Читать книгу Dachau to Dolomites - Tom Wall - Страница 14

CHAPTER THREE

THE DEATH OF STALIN’S SON

Near Moscow, March 1945

Meeting with Stalin at his dacha, Marshal Zhukov asked the General Secretary if anything had been heard of his son Yakov. Yakov Dzhugashvili, Stalin’s son from his first marriage, had been captured by the Germans while serving as a lieutenant in charge of an anti-tank battery in 1941. Stalin remained silent. Zhukov must have regretted asking. Three years previously, when given command of the defence of Leningrad, he had ordered that ‘all the families of those who surrender to the enemy will be shot’. Although echoing a similar order by Stalin, he would not have known that this could, technically at least, imply that Stalin be shot. However, Stalin eventually replied, saying ‘Yakov is never going to get out of prison alive. The murderers will shoot him.’1

Sonderlager ‘A’, Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, 14 April 1943

Almost two years prior to this conversation, Yakov Dzhugashvili stood alone outside his prison hut in despair, hurting physically and mentally. A short time earlier he had been in a brawl with some Irish prisoners who were billeted with him. He asked to see the Camp Commander, probably to request a transfer, but the request was denied. His mental anguish may have hurt more than any blows he received. He had earlier been taunted by the allegation that his father was responsible for the murder of thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals, whose remains had been discovered in a mass grave in Katyn Forrest. The news had been broadcast on German radio the previous day. He may not have believed it, but it was another reminder of his awful predicament. His relationship with his father was never good. Despite his best efforts to win his approval, Stalin seemed to dislike him.2 Now he had irredeemably shamed him by allowing himself to be captured by the Germans.

It was dusk and past curfew and he was being ordered to go into his hut. He remained standing. A rifle was trained on him from the watchtower. With increasing urgency he was being warned that he would be shot if he didn’t obey. Some of his fellow prisoners, including Thomas Cushing, watched from a hut window. He still wouldn’t move. Perhaps he reasoned that this was a way out of his dilemma. A sacrificial death might reconcile him with his father, a last act of tortured fidelity. It would at least end his torment.

Dzhugashvili suffered bouts of depression,3 which is not surprising given his background. He was the only child of Stalin’s first marriage to Kato Svanidze. She died when he was an infant and he was left in the care of his maternal grandmother and aunt in Georgia while Stalin pursued his revolutionary career. His father had little or no contact with him until he was taken to Moscow by his mother’s relatives at fourteen years of age in 1921. Stalin was at that time a close ally of Lenin within the Communist Party and he was in a position to provide his son with a good education. To the disappointment of his father, Yakov didn’t do well in school; which must have been, at least partly, attributable to the fact that he spoke only Georgian when he arrived. Although installed into the Stalin household, which now included two uncles and an aunt who had travelled with him from Georgia, he seems to have been despised by his father, who considered him soft and worthless.4 Stalin regularly humiliated Yakov in front of others, referring to him as ‘my fool’.5 He was, however, protected somewhat by his stepmother, Stalin’s second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyev, known in the household as Nadya.6 When he was only sixteen years old, Yakov announced that he wanted to marry a fellow high school student, but Stalin objected – not so much because of their youth, but because he didn’t approve of the girl’s ‘social behaviour’ and the fact that she was the daughter of a priest.7 Yakov married his sweetheart notwithstanding, but the union didn’t prosper; a child died in infancy before the couple separated, in part at least due to Stalin’s interference. The separation didn’t improve the father-and-son relationship. In his early twenties, following another disagreement, an upset Yakov attempted suicide. He put a gun to his chest, but the bullet narrowly missed his heart and he was only wounded. This further alienated him from Stalin who told Nadya that Yakov was ‘a hooligan and a blackmailer, with whom I have nothing in common and with whom I can have nothing further to do. Let him live wherever he wants with whomever he wants.’8 Stalin, rather than seeing Yakov’s action as a cry of despair at his father’s relentless disapproval, viewed it as an attempt to exert pressure on him.9 For eight years they were completely estranged.

He remarried – again Stalin didn’t approve – and his new wife Yulia bore him a daughter, Gulia, in 1938. By then he was a Red Army officer cadet and this contributed to a reconciliation of sorts that allowed him return to the Stalin household. Relations, though, were still not easy. Nadya, was no longer there to protect him – she committed suicide in 1932 – and Yakov had a tempestuous relationship with his half-brother, Vasily. More tragedy followed. His maternal aunt and uncle along with his uncle’s wife, all of whom had accompanied him from Georgia, were arrested in 1937 during the ‘Terror’.10

When the Germans invaded on 22 June 1941, Dzhugashvili was ordered to the front in charge of an artillery unit. Before leaving, he telephoned his father who urged him to ‘Go and fight!’11 His unit entered combat on 27 June, but they were soon encircled by the Germans and he was captured when attempting to make his way back to Red Army lines. Although not wounded, he claimed to have been stunned by heavy bombing ‘otherwise I would have shot myself’, he told his German interrogators.12

Although he had fought bravely before being captured, he was suspected by his Soviet commander of willingly surrendering to the Germans.13 Irrespective of the circumstances of his capture, Yakov knew Stalin would have been angered by it and he would have feared for his wife and 3-year-old daughter. Yulia was arrested, although her husband probably didn’t know of this during his captivity. Stalin would have been particularly angered when the Germans used his son’s capture for propaganda purposes. A leaflet containing a photograph of him looking somewhat dazed and dishevelled in the presence of two German officers was dropped over the Russian front. The accompanying text read:

Stalin’s son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, full Lieutenant, battery commander, has surrendered. That such an important Soviet officer has surrendered proves beyond doubt that all resistance to the German army is pointless. So stop fighting and come over to us.14

This was the only propaganda the Germans extracted from him. He steadfastly refused to collaborate with the Nazis who wanted him to make propaganda broadcasts. His treatment in captivity alternated from being cosseted in a fashionable hotel to being ill-treated and half-starved in prison camps. The Nazis continued to pressurise him to work for them. They wanted him to act as nominal head of Vlassov’s renegade Russian army, but he steadfastly refused to be linked to the turncoat general. He even refused to address SS guards by their military title, using only their surname; an unnecessary act of defiance that led to retaliatory punishments.

After Stalingrad, it is believed that Hitler offered to exchange Dzhugashvili for Field Marshal von Paulus. Stalin is said to have responded, ‘I will not exchange a soldier for a marshal’,15 a comparison that owes as little to Communist egalitarianism as it does to notions of parental care. Before being sent to Sachsenhausen, he was interned in a special oflag near the Baltic port of Lϋbeck where he was billeted with Polish officers16 who might have been expected to be hostile to Russians and Communists. However, contrary to expectations, Dzhugashvili became friendly with some of the Polish officers and joined them in a futile attempt to escape.17 Robert Blum, the son of Léon Blum, the French statesman, whom we will encounter later, shared a cell with Dzhugashvili in Lϋbeck.18

Stalin’s son was, potentially at least, the most valuable prisoner held by the Nazis. His friend and cell mate, Vassily Kokorin, was another prize captive, being a nephew of the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov. Molotov was second only to Stalin within the Soviet leadership and would have been assumed to have influence over the Soviet leader. In fact, Molotov, described by Lenin as ‘the best filing clerk in Russia’,19 was, like others in the Kremlin hierarchy, in abject fear of Stalin. Kokorin, Molotov’s sister’s son, was a Soviet Air Force officer who had been wounded before being captured, by which time his feet had been severely frostbitten with the result that most of his toes had to be amputated.20

The Irishmen with whom Dzhugashvili had brawled was none other than the Friesack ‘collaborators’ who had been arrested by the Germans when they realised they were likely to be double-crossed. Thomas Cushing, while charming and entertaining at times, could be short-tempered and quick to use his fists. O’Brien was even more disreputable; as we have learned, he was suspected of child molestation and had himself boasted of picking fights with co-workers on work details, especially foreigners.21 Walsh was the only one others regarded as normal: a fourth Irishman present, Private William Murphy, was mentally unstable.

The four Irishmen and the two Soviet prisoners were billeted in the same hut. This was within a newly built compound, known as Sonderlager ‘A’, located on the north-eastern perimeter of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was built to house special prisoners whom the SS wished to keep segregated from the general camp population. Why the Irish group were housed there is unclear; it may have been because they were still considered to warrant equivalent POW status, but, because they knew so much about secret missions they could not be sent back to normal POW camps. Walsh and Cushing shared accommodation and appear to have overcome their differences arising from their mutual accusations in Berlin, although, perhaps not entirely, for the sound of raised voices was regularly heard from their quarters.

Originally housing political prisoners, Sachsenhausen and its satellite camps contained over 30,000 prisoners by early 1943, including Communist, Social Democrats, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, criminals and ‘anti-socials’. It also housed thousands of Soviet captives along with political and military prisoners from other occupied countries. Although gas chambers had only just been installed, its reputation as a death camp had already been well established. Thousands of prisoners had already been executed. Jewish prisoners had been transported to Auschwitz for extermination in 1942. However, its primary function by 1943 was to supply slave labour to local industries. Thousands worked in factories in nearby Oranienburg where they laboured for up to twelve hours a day, nourished by only small amounts of bread and watery soup.

Cushing and the other Irish inmates did not have to endure these conditions. During daylight hours, they could roam freely within their small compound. The civilian clothes they had been wearing during training were taken from them and they were re-supplied with military attire. They weren’t assigned work and occasional Red Cross parcels provided them with much needed extra food and cigarettes. It had been some months after their arrival in Sachsenhausen when they were joined by Dzhugashvili and Kokorin who shared with them a washroom and toilet. They, as special prisoners, enjoyed better conditions than their Soviet compatriots in the main camp, who were treated appallingly. However, their treatment was harsher than that of the Irish. Despite being officers, the two were required to work and, like all Russian prisoners, they had no access to Red Cross parcels.

At first, relations between the Russians and the Irishmen appear to have been good, but soon the mood changed. Despite his difficulties with his father, Yakov was proud to be Stalin’s son and he remained a committed Communist. This led to arguments with Cushing who was a staunch anti-Communist. In addition, there were rows about food, especially the distribution of the contents of Red Cross parcels. It was usual for POWs to share parcels and Cushing claimed to have shared his with the Russians,22 presumably, though, this generosity ceased when relations soured. Doubtless, language and cultural differences caused misunderstandings: they could only communicate using a German camp patois.

On the fateful day, an argument arose about the state of their shared toilet. Cushing, who had assumed the role of hut superintendent, accused Dzhugashvili of fouling the toilet seat. Murphy, unstable at the best of times, joined in the attack. O’Brien, likewise, needed no urging to get involved. He called Kokorin ‘a Bolshevist shit’. Kokorin replied in kind and blows were exchanged.23 It was hardly an even contest, for it was three, if not four, against two: it’s not clear if Walsh joined the affray, for he subsequently claimed to have liked Dzhugashvili and to have been traumatised about what happened. Moreover, the two Russians were smaller men, weakened by inadequate diet, and Kokorin would have been unsteady on his near toeless feet, while the tall Cushing had been a boxer during his time in the US Army. At some point during the fracas, Cushing is alleged to have produced a knife and chased Dzhugashvili down a corridor. To save himself, the Georgian jumped through an open window, which led to him standing outside after curfew time.24

Cushing afterwards described what happened as he watched from a window of their shared hut. He said that Yakov ‘suddenly rushed outside, sprinted across the compound, scrambled up the wall and attempted to crawl through the perimeter wire’. The Georgian called out to the guard, ‘Don’t be a coward, shoot me!’25 Cushing continued, ‘A shot rang out, followed by a blinding flash, and poor Jakob [sic] hung there, his body horribly burnt and twisted.’26 This account of Yakov’s end is broadly in line with the statement of Konrad Harfich, the SS guard who shot him, during his post-war trial:

He put one leg through the trip-wire, crossed over the neutral zone and put one foot into the barbed wire entanglement. At the same time he grabbed an insular with his left hand. Then he got out of it and grabbed the electrified fence. He stood for a moment with his right leg back and his chest pushed out and shouted at me ‘Guard, don’t be a coward, shoot me!’27

The guard fired a single shot with the bullet entering just in front of his right ear. Cushing later remarked that ‘it was the first time I felt sorry for the poor bastard’.28 Not the most worthy of tributes, although he went on to say; ‘it was one of the saddest events of my life’.29 Yet, while expressing sorrow, he avoided any suggestion of culpability.

It was a sad end for a young man whose dream of reconciliation with his father were only to be realised posthumously. The ‘murderers’ did shoot him as Stalin predicted, although he did not have confirmation of this until after the war. Keindl, the camp commandment, was potentially at risk of being disciplined, or worse, for allowing the loss of such a valuable hostage. To minimise blame, it is believed that he conspired with all concerned, including the Irish prisoners, to have the matter portrayed as a straightforward suicide; there was no mention of Stalin’s son being chased by a knife-wielding Irishman.30

A traumatised Kokorin was transferred to the prison bunker of Sachsenhausen. This was presumably to avoid any further conflict with the Irish. But things didn’t get any better for the little Russian. He was put in a cell with another Russian officer who attempted suicide by cutting his wrists one night when Kokorin was asleep. When an air raid alert sounded during the night, Kokorin got down from the top bunk and stepped into a pool of the man’s blood. Payne Best who was housed in the same prison bunker at that time was told about Kokorin and his abject state by one of the wardens he was friendly with. The Englishman claimed that he used his influence with the guards to have him moved to an adjoining cell where, although he was not permitted to have direct contact with the Russian, he was able to cheer him up somewhat by having some of his allocation of tobacco sent to him, and by turning up the volume on his radio whenever cheery music was being broadcast.31

The Irishman, Murphy, was also transferred, in this instance to another camp entirely, although it is not clear if this had anything to do with the events just described. He was one of many prisoners of war who lost their mind. He survived the war, but died soon after in Netley, a mental institution for servicemen near Southampton.32 His place in the hut was filled by an Irish-born Liverpudlian, John Spence.33 As we will discover, Spence was to prove an unpopular and suspect figure within Sonderlager ‘A’. Later arrivals included a group of British officers, survivors of the ‘Great Escape’ from Stalag Luft III, one of whom was Major Johnnie Dodge, an American who was a relative of Winston Churchill through marriage.

Soon after the end of the war, the Americans uncovered an SS report about Yakov Dzhugashvili’s death which they passed on to the British. The contents created a dilemma for the British Foreign Office. It was initially thought that they might present Stalin with a copy of the file at the upcoming Potsdam Conference in July 1945, presumably while tendering their condolences. However, when the contents were perused, the ‘unpleasant’ and embarrassing fact that Yakov Dzhugashvili’s suicidal action was preceded by an argument with a British fellow prisoner – Cushing – was discovered. The mandarins therefore advised that it would be distasteful ‘to draw attention to an Anglo-Russian quarrel’ in connection with Stalin’s son’s death. Consequently, Stalin was not told of the discovery.34 On 3 January 1951, the Daily Telegraph published an intriguing article by a ‘special correspondent’:

Quest for news of Stalin’s second son: Offer of reward

News of a curious quest by Russian agents in Germany has reached London. They are seeking information about the fate of Capt. Dzhugashvili, M. Stalin’s second [sic] son.

A reward of a million roubles for details of his whereabouts is offered. The Kremlin had hitherto accepted the general view that Capt. Dzhugashvili did not long survive his capture by the Germans in 1941.

His elder brother [a mistaken reference to his younger half-brother Vasilli] Lt.-Gen. Dzhugashvili is commanding general of an important Soviet Air Group. The sons retained their father’s family name.

Capt. Dzhugashvili was first reported in an officers’ prisoner-of-war camp in the province of Holstein. Here he showed complete unconcern about his fate and refused to submit to ordinary camp discipline.

It was reported of him that he would never address a German officer by rank, or rank and name, which is the usual custom. He would use the officer’s surname.

In Concentration Camp

Towards 1942 he was transferred to the notorious Oranienburg [Sachsenhausen] concentration camp near Berlin. It was from that camp that the German Army was informed that he had died, though the cause of death was not specified.

No reason for the sudden revival of interest in the young man has been given, but it has been stated in Russian Army circles in Europe that M. Stalin himself might have issued the order for the search. This theory is advanced to support a report that M. Stalin is ill.

Even if that were so, no Government department in Moscow could question the Marshal’s orders, however, strange.35

Major Johnnie Dodge, who had survived captivity, read this report and, shortly afterwards, arrived at the Foreign Office in London with a proposal that he and a fellow former resident of Sonderlager ‘A’, Colonel Jack Churchill, be sent to Moscow to meet Stalin to tell him what they knew about his son’s death in Sachsenhausen. Both had only arrived in the compound after Dzhugashvili’s death, so their information could only have been obtained second hand. In support of his proposal, Dodge bizarrely suggested that hearing about his son’s sad end might somehow ‘soften Stalin’s heart towards the West’. As Dodge’s version of events has Stalin’s son being pursued by a British soldier, with a knife shortly before his death, it defies reason that Dodge should think that this information would soften Stalin’s heart towards anyone, least of all the British. Perhaps Dodge’s real motivation was the reward mentioned in the newspaper article; in other words, what he may have wanted was, not so much to soften Stalin’s heart, as to lighten his pocket. Needless to say, the Foreign Office declined his offer. A Foreign Office staffer, who happened to have spent some time in the company of Dodge as a POW, advised, with compassionate understatement, that he was ‘not entirely dispassionate in judgement’.36

It seems, though, that Stalin, the ‘man of steel’, who was prepared to have millions sacrificed to maintain his hold on power, had in the end, begun to feel remorse for his ‘fool’ of a son, conceding, finally, that the boy had in fact been ‘a real man’.37