Myth No. 130. "I don't change a soldier for a field marshal."

The point is that, having learned about Hitler's proposal to exchange Field Marshal Paulus for his son Yakov, Stalin allegedly uttered this phrase, which became winged and included in almost all books about Stalin. It should be noted right away that this is one of the most decent myths in all anti-Stalinism. True, in this case, too, they are trying to present Stalin as a hard-hearted man who supposedly did not have any paternal feelings, a despot. The Lord God is the judge of those who argue like this, and even try to convince others of this.

First of all, because, according to the latest data, Stalin's eldest son, Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, was not in German captivity. And Hitler never offered Stalin to exchange Yakov for Paulus.

As for the essence of these data, it is as follows.

Firstly, all the so-called protocols of the interrogation of Yakov Dzhugashvili-Stalin in German captivity do not have the signature of the interrogated, which does not fit into the framework of the German rules for the interrogation of especially important prisoners of war. And this already suggests that he was not captured.

Secondly, between the protocols of interrogations dated with a one-day difference on the same issue - a purely fundamental difference. We are talking about the protocols of July 18 and 19, 1941. In the first case, the interrogated person tells the Germans about the circumstances of the capture: "... Our soldiers fought back to the last opportunity ... They all turned to me:" Commander! Lead us on the attack! "I led them on the attack. A heavy bombardment began, then a hurricane of fire ... I found myself alone ... Then yours surrounded me from all sides ... I would have shot myself if I had discovered in time that I was completely isolated from my own."

And the next day, the same interrogated man declares that "panic moods arise among the soldiers, and they flee." And then he explains that the soldiers are throwing down their weapons, the civilian population does not want to shelter the Red Army soldiers in military uniform. And in this regard, Yakov Dzhugashvili-Stalin, allegedly interrogated by the Germans, was forced to surrender.

Fourth, there is also not a single film on which Yakov Dzhugashvili would have been filmed, which is all the more not only inexplicable for the Germans meticulous in propaganda affairs, but also frankly indicates that Ya. Dzhugashvili was not captured by the Germans.

Fifth, in March - May 2002, the Center for Forensic Expertise of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation conducted an examination of handwriting samples of Yakov Dzhugashvili-Stalin, who allegedly fell into German captivity. First of all, the letter to Stalin was subjected to examination: "Dear father! I am in captivity, I am healthy, I will soon be sent to one of the officer camps in Germany. Good treatment. I wish you good health. Hello everyone. Yasha," as well as an entry from the diary of Yugoslav General Milutin Stefanovich: ".. Yakov's handwritten note..." Yakov Dzhugashvili, senior lieutenant, Moscow, st. Granovsky, 3, apt. 84, 20.9.42.

The conclusion of the examination is categorical: the “Letter to the Father” on the leaflets was not written by Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, but by another person imitating the handwriting of Stalin's eldest son. Note on behalf of Ya.I. Dzhugashvili dated September 20, 1941 was performed not by Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich, but by another person "!

At sixth, The photographic leaflets with which the Germans bombarded the advanced positions of the Soviet troops as early as the summer of 1941 were also subjected to examination. They allegedly show Stalin's son standing among the German officers in a free pose, thoughtfully bowing his head to his shoulder. On another photo leaflet, he is sitting at a table in the company of Germans, happy, cheerful, smiling.

The conclusion of the examination in this case was also categorical: this is a photo montage with the use of abundant retouching and the technique of "mirror reflection"!

Why the Nazis went on such a propaganda action to explain, obviously, there is no point. And so everything is clear. As for the real fate of Yakov Dzhugashvili, she is one of those about whom the highest laws of justice are supposed to be said like this - died a heroic death in the battles for the freedom and independence of our Motherland! Because one of the soldiers who survived that last battle in the vicinity of the village of Kopti, Vitebsk region, subsequently told Stalin's adopted son, General Artem Sergeev, that Yakov Iosifovich, like all the surviving soldiers of his artillery brigade, went on a breakthrough, into hand-to-hand combat. Senior Lieutenant Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili-Stalin, to my deep regret, did not come out of this battle alive. When the Germans discovered the body of the deceased senior lieutenant Ya.I. Dzhugashvili-Stalin, then they had the idea to play a farce with his capture in order to have a massive propaganda impact on the Soviet troops. Undermining the authority of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and weakening the morale of the troops subordinate to him during the war is one of the most important tasks of the opposing side. Unfortunately, at first the Nazis coped with it quite well.

As for Stalin's cruelty towards his own son, even in the mythological image - "I do not change a soldier for a field marshal" - Stalin was right. Because any attempt at such an exchange would mean separate negotiations with the Nazis, about which they would not fail to ring out to the whole world in order to split the anti-Hitler coalition. On the other hand, an attempt at such an exchange would mean the end of Stalin, both as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and as that very Stalin, to whom, almost literally, the entire Soviet people prayed, and the whole world too. Moreover, the end is not only political, but also physical - neither the comrades-in-arms, nor the Soviet people would understand such a manifestation of paternal feelings, while almost half of the country was under the rule of the Nazi invaders, and many Soviet citizens were captured by the hated enemy. So it's time to put an end to Y. Dzhugashvili's mythological perception of the tragedy. He really died the death of the brave, and we must bow our heads on our knees in memory of his feat as a defender of our Motherland.

But in reality, what happened was what should have happened. As soon as it became known about the capture of Y. Dzhugashvili, and it became known only according to German data, then until all the circumstances were clarified, his wife, Yulia Meltzer, was arrested in accordance with order No. 270 of August 16, 1941, constantly accused of Stalin. Stalin clearly showed everyone that the fate of him and his sons is inseparable from the fate of the warring people and that the law is the same for everyone.

As for the legend that is still alive today that Stalin sent several groups of high-class intelligence officers-saboteurs in order to rescue his son from captivity, this is complete nonsense. Based on the data that the author of the book became aware of from a former high-ranking official of Stalin's personal intelligence - Konstantin Mefodievich - Stalin already at the beginning of 1942 knew for sure that some rogue who had been captured by the Germans was impersonating his son. And indeed, it was in connection with this that Stalin ordered at any cost to deliver this scoundrel to Moscow, to the Lubyanka, in order to deal with him and explain to all the people what really happened to his son. After all, the whole country knew about it. Alas, it didn't work out. The Teutons weren't stupid either.

Well, later, when the passions for Stalin subsided relatively, especially after the expulsion of Khrushchev from the Kremlin, then in order to level the situation and implicitly praise Stalin and restore his authority among the people, the legend “I don’t change a soldier for a field marshal” was launched. Of course, the legend is beautiful, tragically beautiful, but, alas, just a legend. By the way, its appearance surprisingly exactly coincided with a surge of statements by Western historians that in 1943 Stalin allegedly tried to enter into separate negotiations with the Nazis. Apparently, this legend, tragically beautiful and instantly perceived by all the people as the ultimate truth, was given a rebuke to all the fabrications of Western historians about Stalin's attempts to enter into separate negotiations with the Nazis that never took place. Well, sometimes the oak Soviet agitprop had undeniable successes.

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

General information

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

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

How did Jacob get captured?

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

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

Unknown pages of history

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

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

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

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

Brief biography of Jacob

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

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

Difficulties in personal life

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

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

So did Stalin love his first son?

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

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

Attempts to get out of captivity

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

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

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

Death of Stalin's son

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

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

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

Job, transfer to Sachsenhausen

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

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

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

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

We are talking about the fact that, having learned about Hitler's offer to exchange Field Marshal Paulus for his son Yakov, Stalin allegedly uttered this phrase, which became winged and included in almost all books about Stalin. It should be noted right away that this is one of the most decent myths in all anti-Stalinism and in the mythology of the war. True, in this case, too, they are trying to present Stalin as a hard-hearted man who supposedly did not have any paternal feelings, a despot. The Lord God is the judge of those who argue like this, and even try to convince others of this.

First of all, because, according to the latest, carefully substantiated data, Stalin's eldest son, Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, was not in German captivity! And Hitler never offered Stalin to exchange Yakov for Paulus!

As for the essence of these data, it is as follows. Firstly, all the so-called protocols of the interrogation of Yakov Dzhugashvili-Stalin in German captivity do not have the signature of the interrogated, which does not fit into the framework of the German rules for the interrogation of especially important prisoners of war. And this already suggests that he was not captured.

Secondly, between the protocols of interrogations dated with a one-day difference on the same issue - a purely fundamental difference. We are talking about the protocols of July 18 and 19, 1941. In the first case, the interrogated person tells the Germans about the circumstances of the capture: “... Our soldiers fought back to the last opportunity ... They all turned to me:“ Commander! Lead us on the attack!” I led them on the attack. A heavy bombardment began, then a hurricane shelling ... I found myself alone ... Then yours surrounded me from all sides ... I would have shot myself if I had discovered in time that I was completely isolated from my own. And the next day, the same interrogator states that "panic moods arise among the soldiers, and they run." And then he explains that the soldiers are throwing down their weapons, the civilian population does not want to shelter the Red Army soldiers in military uniform. And in this regard, Yakov Dzhugashvili-Stalin, allegedly interrogated by the Germans, was forced to surrender.

With such disparity from the lips of the same person, there can be no faith in a single word.

Fourth, there is also not a single film on which Yakov Dzhugashvili would have been filmed, which is all the more not only inexplicable for the Germans meticulous in propaganda affairs, but also frankly indicates that Ya. Dzhugashvili was not captured by the Germans.

Fifth, in March - May 2002, the Center for Forensic Expertise of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation conducted an examination of samples of the handwriting of Yakov Dzhugashvili-Stalin, who allegedly fell into German captivity. First of all, the letter to Stalin was subjected to examination: “Dear father! I am in captivity, I am healthy, I will soon be sent to one of the officer camps in Germany. The treatment is good. I wish you health. Hello to all. Yasha ", as well as an entry from the diary of the Yugoslav General Milutin Stefanovich -" ... Yakov's handwritten entry ... "Yakov Dzhugashvili, senior lieutenant, Moscow, st. Granovsky, 3, apt. 84, 20.9.42"".

“The “Letter to Father” on the leaflets was not written by Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, but by another person imitating the handwriting of Stalin’s eldest son. A note on behalf of Ya. I. Dzhugashvili dated September 20, 1941 was not executed by Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich, but by a different person!

This is evidenced even by a simple visual comparison of the original handwriting on the only surviving original letter from Y. Dzhugashvili from the front with the handwriting in which the mentioned note was filled.

The document at the top is a genuine letter from Y. Dzhugashvili, at the bottom is a fake.

* * *

In the book “The Great Mystery of the Great Patriotic War”, subjected to critical analysis in the second volume, its author A. N. Osokin tried to concoct some evidence from the authentic letter of Yakov Dzhugashvili in favor of his already unprecedentedly groundless version of some kind of “great transport operation” for the transfer of Soviet troops through German territory closer to the English Channel for a subsequent joint attack on England with the Wehrmacht. At the same time, as befits a malicious falsifier, he chose direct forgery as an “argument” (in combination with the content of his entire book, this is already a clearly conscious style of malicious and malicious falsification). He wrote directly: “It seems that the number 26 indicated ... as a date has been altered from 21 (the tail of the six is ​​​​an absolutely straight line), from which it follows that the postcard was most likely written on June 21, 1941.” . So I "analyzed" the original letter of Yakov.

A. N. Osokin has an engineering education and is even listed as a corresponding member of the Academy of Electrotechnical Sciences, that is, he is a person who, in principle, should understand well where a straight line is and where it is rounded. However, no one can explain the reason for such a strange distortion of his vision: why on earth did he decide that the tail of the six is ​​an absolutely straight line ?! In addition, converted from a unit!? Take a look at the number 26 with your own eyes, preferably using an ordinary magnifying glass and try to at least honestly answer one simple question for yourself: does the number 6 have even the slightest signs of alteration from another number, in this case from one ?! Is the tail of the six such an “absolutely straight line”?! To put it mildly, what kind of visual distortion did you have to have in order to concoct such a conclusion ?! Did you use a curved mirror? But on the basis of this terry, but absolutely empty falsification, he scribbled a whole page of all kinds of assumptions that are no different from his, to put it mildly, inconsistent assumptions about the tip of Haushofer's nose, which was mentioned in the second volume!

Why such falsifications?! Is it really so difficult to understand that it is necessary to kneel down in memory of Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, who died a heroic death while defending our Motherland, and not disturb either his memory or his buried ashes with empty falsifications directed against his father, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin?!

However, it is unlikely that such simple thoughts will visit the head of a corresponding member of the Academy of Electrical Engineering Sciences!

* * *

At sixth, photo-leaflets, with which the Germans threw the advanced positions of the Soviet troops back in the summer of 1941, were also subjected to examination. They allegedly show Stalin's son standing among German officers in a free pose, thoughtfully bowing his head to his shoulder. On another photo leaflet, he is sitting at a table in the company of Germans, happy, cheerful, smiling.

The conclusion of the examination in this case was also categorical: this is a photomontage with the use of abundant retouching and the technique of “mirror reflection”!

Seventh, a careful comparison of the true biographical data of Y. Dzhugashvili with what is indicated in the protocols of German intelligence, allows us to determine a gross discrepancy. The protocols of the German intelligence indicate that Ya. Dzhugashvili named the city of Baku as his place of birth, while his passport, which was preserved by his daughter, directly states that he was born in the village of Badzi, Georgian SSR. What, he didn't know where he was born?!

Passport of Yakov Dzhugashvili. In the column "Deposits" it is written: "Badzi village". And not "Baku", as the imaginary son of Stalin claimed

Why the Nazis went on such a propaganda action, obviously, there is no point in explaining. And so everything is clear. As for the real fate of Yakov Dzhugashvili, she is one of those about whom the highest laws of justice are supposed to be said like this - died a heroic death in the battles for the freedom and independence of our Motherland! Because one of the soldiers who survived that last battle in the vicinity of the village of Kopti, Vitebsk region, subsequently told Stalin's adopted son, General Artem Sergeev, that Yakov Iosifovich, like all the surviving soldiers of his artillery brigade, went on a breakthrough, into hand-to-hand combat . Senior Lieutenant Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili-Stalin, to my deep regret, did not come out of this battle alive. The last thing this soldier saw before the severe shell shock was that Yakov was covered in blood. When the Germans discovered the body of the deceased senior lieutenant Ya. I. Dzhugashvili-Stalin, then they had the idea to play a farce with his capture in order to massively propaganda influence the Soviet troops. Undermining the authority of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the morale of the troops subordinate to him during the war is one of the most important tasks of the opposing side. Unfortunately, at first the Nazis coped with it quite well.

As for Stalin's cruelty towards his own son, even in the mythological image - “I don’t change a soldier for a field marshal”- Stalin was right. Because any attempt at such an exchange would mean separate negotiations with the Nazis, about which they would not fail to ring up to the whole world in order to split the anti-Hitler coalition. On the other hand, an attempt at such an exchange would mean the end of Stalin both as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and as the same Stalin, to whom, almost literally, the entire Soviet people prayed, and the whole world too. Moreover, the end is not only political, but also physical - neither the comrades-in-arms, nor the Soviet people would understand such a manifestation of paternal feelings, while almost half of the country was under the rule of the Nazi invaders, and many Soviet citizens were captured by the hated enemy. So it's time to put an end to Y. Dzhugashvili's mythological perception of the tragedy. He really died the death of the brave and we must bow our heads on our knees in memory of his feat as a defender of our Motherland.

But in reality, what happened was what should have happened. As soon as it became known about the alleged capture of Ya. Dzhugashvili, and it became known only according to German data, then until all the circumstances were clarified, his wife, Yulia Meltzer, was arrested in accordance with order No. 270 of August 16, 1941, constantly accused of Stalin. showed everyone that the fate of him and his sons and their families are inseparable from the fate of the warring people and that the law is the same for everyone. In addition, there were other grounds for the arrest. The fact is that on the German leaflets there was a “picture” in which Y. Dzhugashvili was depicted sitting at the table with the Germans, and on it was an old jacket, which he usually wore for fishing, hunting. It was an explicit montage using a photo from a family album. It is believed that it is impossible to understand how such a photograph could get to the Germans. The usual statements that it was then decided that Jacob's wife - Yulia Meltzer - handed over this photograph, do not clarify anything. In this case, the only suitable logic of explanation is the logic of counterintelligence. Simply put, one of the German intelligence agents entered the house of Y. Dzhugashvili, who, taking advantage of a convenient situation, simply stole this photo from the family album. But this also means extreme indiscretion in the life of Yakov himself and his wife. Obviously, it was precisely this logic that Stalin and Beria were guided by when Y. Meltzer was temporarily arrested. Because today a German intelligence agent is a member of the family of Stalin's son, and tomorrow he may be in close proximity to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Therefore, it was decided that, as a preventive measure to protect the Supreme, and at the same time saving Y. Meltzer herself from other misfortunes, it would be advisable to isolate her for a while under the pretext of fulfilling the above-mentioned order of Stalin. The following circumstances also influenced this decision. Firstly, J. Meltzer went to Germany for treatment in the 30s, as a result of which she could have kept some contacts with the Germans. In this case, the counterintelligence was simply obliged to admit the idea that, relying on these connections, the German intelligence could try, under a fine pretext, to approach Yu. Meltzer herself, including with a recruitment offer. Secondly, under the influence of the catastrophic events of the beginning of the war, the fact that the military address of Y. Dzhugashvili was known only to his wife, Y. Meltzer, was far from in favor of Y. Meltzer. In combination with the fact that the Germans in July 1941 very quickly surrounded the regiment in which Yakov fought, as if they knew that Stalin's son was there, a false suspicion arose that Yu. Meltzer had betrayed her husband. Although, to be honest, there were no grounds for such a suspicion, or at least they were clearly insufficient. It would be much more correct to assume that it was not Yu. Meltzer who was to blame for this, but the German intelligence agents, who were in the immediate environment of the Soviet troops on the eve of the war. In the zone of the Western Special Military District, in which Yakov served, there were more than enough German agents. They caught in packs, but, unfortunately, not everyone was caught. And the tongues of our people are often so long that they will bring not only to Kiev, but also to serious trouble. In short, all this taken together led to the arrest of Y. Meltzer, which should be considered only as a preventive measure in the security system of both Stalin himself - as the Supreme Commander - and her personally, in the sense that thereby she was saved from possible even more tragic misfortunes. In 1942, when much became clear, Yu. Meltzer was released.

As for the legend that is still alive today that Stalin sent several groups of high-class intelligence officers-saboteurs in order to rescue his son from captivity, this is complete nonsense. Based on the data that the author of the book became aware of from a former high-ranking official of Stalin's personal intelligence, Konstantin Mefodievich, Stalin already at the beginning of 1942 knew for sure that some rogue who had been captured by the Germans was impersonating his son. And indeed, it was precisely in connection with this that Stalin ordered (mainly this concerned partisan intelligence) to deliver this scoundrel to Moscow, to the Lubyanka at any cost, in order to deal with him and explain to all the people what really happened to his son. After all, the whole country knew about it. Alas, it didn't work out. The Teutons weren't stupid either.

Well, later, when the passions for Stalin subsided relatively, especially after the expulsion of Khrushchev from the Kremlin, then in order to level the situation and implicitly praise Stalin and restore his authority among the people, the legend “I don’t change a soldier for a field marshal” was launched. Of course, the legend is beautiful, tragically beautiful, but, alas, just a legend. By the way, its appearance surprisingly exactly coincided with another surge of statements by Western historians that in 1943 Stalin allegedly tried to enter into separate negotiations with the Nazis. Apparently, this legend, tragically beautiful and instantly perceived by all the people as the ultimate truth, was given a rebuke to all the fabrications of Western historians about Stalin's attempts to enter into separate negotiations with the Nazis that never took place. Well, sometimes the oaky Soviet Agitprop had undeniable successes.

Notes:

On this subject, see my book The Tragedy of June 22: Blitzkrieg or Treason? Truth of Stalin. M., 2006.

See No. 9, p. 140.

Osokin A. N. Great MYSTERY of the Great Patriotic War. M., 2007, photo album, p. 64.

This phrase, allegedly uttered by Stalin in response to a proposal to exchange the captured eldest son Yakov for Field Marshal Paulus, has been walking from book to book, from film to film for six decades. Were these words the reason for numerous conversations and articles that Joseph Stalin did not love his eldest son Yakov Dzhugashvili? While working on the film, we did not set ourselves the task of finding out whether this phrase had ever been uttered, but we tried to answer another sensational question: was Stalin's son even in captivity?

Joseph Stalin did not see his eldest son for 13 years. The last time before a long separation, he saw him in 1907 (?), when Yakov's mother, Ekaterina Svanidze, died. Their son was not even a year old then, which is why little Yasha could not remember his father, who disappeared after the funeral of his wife for thirteen years. Prisons. Links. The ordinary life of a Russian revolutionary. By the way, the funeral of Joseph Dzhugashvili's wife was released from the Baku prison. By some miracle, a photo has been preserved where the young man who will become Stalin mournfully stands at the coffin and cries.

So, Yakov was not yet a year old, but he no longer had a mother and, it seemed, there was no father. Ekaterina Svanidze's sister, Alexandra, and brother Alyosha, together with his wife Mariko, took care of the child. He adored his grandson and grandfather, Semyon Svanidze. All 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. By this time, the life of Yasha's father had changed dramatically. They broke up when their father was an ordinary political prisoner, and met when Stalin and his associates took power in the world's largest country into their own hands. A little more time, and his father will begin a dizzying rise. He will become the leader of all times and peoples, the best friend of athletes, doctors, tankers, tractor drivers, and so on and so forth. And at his direction, echelons with prisoners, enemies of the people, will be pulled to the North. On his instructions, thousands of people will be deprived of their lives. “Great sinner,” the Georgian patriarch would call him.

But that will be later, too.

And then, in the twenty-first year, two strangers met in a small Kremlin apartment.

Father and son.

Joseph and Jacob.

Almost a biblical story. However, all this happened on sinful earth.

The decision to bring his son to Moscow was given to Stalin, probably, not easily. There is a version that Yakov himself came to Moscow to his father, which even caused his displeasure. However, be that as it may, Yakov remained to live in Stalin's family. By that time, the father had already married a second time. Nadezhda Alliluyeva was twenty in the twenty-first year, and she was only six years older than Yakov.

He represented some inconvenience in the house. Firstly, in order to go to your room, to the bedroom, you had to pass by Yasha ...

These details were told to us by Artem Sergeev. After the death of his father, the famous revolutionary comrade Artyom, he was brought up in the Stalin family along with his children: Yakov, Vasily and Svetlana.

Yakov slept in a small dining room, in the hall where guests gathered.

In the back left corner of this room was a black sofa with a high back. It was hung with a white sheet, and this was Yasha's place. He lived on this couch behind a sheet.

You have to give credit to Hope. She has just had her first child, Vasily. It was probably difficult for her, who studied at the best gymnasiums in St. Petersburg, to immediately accept Yasha's provincial village manners. But, according to the recollections of her relatives, her relationship with Yakov developed immediately, smooth and calm. So, contrary to numerous rumors in Stalin's family, his eldest son was accepted normally. There was supposedly another rather serious problem. He almost did not speak Russian, but he had to study in an ordinary Moscow school.

He did not know the language well enough, and most importantly, there were gaps in education ... He turned out to be an overgrown among his fellow students ...

And Artem Sergeev remembers this well.

It is clear that the study was not easy for Yakov, but he won all kinds of chess tournaments, was one of the best school football players and a very handsome young man.

The girls all fell in love with him very much, and he had such a kind character that he somehow could not refuse to court or rudely refuse there, he didn’t have that.

And this was already told to us by Kira Politkovskaya, the niece of Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva.

All the girls went to him. They didn’t even know that he was Yakov Dzhugashvili. Nobody in particular knew.

Stalin, who loved Yakov in his own way, was very sensitive to the topic of “climbing” girls. The first conflict on this ground between father and son occurred a year after graduation. Jacob was seventeen years old. Yakov, who refused to enter the institute, contrary to his father's advice, announced that he had decided to marry the beautiful Zoya Gulna. It should be noted that Zoya, a student of English courses from the city of Dmitrov near Moscow, was even less at that moment - only sixteen. As expected, in such cases, the father and all relatives became a wall against this marriage. Moscow Romeo and Juliet were already very young.

Alexander Semenovich Svanidze - this is the brother of Stalin's first wife - also says: "What a marriage, you must first finish the institute, and then get married." And they upset Yasha so much that he decided to shoot himself.

In the film, this was told by the same Artem Sergeev.

Where 19-year-old Yakov Dzhugashvili got the gun is unknown. He pulled the trigger at night in the kitchen of the Kremlin apartment. Aimed for the heart, but missed. The bullet missed vital organs. Households ran to the shot, groaned, gasped. Then for three months the hospital became an apartment for Yakov. Everyone visited him: relatives, former classmates, girls in love with him. But my father never came.

Joseph Stalin wrote a letter to his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva:

“Tell Yasha from me that he acted like a hooligan and blackmailer, with whom I have and cannot have anything in common.

Joseph Stalin".

Another phrase thrown by a father to his son is known: “Ha, I didn’t hit!”

So, in Stalin's way, with cold contempt, he wanted to cure his gentle and kind son. In fact, Stalin was beside himself with rage, but Yakov turned out to be a worthy son of his father. In any case, he showed everyone that he was not stubborn. After leaving the hospital, Yakov nevertheless married Zoya and went to live in Leningrad with the parents of Nadezhda Alliluyeva. There he lived for four years.

In 1929, Zoya gave birth to a girl, Galya. The fugitives were sorely lacking money to live on. Offended and angry, Stalin did not help. Yakov got a job as an electrician, but his salary only allowed him to barely make ends meet. Stalin never saw his first granddaughter. The girl died before she even lived a year. The young family could not stand such a blow. Soon Zoya began to accuse her husband of not being able to arrange her life. Quarrels began, and in the end the marriage broke up.

We must pay tribute to Stalin Sr. At this difficult moment, he forgave his son and insisted on Jacob moving to Moscow. All there, in the Kremlin, in his apartment. There Yakov came in handy with the skills of an electrician.

When something happened to the electrics, - recalls Artem Sergeev, - something happened to the switch, with the plug, with the wiring, it immediately turned on - and silently, silently, only told: this is how it should be done, it should be done that way .

Yakov used the skills of an electrician throughout his short life.

In 1930, Yakov Dzhugashvili, without saying a word to his father, entered the Institute of Railway Engineers. When Stalin found out about the successful passing of the entrance exams by his son, he called the rector:

Is it true that Yakov Dzhugashvili entered you?

Having received an affirmative answer from the stunned rector, Stalin asked the following question:

And nobody called you?

No, Comrade Stalin.

The rector didn't really suspect anything before this call.

Well, OK.

And Stalin hung up.

In 1936, Yakov Dzhugavshili graduated from MIIT and was assigned to the Moscow ZIS plant - the Stalin plant, now better known as ZIL. Works in good faith. In any case, the authorities have nothing to reproach him for.

By the same time, he met Olga Golysheva, who came to Moscow to study. Women continued to fall in love with the handsome Yasha. This time the choice of the son was approved by the father. He even ordered the young people to allocate a small apartment in the center of Moscow.

However, the marriage with Olga remained unregistered. When she was already expecting a child, disagreements began. Olga went to give birth to Uryupinsk to her parents. Yakov did not go there, but at his insistence, his son was given the name Dzhugashvili.

And again, Joseph Stalin did not see his grandson.

In 1937, on the advice of his father, Yakov entered the artillery academy. Given the rare higher education at that time, after completing the first year, he was immediately transferred to the fourth.

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:

Arbi Group. Centre. Department 1C/AO. Headquarters.

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

This is where the mismatch comes in.

We'll get back to what's behind it. And in 1938, while still a cadet of the academy, Yakov entered into his third marriage. His new chosen one is an Odessa ballet dancer Yulia Meltzer.

For her, this marriage was not the first. Active, secular Julia communicated and made friends with many famous people in those years. She introduced Yakov to singer Ivan Kozlovsky, composer Dmitry Pokras, introduced her friend Shcherbakova into the family.

Here is what Artem Sergeev remembers and tells us about Yulia Meltzer:

She provided a large circle of acquaintances for Yasha - precisely people from whom he could receive the necessary information, the necessary data and learn a lot.

Everything would have been fine if not for my father. Joseph Stalin again did not accept the choice of his son Yakov, and did not accept it, so to speak, actively. He was just angry. Now, it seems, Stalin was not satisfied with the nationality of his daughter-in-law. Exactly the same story will then happen to Svetlana. But then, much later. Jacob was the pioneer here. And again he went against his father.

In 1938, Yakov and Yulia had a daughter, Galya. They lived in the famous house on Granovsky Street, in apartment No. 84. And from this very house on June 23, 1941, on the second day of the war, 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.

And again in the script it says: "music".

Guess which one. Hear her.

Perhaps they were seen off with an orchestra and "Farewell of the Slav" or some old waltz tore the hearts of the young officers of the women who were seeing off to the front. Maybe. Or maybe they were loaded into the cars in complete silence, not yet accustomed to the new reality, whose name war.

Jacob did not have to fight for a long time. Apparently, Joseph Stalin somehow greatly angered fate, if already three weeks after the start of the war it was his son who was captured. Not Molotov, not Kaganovich, not Beria, but Stalin.

Was captured or immediately killed.

However, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

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. The letter is very important for our story - it is also the last sample of Stalin's son's handwriting.

From a letter from Yakov Dzhugashvili to Yulia Meltzer:

“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.

Years later, Galina Dzhugashvili learned about how her father went to the front from a housemate.

She heard her mother cry after her father left. Julia cried for a long time. She didn't even cry, she screamed. Just like the women in the villages wail for the dead. Did she feel that he would not return, her Yasha?

A lot has been written about what happened in mid-July near Vitebsk and emotionally. According to the generally accepted version, on July 16, 1941, the Germans, who paid great attention to the propaganda cover for the attack on the Soviet Union, fell into the hands of such a trump card that 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. As they say, if this situation did not exist, it would be worth inventing it.

She was invented.

But what exactly and to what extent they lied, we figured out in our film called Calvary.

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. Now it is no longer a secret what panic and confusion were going on in the encircled units at the beginning of the war. Let us give only two figures: a million killed and 724 thousand captured soldiers and commanders of the Red Army in three weeks.

In just three weeks.

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? They began only when an encryption was received from the Stavka. Zhukov ordered to immediately find out and report to the headquarters of the front, where the battery commander of the 14th howitzer regiment of the 14th tank division, Senior Lieutenant Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich, was located.

The order - to report on the results of the search for Yakov Dzhugashvili - was executed only on July 24. Four more days later. Maybe they knew that Stalin's son was dead?

In any case, 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.

Sounds really not very convincing, almost fantastic.

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

“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. The man disappeared, went missing, like hundreds of thousands of his compatriots. 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.

No one.

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 Political Department, Brigadier Commissar

Gerasimenko.

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

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

The fact that Yakov was in captivity was immediately reported to Stalin. For him it was a very strong blow. To all the troubles of the beginning of the war, this personal one was added. And the Germans continued their propaganda attack. In August, another leaflet appeared, which reproduced a note from Yakov to his father, delivered to Stalin by diplomatic means:

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

It was as if a professional playwright was writing the story of the captivity of Stalin's son. The attitude of Joseph Stalin towards the surrendered Soviet soldiers at that moment was already well known - as traitors. Manically tough attitude. Surrendered - you go into the category of enemies.

And now, three weeks after the start of the war, his own son passes into the category of enemies, and even dares to write notes to his father, instead of shooting himself, as he tried to do in the recent 1926. If not for some documents and evidence declassified after the war, one might get the impression that this plot was developed by a professional playwright.

However, we will return to the authenticity of these testimonies. In the meantime, let's follow the story of Yakov Dzhugashvili's captivity to the end.

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

We have doubts about the authenticity of these photographs.

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 statement 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?

We remembered that back in 1940, Yakov's attestation showed unsatisfactory knowledge of only one foreign language - English, and this man spoke three languages!

But let us return to the course of events repeatedly described in the literature. Reading the protocols of interrogations, one gets the feeling that one is present at a theoretical dispute between irreconcilable enemies - professional propagandists. The interrogation protocols are full of clichés. Nevertheless, it follows from these protocols that Yakov refused to cooperate with the Germans. He is sent to Berlin at the disposal of the Goebbels department. The move is logical. Where would the hypothetically captured son of Hitler or Mussolini be sent? Of course, to Moscow. The supervision of the captured son of Stalin is carried out by the Gestapo. After several unsuccessful attempts to force Yakov Dzhugashvili to participate in propaganda actions, he was transferred first to the Lubeck officer camp, and then to the Homelburg concentration camp. But this looks strange. Was there really no place in Berlin for Stalin's son? Did such experienced aces of ideological struggle and negotiation from a position of strength, like the Germans, refuse to use in the game such a trump card, which, undoubtedly, was the son of the Supreme Commander of the opposing country? Hard to believe. After all, the fact that the eastern campaign did not immediately go according to plan, the Germans realized pretty soon.

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 person who pretended to be Stalin's eldest son. Why do we have the right to put the question this way today? Because in the process of preparing for the shooting of the film, we received what is called “information for reflection”.

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. After all, there is nothing. And how the Germans knew how to shoot what they needed is well known. We remember the German troops before the invasion of the USSR, and the eyes of the Soviet Red Army soldiers who were captured in the first days of the war, and Ukrainian old women in white headscarves. The Germans filmed everything, but for some reason they didn’t film Yakov and didn’t arrange it so that his father could see the film. As, however, there is not a single recording of the voice of Yakov Dzhugashvili. No, it is definitely strange that the Germans missed such an opportunity to say hello to Stalin. But we can think about it today. Being sixty years away from that time. At the same time, one thing was known for sure - Yakov Dzhugashvili was gone. In any case, on the territory controlled by the Soviet troops, he was not there, no one saw him killed. From the other side there was information that the son of Stalin himself was allegedly with them.

Several memoirs of those who lived with Yakov in the same barracks in Luebeck and Homelburg, and in the last place of Dzhugashvili's stay - in the special camp "A" in Sachsenhausen, have been preserved. But the fact is that none of these people knew or saw Yakov before the war. It seems that we are dealing with one of the most sophisticated operations of the German secret services. With one blow, they killed two birds with one stone: they kept Stalin in suspense and waited for the enemy in their rear. It is known about several groups that received the task from the Soviet leadership to release Yakov from captivity. All these attempts ended in failure. But the Germans got the opportunity to trace the connections and contacts of the underground workers operating in their rear. And finally, Stalin's behavior suggests that he was nervous, very nervous. In a rage, he strikes at his daughter-in-law - Yasha's wife. This was all Stalin. Yulia Meltzer was arrested and accused of capturing Yakov Dzhugashvili. The investigation, which means that Stalin believed that Yulia was passing information about Yakov to the Germans. The social beauty Yulia, Stalin's daughter-in-law, spent a year and a half in a prison in Kuibyshev.

Recalls Kira Politkovskaya, niece of Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Before the war, she repeatedly met with Julia Meltzer.

“And she already came gray-haired, but still she was a very, very beautiful woman.”

Yulia was released when the message came that Yakov Dzhugashvili had died in captivity.

The circumstances of this tragedy became known after the war from the discovered letter of the Reichsführer SS Himmler to Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, and then from the published testimony of Konrad Harfik, a guard at Special Camp A in Sachsenhausen. Please note that all of these are again German sources. 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.

Again, let us ask a few questions. 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?

Here we come to the climax. It is not in our tradition to talk about the technology of preparing films for the Kremlin-9 series, about a month of painstaking work with witnesses and documents. But this time we made an exception.

In the spring of 2002, after an official appeal to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, several examinations of photographs, leaflets and notes by Yakov Dzhugashvili were carried out. They have been featured in the history of the capture and death of Stalin's son for many years. When the results became known, we realized that all our suspicions that we were dealing with one of the most successful operations of the Abwehr (German army intelligence) against the Soviet special services and Stalin personally received strong confirmation. So, 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 of the Russian Federation had authentic texts written by Stalin's eldest son shortly before and in the first days of the war. In a comparative analysis, in particular, it turned out that there is no inclination when writing the letter “z” in the disputed text - Yakov always wrote this letter with an inclination to the left; the letter "d" in a note sent from captivity has a loop-shaped curl in the upper part, which is absolutely not typical for the handwriting of Stalin's son; Yakov always seemed to flatten the upper part of the letter "v" - in a note addressed to Stalin, it is spelled out classically correctly.

Experts have identified 11 more inconsistencies!

Forensic medical expert Sergey Zosimov is a participant in our film:

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. Who? Is it really that important? The main thing is not him. Not the son of Stalin!

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 scrupulous research by the method of comparison and scanning, traces of photomontage and retouching were clearly recorded.

Forensic expert Sergei Abramov specifically for the film "Golgotha":

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. But that's not all.

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 far from flawless. 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.

So photomontage.

Chief forensic expert of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Viktor Kalkutin:

We will make a reservation right away - we do not approve anything. They just thought they had the right to ask questions. 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.

Although his wife Julia continued to wait for him.

My mother instructed me, she wrote to me at the front, in two letters they mentioned Yakov and that they were waiting for him in Moscow.

Artem Sergeev told us this.

In the spring of 1945, as part of the 31st Army, he took part in the battles near Koenigsberg. Probably wanted to know exactly what happened to his stepbrother, hoping to meet someone who saw him.

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 Yakov was alive, that he was somewhere in America. Or in Canada. You will read more about this in our book in the chapter dedicated to Svetlana.

Stalin himself was sure until the end of his life that his eldest son died in captivity. Before his daughter-in-law Yulia Meltzer, Joseph Stalin never apologized for her broken life. However, he loved his granddaughter, the daughter of Yasha and Yulia, very much, perhaps that is why at some point he allowed the separated daughter and mother to reunite.

She seemed like a stranger to me. I was afraid to go to her, and this addiction lasted quite a long time. Svetlana and I went to where my mother lived then, sat there for a while, then returned back to the Kremlin or to the dacha. Then we drove again. And so, slowly, slowly, in general, they somehow accustomed me to it.

Galya, Yakov's daughter, told us this.

The demigod during his lifetime, the all-powerful Stalin, fate eventually punished through children. Vasily drank himself in front of his eyes. He seemed to have a premonition of what awaited him after the death of his father. The youngest and beloved Svetlana, Setanka, could not arrange her personal life in any way, as her father loved to call her. It is hard to imagine how Stalin would have survived the news that Setanka would leave the country, from his country. The eldest son Yakov perished in the war, involuntarily finding himself at the center of the loudest provocation against his father.

Or maybe, like this, through children, Stalin was revenged by Nadezhda Alliluyeva, who committed suicide, who inflicted the main blow with her act, from which he never recovered until the end of his life? Who knows.

And the music plays again.

Which? Choose for yourself…