov even more than for Vasily.

The first marriage of Yakov Dzhugashvili broke up rather quickly, and in 1936 he married a ballerina Julia Meltzer. In February 1938, Yulia and Yakov had a daughter, who was named Galina.

Stalin's son was looking for his vocation for a long time, he changed jobs more than once, and at almost the age of 30 he entered the Artillery Academy of the Red Army.

In June 1941, for Yakov Dzhugashvili, there was no question of what he should do. The artillery officer went to the front. Farewell to the father, as far as can be judged from the evidence that is known today, turned out to be rather dry. Stalin briefly threw Yakov: "Go, fight!".

The war for senior lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili, commander of the 6th artillery battery of the 14th howitzer regiment of the 14th tank division, turned out to be fleeting. He was at the front from June 24 and on July 7 he distinguished himself in a battle near the Belarusian city of Senno.

But a few days later, units of the 20th Army, which included the 14th Panzer Division, were surrounded. On July 16, 1941, while trying to get out of the encirclement near the city of Liozno, Senior Lieutenant Dzhugashvili went missing.

The search for Yakov continued for more than a week, but did not bring any results.

Yakov Dzhugashvili, 1941 Source: Public Domain

Didn't become a traitor

Accurate information about the fate of Stalin's son became available to the Soviet side only at the end of the war, when protocols of interrogation of Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili were found among the captured German documents.

Captured on July 16 in the Lyasnovo area, Yakov behaved with dignity. He expressed disappointment with the failures of the Red Army, but he did not doubt the justice of the cause for which he fought.

The Nazis, who at first hoped to persuade Yakov Iosifovich to cooperate, were puzzled. The son turned out to be just as hard a nut to crack as his father. When persuasion did not help, they tried to press him, using methods of intimidation. This didn't work either.

After ordeals in the camps, Yakov Dzhugashvili finally ended up in Sachsenhausen, where he was transferred in March 1943. According to the testimony of the guards and the camp administration, he was closed, did not communicate with anyone, and even treated the Germans with some contempt.

Everything suggests that his throw to the wire was a conscious move, a form of suicide. Why did Jacob go for it? During interrogation by the Germans, he admitted that he was ashamed of his captivity in front of his father.

Senior Lieutenant Dzhugashvili behaved with dignity, but what moral and physical strength such firmness cost him. Perhaps he understood that there were few chances to get out of captivity alive, and at some point he decided to end it all at once.

Stalin himself rarely spoke about the fate of his eldest son during the war years. Georgy Zhukov in his memoirs he wrote that once during the war he allowed himself to ask Stalin about the fate of Yakov. The leader hunched over and replied that Yakov was kept in the camp isolated from others and most likely would not be released alive. Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva mentioned that the Soviet leader received an offer to exchange his son for a German field marshal Friedrich Paulus to which he refused.

The captivity of Yakov Dzhugashvili directly affected the fate of his wife, Yulia Meltzer, who was arrested and spent a year and a half in prison. However, when it became clear that Yakov was not collaborating with the Nazis, Yakov's wife was released.

According to the memoirs of the daughter of Jacob, Galina Dzhugashvili, after the release of his mother, Stalin took care of them until his death, treating his granddaughter with special tenderness. The leader believed that Galya was very similar to Yakov.

After an investigation of the emergency in the camp, on the orders of the administration of Sachsenhausen, the body of Yakov Dzhugashvili was cremated, and the urn with the ashes was sent to Berlin, where its traces are lost.

Sachsenhausen camp, where Stalin's son was kept. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Anton Kaindl was the main defendant in the trial of the leaders of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, which took place in the Soviet occupation zone in 1947. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Kandl died in August 1948 in a camp near Vorkuta.

On October 27, 1977, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, for steadfastness in the fight against Nazi invaders, courageous behavior in captivity, Senior Lieutenant Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree.

Name: Yakov Dzhugashvili

Age: 36 years

Place of Birth: Badji, Kutaisi Governorate

Place of death: Sachsenhausen

Activity: son of Stalin who died in German captivity

Family status: was married

Yakov Dzhugashvili - Biography

In August 1941, a German leaflet with a photograph of a young Caucasian was delivered to Stalin from the front. “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 health, hello to everyone, Yakov, ”was inscribed on the back.

The life of Joseph Stalin was full of tragic pages. One of them was the death of Catherine's first, most beloved wife. After her death, Koba plunged headlong into revolutionary activities. There was no place for the newborn son Yakov in his new life...

Stalin remembered his first child when he became a member of the Revolutionary Military Council. In his new marriage with Nadezhda Alliluyeva, a son, Vasily, was born. In addition, Koba decided to adopt the newborn son of a deceased comrade. Stalin simply could not take his blood child into the family.

14-year-old Yakov came to Moscow from the Georgian village of Badzhi. He did not understand Russian. The stepmother, 20-year-old Nadezhda Alliluyeva, helped the teenager to get used to the new conditions. From the memoirs of Boris Bazhenov, Stalin's personal secretary: “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.

Yakov went to an ordinary school on the Arbat, where at first, of course, he did not understand anything in the lessons. Relations with his father also did not develop. Jacob's character was not easy, and youthful maximalism did its job. Irritated by the angularity, and sometimes the obstinacy of his son, Iosif Vissarionovich dismissively called him a wolf cub.

After graduation, the young man entered the electrical engineering school in Sokolniki. But he could not forget his classmate Zoya Gunina, he began to meet with her. After graduating from electrical engineering, 18-year-old Yakov came to his father for a blessing for marriage. He was adamant: "No!" In desperation, the son decided to commit suicide. As Svetlana Alliluyeva recalled, “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. With a wound, Yakov stayed in the hospital for three months. And when he came out, the father only grinned: “Ha, he didn’t hit!” And it was almost a greater insult than the refusal to recognize his marriage. Like, you can’t shoot yourself like a human being, where can you start a family.

In a way, my father was right. In fact, he himself is still almost a child, Jacob was completely dependent on his parents and could not fully provide for his family. But love blinded him, and he went against the will of Stalin. A compassionate stepmother helped the young to escape their father's wrath: she took Yakov and Zoya to their relatives in Leningrad.

Zoya entered the Mining Institute, and Yakov graduated from electrician courses and got a job as an assistant electrician on duty at Lenenergo. He did not tell anyone that he was the son of Stalin himself, he did not even name his patronymic. He usually answered phone calls: “Yakov Zhuk is listening!”

The young family struggled to make ends meet. Father called Yakov several times, demanded that he return to Moscow, but he didn’t seem to hear ... And three years later, Joseph Vissarionovich wrote to his wife: “Tell Yasha from me that he acted like a hooligan and blackmailer with whom I have there is not and cannot be anything else in common. Let him live where he wants and with whom he wants.

In 1929 Zoya gave birth to a daughter. But when the girl was eight months old, she fell ill with pneumonia and died. The death of the baby destroyed the marriage of Jacob and Zoe - they soon parted ...

Having allowed the prodigal son to be convinced that he was right, Stalin changed his anger to mercy. Yakov returned to Moscow, entered the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers. Already before his graduation, in 1935, he met 25-year-old Olga Golysheva. Love again blazed in the ardent heart of the Georgian. This time, his father did not object to his novel: Yakov was given a two-room apartment and even a service Emka. But the relationship didn't work out. In the heat of a quarrel, the pregnant Olga packed her bags and went home to Uryupinsk, where she gave birth to a son, Eugene.

Jacob quickly found a replacement for her. In a restaurant, he noticed a beautiful brunette sitting with a man. He came up and asked me to dance. Instead, her husband answered - the assistant chief of the NKVD in the Moscow region. He answered rudely, and Dzhugashvili hit him. However, the fight did not prevent a new strong feeling between Jacob and the beautiful stranger from flaring up.

She turned out to be a ballerina Julia (Judith) Meltzer. The daughter-in-law of Jewish nationality did not suit Stalin, but the obstinate son again acted in his own way. Three years later, the couple had a daughter, Galina.

The question "to go to the front or not" was not before Yakov. At parting, the father said dryly: “Go and fight!” After three weeks of the war, the army, where Yakov fought, was surrounded, but put up fierce resistance. For the heroism shown in the battle of Senno (Vitebsk region), Yakov was presented for an award. He did not have time to get it - he ended up in German captivity.

On July 16, 1941, Berlin radio reported “stunning news”: “On July 16, near Liozno, German soldiers of the motorized corps of General Schmidt captured the son of dictator Stalin, Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili ...”. Almost immediately, the Germans began to use Yakov's photographs for propaganda. In August, leaflets with a photograph of Yakov Dzhugashvili surrounded by Wehrmacht officers rained down on the Soviet trenches. The text on them called for, following the example of Stalin's son, to surrender. The worst thing is that the leader himself did not know how true this information was. "Just in case," the NKVD arrested Yakov's wife.

The fact that the son behaved with dignity, Stalin became aware only in the spring of 1943. Through the Red Cross, the Germans offered to exchange Yakov for Field Marshal Paulus, captured near Stalingrad. Stalin's answer went down in history: "I do not change a soldier for a field marshal."

Meanwhile, after several concentration camps, Yakov, unpromising in terms of recruitment, was placed in Sachsenhausen. In the archive of the memorial of this concentration camp there is a document in which an eyewitness of those events reports: “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. On the evening of April 14, 1943, Yakov refused to enter the barracks and rushed to the barbed wire fence. The guard immediately fired. Death came instantly. “Killed while trying to escape,” the camp authorities reported. The body of the prisoner was burned in the camp crematorium ...

In March 1945, Marshal Zhukov cautiously asked Stalin about Yakov. He didn't answer right away, collecting his thoughts. But he didn’t leave the conversation: “Jakov will not get out of captivity. The Nazis will shoot him." It was not yet known that the prisoner had been dead for a long time.

Stalin learned the whole truth about the death of his son only after the Victory. He finally allowed himself to show parental feelings. Yasha did not interfere with perpetuating the memory, and his wife and daughter were favored by the authorities. It is a pity that the reconciliation of father and son did not come during his lifetime.