Dachau to Dolomites. Tom Wall
suicide in 1932 – and Yakov had a tempestuous relationship with his half-brother, Vasily. More tragedy followed. His maternal aunt and uncle along with his uncle’s wife, all of whom had accompanied him from Georgia, were arrested in 1937 during the ‘Terror’.10
When the Germans invaded on 22 June 1941, Dzhugashvili was ordered to the front in charge of an artillery unit. Before leaving, he telephoned his father who urged him to ‘Go and fight!’11 His unit entered combat on 27 June, but they were soon encircled by the Germans and he was captured when attempting to make his way back to Red Army lines. Although not wounded, he claimed to have been stunned by heavy bombing ‘otherwise I would have shot myself’, he told his German interrogators.12
Although he had fought bravely before being captured, he was suspected by his Soviet commander of willingly surrendering to the Germans.13 Irrespective of the circumstances of his capture, Yakov knew Stalin would have been angered by it and he would have feared for his wife and 3-year-old daughter. Yulia was arrested, although her husband probably didn’t know of this during his captivity. Stalin would have been particularly angered when the Germans used his son’s capture for propaganda purposes. A leaflet containing a photograph of him looking somewhat dazed and dishevelled in the presence of two German officers was dropped over the Russian front. The accompanying text read:
Stalin’s son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, full Lieutenant, battery commander, has surrendered. That such an important Soviet officer has surrendered proves beyond doubt that all resistance to the German army is pointless. So stop fighting and come over to us.14
This was the only propaganda the Germans extracted from him. He steadfastly refused to collaborate with the Nazis who wanted him to make propaganda broadcasts. His treatment in captivity alternated from being cosseted in a fashionable hotel to being ill-treated and half-starved in prison camps. The Nazis continued to pressurise him to work for them. They wanted him to act as nominal head of Vlassov’s renegade Russian army, but he steadfastly refused to be linked to the turncoat general. He even refused to address SS guards by their military title, using only their surname; an unnecessary act of defiance that led to retaliatory punishments.
After Stalingrad, it is believed that Hitler offered to exchange Dzhugashvili for Field Marshal von Paulus. Stalin is said to have responded, ‘I will not exchange a soldier for a marshal’,15 a comparison that owes as little to Communist egalitarianism as it does to notions of parental care. Before being sent to Sachsenhausen, he was interned in a special oflag near the Baltic port of Lϋbeck where he was billeted with Polish officers16 who might have been expected to be hostile to Russians and Communists. However, contrary to expectations, Dzhugashvili became friendly with some of the Polish officers and joined them in a futile attempt to escape.17 Robert Blum, the son of Léon Blum, the French statesman, whom we will encounter later, shared a cell with Dzhugashvili in Lϋbeck.18
Stalin’s son was, potentially at least, the most valuable prisoner held by the Nazis. His friend and cell mate, Vassily Kokorin, was another prize captive, being a nephew of the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov. Molotov was second only to Stalin within the Soviet leadership and would have been assumed to have influence over the Soviet leader. In fact, Molotov, described by Lenin as ‘the best filing clerk in Russia’,19 was, like others in the Kremlin hierarchy, in abject fear of Stalin. Kokorin, Molotov’s sister’s son, was a Soviet Air Force officer who had been wounded before being captured, by which time his feet had been severely frostbitten with the result that most of his toes had to be amputated.20
The Irishmen with whom Dzhugashvili had brawled was none other than the Friesack ‘collaborators’ who had been arrested by the Germans when they realised they were likely to be double-crossed. Thomas Cushing, while charming and entertaining at times, could be short-tempered and quick to use his fists. O’Brien was even more disreputable; as we have learned, he was suspected of child molestation and had himself boasted of picking fights with co-workers on work details, especially foreigners.21 Walsh was the only one others regarded as normal: a fourth Irishman present, Private William Murphy, was mentally unstable.
The four Irishmen and the two Soviet prisoners were billeted in the same hut. This was within a newly built compound, known as Sonderlager ‘A’, located on the north-eastern perimeter of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was built to house special prisoners whom the SS wished to keep segregated from the general camp population. Why the Irish group were housed there is unclear; it may have been because they were still considered to warrant equivalent POW status, but, because they knew so much about secret missions they could not be sent back to normal POW camps. Walsh and Cushing shared accommodation and appear to have overcome their differences arising from their mutual accusations in Berlin, although, perhaps not entirely, for the sound of raised voices was regularly heard from their quarters.
Originally housing political prisoners, Sachsenhausen and its satellite camps contained over 30,000 prisoners by early 1943, including Communist, Social Democrats, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, criminals and ‘anti-socials’. It also housed thousands of Soviet captives along with political and military prisoners from other occupied countries. Although gas chambers had only just been installed, its reputation as a death camp had already been well established. Thousands of prisoners had already been executed. Jewish prisoners had been transported to Auschwitz for extermination in 1942. However, its primary function by 1943 was to supply slave labour to local industries. Thousands worked in factories in nearby Oranienburg where they laboured for up to twelve hours a day, nourished by only small amounts of bread and watery soup.
Cushing and the other Irish inmates did not have to endure these conditions. During daylight hours, they could roam freely within their small compound. The civilian clothes they had been wearing during training were taken from them and they were re-supplied with military attire. They weren’t assigned work and occasional Red Cross parcels provided them with much needed extra food and cigarettes. It had been some months after their arrival in Sachsenhausen when they were joined by Dzhugashvili and Kokorin who shared with them a washroom and toilet. They, as special prisoners, enjoyed better conditions than their Soviet compatriots in the main camp, who were treated appallingly. However, their treatment was harsher than that of the Irish. Despite being officers, the two were required to work and, like all Russian prisoners, they had no access to Red Cross parcels.
At first, relations between the Russians and the Irishmen appear to have been good, but soon the mood changed. Despite his difficulties with his father, Yakov was proud to be Stalin’s son and he remained a committed Communist. This led to arguments with Cushing who was a staunch anti-Communist. In addition, there were rows about food, especially the distribution of the contents of Red Cross parcels. It was usual for POWs to share parcels and Cushing claimed to have shared his with the Russians,22 presumably, though, this generosity ceased when relations soured. Doubtless, language and cultural differences caused misunderstandings: they could only communicate using a German camp patois.
On the fateful day, an argument arose about the state of their shared toilet. Cushing, who had assumed the role of hut superintendent, accused Dzhugashvili of fouling the toilet seat. Murphy, unstable at the best of times, joined in the attack. O’Brien, likewise, needed no urging to get involved. He called Kokorin ‘a Bolshevist shit’. Kokorin replied in kind and blows were exchanged.23 It was hardly an even contest, for it was three, if not four, against two: it’s not clear if Walsh joined the affray, for he subsequently claimed to have liked Dzhugashvili and to have been traumatised about what happened. Moreover, the two Russians were smaller men, weakened by inadequate diet, and Kokorin would have been unsteady on his near toeless feet, while the tall Cushing had been a boxer during his time in the US Army. At some point during the fracas, Cushing is alleged to have produced a knife and chased Dzhugashvili down a corridor. To save himself, the Georgian jumped through an open window, which led to him standing outside after curfew time.24
Cushing afterwards described what happened as he watched from a window of their shared hut. He said that Yakov ‘suddenly rushed outside, sprinted across the compound, scrambled up the wall and attempted to crawl through the perimeter wire’. The Georgian called out to the guard, ‘Don’t be a coward, shoot me!’25 Cushing continued, ‘A shot rang out, followed by a blinding flash, and poor Jakob [sic] hung there, his body horribly burnt and twisted.’26 This account of Yakov’s