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In the summer of 1943, the Germans captured dozens
of Soviet prisoners of war during the Battle of Smolensk.
However, one of them stood out. It was Yakov Dzhugashvili, the eldest son of Joseph Stalin.
Stalin’s first son was born to the dictator’s first wife and only love, Kato Svanidze. When
she passed, her husband was devastated and abandoned their son with his wife’s relatives.
He would be hard on the boy from then on, even refusing to give him the name Stalin.
When World War 2 broke out, Yakov had become a man and served his country as an artillery officer.
But in an unfortunate turn of events, he was seized by the enemy
and turned in by his own people. The Nazis would exploit his image in propaganda
strategies and even tried to swap him for a German prisoner in the custody of the Soviets.
However, they did not realize one key detail: Joseph Stalin was no family man…
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Young Love Ekaterina “Kato” Svanidze was born in 1885 in
the small Georgian village of Racha, then part of the Kutaisi Governorate within the Russian Empire.
Kato had two elder sisters, Sashiko and Mariko, and a younger brother, Alyosha.
The four siblings moved and lived together in Tiflis,
where they got a house behind the South Caucasus military district headquarters.
Kato’s brother was a member of the Bolsheviks, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in Georgia,
and was also a confidant of Ioseb Dzhugashvili, a young and astute man
who would go on to become Joseph Stalin. Meanwhile, the Svanidze sisters took up a job
at an atelier, working for a French seamstress, Madame Hervieu. Their lives would become entangled
with politics, for they fashioned uniforms and dresses for military officers and their wives.
But Kato’s life changed when her brother invited Dzhugashvili to live with them in 1905,
as the atelier would be a perfect hideout for their secretive activities.
Frequented by the sister’s distinguished clientele and at a central location,
the place provided an ideal facade. Thus, while the ladies fitted the generals’ wives
in exquisite gowns in one room, the gentlemen carried out their illegal labors in the other.
The young Dzhugashvili soon fell for Kato’s charms.
In his own words, she was: (QUOTE) “Very sweet and beautiful: she melted my heart." Meanwhile,
Kato was fascinated by his intelligence and even worshiped him like a demigod.
In the summer of 1906, the couple decided to marry. She was newly pregnant,
but it is not clear whether they knew of this by then. Still, devout as she was, Kato insisted on
a religious wedding, to which Dzhugashvili, a rigid atheist, surprisingly accepted.
The couple finally wedded in a secret ceremony on July 16, 1906, at 2am. Finding a priest had been
a problematic endeavor, as the groom was using false documents and identities at the time.
From then on, Kato protected her husband’s identity with her life. She also helped the
Bolsheviks, even going to prison for six weeks for hosting a contact from Moscow
who turned out to be a double agent. However, she was soon released due to her advanced pregnancy.
In March of 1907, Kato gave birth to a son whom they named Yakov. Despite the demands of his job,
Dzhugashvili would usually play with his child and call him Patsan, or Laddie.
However, a few months later he got involved in a high-profile bank robbery,
and the family had to flee. They moved to Baku to avoid arrest, and Kato was often alone at home.
Her husband was frequently away, which kept her under constant stress.
Plus, the harsh weather conditions took a toll on her health. She eventually fell ill and was
forced to move back with her family, contracting typhus on the journey.
Kato died three weeks after arriving with her relatives. It is said that her husband was
devastated and that his guns were taken away from him. During the burial, he threw himself into her
grave and was dragged out, eventually running away when he learned Okhrana agents had trailed him.
Dzhugashvili abandoned his 8-month-old son to Kato’s family, and his wife’s passing ultimately
proved a turning point in his life. He would later say: (QUOTE) “This creature softened
my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.”
Father and Son
Yakov spent the first 14 years of his life with his mother’s family.
Then, in 1921, he was brought to Moscow to live with his father.
The change proved a rough time for the teenager, as his native tongue was Georgian, not Russian.
In addition, it is believed that Yakov reminded Stalin of his beloved late wife and happier times,
so he was hostile to him and even forbade him to adopt the name Stalin. The young Yakov was
also forced to sleep in the dining room at the Amusement Palace in the Kremlin.
Shortly after his arrival, Yakov’s two half-siblings were born.
He was close to both Vasily and Svetlana, as well as to his step-mother,
Nadezhda Alliluyeva, barely 6 years older than him.
By 1928, Yakov intended to marry the daughter of an Orthodox priest, Zoya Gunina. Stalin was
enraged and opposed the idea. The deeply hurt young man attempted to take his own
life by shooting himself in the chest, but he survived as the bullet narrowly missed his heart.
After recovering, the couple married and had a daughter in 1929, but the infant died shortly
after. The marriage then crumbled, and they separated. Then, roughly a decade later, he would
remarry to Yulia Meltzer, a famous Jewish dancer. Initially, Stalin would not allow his eldest son
to study at a university. But at the age of 23, he was finally admitted and became an engineer.
He then worked as a chimney-sweep engineer at an electric plant for a couple years
and then entered the Artillery Academy, from which he graduated just in time to join the war.
In the Hands of the Enemy After the Nazis launched Operation Barbarossa,
the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin ensured that Yakov and his adopted son,
Artyom Sergeyev, went to the front lines. Yakov would serve as a Lieutenant in the
14th Howitzer Regiment of the 14th Tank Division. On July 16, near Vitebsk, Belarus,
Yakov was either captured or surrendered to the Germans during the Battle of Smolensk.
Sergeyev recalled: (QUOTE) "The Germans surrounded Yakov’s battery.
The order was given to retreat. But Yakov did not obey the order. I tried to persuade him...
but Yakov answered: 'I am the son of Stalin and I do not permit the battery to retreat."
The Lieutenant then dumped his insignia and sought to blend in with the masses of captives.
Unfortunately, he was recognized by one of his former comrades,
who didn’t hesitate to turn him in to the Germans.
Some Soviet prisoners, Russian muzhiks, confirmed that they readily turned in Stalin’s son to the
Germans, as they hated the Soviet system. But other sources such as Russian archives
suggest that he might have surrendered willingly. The Abwehr's most trained Russian experts then
interrogated the invaluable prisoner, and all his words were carefully recorded. However,
only a part of those documents is available to the public.
What is certain is that the artillery officer would not belittle himself in
front of his captors. But cornered as he was, he yielded after a while.
When he was questioned about his family, it became apparent how loose his bond was with his father.
His opinion of his own division was low, and even more so of the Red Army, which he deemed
unprepared for the war. Yakov disclosed to the Germans that commanders often misbehaved
during peacetime and even during combat. Furthermore, Yakov explained how the kulaks,
rich peasants who had protected tsarism and the bourgeois class, controlled the Soviet system.
Nazi Propaganda profited greatly from the capture, and they showered Soviet trenches with leaflets,
promising good treatment for those who surrendered except commissars and Jews.
The pamphlets featured a photograph of Yakov Dzhugashvili,
smiling and surrounded by Wehrmacht officers.
No Deal A letter was eventually
sent to the Soviet Primer through diplomatic channels. It read: (QUOTE) “Dear Father! I have
been taken prisoner. I am in good health. I will soon be sent to a camp for officers in Germany.
I am being treated well. I wish you good health. Greetings to everyone. Yasha.''
After receiving news from the Germans about his son’s capture,
Stalin complained: (QUOTE) “The fool – he couldn’t even shoot himself!”
It was rumored that Stalin blamed his son for surrendering, but despite their personal
relationship, Yakov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for his actions at Smolensk.
The Germans would later attempt to trade him for a German officer held by the Soviets,
Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus, who had recently surrendered at Stalingrad. It is
said that Stalin adamantly refused the proposal, arguing that it was a ludicrous idea to trade a
Field Marshal for an ordinary soldier. Meanwhile, very little information was
obtained from the prisoner, who was held in a villa in Berlin.
Joseph Goebbels tried to use him in radio propaganda broadcasts, but the plan failed,
as Yakov’s nerves had deteriorated. He was constantly harassed by visitors
who wanted to meet and photograph him, and Yakov would usually quarrel with British prisoners.
After being held in different officers’ camps, he was eventually transferred to the Sachsenhausen
concentration camp, which he would never leave. Yakov passed away on the evening of April 14,
1943. When the war ended, British officers found German archives indicating the 36-year-old
attempted to flee and ran into an electric fence after arguing with the British prisoners.
He was then shot, but an autopsy showed he died from electrocution.
Still, this information was not shared with the Soviets because neither the British nor
the Americans had informed their former allies of the capture of such documents.
Decades later, Yakov was bestowed with the Order of the Patriotic War, first class,
but it was done in secret, and his family could not collect the medal.
According to several sources, upon hearing of Yakov’s death,
Stalin stared at his photograph, then softened his stance towards his son
and admitted that he was: (QUOTE) “A real man [whom] fate [had] treated unjustly.”
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