Have you ever heard about the tragedy of Yakov Dzhugashvili? I thought not. It’s not a story
the Soviets would have told you during the regime of Joseph Stalin. It’s a Soviet legend nowadays
but during the troubling time of the Second World War, it was a terrible secret. Yakov Dzhugashvili
was the eldest son of losif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. losif was a bank robber who
later changed his name and became the supreme leader of the USSR with the new moniker, Joseph
Stalin. Joseph Stalin was convinced that Hitler would not break his pact and invade Russia despite
Roosevelt and Churchill's warnings to him that he would. There is only one unauthorized picture of
Stalin’s immediate reaction of looking betrayed and defeated to the news about Hitler turning on
his word and invading the USSR. But there is no picture or anecdote about him feeling sorry for
his eldest son when he got captured by Germans at the front lines. Welcome to Nutty History,
and today we will uncover the dark truth about how Joseph Stalin abandoned his son in a Death Camp.
In August 1941, Stalin issued order number 270 stating that any officer or commissar taken
prisoner during the war was a traitor and would have a fatal welcome if they returned to Russia.
Moreover, the relatives of these traitors would also be liable for arrest if they attempted to
provide sanctuary to these escaped prisoners. This caused a stir among the ranks of the Soviet party
for the obvious reason that many young soldiers captured by Germans were related to officers of
the party and the government but more important, fingers were pointing at Stalin himself. It was
rumored in the government alleys of Moscow that Stalin’s eldest son Yakov Dzhugashvili had been
captured by the Nazis in July 1941. But it seems that Stalin was aware of such gossip and this is
particularly why Order Number 270 was issued. Stalin had disavowed his son and arrested his
second wife Yulia Meltzer, which she spent 2 years imprisoned. The reason for such rumors
was the propaganda leaflets distributed by Nazi airplanes over the front lines. Joseph Goebbels
met Yakov in the concentration camp and tried his best to persuade the son of Stalin to aid
German efforts against his own father but Yakov politely refused to aid in any way.
That however didn’t stop Nazi propagandists from using a picture of a smiling Yakov with the Nazi
officers to encourage soldiers of the Red Army to surrender. They also falsified in the leaflet
that Yakov had surrendered willingly when he had tried to resist the arrest at all costs.
Yakov Dzhugashvili was only a reserve fighter in the Red Army, but when the war broke out,
he was asked to join the battle like any other typical commander. Stalin didn’t even bother
to see his son off personally and called him instead on the telephone to shout an order:
“Go and fight!” Yakov was part of the red army fighting at the Battle of Smolensk during the
second phase of Operation Barbarossa. The Ostheer had advanced 500 km into the USSR in the 18 days
after the invasion on June 22, 1941. The Soviet 16th, 19th, and 20th armies were surrounded and
destroyed just to the east of Smolensk. However, many of the men from the 19th and 20th armies
managed to escape the pocket. But not Yakov. He was fully aware that if he retreated, his father
would never let him live down the shame of being a coward. So, he asked his battery to hold their
ground and his unit was captured on July 16th, 1941 among 300,000 other Russian soldiers. At
first, Germans had no idea what a considerable asset they had managed to capture at Smolensk.
But the soldiers of the battery that were under his command weren’t happy about Yakov not allowing
them to retreat when they had the chance. They betrayed his identity to the Nazi army hoping that
he would be punished or pay for his relationship with Stalin with his life. However, the Nazis had
no such intentions. They knew the worth of having Stalin’s eldest son imprisoned and rather treated
him in a civilized fashion. They interrogated him about his personal and political views instead of
trying to coerce valuable military information about the red army or Stalin himself. Their
ultimate plan was to entice Yakov into joining the German ranks and make him the vanguard of Nazi
propaganda to demonstrate how Stalin’s own son betrayed him.But Yakov refused to cooperate with
Nazis despite the preferential treatment. Then they tried to use him as collateral. After facing
disastrous results in the Battle of Stalingrad, the Nazis tried to exchange Yakov for Friedrich
Paulus, the captured commander of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. However, Stalin had no
love for his son and told Germans that he wouldn't trade a field marshal for a lieutenant. Learning
this, Hitler later made a more worthy offer, Yakov Dzhugashvili for Leo Raubal. Raubal was Hitler’s
favorite nephew and he doted on him enough that he particularly enjoyed spending time with
him. Stalin was too stubborn, he was under the impression that his son indeed was a coward who
willingly surrendered to the Germans, as the Nazi propaganda was advertising. When Stalin was made
aware that the rumors of his son’s capture during the Battle of Smolensk were true, Stalin shook his
head, expressing his disappointment that Yakov was a failure and couldn’t even take his own life in
time. But later as information began to trickle through the propaganda, Stalin learned that his
son had indeed been taken against his will and had not betrayed his country. It is believed that in
1942, Stalin tried multiple discreet attempts to rescue Yakov from the German Concentration Camps
but every single attempt was unsuccessful. When Yakov was born in 1907 his father wasn’t known as
the leader of the Soviet Union. Joseph was fated to become a priest. However, he rebelled and
renounced Christianity to become an atheist. He was also a bank robber who robbed a bank in Tiflis
the same year to steal about $3.4 million USD for the Bolshevik cause. His daring stunt secured
his place among Vladimir Lenin’s most coveted followers. Yakov’s mother Yekaterina didn’t live
long enough to see her husband succeed through the ranks of the Soviet party in the following years.
Tsarist police were hunting Joseph for the robbery so the family had to flee. At the age of 22,
Yekaterina died of typhus, seven or nine months after birthing Yakov while hiding in Baku,
Azerbaijan. The grief of losing his wife drove Joseph away from his family and he plunged himself
into revolutionary duties. Unlike his ruthless father, who renamed himself Stalin or the ‘Man
of Steel,’ Yakov was a sensitive and withdrawn young man. Stalin saw that as a weakness and
forbade Yakov from following in his footsteps. He physically and emotionally hurt Yakov and some
historians believe that as the son bore too much resemblance to his mother, Joseph Stalin disdained
him for reminding him of a heartbreaking past.When Yakov moved in with his father he
quickly left and began living with a woman named Zoya Gunina, the daughter of an Orthodox priest.
Yakov was in love and wanted to marry Zoya, so he asked for Stalin’s permission. Stalin was
furious and his anger was so intense that it caused Zoya to flee the home in terror. Yakov
spent two years in German camps. At first in Hammelburg in Franconia, then near Lübeck,
and finally in Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. One of his fellow prisoners reported
that when Yakov heard German propaganda broadcast on the radio he was completely distraught. Stalin
was quoted allegedly in the propaganda denying Yakov was his son. By this time, the Nazis
were getting frustrated by Yakov’s defiance to cooperate. On April 14, 1943, Yakov was found
deceased under controversial circumstances. It is believed that on the fateful day, Yakov attempted
to escape the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen. He had carefully navigated a maze of trip wires
and reached the fence at the edge of the camp where it is possible that he was discovered.
Instead of surrendering, Yakov defiantly shouted at a nearby S.S. guard, “Don’t be a coward! Fire,
Fire!” And then he grabbed the fence, with the guard firing a
single bullet. Later, Nazis released pictures of Yakov being hole-riddled claiming that he
was taken down during an escape attempt. But investigations done in 2000 under the
leadership of Professor Erickson have revealed that Yakov deliberately put himself in mortal
danger to get it over with. The catalyst behind Yakov’s attempt to cut things short might have
been the combination of Stalin’s responsibility for the Katyn Forest atrocity, Yakov’s feeling
of abandonment because of Order Number 270, and an argument with fellow British officer prisoners who
were bullying him. Stalin didn’t learn about his son’s demise for months after the war and offered
a $250,000 reward in East Germany to anyone who could provide details of his death. In her book
‘Twenty Letters to a Friend’, Svetlana wrote, Stalin only knew that Yakov had been fired at,
but not where or why. British and US intelligence was aware of Yakov’s fate due to discovering the
photographs of Yakov’s body and a letter from Nazi Commander Heinrich Himmler confirming his
demise. However, Churchill and Roosevelt kept this information from Stalin for a long time to
save him from suffering. Only after hearing the news that Yakov had died in German captivity,
Stalin changed his opinion about his son, saying he was “a real man.” We hope you enjoyed the
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