According to the memoirs of Svetlana Alliluyeva, her half-brother Yakov was a deeply peaceful person. He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers and a short time worked at one of the capital's power plants, but Stalin, in accordance with the spirit of the times, forced him to put on a military uniform and enter the Artillery Academy.
33-year-old Yakov Dzhugashvili went to the front on the first day of the war. "Go and fight," his father told him. Of course, he could have arranged his son for a staff position, but he did not do this.

On June 24, Yakov took command of the 6th artillery battery of the 14th howitzer regiment of the 14th Panzer Division. For the battle on July 7, 1941, near the Chernogostnitsa River, Vitebsk Region, he was presented for an award, but did not manage to receive it.
The Soviet 20th Army was surrounded. On July 16, Stalin's son found himself in captivity along with many others.
According to reports, he wanted to be called someone else's last name, but was betrayed by one of his colleagues. "Are you Stalin?" the shocked German officer asked. "No," he replied, "I am Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili."

In Berlin, Abwehr captain Wilfried Shtrik-Shtrikfeld, who spoke Russian fluently and was subsequently assigned as a liaison officer to General Vlasov, had a long conversation with him.
"Being in your hands, I have not found a single reason to look at you from the bottom up," Yakov Dzhugashvili said during one of the interrogations.
According to the protocols discovered after the war in Berlin and kept in Central Archive Ministry of Defense in Podolsk, he did not hide his disappointment with the unsuccessful actions of the Red Army, but did not give out any information interesting for the Germans, referring to the fact that he was not close to his father. Basically, he was telling the truth.

According to historians, Stalin had every reason to be proud of his son's behavior. Yakov refused to cooperate with the Nazis, and the well-known leaflets with his portrait and a signature saying that, they say, the son of your leader surrendered, feels great and wishes the same to everyone, which the Germans scattered over Soviet positions in the fall of 1941, were made without his participation.
Convinced of the futility of further work, the Germans sent Yakov Dzhugashvili to a prisoner of war camp in Hammelsburg, then transferred to Lübeck, and later to block "A" of Sachsenhausen, intended for "VIP prisoners".

"He said that he did not make any statements to the Germans and asked, if he did not have to see his homeland, to inform his father that he remained faithful to his military duty," lieutenant Marian Ventslevich, comrade Yakov Dzhugashvili in captivity.
In Lübeck, he became friends with the captured Poles, many of whom spoke Russian, played chess and cards with them.
Yakov Dzhugashvili was very upset by what happened to him and suffered from severe depression. Like the rest of the Soviet prisoners, he had no contact with his homeland. The Nazis, of course, did not fail to bring to him famous phrase Stalin: "We have no prisoners of war, there are traitors."
On April 14, 1943, according to some sources, he jumped out of the window of the barracks, according to others, he refused to return to it after a walk, tore the collar and threw himself on the wire through which the current was passed, shouting: "Shoot me."

The sentry, SS-Rotenführer Konrad Hafrich, opened fire. The bullet hit the head, but, according to the autopsy, Yakov Dzhugashvili died earlier from electric shock. In fact, it was suicide.
Documents and photographs related to the stay of Stalin's son in Sachsenhausen, including Himmler's letter to Ribbentrop, which outlined the circumstances of his death, turned out to be with the Americans. The State Department was going to pass them on to Stalin through the US Ambassador to Moscow, Harriman, but changed the decision for an unknown reason. The materials were declassified in 1968.
However, the secret services of the USSR already found out everything by interrogating the former employees of the camp. The data are contained in a memorandum from the head of the security agencies in the Soviet occupation zone, Ivan Serov, dated September 14, 1946.
"He was neither ambitious, nor harsh, nor obsessed. There were no contradictory qualities in him, mutually exclusive aspirations; there were no brilliant abilities either. He was modest, simple, very hardworking and charmingly calm"

Svetlana Alliluyeva.

The body of Yakov Dzhugashvili was cremated by the Germans, and the urn with the ashes was buried in the ground. Soviet authorities back in 1945 they found a grave and reported it to Moscow, but Stalin did not respond to the telegram. However, the grave was looked after. It is not known whether the military administration acted on its own initiative or received instructions from the Kremlin.
Stalin's adopted son, General Artem Sergeev, claimed that Yakov Dzhugashvili was never captured, but died in battle. Anastas Mikoyan's son Artem said that he allegedly met him at Stalin's dacha in June 1945. Different people after the war "saw" him in Georgia, Italy and the United States.
The most delusional version says that Yakov Dzhugashvili lived incognito somewhere in the Middle East and is the father of Saddam Hussein, although he is known to have been born in 1940.

"I don't change soldiers for field marshals."

In February 1943, Lavrenty Beria suggested that Stalin try to arrange an exchange of Yakov for Field Marshal Paulus through the head of the International Red Cross, the Swedish Count Bernadotte. Stalin replied: "I don't change soldiers for field marshals."
According to Svetlana Alliluyeva, her father told her: "No! In war, as in war."
Stalin appears somewhat more humane in the memoirs of Georgy Zhukov.
"Comrade Stalin, for a long time I wanted to know about your son Yakov. Is there any information about his fate?" He did not immediately answer this question. After walking a good hundred steps, he said in some muffled voice: "Yakov will not get out of captivity. The Nazis will shoot him." Sitting at the table, I.V. Stalin was silent for a long time, not touching the food "

Georgy Zhukov, "Memories and Reflections".

Having signed on August 16, 1941, the order of the Headquarters No. 270 ("commanders and political workers who surrender, to be considered malicious deserters, whose families are subject to arrest"), the leader in the circle of associates deigned to joke that, they say, now he should be exiled, and he, if it is possible, chooses the Turukhansk region, familiar from pre-revolutionary times.
Modern admirers of Stalin consider his behavior a model of integrity and dedication.
Indeed, in the light of the well-known attitude towards prisoners of war, it would be politically inconvenient for him to save his "native blood".
However, many historians point to another possible cause. In their opinion, Stalin simply did not like his eldest son, since he practically did not see him until the age of 13.
If Vasily got into trouble, Stalin, it is possible, would have judged differently, the researchers say.
There is a version, though not confirmed by credible sources, that Stalin found Nadezhda Alliluyeva in bed with her 24-year-old stepson, killed her, and took revenge on him without rescuing him from captivity.

Life behind the Kremlin wall.

After Yakov was brought from Georgia to Moscow in 1921, his father called him exclusively Yashka, treated him like a nonentity, called him “my fool” behind his back, beat him for smoking, although he himself did not part with his pipe, and at night put him out of the apartment in corridor. The teenager periodically hid with members of the Politburo who lived in the neighborhood and told them: "My dad is crazy."

"He was a very restrained, silent and secretive young man. He looked downtrodden. He was always immersed in some kind of inner experience," recalled Stalin's personal secretary Boris Bazhanov.
In addition to Yakov, Vasily and Svetlana, two illegitimate son Stalin, who were born in the Turukhansk region and in the Arkhangelsk province, where he was exiled.

Both grew up far from their father and from the Kremlin and lived long and prosperous lives. One was the captain of a ship on the Yenisei, the other, under Brezhnev, rose to the position of deputy chairman of the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company and was known as a highly professional, erudite and at that time a liberal person.
All three of Stalin's legitimate children were unfortunate people with broken personal lives. Parents often dislike sons-in-law and daughters-in-law. But if ordinary people had to accept the choice of children, then Stalin had an unlimited opportunity to arbitrarily interfere in their fate and decide with whom his children would marry.

“Yasha was good-looking, women really liked him. I myself was in love with him,” recalled Maxim Gorky’s granddaughter Marfa Peshkova.
"A boy with a very gentle swarthy face, on which black eyes with a golden gleam attract attention. Thin, rather miniature, similar, as I heard, to his dead mother. Very gentle in manners. His father punishes him severely, beats him"

Natalia Sedova, Trotsky's wife.

At 18, Yakov married 16-year-old Zoya Gunina, but Stalin forced him to dissolve the marriage. The son tried to shoot himself. His father did not visit him in the hospital, passing through his relatives that he had acted as a hooligan and blackmailer, and at the meeting he contemptuously threw: "He! He didn't hit."
Then Yakov became close to a student from Uryupinsk, Olga Golysheva, who studied in Moscow at an aviation technical school. Stalin again objected, as a result, Golysheva went home, where on January 10, 1936 she gave birth to a son. Two years later, Yakov insisted that the boy be given the name "Dzhugashvili" and given the appropriate documents, but his father did not allow him to go to Uryupinsk.
Now 77-year-old Yevgeny Dzhugashvili is a convinced Stalinist and is suing those who, in his opinion, undeservedly blacken the memory of his grandfather, who did not want to know him.

In 1936, Yakov married the ballerina Yulia Meltzer, having beaten her off from her husband, Nikolai Bessarab, assistant head of the NKVD department for the Moscow region.
Stalin also disliked this daughter-in-law because of her Jewish origin.
When Yakov was captured, Yulia Meltzer was arrested and released after his death. She spent about two years in solitary confinement in Lefortovo in complete isolation and, being summoned for interrogation, was taken aback when she saw "White Guard" gold shoulder straps on the officers' shoulders.
According to Meltzer, they tried to accuse her of having persuaded her husband to surrender before leaving for the front.
The director of the film "The Fall of Berlin" Mikhail Chiaureli suggested introducing Yakov Dzhugashvili into the script, making him a tragic figure of the war, but Stalin rejected the idea: either he did not want to address the subject of captivity in principle, or it was hard for him to remember this story.

70 years ago, on April 14, 1943, Stalin's eldest son Yakov Dzhugashvili died in a German concentration camp. As you know, shortly before Soviet leader refused to exchange his "blood" for Hitler's Field Marshal Paulus. His legendary phrase: “I don’t change soldiers for marshals!” then spread all over the world, amazing with its political wisdom and human cruelty. However, after the war, the Western press circulated rumors that Stalin nevertheless rescued his son from captivity, exchanging him for several hundred German officers, and sent him to live in America under a false name. Could this be true?

34-year-old Yakov Dzhugashvili was captured at the very beginning of the war, on July 16, 1941, during the retreat Soviet troops near Vitebsk. He was an "unfired" senior lieutenant who had only recently graduated from the artillery academy and received his father's parting words: "Go fight!"

In the 14th howitzer regiment of the 14th Panzer Division, where Dzhugashvili commanded a battery, he was “not counted” after our units were surrounded after a lost battle. Yakov, unlike many fellow soldiers, was unable to return to his own and was considered missing.

And a few days later, German counterintelligence rained down leaflets on Soviet territory, in which Stalin's son was photographed in the company of Nazis.

The leaflet said that Yakov Dzhugashvili "surrendered along with thousands of other commanders and fighters" and therefore "is alive, healthy and feels great." The Germans advised everyone to follow his example: "Why do you go to certain death, when even the son of your supreme boss has already surrendered ..?".

Another legendary phrase of Stalin: “I don’t have such a son!” - was allegedly said by the leader after he saw this leaflet. What did Stalin mean? The fact that the fake leaflet does not depict Yakov? Or that Stalin no longer wants to know his traitor son? Unknown.

To our time, the original protocols of interrogations of Yakov Dzhugashvili in captivity have been preserved. It follows from them that Stalin's son behaved quite worthily there, without giving the Germans any military secrets and not agreeing to cooperate with them.

As the historian Sergei Kudryashov later wrote: “In general, Yakov had nothing to tell the Germans, except for personal experiences ... He was asked about the war, but what could the senior lieutenant tell? He didn't really know anything..."

It is known that for two years Yakov was kept as a VIP prisoner in German concentration camps- first in Hammelburg, then in Lübeck, then in Sachsenhausen. And that he was carefully guarded as a trump card in the political game and a means of special pressure on Stalin.

The Germans tried to play this card in the winter of 1942-43, after the defeat at Stalingrad. It is believed that Hitler, through the chairman of the Swedish Red Cross, Count Bernadotte, turned to Stalin with a proposal to exchange Yakov for the captured Field Marshal Paulus. And got rejected.

Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Allillueva years later wrote in her book “20 ​​Letters to a Friend”: “In the winter of 42-43, my father unexpectedly told me during one of our rare meetings:“ The Germans offered me to exchange Yasha for one of their own. I'll trade with them! In war as in war! A couple of months after this conversation, Jacob died.

There is an opinion that the leader did not want to save his son because he did not have ardent fatherly love for Jacob, considered him a neurasthenic and a failure. But is it?

I must say that Joseph Stalin really did not engage in the upbringing of his eldest son. Yasha was born in 1907 and was left an orphan at the age of 6 months. His mother, Stalin's first wife, Kato Svanidze, died of typhus, and Yasha was taken in by her grandmother.

The boy hardly knew his revolutionary father, who was engaged in underground work, and moved to Moscow only in 1921, when Stalin had already become a big man. At that time, he had a second wife and two children from her - Svetlana and Vasily.

14-year-old Yasha, who grew up in the wilderness, spoke Russian poorly, was not ready for life in Moscow and in his father's new family. Stalin, as they say, was forever dissatisfied with his son's studies - first at school, then at an engineering institute, then at a military academy.

The "father of peoples" did not like the clumsy personal life Jacob. When the guy was 18 years old, his father forbade him to marry a 16-year-old girl: "It's early!". Out of desperation, Yakov tried to shoot himself, but survived, the bullet went right through.

Stalin then called him a "hooligan and blackmailer" and "pushed" him away from himself: "Let him live where he wants and with whom he wants!" The father did not approve of his son’s connection with Olga Golysheva from the city of Uryupinsk: Yakov “made” a child from a nonresident student, but did not marry her.

And in 1936, Stalin's eldest son officially signed with an Odessa dancer Yulia Meltzer, whom he had taken away from her husband, an NKVD officer. After the newlyweds had a daughter, Galya, Stalin relented and gave them a good apartment on Granovsky Street.

When in 1941 it became known about the capture of Yakov, Yulia was arrested, suspecting her of having links with German intelligence.

“His wife, apparently, is a dishonest person,” Stalin told his daughter Svetlana (“20 Letters to a Friend”), “it will be necessary to figure this out ... Let Yasha’s daughter stay with you for the time being ...”. While they were sorting it out, Yulia spent two years under arrest, but she was nevertheless released.

The fact that Stalin really loved his eldest son and was deeply worried about him was told in his memoirs by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, retelling an informal conversation with the commander-in-chief at the beginning of the war:

“Comrade Stalin, I have long wanted to know about your son Yakov. Is there any information about his fate? Zhukov asked.

Stalin replied after long pause in a muffled voice: “Jakov will not get out of captivity. The Nazis will shoot him. According to inquiries, they keep him isolated from other prisoners of war and agitate for treason.” According to Zhukov, "it was felt that he was deeply worried about his son."

There is evidence that, in fact, Stalin repeatedly tried to rescue Yakov from captivity. Subversive groups were sent to the territory of Germany, which were supposed to kidnap the captive Dzhugashvili from the concentration camp.

One such special operation was told in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta by its participant, front-line soldier Ivan Kotenev, who now lives in Anapa. According to him, the group flew to Germany under cover of night:

“We successfully landed in the deep rear of the Nazis, hid the parachutes. They covered all the traces, and already at dawn they established communication with each other ... There were still two dozen kilometers to the concentration camp ... Intense reconnaissance work began ... "

According to Kotenev, it turned out that just the day before Yakov was transferred to another camp. And the group was ordered to return. “The return turned out to be much more difficult,” said the front-line soldier. "Unfortunately, there were no casualties..."

The second operation also ended in failure, which the famous Spanish communist Dolores Ibarruri writes about in her memoirs. According to Ibarruri, one Spaniard took part in it with documents in the name of an officer of the Francoist Blue Division.

This group was abandoned behind the front line in 1942 in order to rescue Yakov from the Sachsenhausen camp. All participants died.

On April 14, 1943, prisoner of war Yakov Dzhugashvili ran out of his barracks, where he was kept along with other VIP prisoners, and with the words: “Shoot me!” rushed to the barbed wire of the camp barrier. The guard shot him in the head...

The circumstances of his death became known only years later, when they managed to get to the necessary German archives. This is probably why immediately after the war there were rumors that Stalin's son had nevertheless escaped ...

Stalin took care of Jacob's wife Yulia and his daughter Galya until the end of his life. According to Galina Dzhugashvili, her grandfather treated her with tenderness and always compared her with her dead father: “It looks like, it looks like ...”

Again, according to the link about myth No. 41 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”, which depicted Y. Dzhugashvili, 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 is 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 1930s, 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 Y. 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 Yu. 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 Kyiv, 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.

To the decisive battles Martirosyan Arsen Benikovich

Myth No. 41. “I don’t change a soldier for a field marshal”

We are talking about the fact 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 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 interrogation protocols of Yakov Dzhugashvili-Stalin in German captivity do not have the signature of the interrogated, which does not fit into the framework German rules 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 drop their weapons, civilian population does not want to host 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 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. Hi 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 subjected to critical analysis in the second volume, “ Great MYSTERY Great Patriotic War, its author A. N. Osokin tried to concoct some evidence from a genuine letter from Yakov Dzhugashvili in favor of his already unprecedentedly groundless version of some kind of “great transport operation” to transfer Soviet troops through Germany closer to the English Channel for subsequent joint with the Wehrmacht attack on England. 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 engineering education and even listed as a corresponding member of the Academy of Electrical Sciences, that is, he is a person who, in principle, should understand well where a straight line is and where a rounded one. 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 one should 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 German intelligence indicate that Y. 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 in 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 servicemen 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 out to the whole world in order to split 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 is 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 Y. 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 Kyiv, 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 passions for Stalin subsided relatively, especially after Khrushchev was expelled from the Kremlin, the legend “I don’t change a soldier for a field marshal” was launched to level the situation and implicitly praise Stalin and restore his authority among the people. 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.

This text is an introductory piece.