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 official biography Yakov Dzhugashvili was named 1907 as the year of birth. 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 - civil spouse Yakov, whom Stalin's son met in the early 1930s. 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 captured son. Meanwhile, there are a number of facts confirming the father's concern for his son: from material 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 for the 3rd, or for 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 Forensic Science Center confirmed that the photos 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 in 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.

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 surrendered on July 16 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 a reason 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 edition of 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 Der Spiegel journalists had at their disposal a secret dossier of Yakov Dzhugashvili on 389 pages, discovered in Podolsk,” 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 really in captivity, for which there is numerous evidence ... Stalin’s son behaved with dignity there.”

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 severe 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, Basil 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 incident 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 at 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.

AND second: according to both German (in 1941) and domestic (half a century later) sources, Yakov Dzhugashvili was captured without documents confirming his identity, and, moreover, in civilian clothes, and not in the form of a commander of the Red Army (his he allegedly buried the form and documents when he realized that he was surrounded). This was doubly dangerous, because it outlawed him both before the enemy and before his own: the Germans could not consider him a prisoner of war, and their own could declare him a deserter. Exactly one month after the capture of Yakov, on August 16, 1941, his father, as People's Commissar of Defense, will sign order No. 270, the first paragraph of which reads: “Commanders and political workers who during the battle tear off their insignia and desert to the rear or surrender to the enemy, to consider malicious deserters, whose families are subject to arrest as families of deserters who violated the oath and betrayed their homeland. To oblige all higher commanders and commissars to shoot such deserters from the command staff on the spot.

The courageous behavior of Yakov in captivity, his refusal to cooperate with the Germans and join the Vlasov Russian Liberation Army (ROA), the death itself on April 14, 1943 - all this makes it unlikely that he changed his military uniform to civilian clothes and destroyed his documents. I assume that, most likely, he was detained by the Germans in civilian clothes on the morning of June 22 in the train car, which crossed the Soviet-German border on June 20–21 and moved through Poland or Germany to the North Sea coast in accordance with the agreement between the top leadership of Germany and the USSR about a joint transport operation. The option of detaining Yakov in military uniform in a military echelon with subsequent dressing in civilian clothes is less likely, because then the Germans would have started a propaganda campaign around the capture of Stalin's son much earlier.

If Yakov was detained as a civilian specialist, then it is possible that this was one of the main reasons for the delay for almost a month of the decision to exchange the embassies of the USSR and Germany after the start of the war. The Soviet side insisted on the exchange of "all for all" and, very likely, demanded that the number of specialists to be exchanged include those who traveled on the first day of the war in trains moving through German and Soviet territory, including Yakov Dzhugashvili (who could go under a different name). This possibility is confirmed by a detailed study of the passport of Y. Dzhugashvili (this will be discussed below), published by his daughter Galina in the book "Stalin's Granddaughter".

Third An interesting fact is the lack of published photographs and accurate documentary evidence of Jacob's military service, in particular, of his studies at the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky. The very fact of studying is presented in various publications as indisputable, but always in different ways. For example, Yakov’s half-sister Svetlana Alliluyeva in the book “Twenty Letters to a Friend” states: “Yasha became a professional military man - in 1935 Yasha came to Moscow and entered the Military Artillery Academy” (“Frunze Moscow Artillery Academy”) and “went to the front already on June 23, together with his battery, together with the entire graduation of his Academy. Meanwhile, the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky was transferred from Leningrad to Moscow only in the autumn of 1938. Therefore, the information of Artem Sergeev, already mentioned above, is much closer to the truth: “in 1938 he entered the artillery academy right away either for the 3rd or the 4th course ...”

The absence of published photographs of Yakov and his fellow students in military uniform, the absence of not only memories of him by his fellow students at the academy and colleagues from the military unit, but even just mentions of him - all this casts doubt on the dates and circumstances of his training indicated in various publications. at the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky.

It is not very clear from numerous, but very contradictory publications, and the circumstances of his admission to the academy - first to the evening department (it is not clear where he worked when he left the Stalin factory). Moreover, with the evening and distance learning at the Art Academy, the situation was as follows: “at the end of 1938 - beginning of 1939, a extramural(with faculties - command and weapons), and at the end of 1939 - evening department (with faculties - command, weapons and ammunition) ".

It is not known in what rank and when Yakov became a regular commander of the Red Army, because in the published "certification for the 4th year from 15. 08. 39 to 15. 07. 40 of the student of the 4th course of the command department of the artillery academy, Lieutenant Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich" indicated : "in the Red Army - from 10.39, in the positions of command personnel - from 12.39." From this entry it is not clear in what capacity he studied at the academy until that moment - as a volunteer or a student of the evening department, continuing to work somewhere as a civilian specialist, or as an ordinary student who was accepted immediately into the 4th year and put on the uniform of a lieutenant. It is also unclear why this published attestation (unfortunately, not completely and without a photocopy of the original) does not indicate his military rank. The ambiguous phrase "in command positions" allows us to assume that it refers not to his studies, but to his main job. For example, if he, while continuing to be a civilian, works as a military representative at a defense plant or as a civilian teacher in a military educational institution.

In fact, there is a single photograph of Yakov in military uniform - a senior lieutenant with three head over heels and "guns" on his buttonholes. There is no date when the photo was taken (in the book "The Leader's Granddaughter" it is indicated that May 10, 1941). The data on sending to the front of the military unit in which Yakov served are contradictory. IN various sources several dates are named, starting from June 22 and ending on June 26 (there is not a single later one - obviously due to the fact that then it would be difficult to explain the date on a postcard sent to him allegedly from Vyazma on June 26), etc.

The reason for such indistinctness and contradictions could well be the concealment of the true place of service or work of Yakov before the war, but not for fear of revealing military secrets half a century ago, but due to the fact that accurate and complete information may suggest the true circumstances of Yakov's capture by the Germans, perhaps it was June 22, 1941. For example, if it suddenly turns out that the last place of his work was a special ZIS workshop that produces military equipment, or the Main Armored Directorate of the Red Army, then the answer to the question: “But how did he end up in German captivity?” it would sound completely different. Or, for example, if it becomes known that before the war he went to Germany to accept orders completed for the USSR, or that he went there on June 20–21, 1941 in an echelon, accompanying a dismantled military equipment, the assembly of which was to be supervised in Germany.

A fourthly, the question is: if Yakov Dzhugashvili, the son of the Soviet leader, was still in German captivity, then why have not film footage of interrogations been shown so far, the texts of which have been repeatedly published? Indeed, in July-August 1941, German aircraft began to drop hundreds of thousands of leaflets with photographs of Yakov in captivity, as well as a facsimile of his note to his father, allegedly transmitted through diplomatic channels, on the Red Army units participating in the battles.

In recent years, a version has appeared that was repeatedly expressed by Yakov's daughter. Galina Yakovlevna Dzhugashvili-Stalina stated that her father was not captured at all, but died in battle, and the whole story with his imaginary capture was invented and played out by the German intelligence services and Goebbels propaganda (it is noteworthy that she first made such a statement after Jerry Jennings, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Prisoners of War and the Missing, handed it to her on September 11, 2003 . blue folder with a copy of the file of Y. Dzhugashvili, captured in the archives of the RSHA in 1945).

In my opinion, all of the above proves not that Yakov Dzhugashvili was never captured, but that, by inertia, only in a different form, the campaign launched in 1941 to conceal the circumstances and the very fact of capturing the son of the Soviet leader continues , as well as the fact that all the documents captured in 1945 about Yakov's stay in captivity (cinema and audio - in the first place!) were partially destroyed, partially closed for publication.

There are several reports that the interrogations of Yakov Dzhugashvili were recorded by the Germans on a tape recorder. In particular, B. Sopelnyak describes one of his interrogations as follows: “He (Yakov. - A. O.) quite frankly answered Reuschle's questions, but he, it turns out, hid a microphone under the tablecloth, recorded their conversation, and then so cunningly edited the recording that Yakov appeared as a frantic accuser of the Stalinist regime.

There are also stories of Soviet front-line soldiers who heard on cutting edge in 1941-42 radio broadcasts with Yakov's voice from German propaganda vehicles. It is only unclear why the film footage with Yakov and the tape recordings of his interrogations have not yet been made public either in our country, or in the USA, or in England, or in post-war Germany. Why is there not only not a single film frame with him in the Gosfilmofond, but also single photo Yakov (so the employees of this archive told me when I was there searching for materials for the documentary film "The Secret of June 22"), and neither German nor Soviet. Probably because these shots and recordings would reveal the true circumstances of Yakov's capture, which for some reason neither the German nor the Soviet leadership wanted. For the same reason, at the beginning of the war, both sides preferred to present the matter as if Yakov was a Soviet military commander - while the leader showed that his son was captured in battle, and the Germans argued that if the son of the Soviet leader was already captured , then all other soldiers of the Red Army must surrender immediately.

In her book “The Leader’s Granddaughter” and in recent interviews, Galina Yakovlevna stated that all the pictures that recorded Yakov Dzhugashvili’s stay in captivity, as well as written documents of that period with his handwriting, were fakes. She calls the last genuine letter from her father a postcard sent by Yakov to his wife Yu. Meltzer on June 26, 1941 from Vyazma. Galina Yakovlevna quite rightly considered this last news from her father the most important document and even placed it on the cover of her book. She also placed in her book photographs of three documents of Yakov Dzhugashvili preserved in the house - a passport, a military ID and a pass to the garage at the Administrative Office of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, emphasizing for some reason in the caption to the photographs that these are his original documents.

What she meant by this is anyone's guess. It became clear to me only one thing - these documents should be given special attention. So I did.

Passport(see p. 5 Photo Supplements) is valid until April 4, 1941, which means, firstly, it was issued on April 4, 1936, since at that time the passport was issued for 5 years, and secondly, on June 22, 1941 was expired (although it is possible that on one of its pages, not shown in the photo, there is a note about the extension of its validity). In any case, the presence of this passport in Yakov's family indicates that in the period from June 22 to July 16, 1941, Yakov Dzhugashvili had another document proving his identity. Moreover, such a document, the issuance of which did not require the surrender of a passport to the passport office (when issuing a commander's book, the passport was necessarily confiscated from the owner). Such a document could be his own passport, as well as any identity card issued to him in another name. It is known that in those years, for a trip to Germany, some Soviet specialists and response workers were issued documents in a false name. So, for example, the translator of Molotov (and later Stalin) V. Berezhkov traveled under the surname Bogdanov.

If the validity of the passport was not extended, then the document that Yakov had in his hands from June 22 to July 16, 1941, most likely, was received by him before April 4, 1941 on the basis of his still valid passport (otherwise, it was first would extend the passport). And received in Moscow, which is clearly indicated in the column "Permanent residence". Noteworthy is the entry about the place of birth: “s. Badzi”, that is, the village of Badzi, contrary to all other published documents, including interrogation protocols in captivity, which always indicate that he was born in Baku. Interestingly, some researchers of Jacob's fate, including his own daughter Galina, they consider the indication in the protocol of his interrogation as the place of birth of Baku, and not with. Badji is a serious proof that this protocol is a fake. But then all the cited Soviet documents of Yakov (including those signed personally by him), where the city of Baku is indicated as his place of birth, can also be considered fakes.

The fact that at first I was surprised by the fact of sticking the photo of the passport holder on the stamp of his last place of work and certifying it with the seal of the regional police department was explained very simply. It turned out that from 1933 to 1937 there was no photo of the owner in the Soviet passport, and only from October 1937 they began to stick a photo card in the passport (at the same time, its second copy remained in storage at the police department). Therefore, the presence of a photograph in Yakov's passport indicates that in October 1937 he continued to work at ZiS, and did not become a student of the military academy. Although it can be assumed that on the job he entered in September 1937 at the evening department of some military academy, but not the Artillery Academy, which at that time was still in Leningrad. Therefore, perhaps it was not by chance that his half-sister Svetlana mentioned in her book the non-existent "Moscow Frunze Artillery Academy", which Yakov allegedly entered. Perhaps this means that he began his evening military education at the Academy. Frunze, and after the transfer to Moscow of the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky moved to her evening department. Another possible explanation: in Moscow at the Military Academy. Frunze there was a branch of the Art Academy. Dzerzhinsky, in the evening department of which Yakov first entered. I also heard a version that Yakov began studying at the evening department of the Artillery Academy in Leningrad during his life there. However, the study of his military ID refutes this, since the word “Moscow” is clearly visible on the seal, from which it follows that by 1930 Yakov had already returned from Leningrad to Moscow and lived in it. Of greatest interest are the marks in the passport about the place of work of Yakov Dzhugashvili - there are only three of them: about his employment in the Stroitel trust on 7/V-1936 (or 7/IV - due to a poor-quality photo, the sign "I" in the number IV) and dismissal from him on 12/XI-1936, as well as on his admission on 14/XI-1936 to the Moscow Automobile Plant. Stalin. In the photo of Yakov's documents, the name of this plant on the stamp is slightly blurred, but it is well read in the name of the position of the personnel officer who issued the reception: “Beginning. p / p hiring ZiS ".

A careful study of the round seal, which certified the stamps of the Stroitel trust, showed that this trust was part of the head office of the Glavstroyprom People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry. Considering that in November 1936 the second reconstruction of the ZiS, begun in 1933, was completed (the purpose of which was to create the production of new models of vehicles, including special vehicles for the Red Army) and that it was from November 3, 1936 that the conveyor assembly of the first domestic seven-seater limousine ZIS-101, it can be assumed that it was the Stroitel trust that carried out the final stage of this reconstruction. Then Y. Dzhugashvili's work in it, his dismissal on November 12 and employment at the ZiS from November 14, 1936 may be links in one chain of events: he could get a solid position either in the new workshop for assembling government vehicles, or in one of the other workshops that appeared after the reconstruction. By the way, it was during this period that Andrey Sverdlov, the son of Ya. Let's not forget that it was ZiS who participated in the production of the legendary Katyusha installations.

It is interesting that among the genuine family photos of Y. Dzhugashvili, there is a picture where he and his wife Yulia are captured at one of the dachas near Moscow next to a chic black Buick - most likely, the Buick-32-90, which became the prototype seven-seater government limousine "ZIS-101". It is possible that Yakov was the owner or regular user of this luxurious car, which somewhat destroys the stereotype of the unloved son of the leader, a loser who, according to some authors, could only shoot himself, and he really could not do this.

Hero Soviet Union test pilot Alexander Shcherbakov, son of A. S. Shcherbakov, secretary of the Central Committee and MK of the CPSU (b), who also headed the Union of Writers at one time, and during the war years also the head of the Soviet Information Bureau, and then the GlavPUR of the Red Army, in an interview with the special correspondent of the newspaper " Krasnaya Zvezda” said to Y. Avdeev on January 17, 2007: “My parents constantly communicated with Yakov and his wife, who often visited us for Sunday dinners. Dzhugashvili remembered as an intelligent, very erudite and sociable person. He was an interesting storyteller<…>. There is one curious mystery for me in his period of study. During one of his visits to us, Dzhugashvili, as usual, spoke in a fascinating way about the exercises from which he had just returned. I didn’t remember the details from my youth, but now I can’t find an answer to a seemingly simple question: what did a student of the academy do during exercises in the Kiev military district? According to the rank, it seems not supposed to be, but on the other hand, if he were in disgrace with his father, then with all his desire, the road to them would be closed to him.

Again, a departure from the familiar image of Jacob. Painfully, he doesn’t look like a “chimney sweep engineer at the CHPP of the automobile plant named after. Stalin", which he allegedly worked in this period before entering the Artillery Academy.

Permanent pass in the name of Jacob to the government garage- the second authentic document cited in his daughter's book further destroys the image of a "gloomy" loser or super modest person (N. S. Vlasik, who knew him well, writes in his book "Live Pages": "Jakov, a very sweet and modest person, with conversations and manners similar to his father). This pass gave him the right to enter and exit by car with the number MA-97-42 from June 15 to December 31, 1938.

Galina's memories confirm that her father had a car (or he had the right to constantly use it): “We are going to ride. Dad is driving my namesake, a black emo. Jackdaws, and we are three, Dyunyunya (Galina's nanny, but they also had a cook, that is, the family of the "academy student" Yakov Dzhugashvili, consisting of three people, was constantly served by two people! - A. O.) and the Merry Laika ... in the back seat ”(the same famous husky that wintered with the Papaninites on an ice floe, and then was presented to Stalin, and it turns out that he gave it to Yakov’s family. - A. O.).

Galina was born on February 18, 1938, and the next day, the Papaninites were evacuated by plane from a breaking ice floe. Everything matches. True, Galina Dzhugashvili's memories of her father driving a black limousine date back to 1940–1941, but most publications about him state that at that time he was a professional military man - a student of the Artillery Academy. By the way, much earlier, Yakov, still a student at MIIT, already had a car, because V. S. Alliluyev writes in his diary: “Somehow in the summer of 1935, father and mother were returning home from Serebryany Bor ... which Yakov was standing, there were some problems in his car.

Consideration of another authentic, according to Galina Dzhugashvili, document - the only news of Yakov Dzhugashvili from the front in the form postcards– leads to several discoveries at once. About the first of them - the incredible discrepancy between the words written to his wife (“everything is going well, the trip is quite interesting ... Papa Yasha is well ... I settled down perfectly”) and the formidable date indicated on it “June 26, 1941.” (in a day the Germans will break into Minsk!) - I already wrote in the book "The Great Secret ...". Everything is explained if we assume that this postcard was written by Yakov on June 21 on a train that crossed the border and moved through Germany to the North Sea. In this unsent postcard seized from Yakov during his arrest on June 22, the German special services could have corrected the number 21 in the date to 26, and their agent could have thrown it into a mailbox in Vyazma, which was not yet occupied. Thus began a lengthy German provocative and propaganda special operation using the fact of Yakov's capture, which continued until his death on April 14, 1943. The absence of a field mail number in the postcard and Yakov's promise to give the address, and not the number of the field mail, to which only you can write to military unit. Or maybe there was simply no part, and he worked in another place?

Second discovery. The postcard contains the address where Yakov lived from 1938 until June 22, 1941: “Moscow, Granovsky street, house 3, apt. 84". This was the same house in which the secretaries of the Central Committee, members of the government and marshals lived (for example, in the same entrance with Yakov's apartment was the apartment of the secretary of the Central Committee, then the head of GlavPUR and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense A. A. Shcherbakov). The already mentioned son of A. A. Shcherbakov Alexander, speaking recently on TV, as well as in the publication of the NVO weekly on February 27, 2009, said that when their family lived in house number 3 on Granovsky Street, their neighbor was Yakov Dzhugashvili, he and his wife and little daughter occupied a five-room apartment, because, as Shcherbakov said, there were no other apartments in this house.

In the book The Granddaughter of the Leader, Galina claims that the appearance of this apartment was associated with her birth. And in a conversation with the author of the book “Stalin’s Daughter” M. Shad, she said: “Immediately after the marriage, my parents received a two-room apartment, and when my mother was pregnant with me - a wonderful four-room apartment, in addition a nanny and a cook. My father joked then that the nanny gets a higher salary than the scholarship due to him.

Not bad for an “unloved” student son, and then a “chimney sweep engineer” and a student of the evening department of the military academy, because in those years even colonels and generals who studied at academies or took courses with them lived in hostels.

Studying extensive material about the fate of Y. Dzhugashvili in books, periodicals and the Internet, I discovered another document, for some reason not included by Galina Yakovlevna in the list of "authentic", but it is quite obviously one. This is a photo of a certificate issued to him stating that he entered the Moscow Electromechanical Institute of Engineers. D. transport them. F. E. Dzerzhinsky in 1930 and graduated in 1936, he defended his graduation project with a mark of “good” and he was awarded the title of mechanical engineer ... with a degree in “energy heating engineering”<…>. The certificate was issued in accordance with order No. 62 for MEMIIT them. F. E. Dzerzhinsky dated 2 / III-36 years ... ”and registered under No. 1585 - unfortunately, the number in the date indicated on it is read very poorly -“ ... April 1936. (from A. S. Volodina, the founder of the MIIT Museum, I learned that the registration date was April 17, 1936). This raises the question: why, in fact, help? After all, a university graduate is awarded a diploma. Where is Jacob's diploma? Why does he have to be content with help? The first explanation: perhaps diplomas were not issued to any of the graduates then, because the time was such that passports had just been introduced in the country in 1933, the printing industry did not meet the huge need for printing documents on special paper, and even more so university diplomas with emblem embossed on the cover. So they gave university graduates a certificate of graduation with a guarantee of its subsequent replacement with a diploma, about which it is written: “The diploma of graduation from the Institute will be replaced (illegible, perhaps - “issued.” - A. O.) for the number of this certificate”. The second explanation: for some unknown reason, Yakov studied at MEMIIT not for 5, but for 6 years (which follows from the text of the certificate), and it is quite possible that he took academic leave. Then it is possible that he did not defend his graduation project together with fellow students, especially since this could be necessary.

Suppose, start-up and adjustment work began in the new ZiS workshop, where, most likely, Yakov had to work in a position that could only be occupied by a certified engineer. Therefore, he was given the opportunity to defend his graduation project later than his fellow students. By the way, it is possible that the topic of Yakov's graduation project was the reconstruction of ZiS, and therefore his defense was associated with the timing of its implementation.

Everything coincided: in March 1936 - the defense of the graduation project and the order for the successful completion of the institute; in April - a certificate of graduation from the institute and awarding the title of engineer; April 4 - the issuance of a passport, where in the column "social status" instead of "employee" is written "engineer" (Jakov could no longer write "student" or "student", and "employee" did not yet have the right, since at the time of issue passport has not yet worked anywhere); April 7 or May 7 - hired by the Stroitel trust.

The authenticity of certificate No. 1585 is confirmed by another document by Y. Dzhugashvili, listed among the authentic ones by Galina Yakovlevna, - his military ID. The photograph of this military card clearly shows the date of issue: "November 4, 1930." Everything is logical - in September 1930, Yakov enters the institute, and since there is a military department there, after completing a military training course, he is exempted from being drafted into the Red Army and in November he receives a military ID. The imprint of the seal that certifies this entry clearly reads the word "Moscow", from which it follows that in 1930 Yakov lived in Moscow, and therefore his first academic year I started at the Moscow, and not at the Leningrad Institute, as for some reason it is stated in some publications.

Below are all the documents of Yakov Dzhugashvili, which were kindly provided to me by the head of the museum of the Military Academy of the Strategic Missile Forces. Peter the Great (as the Artillery Academy named after F. E. Dzerzhinsky is called today) Colonel Valentin Ivanovich Uglov. Although these are not photographs, but copies of documents, they can be considered genuine, since they were exhibited on the stand during the only conference dedicated to Yakov Dzhugashvili and held in this museum on March 18, 1998. The main character at this conference was his daughter Galina, A. S. Volodina, researcher of the life of Yakov Dzhugashvili, doctor of historical sciences T. Drambyan, and others were also present. Some documents are published here for the first time, some for the first time without cuts. Here I cite previously published documents that are worth revisiting in the light of newly discovered facts, circumstances and documentary evidence.

Autobiography

Born in 1908 in the month of March in the city of Baku in the family of a professional revolutionary. Now the father is on party work - mountains. Moscow. The surname of Dzhugashvili's father is Stalin I.V. Mother died in 1908.

Brother Vasily Stalin is engaged in an aviation school - mountains. Sevastopol. Sister Svetlana studies in high school- Moscow city.

Wife Yulia Isaakovna Meltzer was born in Odessa in the family of an employee; wife's brother - employee - Odessa, wife's mother - housewife - Odessa. Until 1935 he lived at the expense of his father - he studied. In 1935 he graduated from the Transport Institute - Moscow. From 1936 to 1937 he worked at the email. Art. head (plant power plants. – A. O.) them. Stalin on duty turbine engineer.

In 1937 he entered Vech. Dep. Art Academy of the Red Army.

In 1938 he entered the 4th year of the 1st faculty of the Art Academy of the Red Army.

(/signature DZHUGASHVILI Y. I./)(11/VI-39.")

Certification for the period from 1938 to 1939 for a student of the command faculty of the Artillery Order of Lenin Academy of the Red Army named after Dzerzhinsky Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich

Calm. General development good. In the current academic year, I passed only meteorology. The theory of shooting was passed by him individually and passed to the theory of errors on the plane, including the processing of experimental data.

He has a large academic debt, and there are fears that he will not be able to eliminate the latter by the end of the new academic year.

Due to illness, he was not at the winter camps, as well as in the camps, absent from June 24 to this time (4 months! - A. O.).

Did not take practical classes. Little is known about tactical shooting training.

It is possible to move to the fifth year, subject to the delivery of all tuition debt by the end of the next 1939/1940 academic year.

(Head of the ground department) (Colonel / NOVIKOV /)

In view of the late transfer to the command department and the failure to complete the subjects, leave for a second course. In view of the passage of the GDP and as having served in the academy for one year, he is worthy of being awarded the rank of lieutenant.

(Chairman of the commission / Ivanov) (Members ...) (October 22, 1939. ")

Certification for the period from 15. 8. 39 to 15. 7 1940 for the 4th year student of the command faculty of the Art Academy, Lieutenant Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich

Party of Lenin - Stalin and the Socialist Motherland devoted.

General development is good, politically satisfactory. Participation in the party and public life of the course accepts.

Disciplined, but not sufficiently knowledgeable about military regulations on relationships with superiors.

Sociable.

Academic performance is good, but in the last session he had an unsatisfactory grade in foreign language. Physically developed, but often sick.

Military training, in connection with a short stay in the army, requires a lot of improvement.

(Foreman of the group) (Captain (signature)) (Ivanov)

I agree with certification. It is necessary to pay attention to the elimination of deficiencies in the organ of hearing that impede the normal course of service in the future.

(Head of the 4th year) (Major (signature)) (Kobrya)

To be transferred to the 5th course. More attention needs to be paid to mastering tactics and developing a clear command language.

(Chairman of the Commission) (Head of the 1st Faculty) (Major General) (Sheremetov) (Deputy Head of the Faculty) (Head of the 4th Course) (Major Kobrya) (Secretary of the Party Bureau) (Captain Timofeev) (Senior Group) (Captain Ivanov)

Certification for the period from 15. 9. 40 to 1. 3. 1941 for a student of the 5th year of the Command Faculty of the Art Academy, Senior Lieutenant Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich

General and political development is good. Disciplined and efficient. Academic performance is good. Takes an active part in the political and community service course. He has a completed higher education (heat engineer).

He entered the military service voluntarily. Construction business loves and studies it. He approaches the resolution of issues thoughtfully, in his work he is accurate and accurate. Physically developed. Tactical and artillery-rifle training is good.

Marxist-Leninist training is good. Party of Lenin - Stalin and the Socialist Motherland devoted.

By nature, he is calm, tactful and demanding, a strong-willed commander. During the passage of military training as a battery commander, he showed himself to be quite prepared. Did a good job.

After a short-term internship as a battery commander, he is to be appointed to the position of division commander. Worthy of being promoted to the rank of Captain.

Passed state exams with the following grades:

1) tactics - mediocre

2) shooting is good

3) the foundations of Marxism-Leninism - mediocre

4) the basics of the artillery device - good

5) English is good

(Commander of the 151th training department, Colonel Sapegin)

I agree with the certification, but I think that the assignment of the title of "captain" is possible only after a year of command of the battery.

(Major General of Artillery Sheremetov)

Worthy of a degree. Can be used as a battery commander.

(Head of the Academy Major General of Artillery Sivkov) (Major General of Artillery Sheremetov) (Brigade Commissar Krasilnikov) (Regimental Commissar Prochko)

Party (political) characteristics for a member of the CPSU (b) of the 5th year of the 1st faculty of the Artillery Order of Lenin Academy of K. A. im. Dzerzhinsky Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich

Member of the CPSU (b) since 1941,

Party card No. 3524864,

year of birth 1908, office worker.

He is devoted to the cause of the party of Lenin-Stalin. Works on raising his ideological and theoretical level. He is especially interested in Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Takes an active part in party work.

Working as a member of the editorial board of a wall newspaper, he proved to be a good organizer.

Applies to education in good faith. Persistently and persistently overcomes difficulties. He enjoys prestige among his comrades. Has no party charges.

The party characteristic was approved at a meeting of the party bureau on April 14, 1941.

(Secretary of the Party Bureau of the 5th year (signature)) (/Timofeev/)

Diploma Supplement

comrade Dzhugashvili Ya.I. during his stay in the Artillery Order of Lenin Academy of the Red Army. Dzerzhinsky passed the following disciplines:

Passed state exams with the following grade:

Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism – mediocre

Shooting theory is good

Fundamentals of artillery weapons - good

Tactics - mediocre

English is good

(Head of the Academy) (Lieutenant General of Artillery Sivkov) (Head of the Faculty) (Major General of Artillery Sheremetov)

No. 139 dated 11/26/38

§ 13. Transfer the student of the 4th year (243 gr.) of the faculty of armament Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich to the same course of the command faculty (143 gr.) from 10.11.38

Reference: service note of Comrade Dzhugashvili.

"No. 28 dated 26.2.39

§ 1. The listeners named below are translated:

Command Faculty

From the 3rd course to the 4th course

48. student Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich (on the course of 103 people, only three students without an officer rank).

No. 136 dated 9/23/40

Transfer to the 5th course those who successfully completed the 4th course:

Senior Lieutenant Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich ... "

Extract

from the order of the NPO of the USSR on personnel No. 05000 dated 12/19/1939

Assign the rank of Lieutenant Dzhugashvili to Yakov Iosifovich (there are 58 junior lieutenants and three listeners without a rank on the list).

Extract

from the protocol of the Higher Attestation Commission of the NCO of the USSR of May 9, 1941, approved by the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR

Command Faculty

Senior Lieutenant Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich

May be appointed commander of the 14th GAP battery.

(Chairman: Deputy Head of the GAU KA Criminal Code, Colonel Gamov) (Secretary: Major Bochanov, Head of the 3rd Department of the GAU KA Criminal Code)

Artillery Order of Lenin Academy KA

named after Dzerzhinsky

1940/1941 academic year

151 educational departments

1. Lieutenant Avdyushin Sergey Petrovich died the death of the brave

2. Lieutenant Anisimov Alexey Efimovich

3. Lieutenant Aistov Mstislav Borisovich

4. Lieutenant Blagorazumov Lev Leonidovich

5. Captain Birich Nikolai Vasilievich died a heroic death

6. Captain Butnik Petr Afanasyevich died a heroic death

8. Lieutenant Grigoriev Mikhail Grigorievich

9. Captain Grechukha Fedor Ivanovich died the death of the brave

10. Lieutenant Drugoveyko Petr Emelyanovich

11. Senior Lieutenant Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich died the death of the brave

13. Captain Ivanov Grigory Grigoryevich died the death of the brave

14. Captain Ivanov Mikhail Fedorovich died the death of the brave

15. Lieutenant Ilchenko Mikhail Alexandrovich

17. Captain Kozlov Alexey Andreevich died a heroic death

18. Captain Kryazhev Rafail Vasilievich died the death of the brave

19. Lieutenant Kurilsky Anatoly Isidorovich died the death of the brave

20. Lieutenant Leibengrub Israel Geishevich died a heroic death

21. Captain Malishevsky Grigory Avksenttievich died the death of the brave

22. Lieutenant Markov Alexander Ivanovich died a heroic death

23. Lieutenant Moiseev Valentin Mikhailovich

24. Colonel Nikonorov Dmitry Ilyich

25. Captain Rozhkov Mikhail Akimovich

26. Lieutenant Smirnov Alexander Ivanovich

27. Lieutenant Snegovoi Anatoly Semenovich

28. Colonel Sopegin Ivan Yakovlevich died a heroic death

29. Captain Storozhev Mikhail Fedorovich died the death of the brave

30. Captain Timofeev Mikhail Emelyanovich died the death of the brave

31. Captain Khizhnyakov Vladimir Fomich

32. Captain Chubakov Petr Semenovich

33. Senior Lieutenant Chernyavsky Nikolai Logvinovich died the death of the brave

34. Lieutenant Shtrundt Vladimir Gustavovich

A. A. Blagonravov, lieutenant general of artillery, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, in the period 1937–1941. was the head of the weapons department of the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky.

I received from the head of the museum of the Military Academy of the Strategic Missile Forces. Peter the Great, Colonel Valentin Ivanovich Uglov, a photocopy of only one, 422nd page of these memoirs. It begins with the words, from which it follows that we are talking on the replacement of the head of the Art Academy named after Dzerzhinsky, Lieutenant General Sivkov (shortly after Stalin's speech in the Kremlin to graduates of military academies on May 5, 1941, where the leader criticized the work of this academy) Major General Govorov, “... previously holding the position of Art. Lecturer of the Department of Artillery Tactics. Then he writes:

I assumed that the information that Stalin spoke about, he received from his son Yakov Dzhugashvili, who entered the Academy in 1940. At first, he was enrolled in my department, but in the middle of the academic year he came to me with a statement that he wanted to transfer to the commander's department.

The fate of Y. Dzhugashvili was unsuccessful: during the war he died as a prisoner in one of the German concentration camps ...

Further on this page, Blagonravov talks about the beginning of the war and the relocation of the academy to Samarkand. As V. I. Uglov told me, these memoirs of Blagonravov, which are solid in terms of volume, do not mention Yakov Dzhugashvili anywhere else.

Blagonravov was a man highly valued by Stalin, and it was not for nothing that in preparation for the move of the Art Academy from Leningrad to Moscow, for some reason, it was he who was instructed to choose a good place for it and a suitable complex of buildings. V. I. Uglov also told me about this, having read the memoirs of Blagonravov in full and preparing them for publication.

Arriving in Moscow, Blagonravov, together with the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs (obviously, with Yezhov), traveled around the city, examining various buildings, for example, in Lefortovo, but they never chose anything. Then a responsible officer of the NKVD (possibly the first deputy commissar of internal affairs Beria) joined this case, and after that the complex of buildings belonging to the trade unions was immediately chosen - described by Ilf and Petrov in "The Twelve Chairs" Palace of Labor. The relocation of the Academy from Leningrad to Moscow during the academic year was organized just as quickly, and on September 15, 1938 (according to the documents provided), Yakov Dzhugashvili became a student of the Academy.

However, there are two inconsistencies here.

First, Blagonravov writes in his memoirs that Yakov became a student of the academy in 1940 (that is, two years later than according to academic documents). Further, for some reason, he says that Yakov did not “studied”, but “listed” in his faculty (this is the word Yakov will use during interrogation in captivity).

Secondly, for some reason, in Yakov's academic documents, his enrollment in the faculty of armaments was not recorded at all, and according to Blagonravov's memoirs, he was enrolled in it for half a year.

And in general, Blagonravov mentioned Yakov too sparingly, not very kindly and even rather awkwardly: "Fate ... was unfortunate: during the war he died as a prisoner." If he had said such words, for example, about General Karbyshev, they would have sounded like an insult. Why did Blagonravov allow himself to say this about Yakov? Considered him guilty of removing the head of the Art Academy, General Sivkov, from his post? Did you know the true circumstances of the study of the eldest son of the leader at the academy? For example, Yakov already held a big post, and at the Academy he was “pulled” without interruption from his main job. Why didn’t Blagonravov say whether Yakov graduated from the Academy or did not have time, where, by whom and how he fought? Or was he captured without fighting, but under completely different circumstances, about which either nothing is known, or something is known, but it is impossible to tell? When was he taken prisoner? How did you behave there? Under what circumstances and when did he die? After all, there were talks about all this at that time.

Behind the omissions and some hostility of Blagonravov in relation to Yakov, a secret is guessed ...

And here is another secret - a letter from Colonel I. Ya. Sapegin to Vasily Stalin. Sapegin was the commander of the 151st training department, where Yakov studied at the academy, and Yakov mentioned him in the only postcard received after the start of the war by his wife Yulia: “Everything is in order with Sapegin” (although it is obvious that this is not has nothing to do, because Yakov has not yet reached the front.From this phrase it rather follows that either Sapegin escaped some kind of trouble, or he and Sapegin were in trouble, but now everything has settled down).

Dear Vasily Iosifovich!

I had no right to directly appeal to you on these issues either in terms of service or relationships. Hoping that you know me as Comrade Yakov Iosifovich, with whom I studied at the Art Academy for several years and was his closest friend, I am writing this letter.

I am a colonel who was at your dacha with Yakov Iosifovich on the day of departure for the front. Five days before the war, I took over an artillery regiment in the 14th Panzer Division, where Yakov Iosifovich was appointed battery commander. This is his and my desire to serve together at the front. I, therefore, took full responsibility for his fate. And I was sure that I would cope with this task quite well. But Yakov Iosifovich and I were mistaken...

Suddenly, in a combat situation, when fighting the regiments were exceptionally successful, they recall me to the army headquarters ...

At that moment, when I was sent from one headquarters to another, Yakov Iosifovich was forgotten by everyone and he was thrown anywhere. With me, he always did not leave my field of vision, and I kept the division where he served as an assistant. And, finally, on July 12, without ammunition, the regiment was thrown with a small handful of infantry [against] 10 times superior to the enemy. 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 in a panic he broke out of the encirclement together with the division artillery chief.

I reported to the Military Council of the 20th army and the commissar of the division, who told me that they decided to create a group of volunteers in search of Yakov Iosifovich, but this was done so slowly that only on the 20th the group was thrown behind enemy lines, and had no success ... I blame for the fate of Yakov Iosifovich, the chief of artillery of the 7th corps, General Kazakov, who not only did not show concern for him, but also reproached me daily that I singled out Dzhugashvili as the best commander. In fact, it was. Yakov Iosifovich was one of the best shooters in the regiment, and the special attention in my personal life that I paid to him as a comrade was not reflected in the service ...

I know nothing more about the further fate of Yakov Iosifovich. July 10 was the last time I saw Yakov Iosifovich ...

I earnestly ask, if you can, to recall me to Moscow, from where I will receive an appointment for compliance, since I served all the time in heavy artillery.

I ask Yulia Isaakovna not to talk about this. I will be very grateful.

I. Sapegin

My address: active army. Western Front, 20th Army, commander of the 308th Light Artillery Regiment.

Ordinary correspondence is sent to the address: active army, Western Front, base letter 61 PS 108, 308 paws. Sapegin Ivan Yakovlevich. 5. UIII-41

Address on the envelope: V. Urgently. Moscow, Office Air Force Red Army Stalin Vasily Iosifovich.

Active army, Sapegin I. Ya.

I will comment on some phrases from this letter.

1. "I was his closest friend"- the close friendship of the senior lieutenant with the colonel is not very clear. It remains to be assumed that within the 151st training department there was a special group of senior commanders, which included two colonels (Sapegin and Nikonorov), three majors (Vysokovsky, Zhelanov and Kobrya), as well as Dzhugashvili.

2. “I was at your dacha with Yakov Iosifovich on the day of departure to the front”- this is unlikely, since Svetlana Alliluyeva in the book "Twelve Letters to a Friend" writes: "Yasha went to the front already on June 23, along with his battery", "... we said goodbye to him by phone - it was already impossible to meet" [p. 151]. If so, then there was simply no time for goodbye. Either it is about leaving not for the front.

3. “This is his and my desire to serve together and at the front”- if you believe the documents of Yakov on the Art Academy, then Yakov was sent to the 14th GAP on May 19, 1941 (see p. regiment on 17 June. This bears little resemblance to their simultaneous appointment to the regiment according to the desire of both.

4. "Yakov Iosifovich was one of the best shooters in the regiment"- Sapegin, judging by the letter, commanded the 14th regiment from June 17 to July 10. It is unlikely that in such a short time it was possible to discern who was "the best shooter in the regiment."

5. For some unknown reason, Sapegin does not indicate who and why recalled him from the regiment, forcing him to leave Yakov unattended, does not explain to whom he instructed to take care of him in his absence. Although he lists the guilty in detail, naming positions and names, not embarrassed in expressions: “The divisional commander, along with the division commander… were abandoned… in a panic… I blame… the head of artillery of the corps, General Kazakov…” tracing further destinies of the commanders named in the letter, I found out that they ended the war like this:

division commander colonel I. D. Vasiliev - colonel general tank troops, Hero of the Soviet Union;

the head of artillery of the corps, Major General of Artillery V. I. Kazakov - Colonel General of Artillery, Hero of the Soviet Union, and in 1955 he became Marshal of Artillery.

As for other commanders, the head of the division, Colonel M. A. Lipovsky, ended the war as a major general of artillery, and the political officer of the division, regimental commissar V. G. Gulyaev, became a major general, a member of the Armed Forces of the tank army.

So the incident with the capture of the leader's son left no trace in their fate and career. This could well be if Yakov had never actually fought as part of their corps, division and regiment. Sapegin, as indicated in the documents of the Art Academy, died in battle (it should be noted that in this document he is recorded as Sopegin). By the way, the Mekhkorpus website states that at the beginning of the war, Major Koroteev was the commander of the 14th howitzer artillery regiment, and Colonel Sapegin is not even mentioned.

6. Since Colonel Sapegin writes that he is the commander of the 308th light artillery regiment, which, as I established, was part of the 144th rifle division, it can be assumed that he was transferred to this position after this division arrived from Yaroslavl. According to the website http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/, the 144th Rifle Division “…07/04–05/05/1941 unloaded near Orsha. On July 15, 1941, the division concentrated on the northern bank of the Dnieper ... On July 19, 1941, Rudnya was recaptured (after a volley of Katyusha batteries of Captain Flerov I.A.), but on the evening of July 20, 1941, it was abandoned again. By 07/31/1941, the battle retreated northeast of Smolensk, was surrounded. The remnants of the division in the amount of about 440 people managed to cross to the eastern bank of the Dnieper on 08/03-04/1941.

These last dates, August 3–4, 1941, almost coincide with the date of Sapegin's letter to Vasily Stalin.

Therefore, it is possible that Sapegin's letter is part of an operation to cover up the true circumstances and the date of Yakov Dzhugashvili's capture.

So, what is typical for all the documents listed above?

1. For some reason, none of them set out consistently, without omissions, as it was supposed to in those years, Jacob's life path - where he lived, where and when he studied and worked (the years of his move to Moscow from Georgia, graduation from school are not indicated , admission to the workers' faculty and MIIT and their graduation, marriage to Yulia Meltzer, Leningrad is not even mentioned, etc.). This suggests that some aspects of his life are hidden for some reason, and most importantly, the place of his last job and position. Apparently, this information may reveal completely different circumstances of his capture - for example, that he was interned on June 22, 1941 in Germany.

2. Documents about the studies of Yakov Dzhugashvili at the Art Academy are very indistinct and contradictory, where he, it seems, studied on special grounds, most likely combining his studies with his main job.

3. There is no clarity about his military service after graduating from the Academy and his participation in hostilities after June 22, 1941.

There is another very important document in the fate of Jacob - a note to his father:

19.7.41. 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. Hi all. Yasha.

Galina Yakovlevna and some researchers of Yakov's fate considered this note (in general, the only known letter of his, except for the postcard mentioned above) to be a German fake for two reasons. Firstly, because for the first time it was published in German leaflets about the capture of Yakov Dzhugashvili, and along with the message that Yakov surrendered voluntarily and that this note was delivered to his father Joseph Stalin "by diplomatic means." Secondly, because the facsimile copy of the note came to Galina Yakovlevna along with a copy of the Gestapo “Case No. T-176” about Ya. A comparison carried out by the examination of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation with the original handwritten documents of Yakov - a postcard dated June 26, 41 and a notebook with his notes - showed that this is a high-quality fake.

However, there are several considerations that do not allow us to agree with all this.

We must not forget that the original letter dated July 19, 1941, which was delivered to Stalin "by diplomatic means", was found in Stalin's safe after his death. It is unlikely that he would keep the Gestapo forgery in his safe.

I can’t believe that all the photos of Yakov in captivity were mounted from his pre-war photographs, as Galina claimed in the last years of her life. Where could Yakov have taken so many of his own photographs at the front? If Yakov was really killed in battle, then someone who was nearby, knowing whose son he was, simply had to take his documents, including photographs. After all, next to the children of Stalin was constantly a guard, even at school in Peaceful time, and here, in a combat situation - and suddenly no one ?! There were even publications with suggestions that a German agent, or “initiator”, was operating next to Yakov in his regiment, pushing events towards the capture of Stalin’s son. Well, did the German special services know better than ours about the appointments and movements of the son of the Soviet leader? It's hard to even guess. Another even more ridiculous assumption is that the pictures were handed over to the Germans by Yakov's wife Yulia Meltzer!

And where could the Germans get samples of his handwriting? The fantastic story mentioned by some authors with the headquarters vehicle of the 14th Artillery Regiment destroyed by a German shell looks very unconvincing. Suppose the German secret services took possession of the surviving headquarters papers, even suppose that, by coincidence, among the unburned papers there was some paper with a sample of Yakov's handwriting (only which one is his only signature in the financial unit statement for the only May salary received in June, if he was in early May graduated from the academy and began serving in a howitzer artillery regiment?) and the Germans still got the opportunity to write a letter in his handwriting, but how did they know how the correspondence was conducted in the Stalin family? But in Yakov's note there are only 24 words, but this is a whole letter, and at the same time it is absolutely in the "telegraphic" style of his father.

For comparison, here is Stalin's letter to his mother, sent in 1935:

9/X. Hello my mom! You live ten thousand years! My greetings to all old friends and comrades. Kiss. Your Soso.

Only 18 words, and the previous letter of the same length was sent to her 3.5 months ago, and the next one will be sent in six months! Or his own letter to his beloved wife N. S. Alliluyeva:

September 30, 1929 Tatka! Got a letter. Did they give you money? Our weather has improved. I think to come in a week. Kiss hard. Your Joseph.

Already 20 words - Iosif Vissarionovich was deeply moved!

So the style and brevity of the letter dated July 19, 1941 indicate that it is genuine rather than fabricated.

Now let's try to delve into its content. The first thing that is surprising is that the letter does not contain any attempts to justify himself for being taken prisoner and to explain under what circumstances it happened beyond his control. The authors of numerous publications about him write about them, unlike Yakov (for example, the Germans unexpectedly threw troops into our rear, or the battery ran out of shells, or he was seriously wounded and unconsciously captured by the enemy, etc.). It doesn't say where it happened. Yakov, as it were, means that the father understands perfectly well how and where this happened.

On the other hand, the letter speaks of Yakov's forthcoming dispatch to an officer's camp in Germany, which, in my opinion, is a message to his father that the Germans have recognized his son as the commander of the Red Army, with all the ensuing consequences. And this is not just a statement of fact. If Yakov was really detained as a civilian specialist on June 22 on a train that ran through Germany from June 20–21, then this phrase contains political information that is very important for his father: Hitler does not admit to the world about his agreement with Stalin about the Great Transport Operation. Perhaps that is why the Germans conducted the interrogation of Yakov not in Berlin, but in the occupied territory of the USSR near Borisov, where he was urgently taken by plane from Germany. The latter makes it possible to answer the question why in the first photographs of Yakov in captivity, most of the German officers and soldiers standing nearby are dressed in Luftwaffe uniforms, and not tankers, if, as alleged, he was captured by units of the 4th Panzer Division.

"Healthy" And "handling is good"- also not just Jacob's information about himself, but also a request for the same attitude towards German especially important prisoners who found themselves in captivity on the territory of the USSR with the beginning of the war. It is amazing that this request was granted, and such "special" prisoners as Lieutenant Leo Raubal, the Fuhrer's favorite nephew and brother his beloved woman Eva Raubal, and then Field Marshal Paulus returned home safe and sound after the war, even despite the death of Yakov in German captivity.

"Dear Father", "I wish you health" mean that the son has no claims against his father for what happened, but he should not have any claims against his son, since everything turned out that way.

touching "Yasha" instead of "Yakov"- a reminder that this letter is written by the son, with the hope that the all-powerful father will still be able to help him.

And finally the date: "July 19, 1941". The main thing in it is that the date of June 22, 1941, which would have been a cruel blow for Stalin, is not named. This means that Hitler did not dare to reveal to the world their agreement on the planned joint actions against the British Empire simultaneously in the west and in the east, although it was extremely beneficial for him to do this now in order to disrupt the formation of the anti-Hitler coalition, which began on July 12, 1941 by signing in Moscow Soviet-British agreement on joint action against Germany. After all, a message from Berlin about the capture of Stalin's son on June 22, 1941 in Germany would inevitably raise the question: "How did he get there?" – and would be indisputable proof of the existence of such an agreement.

It is possible that Hitler hesitated for a long time, considering how to tell the world about the circumstances of Yakov's capture. After all, the truth about the anti-British transport operation that he and Stalin had been preparing until June 22, 1941 would deal a serious blow to the military alliance between the USSR and England, which was being created in July, but it would not allow a propaganda campaign to disintegrate the Red Army, attributing to Stalin’s son Yakov a voluntary surrender to captivity. On the other hand, if during deadly fight with Russia, Hitler’s plans for a military alliance with the “Russian Bolsheviks” against the “Anglo-Saxon brothers” were revealed, this would undermine his authority in his own country.

It seems that these hesitation of the Fuhrer lasted almost a whole month and became another important reason for the delay in the exchange of embassies of the USSR and Germany.

An amazing thing - one of the most interesting and important episodes of the beginning of the war - the exchange of the embassies of the USSR and Germany in July 1941 - remains a mystery to this day. Until now, its exact date and place where this exchange took place have not been named, the Act on its implementation has not been published, which must have been drawn up. There is not a single photographic evidence, although both sides were interested in confirming the very fact of the exchange and showing in what condition its citizens were transferred to the other side. It is also surprising that, despite the huge number of people participating in this exchange (140 people from the German side and about 10 times more from the Soviet side - according to Soviet data, about 400 people - according to German), not counting the escorts from both sides and intermediaries , through which the negotiations were going on and the exchange was provided, there are still no detailed descriptions in the memoirs of the participants of this action. I was personally acquainted with two of its participants, who, for some unknown reason, did not say a word about the circumstances of its implementation. The fact that the Soviet diplomatic and special services managed at this difficult time to achieve an exchange in such a favorable way for the USSR was a great victory; all the more incomprehensible is its complete suppression in our country.

Much became clear when the first publications about this important event of the Great Patriotic War appeared. These are the memoirs of the first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Berlin (as well as the personal translator of Stalin and Molotov) V. Berezhkov, as well as the economic adviser to the German embassy in Moscow (communist and secret agent of Soviet intelligence) Gerhard Kegel.

Berezhkov in his three books (published in 1971, 1982 and 1998) described in separate fragments that period of June - July 1941, when the staff of the Soviet embassy, ​​as well as Soviet representatives and specialists who were in Germany at the beginning of the war, in the countries - its allies and in the countries it occupied, were detained by the German secret services, and then transported through all of Europe and exchanged through Turkey for German diplomats who worked in the USSR.

G. Kegel not only wrote his memoirs about how the German embassy was taken out of Moscow, which included him, but also cited the text of the official diary of the embassy, ​​which was kept during this month by Ambassador Schulenburg and Ambassador Hilger's adviser (sometimes to this work the military attache, General Kestring, was also involved).

But here's what's interesting. For some unknown reason in their books both of these authors stubbornly do not name the main thing - the date of the exchange of embassies. Moreover, Berezhkov hides it, spreading events across different chapters and even across his different books, and generally tries to do without dates, in the same place where he indicates the date, the event following it indicates this: “In a few days.” Kegel, with German scrupulousness, constantly indicates the exact dates, but unexpectedly makes a pass in the events described from July 14 to July 23, and the exchange of embassies took place precisely during this period (according to a German diary, on July 13 a train with German diplomats arrived at the border in Leninakan, and on July 24 July - to Berlin).

There is another serious source that allows you to calculate the date of the exchange - G. Hilger's memoirs about the removal of the German embassy from Moscow in June - July 1941, where he writes: “The trip from Kostroma to Leninakan was much less tiring than the subsequent stop at the border where the train was under the scorching sun for seven days. True, on the next page, for some reason, he speaks of "an eight-day stay in Leninakan." It follows that the exchange was made on July 20-21 (according to the German side).

From the memoirs of Berezhkov and Kegel it becomes clear how this exchange was carried out. The Soviet colony of diplomats, various representatives and specialists was brought by two trains to the Bulgarian city of Svilengrad on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, and the German embassy was brought in one train to the Soviet-Turkish border near Leninakan. Both groups were supposed to start simultaneously crossing the borders and end up on the territory of neutral Turkey (the first - on its European part, and the second - on the Asian one).

Berezhkov does not name the date of arrival in Svilengrad of the first train, in which Soviet diplomats - embassy workers, traveled (in the publication “Hostages of the Third Reich. Diplomats were the first to enter the war” on the Internet, which refers to “MK”, it is reported that this happened on July 18 1941). Berezhkov writes that the first Soviet train stood in Svilengrad for two days, and the second arrived there a day after the first. Naturally, the Soviet side could not start the exchange before the second train arrived. This means that the exchange took place on July 19-20 (according to the information of the Soviet side).

It also follows from Berezhkov's memoirs that on the day of the exchange, Soviet diplomats and other citizens brought by the first echelon crossed the border and ended up in the Turkish city of Edirne, where they were placed in railway cars.

The next day they traveled by rail to Istanbul, where they received Soviet passports and clothes on the Soviet ship Svaneti. Ambassador Dekanozov, with a small group of diplomats, including Berezhkov, drove to Istanbul by car, and in the evening of the next day, having processed documents at the Soviet consulate, they crossed the Bosphorus by boat and left for the Turkish capital Ankara by night train. After spending a day there, the next morning they flew to their homeland by a special plane, landed in Leninakan and, after spending the night in Tbilisi, returned to Moscow. That is, from the moment of crossing the Bulgarian-Turkish border until the return of Dekanozov and his colleagues to Moscow, another 6-7 days passed.

specific exchange date, that is, the simultaneous transition to the territory of Turkey of groups of Soviet and German diplomats, Berezhkov also does not name. However, he either let it slip, or quite deliberately gave historians a tip to establish the date of the exchange, saying that the leading workers of the Soviet embassy in Berlin (including himself) flew to Moscow on the same day, at the end of which German planes began a heavy bombing of the capital . In addition, he writes that the very next morning, upon his arrival in Moscow, he was called to work at the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, despite the fact that it was Sunday. In the period of July 21–30, Moscow was bombed at night on July 21, 22, 23, 25, 26 and 30. There was only one Sunday these days - July 27th. This means that the ambassador and deputy commissar for foreign affairs Dekanozov, adviser Semyonov, military attaché Tupikov, attaché (he is also deputy resident of foreign intelligence) Korotkov and Berezhkov himself returned to Moscow on July 26. Thus, it can be calculated that the exchange was made 19 or 20 July 1941 This can be confirmed by the fact that the first report of the Berlin radio about the capture of Stalin's son was transmitted July 20, and the first bombing of Moscow was carried out in the evening 21 July– both of these events could only occur after the exchange.

There are two documents about the capture of Y. Dzhugashvili, which may well be completely fabricated by the German special services, and genuine, but partially distorted in the direction they need. These two documents could have been drawn up based on the results of the recording of the first interrogation after Yakov's identification: one with the full text, the second with a summary. Or they are records of two different interrogations. The full text of the interrogation protocol is even accompanied by a photo of the first page of this document in German with the date July 18, 1941.

My comparison of the published texts of these two documents (the full text in the collection “Joseph Stalin in the Embraces of the Family” and the short one in the book by A. Kolesnik “The Chronicle of the Life of the Stalin Family”) showed that these are still records of two different interrogations. This is evidenced by the following facts: the full text calls communication with Yakov "interrogation", and the short one - "conversation"; there is information in the short text that is not in the full text; information on the same issue in these texts does not match:

1. In the protocol of interrogation:

- Did you keep in touch with your father before the start of the war?

- What did his father say to him in the end, saying goodbye to him on June 22? (Question to the translator. - A. O.)

- Go fight!

In the conversation report:

“According to him, he talked with his father 16 or

2. In the protocol of interrogation:

- Are you speak Doutch?

- Once I learned German, about 10 years ago, I remember something, there are familiar words.

In the conversation report:

"D. knows English, German and French and makes a very intelligent impression.”

3. In the protocol of interrogation:

- I have been in the Red Army since 1938, I studied at the artillery academy.

In the conversation report:

« visited artillery academy in Moscow, which he completed in 2.5 years instead of 5 years.

In the conversation report no date given, however, there is such a clause: "Since no documents were found on the prisoner ... he had to sign the attached statement in two copies." However, its text is missing from this publication.

B. Sopelnyak’s book “Secrets of Smolensk Square” contains the full text of the statement signed by Yakov Dzhugashvili in captivity:

I, the undersigned Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, was born

March 18, 1908 in the mountains. Baku, Georgian, I am the eldest son of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR from my first marriage with Ekaterina Svanidze, Art. lieutenant of the 14th howitzer-artillery regiment of the 14th tank division. On July 16, 1941, near Liozno, he was captured by the Germans and destroyed his documents before being captured.

My father, Iosif Dzhugashvili, also bears the surname Stalin. I hereby declare that the above information is true. July 19, 1941. Signature

So, most likely, this is the same statement that is referred to in the report of the conversation. It follows from this that the “conversation” with Yakov took place the day after his interrogation by Holters and Raushle.

5. In the protocol of interrogation:

- ... I wanted to go after graduating from the institute (it didn’t even say what profile the institute was. - A. O.).

In the conversation report:

“I was preparing to become a civil engineer and graduated from an engineering school in Moscow (the inaccuracy of the name of the university can be explained by a double translation, because the recording was in German. – A. O.).

6. The interview report contains information missing from the protocol of interrogation:

"Of the three marshals of the Soviet Union - Timoshenko, Voroshilov and Budyonny - he described the first as the most capable."

"D. showed: ... It is believed throughout the country that the prospects for this year's harvest are very good.

"D. confirmed that the destruction of the commanders involved in the Tukhachevsky scam is now taking cruel revenge.

“An interesting indication about the impact of German leaflets on the Red Army. So, for example, from leaflets it became known that there would be no fire on soldiers who had thrown away their weapons and were moving in white shirts.”

7. And finally, the main difference between these two documents. The protocol does not say anywhere that it was signed by Yakov Dzhugashvili; the report of the conversation ends with his statement with a personal signature. I only wonder why no photo of this statement, almost certainly handwritten, has ever been given anywhere?

Analyzing the differences in the protocol and the report, it should be noted that their very existence testifies more to the reality of the interrogation of Yakov Dzhugashvili than to its falsification, and that these documents were compiled as a result of two different interrogations.

In my opinion, the information in the interview report is much more specific and, probably, closer to the truth than the information recorded in the protocol of interrogation. Yakov’s statement that he studied German 10 years ago (that is, in 1931) looks unconvincing, when it is obvious that until 1936 he continuously studied a foreign language at MEMIIT, and from 1938 until 1941 at the Artillery academy.

The words “attended the Artillery Academy in Moscow”, given in the report, describe the real state of affairs much more accurately than the protocol ones “studied at the academy”, if in fact Yakov studied at its evening department, combining his studies with his main job.

And, what seems to me the most important thing, the report indicates the date of the last meeting and conversation between Yakov and his father, the most reliable of all those indicated in other publications that mention this event - “June 16 or 17”, 1941.

All these differences in the protocol of interrogation of Y. Dzhugashvili on July 18 and in the recording of the “conversation” with him on July 19 are quite understandable, since they were conducted by representatives of various German services: the interrogation was by Major V. Holters and Major V. Rauschle (it follows from the title of his protocol that that the interrogation took place with the commander of the aviation of the 4th Army, P. Lebedev claims that Gensger was the interpreter); The “conversation” was conducted by unknown employees of the IC / AO (?) Department of the Army Group Center.

There is another significant passage in the interrogation protocol:

– Have you ever been to Germany?

- No, they promised me, but nothing happened, it turned out that I didn’t manage to go.

When was he supposed to leave? (Question to the translator. - A. O.)

- I wanted to go after graduation.

It is not clear why he should not answer the first question with an unequivocal “no”. Maybe he was still preparing for a trip to Germany, which the Germans knew very well? Or does he mean the trip during which he was arrested on June 22, 1941?

I must say that another interrogation of Yakov is known, which was conducted by the personal translator of the commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal von Bock, Hauptmann V. Shtrik-Shtrik-feldt. He mentioned this interrogation in his book “Against Stalin and Against Hitler”, but for some reason did not name the date of its conduct. In the publication "Jakov Stalin (Yakov Stalin) dated 01/12/2003 on the website" http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php" it is reported that Shtrik-Shtrikfeldt conducted his interrogation in the city of Borisov, and a few days later Y. Dzhugashvili was interrogated by Major Holters. Taking into account that the interrogation of Holters is dated July 18, we can conclude that the interrogation of Shtrik-Shtrik-feldt took place on July 16 or even earlier and, therefore, was the very first interrogation of Yakov.

Jacob's answers at this first interrogation boil down to the fact that he does not believe in the victory of Germany, and explains her success at the initial stage of the war by the fact that "the Germans attacked us too early", and calls this attack "banditry".

However, if Shtrik-Strikfeldt is to be believed, Yakov answered the question in the affirmative: “Is not Stalin afraid of the national counter-revolution in the conditions of war?” Which made it possible to draw the following main conclusion in the report on this interrogation, “which Field Marshal von Bock sent to the Fuhrer’s Headquarters”: “Stalin, according to Yakov Dzhugashvili, Stalin’s son, is afraid of the Russian national movement. The creation of a Russian government opposed to Stalin could pave the way for an early victory.” All these answers and conclusions are given in the mentioned book by Strik-Strik-feldt. It should be noted that she does not say anything about recording the interrogation on a tape recorder; perhaps this was mentioned in her journal publications.

So, what can be said about the first three interrogations of Y. Dzhugashvili, which we know about?

The very first interrogation, most likely, was conducted at the headquarters of Army Group Center by specialists in the formation of the Russian Liberation Movement on July 14–16, 1941.

The second, longest interrogation, the protocol of which contains 150 questions and answers, was conducted with the commander of aviation of the IV Army jointly by information processing specialists of the Main Headquarters of the Air Force and the Headquarters of the IV Army on July 18;

The third interrogation, for some reason called a “conversation”, at the end of which Yakov signed a statement that he was Stalin’s son (why was this not demanded of him during the first interrogation?), Was conducted in an unknown place and by an unknown person on July 19.

Comparing and analyzing the results of these three interrogations (according to published data), we can note the following.

It is surprising that the RSHA did not participate in the interrogations of the son of the Soviet leader. However, there are reports that Reichsführer Himmler and the Reich Minister for Eastern Territories, one of the main ideologists of the Nazis Rosenberg, met with him, and they talked in private, even without an interpreter, since Rosenberg, who was born and raised in Reval (Tallinn), was fluent in Russian. (By the way, careful consideration and translation from German language the contents of the registration card for the prisoner of war Ya. Dzhugashvili "Identification of a person" (see p. 29 Photo attachments) reveals that it was filled out by the departments "IVA1a" and "IVA1c" of the Gestapo).

It should also be noted a number of oddities recorded in the German protocol of interrogation and in the recording of the “conversation” with Yakov Dzhugashvili:

1. To the question: “Does he know about the speech delivered on the radio by his father?” - Yakov replies: “I hear it for the first time. And never heard of such things. Never heard of it!" At the same time, to the question: “Does he know that even France broke off relations with Soviet Russia?” - he replies: "It was broadcast about it, I heard about it on the radio."

This is more than strange. Yakov claims that he knows nothing about Stalin's speech on the radio on July 3, 1941, that is, after a twelve-day silence since the beginning of the war, he did not even hear about the most important speech of the leader for the USSR. And the fact that France (with its capital in Vichy) severed relations with the USSR (this happened on June 29), he knows, and not from conversations, but heard on the radio.

This is possible only in one case - if Yakov was already in captivity at the time of Stalin's speech on the radio. On the fact that Petain's France severed relations with the USSR, Soviet means mass media they did not particularly fix attention, but German propaganda immediately shouted, claiming that now all of Europe was against Soviet Russia. There was no reason for the Germans to inform the Russian prisoners of war that Stalin had finally spoken on the radio. It follows from this that Jacob at that time, most likely, was already in captivity. It should be added that when asked about the conclusion of an alliance between the USSR and England, Yakov replied that he had heard about it on the radio, although the agreement was signed in Moscow on July 12, and the press reported this on July 13, when, according to his testimony, he had been surrounded. But on the other hand, Berlin radio was constantly talking about this, since it was precisely the possibility of such an alliance between the USSR and England that from June 22 was Hitler's main explanation to the German people why Germany attacked the USSR. All this indirectly confirms that Yakov was captured much earlier than July 16th.

2. For some unknown reason (it follows from the protocol that Yakov simply did not give consent to this), unlike the form for filling out documents for Soviet prisoners of war, accepted in other cases, Y. Dzhugashvili's form does not indicate his home address, as well as his name, patronymic and the name of his wife. It is quite possible, however, that her name and address became known to the Germans from letters found on him during his arrest, including from an unsent postcard to his wife found with him.

This is indirectly evidenced by the following question from the protocol of interrogation:

“Does he know that we have found letters saying that friends hope to see each other again this summer, if the proposed trip to Berlin this autumn does not take place?” In response, Yakov “reads the letter and mutters to himself: “Damn it!” (so it is written in the protocol, from which it follows that most likely this letter was found from him. A. O.). The interrogator continues: “In this letter, which is a correspondence between two Russian officers, there is the following phrase: “I am undergoing tests as a junior lieutenant of the reserve and would like to go home in the fall, but this will only succeed if this autumn a walk is not taken in Berlin. Signed "Victor", 11. 6. 41"

me main topic found letter - "walk to Berlin"- I immediately recalled the words of Yakov from his last news to his wife Yulia - a postcard dated June 26, 1941: "everything is fine, the journey is quite interesting."

Everything is easily explained if we assume that in both letters it is not about an attack on Germany, but about traveling through it by rail to the North Sea, because the way there lay only through Berlin! But even if Yakov mentioned it during the interrogation, not a single word on such a topic could get into the protocol.

It is impossible not to pay attention to the very strange fate of the interrogation protocols of Yakov Dzhugashvili, which was reported by Valentin Zhilyaev:

“The protocol of the first interrogation of such an important prisoner, around whom the wheels of the Nazi propaganda machine spun, as shown by the analysis of archives in Saxony in 1947, was filed in the files of the 4th Panzer Division of the Guderian Corps. Another protocol of interrogation ended up in the archives of the Luftwaffe, which also casts doubt on their authenticity.

There is one more fact that cannot be ignored when considering the sequence and dates of the first interrogations of Yakov Dzhugashvili in captivity. O. Ya. Khotinsky, a veteran and participant in the Great Patriotic War from its first day, told me that immediately after the battles for Smolensk, during the retreat from July 15 to 20, 1941, he saw a German leaflet stating that Stalin’s son had surrendered to captivity. I expressed my doubts, saying that July 16 is considered the date of the surrender of Smolensk, and it was on this day that Yakov was taken prisoner. The Germans could not immediately, almost on the same day, report this in a leaflet, because it had to be drawn up, coordinated with Berlin, printed, and only then dropped from the plane. All this took time, and if the Germans only on July 20 first reported the capture of Yakov Dzhugashvili by radio, they could not have dropped such leaflets earlier.

However, Osip Yakovlevich, proving his case, said that when the book of Marshal Eremenko was published, in which the date of the surrender of Smolensk was July 16, he wrote a letter to the marshal and pointed out this inaccuracy. Khotinsky himself is always absolutely accurate and reliable (as he says, “military representative leaven” - he worked for many years in Podlipki as a military representative at the royal firm and retired as a colonel). So, most likely, he really saw a German leaflet with information about the capture of Yakov between July 15 and 20. His words are at odds with the data of numerous publications, which say that the first such leaflets were dropped from aircraft over the location of Soviet troops only August 7, 1941 near Nikopol.

If Khotinsky is right, then it turns out that Yakov ended up in German captivity earlier than indicated in the protocols of his first interrogations. Why did the Germans keep such a big trump card in the ideological game, because in the midst of the “blitzkrieg” it was beneficial for them to use it as early as possible? The most likely explanation: because they could not name the true date and circumstances of the capture of Yakov Dzhugashvili, because this could reveal the existence of a pre-war agreement between Hitler and Stalin on the Great Transport Operation, and therefore they were waiting for an event that would allow them to do this.

Such an event was the surrender of Smolensk by the Red Army, after which three Soviet army- 20th, 16th and 13th, as a result of which more than 180 thousand soldiers and commanders were captured.

Another reason for the publication of a message about the capture of Ya. Dzhugashvili only on July 20 could be the death of a military unit near Smolensk, in which he may never have served, but for some time was during camp training while studying at MIIT or at the Art Academy. As a result, it became possible to declare him a professional military man and claim that Yakov was captured as a result of a lost battle, and not a treacherous capture on the territory of an ally state on a train in which he rode as a civilian specialist and, possibly, under a false name.

It must be admitted that the protocols of interrogations of Yakov Dzhugashvili in enemy captivity, published in recent years, still make a heavy impression, despite his refusal to cooperate with the Germans and his martyrdom, because he speaks quite correctly with the German officers interrogating him and answers many of their questions . This is especially unpleasant for the older generation, who believe that such interrogations should have taken place as in the famous poem by Sergei Mikhalkov:

Three friends lived
In the small town of En.
There were three friends
Captured by the Nazis.

They began to interrogate the first
They tortured him for a long time.
A tortured comrade died,
But he didn't say anything.

The second one was interrogated.
Torture did not endure the second -
Died and didn't say a word
Like a real hero.

The third comrade could not stand it,
The third - the tongue untied.
“There is nothing for us to talk about! -
He said before he died.

They were buried outside the city,
Near the broken walls.
This is how comrades died
In the small town of En.

In my opinion, the reason for the painful impression of reading the interrogation protocols of Yakov Dzhugashvili is to a greater extent not that What he says, and then How He says. He speaks to the Germans not as "two-legged beasts - fascists" (which they were for our people at that time), but as normal people. Maybe even as with yesterday's allies: after all, if Yakov had been in captivity since June 22, 1941, then he had no idea either about the scale of the disaster experienced by our country, or about the atrocities of the Nazis in the occupied territories. Moreover, at that moment, German propaganda was talking about a forced, preventive strike on the Soviet Union, since the Soviet leadership was preparing to attack Germany.

After all, even if his father, who knew the true state of affairs better than anyone in the country, in the first days of the war (until July 3) still hoped to reduce what had happened to local conflict and, according to some historians, writers and publicists, that is why he did not speak on the radio for ten days, then what can be demanded from a "senior lieutenant of artillery"? However, very soon an understanding of what happened and what is happening will come to Yakov, and in April 1943 he will commit suicide.

Another version of the capture of Yakov Dzhugashvili suddenly arose in the very last years, and it is connected with the “Voronezh” theme in his life. This topic is developed by Voronezh resident Pavel Lebedev, arguing that Yakov passed the summer training camp in 1940 in the regional center of the Voronezh region Borisoglebsk in the 584th reserve regiment. Lebedev makes the main emphasis on Yakov's personal life. About the beginning of this story, he writes as follows: “In 1935, again without the knowledge of his father, Yasha got along with Olga Golysheva, who had come from Uryupinsk to enter the capital's aviation technical school. From this unofficial marriage, on January 10, 1936, the son Evgeny was born in Uryupinsk. If we subtract nine months from this date, it turns out that the child was conceived in April 1935. But after all, entrance exams to technical schools and universities are held in the summer, which means that the circumstances of the acquaintance and romance of Yakov and Olga are somehow different, and for some reason they not elucidated so far.

There is evidence that Yakov and Olga met not in Moscow, but in the Voronezh region in Uryupinsk, in the apartment of N. S. Alliluyeva’s relatives, according to other sources, in Borisoglebsk, where in the summer of 1934 Olga could come to enter a technical school from the neighboring town of Uryupinsk . Yakov, at the end of the 4th year of the institute, could be there at the summer camps together with the guys from his institute group. Another option for their acquaintance is also possible - in Uryupinsk, if summer camp The 584th reserve regiment was next to him. There is also a version of their acquaintance during a vacation in Sochi in 1935. Having analyzed various information about this, I believe that they could have met a year earlier, when Yakov was attending summer camp training from the military department of MIIT. In continuation of their acquaintance, they could rest together in Sochi in June-July 1935. Olga could come to him in Moscow, at least until he met Yulia Bessarab (Meltzer) at the end of the summer of 1935 and probably before his marriage to Yulia ( that is, until December 1935). It turns out that the relationship between Yakov and Olga could last about a year.

Lebedev, on the other hand, connects the appearance of Yakov in Borisoglebsk with his studies at the Artillery Academy:

In 1937, Yakov was accepted immediately into the fourth year of the evening department of the Artillery Academy of the Red Army. In 1940, with the rank of senior lieutenant, Dzhugashvili graduated from his studies. However, the acquired knowledge was clearly not enough for him. Yakov turned to the head of the academy with a request to allow him to study for another year.

The command sent cadet Dzhugashvili to camp in the Central Black Earth region. First, he gets into the 584th reserve regiment, stationed in Borisoglebsk.

Almost everything in the above passage is not true:

1. Yakov, who lived continuously in Moscow since 1930, could not enter the Art Academy in 1937, since until 1938 it was in Leningrad;

2. The thesis about Yakov’s lack of knowledge after graduating from one of the best military academies (and even taking into account the institute diploma he had already received) and his personal request for “advanced training” in a reserve regiment in the Voronezh wilderness is highly doubtful.

3. He completed his studies at the Art Academy not in 1940, but in the spring of 1941 (see pp. 16–17 of Photo Annexes) - its graduate of 1941, now living, Colonel A. T. Bugrimenko claims that he saw Yakov on May 5, 1941 in the Kremlin at a well-known reception in honor of graduates of military academies. Unfortunately, another of his classmates at the Academy has already passed away. Dzerzhinsky, Lieutenant General Irakli Ivanovich Dzhorzhadze, who repeatedly stated that he studied there with Yakov. In his memoirs, he claims that he was shown Stalin's son Yakov Dzhugashvili on May 5, 1941 at a reception in the Kremlin in honor of graduates of military academies, and an outstanding military intelligence officer, Colonel-General Khadzhi Umar Mamsurov.

Lebedev writes that in 1940, having learned about the appearance of Yakov in Borisoglebsk, Olga came to him from Uryupinsk to show his four-year-old son Zhenya for the first time. And suddenly rushed from Moscow and his second legal wife Yulia, who already had two year old daughter Galya.

In his publication, Lebedev ends this topic as follows: “Julia found it necessary to complain to Stalin himself. He solved the family problem in a military way - in a matter of days, Yakov Iosifovich was transferred away to the 103rd howitzer regiment ... On June 23, 1941, the 103rd howitzer regiment went to the front and on June 27 arrived near Smolensk. During a telephone conversation with his son, Joseph Vissarionovich said the famous phrase: “Go and fight.”

In Lebedev's presentation, it turns out that from 1940 until the start of the war, Yakov served in Borisoglebsk - first in the 584th reserve, and then, for the above reason and allegedly at the direction of the leader, he was transferred to the 103rd howitzer artillery regiment.

But there is evidence that soon after the end of the Finnish War in the spring of 1940, the 584th reserve artillery regiment was disbanded. Maybe that's why Lebedev wrote that Yakov was transferred to the 103rd howitzer artillery regiment? And this regiment was part of the 19th Infantry Division. The history of this division indicates that during the Great Patriotic War it was part of the Army in the Field from July 15, 1941, and was unloaded in Ukraine in the city of Bakhmach on the Southwestern Front, and for the first time entered the battle near Yelnya. This division was never destroyed, went through the entire war and became known as the 19th Voronezh-Shumilinsky Red Banner Order of Suvorov and the Red Banner of Labor.

Therefore, the option of Yakov Dzhugashvili being captured on July 16, 1941 as part of the 103rd howitzer artillery regiment of the 19th Infantry Division is completely unrealistic.

There is another very important evidence about the circumstances of the life and capture of Yakov Dzhugashvili - the memoirs of Major General of Artillery Artem Fedorovich Sergeev. He says that in the first days of the war he was the commander of a platoon (some authors write - batteries) of heavy howitzer guns and even served with Yakov in the same artillery unit (her number, like the number of the formation in which she was part, A. Sergeev for some reason never named). Although A. Sergeev claims that he last spoke with Yakov Dzhugashvili on June 1, 1941, it is not without interest that the places where Sergeev’s unit operated in the first days of the war are literally next to those settlements that are named in publications about military operations and captivity of Jacob, and all this happened almost at the same time.

Here is how Sergeev himself writes in his memoirs:

On July 1-2, 1941, I participated in the fiercest defensive battle for the city of Borisov and the crossing of the Berezina River. The artillery battery, which I commanded, suffered heavy losses and ceased to exist. I took command of a rifle company that covered the retreat of the regiment. The company suffered heavy losses, and on July 13 the Germans broke through to the east of us along the Minsk-Moscow highway and parallel roads and closed the ring in the area of ​​​​the city of Gorki. We were surrounded. They began to make their way to the East to their troops, already acting by partisan methods. On July 19, in the village of Krivtsy, which is 10-12 kilometers from the city of Gorki, I was unexpectedly, precisely unexpectedly, seized by the Germans. He spent the night in a hastily created field concentration camp near the city of Gorki. Then he was in the prison of the city of Orsha. On July 23 I managed to escape. These days were the most difficult test for me and the unique school that I received on Belarusian soil. After escaping, I collected small detachment from officers and sergeants who were surrounded. We began to act as a partisan detachment. And having met with Alexei Kanidievich Flegontov, they became his operational reconnaissance detachment. In September I was wounded and transferred to the rear.

I gave such a long quote from the memoirs of A. Sergeev only because it shows the degree of reliability of his story about the circumstances of his capture.

But there is one detail that makes you wonder. A. Sergeev claims that he was taken prisoner on July 19, 1941 - after all, this is the day of the second interrogation of Yakov! It was with this date that his note to his father was dated, a facsimile of which was printed in German leaflets. And it was on this day that the exchange of Soviet and German diplomats and specialists took place on the Turkish border. The first group of Soviet diplomats on July 22 (or 26) finally ended up in Moscow. And it was on July 23 that Sergeev managed to escape from captivity!

So maybe he was detained on June 22, along with his friend Yakov, on a train or on a barge in Germany or Poland? And maybe, unlike his friend, he was exchanged with the first group of Soviet diplomats? And were they sent to the partisan detachment after the check, or even at his personal request? After all, the Flegontov detachment was not local - Belarusian, but was formed on the mainland from professional security officers.

There are too many coincidences in the fates of Artem Sergeev and Yakov Dzhugashvili: proximity to the leader, service in heavy artillery, and even in one unit, the time of departure to the front, the beginning of participation in battles (from June 26 - Artem, from June 27 - Yakov), moreover, at the front they were almost nearby, etc. Only the ending is different - the first, unlike the second, was released from captivity on July 23, 1941, in September 1941 he again ended up in artillery, fought the whole war, became the commander of an artillery brigades. Graduated in 1950 from the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky and later became a general.

It is impossible not to note one more fact related to the topic of the capture of Yakov Dzhugashvili and which became known only after the death in January 2008 of A.F. Sergeev, at least to me, the author of this book. After the war, A.F. Sergeev married the daughter of the leader of the Communist Party of Spain, Dolores Ibarruri, and it was with her participation that the preparation of an illegal group of Spanish intelligence officers was organized, which was abandoned under the guise of officers of the Spanish Blue Division that fought on the Eastern Front to free Yakov Stalin and who died in the German rear.

And one moment. In a film about A.F. Sergeev, shown recently on the Zvezda TV channel, it was reported that in 1950, on the day of his wedding, the Minister of State Security Abakumov was going to arrest him, like many other Soviet officers who had been in German captivity during the war years, for verification. But the leader, who was invited to this wedding, presented his adopted son with a “wedding gift” - crossed out his name from the Abakumov list, although he never came to the wedding.

Quite by chance, I found a photo that had never been published in the domestic press and historical publications. It was made in the conference room of the Grand Kremlin Palace during Stalin's speech, and was published on July 25, 1941 in the English magazine "War in Illustrations" No. The text below the photo was:

WHILE STALIN SPEAKS, the Red Army soldiers gathered in the Moscow Kremlin lean forward to catch every word. In his famous address to the Soviet people on July 3, Stalin called on the Red Army and Navy, all citizens of the Soviet Union, to defend every inch of Soviet land and fight until last drop blood, to protect cities and villages, showing all their courage and resourcefulness. Proposing a "scorched earth" policy, he stated that "it is necessary to create conditions unbearable for the enemy in the occupied areas."

It is indicated that the photo was provided by the Planet News agency, although it is quite obvious that this picture was taken by a Soviet photojournalist, since foreigners were not allowed to meet with the military in the Kremlin.

It was not difficult to figure out the date of the meeting in the Kremlin captured in this picture. The size of the hall and the characteristic architecture show that it takes place in the Grand Kremlin Palace later than June 1940, as evidenced by the uniform of a major general on the person sitting on the far left in the front row (general ranks were introduced in June 1940). However, between June 1940 and July 25, 1941, Stalin spoke to the military in this hall only once - on May 5, 1941, at a meeting with graduates of military academies. The fact that this is the same meeting is also evidenced by the proximity of the senior and junior command staff sitting in the hall. For example, a lieutenant sits in one row across from the general, which is typical for meetings of the country's leadership with academy graduates.

Carefully examining the commanders of the Red Army listening to the leader, I suddenly recognized Yakov Dzhugashvili in one of them. He is sitting in one of the front rows, surrounded by artillery commanders, next to him is a major general of artillery, who looks like the head of the weapons department of the Art Academy Blagonravov. Yakov covered his face with his palm, pressing the earpiece to his ear, only his forehead, characteristic hairstyle and nose are visible. But why, in a hall of many thousands, did the photographer choose this particular shooting point? And why exactly on July 25, 1941, when one of the main topics of the world press was the capture of Stalin's son, did the English magazine War in Illustrations, No. 99, dedicate a whole page to this picture? Whatever historians say about this picture, I am sure that in this photo Yakov Dzhugashvili is listening to his father's speech on May 5, 1941.

By the way, a more detailed study of this picture led to another unexpected conclusion. Two sleeve squares - gold chevrons on Yakov's tunic - indicate that he is a lieutenant, or a major, or a division commander (general ranks were introduced in June 1940, but until 1942 the rank of division commander still remained). However, according to his personal file, Yakov Dzhugashvili was awarded the rank of senior lieutenant on September 11, 1940, which means that he should have three, not two chevron squares on his sleeve. Moreover, the lieutenant's chevrons had a width of 4 mm, the major's - one 5 mm, the other 10 mm, the commander's - both 12-15 mm. So what is the rank of the eldest son of the leader in this picture?

This issue requires a more detailed study, only one thing is clear - judging by the chevrons, Yakov Dzhugashvili was not a senior lieutenant, but a major or lieutenant colonel (at that time they had the same sleeve patches- chevrons).

After all, if he served in the Red Army from the second half of the 20s, and even more so, for example, in the Armored Directorate with his uncle, divisional engineer Pavel Alliluyev, then after the mass arrests of 1937 he could quickly move forward. Then the majors commanded the regiments, so it is quite possible that the black "emka", which Galina Dzhugashvili recalls, was not her own, but her father's personal car. Work in the special workshops of ZiS could also well be combined with a military rank and continued service in the Red Army, NKPS, NKVD (above I already gave an example with the direction of Andrei Sverdlov (son of Yakov Sverdlov) immediately after graduating from the Armored Academy at ZiS, where he soon became the head of the special workshop) .

And with the rapid advancement, Yakov was not so far from the divisional commander, because some kind of, but still the leader's own son. Let's remember the path of Vasily Stalin: at the age of nineteen - a lieutenant; at twenty - captain, major; at twenty-one - straight from major to colonel, at twenty-five - major general, at twenty-eight - lieutenant general. And the position for him, twenty years old, was picked up quite decent immediately after graduating from a regular aviation school, three months of study at the Air Force Academy and three-month Lipetsk courses: inspector-pilot of the Air Force Directorate, and three months later - head of the Inspectorate of the Red Army Air Force! And that's without higher education, and Jacob had two of them. And at the age of 20, but in 1941 Yakov was already 33 years old.

By the way, in favor of the high rank of Yakov, the offer allegedly made to him in captivity to head the ROA, the Russian army, which was supposed to fight for the Germans, also testifies. It is unlikely that such a post would be offered to a senior lieutenant.

The attitude of the leader towards his eldest son can also be judged by one very significant coincidence: it was in the very year when, at the insistence of his father, he decided to enter the Artillery Academy, she was immediately transferred from Leningrad to Moscow. If you believe the words of the Chief Marshal of Artillery Voronov, because in Leningrad it was "torn off from factories, design bureaus and military institutions", and now it could "rely on a powerful team of scientists who began to actively help in the creation of new artillery weapons and equipment." Blagonravov wrote in his memoirs: “In 1937, Stalin ordered the transfer of the Artillery Academy to Moscow. What caused such a decision, no one could explain.

Here Blagonravov, to put it mildly, is not entirely frank. In fact, everything was not so. The move of the Artillery Academy to Moscow from Leningrad was mysterious, lightning-fast, and carried out during the academic year. On September 1, 1938, the Academy began another academic year in Leningrad, and suddenly, on September 13, 1938, the government decided to transfer it to Moscow. By the way, on the same day, an order was signed to enroll Y. Dzhugashvili in it. And already on September 29, the academy moved to the capital (for which 1,080 wagons and two large barges were allocated: well, just a forced march during a military operation!), And on October 10, classes began in Moscow.

And Blagonravov knew better than anyone the history of the transfer of the academy, because, as I have already said, it was he who was instructed to find a place for her in Moscow.

Of course, it could be another coincidence and the following fact, but you can't ignore it. The son of the leader, Yakov, had to combine his studies with his main job, and - wow! - "At the end of 1938 - the beginning of 1939, a correspondence department was opened at the academy (with command and armament faculties), and at the end of 1939 - an evening department," reports the History of the National Artillery. And further:

As of 1938, the Artillery Academy at the relevant faculties trained: command staff<…>to fill positions from the division commander and above<…>various workers for the central artillery apparatus; engineering technical composition for engineering positions in artillery units, warehouses, at training grounds, in institutions and military representatives at factories.

By the way, the mentioned book gives detailed information about the rules for admission to the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky at that time. From this information it follows that upon admission (or, rather, enrollment) of Yakov Dzhugashvili to the academy, serious indulgences were made to him. In particular, the main principle of admission to this academy was violated, which was as follows:

The command faculty accepted command staff from the battery commander and above, graduated from an artillery school, served in the army for at least 2-3 years and having a general secondary education, and for all other faculties - command and technical staff in a position not lower than assistant battery commander and meeting the same requirements as for the command faculty.

But it can be assumed that in relation to Yakov Dzhugashvili, no conditions for admission were violated, just some facts of his biography and work activity have not been made public so far. For example, the fact that he worked the terms specified in the admission conditions in the central office of one of the departments of the People's Commissariat of Defense, in military production, in a military representation at a factory or even abroad.

About Stalin's special attention to the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky during this period is also evidenced by a fragment of his speech on May 5, 1941 at a meeting in the Kremlin, which I quote from V. Karpov's book "The Generalissimo":

Our military schools lag behind the growth of the Red Army. The speaker, Comrade Smirnov, spoke here and talked about the graduates, about teaching them on the basis of new military experience. I don't agree with him. Our military schools are still lagging behind the army. They are trained on old technology. They told me - in the artillery academy they train on a three-inch gun. So, comrade artillerymen? (Turns to gunners). I have an acquaintance (Stalin meant his son Yakov. - VC.), who studied at the Artillery Academy. I looked through his notes and found that a lot of time was spent studying the cannon, which was withdrawn from service in 1916. He believes that this practice is unacceptable.

At this point, the head of the academy, Lieutenant-General Sivkov, who was touched to the quick, made a remark:

- study and modern artillery.

“I ask you not to interrupt me,” Stalin snapped sternly. - I know what I'm talking about! I myself read the notes of your academy<…>

Stalin's speech lasted forty minutes. The entire ceremony took one hour. By 19.00 tables were laid in St. George, Vladimir, Small and New halls, as well as in the Faceted Chamber. The reception was attended by two thousand people. Many toasts were made, including to Stalin's health. He himself offered toasts to the leading cadres and teachers of the academy; for "artillery - the god of modern warfare"; for tankers - "driving, armored artillery."

But the culmination, the quintessence of Stalin's entire speech that day was his third statement. Here's what happened. The head of the Artillery Academy, General Sivkov, worried about his unsuccessful remark during Stalin’s speech, decided to correct the situation and offered to drink “for peace, for the Stalinist peace policy, for the creator of this policy, for our great leader and teacher Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin!”

Stalin was very angry - not at the unctuousness of the toast, but because these words reduced the meaning of the entire previous speech to the graduates. Stalin angrily said:

This general didn't understand. He did not understand! Allow me to make a correction. A peaceful policy ensured peace for our country. Peace politics is a good thing. For the time being, we carried out a line of defense - until we rearmed our army, did not supply the army with modern means of struggle. And now ... we must move from defense to offensive ... We need to rebuild our education, our propaganda, agitation, our press in an offensive spirit. The Red Army is a modern army, and a modern army is an offensive army.

Another participant in this meeting, Enver Muratov, in his memoirs claims that Stalin ended his rebuff to Sivkov by proclaiming a toast: “I propose to drink for the war, for the offensive in the war, for our victory in this war!”, Which was absolutely logical in that situations: Sivkov proposed a toast for peace, and Stalin for the war.

Stalin talked about the upcoming war, but could not even hint - with whom this war would be. All participants in the meeting, who later recalled that he called Germany an enemy, already considered those events through the prism of the Great Patriotic War. Meanwhile, Ambassador Schulenburg, an experienced politician, reported to Berlin shortly after this speech that it was almost pro-German, in any case, showing that Stalin was the leader of pro-German policy in the USSR. I am sure that the last words of Stalin's toast are the most striking confirmation of the first half of my hypothesis of the beginning of the war: the Red Army was being prepared not on defense. It was prepared and not to hit the German troops, concentrated near the Soviet border, and to transfer through Poland and to Germany to the North Sea. And in general, the words about the offensive spirit of the Red Army mean that our army had at least a threefold superiority over the enemy's army. So after that, talk about the "superior forces" of the Germans as one of the main reasons for the military failures of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War!

That is why the speech of the leader on May 5, 1941, still remains a secret. That is why the fate of so many commanders who enthusiastically listened to Stalin in the Kremlin hall, including his son Yakov and the head of the academy where he studied, turned out this way and not otherwise. artillery lieutenant general Sivkov, who dared to contradict Stalin twice that day.

With regard to Sivkov, the reaction followed immediately, and in the history of the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky, it is recorded that already “on May 15, her pupil, senior teacher, Major General of Artillery Govorov Leonid Aleksandrovich, was appointed head of the academy.” There is no explanation of the reasons for the dismissal of General Sivkov and information about his further service.

I managed to find in the RGASPI in the Politburo fund a few lines that dramatically changed the fate of the outstanding artilleryman and talented organizer Arkady Kuzmich Sivkov, who headed the Artillery Academy. Dzerzhinsky from 1938 to 1941 (which almost coincides with the period of study of Yakov Dzhugashvili in it):

Very urgent. Decision of the Politburo of May 14, 1941 (Minutes No. 32, paragraph 13)

– July 22 the leadership of TASS brings to the attention of the leadership of the country the first information of the German press about the capture of Yakov Dzhugashvili;

– July 23 following the results of the battles (some publications specify - for the battles on the Chernogostinka River on July 7, 1941), the command of the regiment presents Yakov Dzhugashvili to the Order of the Red Banner of War;

– July 24 Yakov is interrogated in a new place (perhaps in a concentration camp), filling in the prisoner of war card again with the information that he had already reported the day before.

– « July 25 the Political Department of the 16th Army, a group of officers of the army headquarters, and then an employee of the Special Department of Counterintelligence of the Front joined the search";

– July 29 Commander of the Western Direction Marshal Timoshenko sends the documents for awarding Y. Dzhugashvili to the Main Directorate of Personnel of the NPO;

– 5th of August a member of the Military Council of the Western Direction, Bulganin, sends a telegram to Stalin, in which it is reported that the Military Council of the front left J. Dzhugashvili on the list of awardees;

– 5th of August Colonel Sapegin, Yakov's comrade from the Art Academy, sends a letter to the Air Force Main Directorate addressed to Vasily Stalin, in which he writes that he was best friend Yakov, from the time of his studies, that he was the commander of the 14th artillery regiment, in which Yakov fought as a battery commander, and also talks about the circumstances of his capture;

– August 7 The political department of the NWF sends three leaflets dropped from enemy aircraft by special mail to Politburo member A. A. Zhdanov. On the leaflet, in addition to the call to surrender, there is a photograph with the caption: "German officers are talking with Yakov Dzhugashvili", and on the back - a facsimile of his letter to his father from captivity;

– August 9 The award decree, in the draft of which Y. Dzhugashvili was included under No. 99, is published in the Pravda newspaper, but only he was excluded from the list of those awarded (which could only be done on Stalin's personal instructions);

– August 13 in the Nikopol region, the Germans scatter leaflets with the call: “Follow the example of Stalin’s son!”, In which for the first time full and accurate data are indicated about the place of service of Yakov Dzhugashvili in the Red Army: “battery commander of the 14th howitzer artillery regiment, 14th armored division”, and such a leaflet is delivered to the political department of the 6th Army of the Southern Front;

– August 15 in the newspaper of the People's Commissariat of Defense "Krasnaya Zvezda" an article is published by the deputy commander of the Western Front, General Eremenko, in which he, telling how the children of the heroes of the Civil War heroically fight against the Nazi invaders, and mentioning the sons of Parkhomenko and Chapaev, writes: "An amazing example of true heroism and devotion to the motherland showed in the battles near Vitebsk, battery commander Yakov Dzhugashvili. In a fierce battle, he did not leave his combat post until the last shell, destroying the enemy ”;

– August 16 order No. 27 is issued ° Rates Supreme High Command, signed by its chairman I. V. Stalin and all members of the Headquarters - personally (there was no other case of such a signing of the order of the Headquarters during the entire war!). Paragraph 1 of his command part looked like this: “Commanders and political workers who during the battle tear off their insignia and desert to the rear or surrender to the enemy, are considered malicious deserters, whose families are subject to arrest as the families of deserters who violated the oath and betrayed their homeland. To oblige all higher commanders and commissars to shoot such deserters from the command staff on the spot.

– Autumn 1941 Jacob's wife Julia was arrested. Unfortunately, such an inaccurate date of this event was given by Svetlana Alliluyeva in her first book of memoirs and then was never specified by anyone. I believe that the date of her arrest is not named for one reason only - it probably coincides with the date Stalin got acquainted in July 1941 with the first German leaflet, in which photo of Jacob in a leather jacket, or with the date he received Yakov's note or a film about Yakov's stay in captivity, where he was filmed in this jacket. I am also sure that the date of the release of Yulia Meltzer from solitary confinement is not named, since it exactly coincides with the date Stalin received the message about the death of his son - in the spring of 1943.

Perhaps it is appropriate here to tell in more detail about the fate of Yulia Meltzer-Dzhugashvili and the fatal role that the mentioned leather jacket played in her.

Yulia Meltzer was arrested in Moscow in 1941 on suspicion of passing information to the Germans, including Yakov's home photographs, allegedly used by them to create fake photographs in leaflets. However, I consider this completely unrealistic, since in 1941 it was clear to all of Yakov's relatives that the texts of these leaflets were fake, and the photos of Yakov in them were real, as Svetlana Alliluyeva writes about in her first book. For much more real reason Yulia’s arrest indicates an episode from Galina Dzhugashvili’s book “Stalin’s Granddaughter”, where she cites her mother’s memories: “Interrogations revolved around leather jacket. On the leaflets dropped by the Germans, there was a photograph: German officers were sitting at the table, holding mugs of beer in their hands. A little to the side - dad ... he is not wearing a new leather jacket ... worn civilian clothes. There could not be such things with him ... Perhaps, and even most likely, among those who looked at her, there was a person who knew him closely ... he simply recognized the jacket in which he saw dad hunting, fishing, in Zubalovo, where he usually and wore it. There was also a photo of him in this very jacket. How could she move from family album into the hands of the author or authors of the leaflets? Ma did not know what to answer ... ".

I am sure that the interrogators of Yulia Meltzer were not talking about a photo, but about a real jacket, because they understood that the photo of Yakov in this jacket placed in the leaflet was real. understood it and person who knew him closely- the only one who could give the command to arrest and imprison for a year and a half (until he received news of the death of Yakov) daughter-in-law, depriving his own three-year-old granddaughter of her mother for this time, was Stalin himself. In my opinion, Julia most likely handed over the jacket to her husband to the front, along with a penknife and a clock with a stopwatch, which he asked for in a postcard, through “front-line comrade Yakov” who came to her apartment on Granovsky Street, but in fact - a German agent abandoned in Moscow, which, of course, she did not suspect. And this whole operation of the German special services could begin with only one thing - with the detention of Yakov on June 22, 1941 on a train, or on a barge, or in a military unit moving on its own in Germany. During his detention, an unsent postcard addressed to his wife Yulia was confiscated from him, the date was corrected from June 21st to June 26th and sent through an agent from Vyazma (where he simply put it in the mailbox).

Another variant of the appearance of the jacket on Yakov is also possible: he left for Germany by train on June 20-21, 1941 in civilian clothes, and it is possible that under a false name, and the jacket was in his suitcase. Then, by interrogating Yulia about the appearance of her husband’s jacket at the front, the very fact of his internment in Germany on June 22, 1941 was simply hidden. This is also supported by the question from the interrogation protocol: “He is wearing relatively good clothes. Did he carry these civilian clothes with him or did he get them somewhere? After all, the jacket that he is now wearing is relatively good in quality. And Jacob's answer is too long, confused and unconvincing. Here are its fragments: “... This one? No, it’s not mine, it’s yours… on the 16th at about 19 o’clock, no, later, in my opinion at 12 o’clock, your troops surrounded Lyasnovo… It was beginning to get light… Everyone started to change clothes… I exchanged trousers and a shirt from one peasant… Yes, everything these are German things, your boots and trousers gave them to me. I gave everything to trade. I was in peasant clothes ... I gave military clothing and received a peasant's…” If Yakov was interned on the train in decent civilian clothes, this should have been explained somehow, which was done in the protocol. If he was captured in the area of ​​hostilities, dressed in civilian clothes, then this also had to be explained, and for this, his clothes should be replaced with decent ones, in which Stalin's son can be shown.

And the last. Having carefully examined several photographs of Yakov in captivity in this jacket, I realized that these were not photographs, but printed film frames, as evidenced by vertical scratch lines on the film emulsion, inevitable after repeated viewing. Moreover, in most of the pictures of Yakov in captivity, where he is dressed in this jacket, there are vertical lines-scratches. Perhaps Stalin was even handed a film confirming that his son was really in captivity, and this could have caused him both rage and increased interest in the old leather jacket. Why was all this done?

I believe that the main task of the Germans at that time was to arouse Yakov's hatred of his father, to inspire him that Stalin was guilty not only of capturing hundreds of thousands Soviet soldiers and commanders, but also in his personal tragedy (at the same time, the leader considers them not prisoners, but traitors). The visit of the agent to Yulia (the Germans let Stalin know about him by printing photographs of Yakov in this jacket in their leaflets, or perhaps by transferring film footage of his interrogation along with a note from his son) led to the arrest of Yulia, and the Germans immediately informed Yakov about this. Stalin was shocked that a German agent visited his son's house.

Such a chain of events is quite eloquent in itself, since day by day it shows how the theme “The son of the Soviet leader in captivity” developed in the first months of the war in connection with a number of other important events this period. Nevertheless, one important detail should be specially noted - the cruel order of the Headquarters No. 270 was born in the process of Stalin receiving information about the capture of his eldest son and about the actions of German propaganda in this regard. And the first German message that the son of the Soviet leader was in captivity, most likely, appeared as an immediate response of Goebbels propaganda to the tough GKO decree on the personal responsibility of commanders of all ranks, signed personally by Stalin and ending with an instruction to all commanders and political workers, “so that they did not allow alarmists, cowards and disorganizers to denigrate the great banner of the Red Army and dealt with them as violators of the oath and traitors to the Motherland.

And although Yakov was not mentioned in order No. 270, other people were named as negative examples in other orders and resolutions signed by Stalin at this difficult time (mainly defeated, and later captured Soviet generals), this entire order became the leader's public response to his son's letter. And its essence is simple: a prisoner for any reason is a traitor, regardless of the circumstances under which this happened.

With this answer, Stalin tried to kill two birds with one stone: to stop the mass surrender and to eliminate the witnesses of the Great Transport Operation, because they should have been captured in the first place. Therefore, the order proposed that “those who surrender to the enemy” be shot on the spot without any proceedings. But with this, he also killed his son - such an order could push Yakov Dzhugashvili to commit suicide.

And, remembering with respect and compassion the tragedy of his father, who, for the sake of victory over the enemy, did not spare his son and did not exchange a "soldier for a marshal", let's not forget that Yakov Dzhugashvili and another 3.8 million Soviet soldiers and commanders ended up in 1941 was captured not by his own will, and not even through his own fault, but because of the monstrous strategic failure of the leader's pre-war secret policy.

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.

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. Last time before 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 loyal 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 the letter close friend 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 soldiers. 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 very swipe. 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.

On Soviet troops and the front-line territories continued to drop tons of leaflets, on which the son of Stalin was depicted next to senior officers of the Wehrmacht and the 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 a few failed attempts to force Yakov Dzhugashvili to participate in propaganda campaigns, he is first transferred 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 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 the hand of Stalin's eldest son shortly before the start 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.