No matter how bitter it is to admit, there were collaborators among the Heroes of the Soviet Union. Even the “Panfilov hero” turned out to be an accomplice of the enemy. It is known that the soldiers of the 316th Rifle Division (later the 8th Guards) under the command of Major General Ivan Vasilyevich Panfilov, who participated in 1941, were called Panfilovites.
In the defense of Moscow. Among the soldiers of the division, the most famous were 28 people (“Panfilov heroes” or “28 Panfilov heroes”) from the personnel of the 4th company of the 2nd battalion of the 1075th rifle regiment. According to a widely spread version of events, on November 16, when a new enemy offensive against Moscow began, soldiers of the 4th company, led by political instructor V.G. Klochkov, in the area of the Dubosekovo junction, 7 kilometers southeast of Volokolamsk, accomplished a feat, destroying 18 enemy tanks during a 4-hour battle. All 28 heroes died (later they began to write “almost all”). The official version of the feat was studied by the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of the USSR and recognized as literary fiction. According to the director of the State Archives of Russia, Professor Sergei Mironenko, “there were no 28 Panfilov heroes - this is one of the myths propagated by the state.” At the same time, the very fact of heavy defensive battles of the 316th Infantry Division against the 2nd and 11th German tank divisions in the Volokolamsk direction on November 16, 1941 is beyond doubt. Conclusion of the investigation of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office: “Thus, the investigation materials have established that the feat of 28 Panfilov guardsmen, covered in the press, is an invention of the correspondent Koroteev, the editor of “Red Star” Ortenberg, and especially the literary secretary of the newspaper Krivitsky” (47).
The fate of the “Panfilov hero” Dobrobabin (Dobrobaba) Ivan Evstafievich turned out to be unusual. On November 16, 1941, Dobrobabin, being part of a combat guard at the Dubosekovo junction, was covered with earth in a trench during the battle and was considered dead. Finding himself behind enemy lines, he was captured by the Germans and placed in the Mozhaisk prisoner of war camp, from which he escaped or was released as a Ukrainian. At the beginning of March 1942, he arrived home in the village of Perekop, Valkovsky district, Kharkov region, which by that time was occupied by the Germans.
In June, Dobrobabin voluntarily joined the police and until November of the same year served as a policeman at the Kovyagi station, where he guarded the railway line, ensuring the movement of fascist trains. Then he was transferred to the police of the village of Perekop, where until March 1943 he served as a policeman and chief of the guard shift. In early March, during the liberation of the village by Soviet troops, Dobrobabin and other police officers were arrested by a special department, but due to the retreat of our army, he was freed. After the village was reoccupied by the Nazis, he continued to serve in the police, was appointed deputy chief, and in June 1943 - chief of the rural police. He was armed with a carbine and a revolver.
While serving in the police, Dobrobabin participated in sending Soviet citizens to forced labor in Germany, carried out searches, seized livestock from peasants, detained persons who violated the occupation regime, and participated in interrogations of detainees, demanding the extradition of communists and Komsomol members of the village. In July 1943, the police officers subordinate to him detained and sent to a concentration camp the former Soviet soldier Semenov. During the retreat of the Nazis in August 1943, Dobrobabin fled to the Odessa region and, during the liberation of the occupied territory by Soviet troops, hiding his police service, he was drafted into the army. In 1948, he was sentenced to 15 years for collaboration with the Nazi occupiers and the decree on awarding him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was canceled. In 1955, the prison term was reduced to 7 years, and Dobrobabin was released. He sought rehabilitation, but was denied rehabilitation. Rehabilitated by a decision of the Supreme Court of Ukraine dated March 26, 1993. Died in 1996 in the city of Tsimlyansk.
How difficult the fate of the “fascist collaborators” were during the war can be seen in the example of Pyotr Konstantinovich Mesnyankin (1919-1993), a lieutenant in the Soviet Army, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union (1943), deprived of his rank and awards due to condemnation. Mesnyankin was born in the village of Komyakino (now the territory of the Ivaninsky district of the Kursk region) in the family of a wealthy peasant. In the 1930s Mesnyankin's family was subjected to dispossession and deportation to the Arkhangelsk region. A few years after the deportation, she managed to move to Kharkov, where Mesnyankin graduated from high school in 1939 and entered a technical school. In the fall of 1939, he was drafted into the army and served in the 275th Artillery Regiment. From June 1941 - at the front, took part in the Battle of Smolensk and the Elninsk operation. In November 1941, Mesnyankin’s unit was surrounded and he was captured. He was kept in the Oryol prison, from where he escaped at the beginning of 1942 and returned to his native village. In February 1942, having no means of subsistence, he joined the police. He held the positions of assistant chief of police, investigator of the magistrate's court at the district government, and from December 1942 - chief of police. During his service in the police, he gained the respect of the local population for the fact that “he did not commit atrocities, but, on the contrary, arrested only policemen and elders who committed outrages against residents.” After the liberation of the area by units of the Red Army, he did not flee from the village; he was arrested and interrogated in a special department of one of the formations. At the request of local residents, he escaped the death penalty, and by order of the Military Council of the 60th Army, he was sent to a penal company for a period of three months. He served his sentence in the 9th separate army penal company. During his stay in the penal company, he was wounded three times and was early released from punishment. Upon returning to the unit, at the request of SMERSH employees, he was re-sent to a penal unit - the 263rd separate army penal company. After his release from the penal company, Mesnyankin fought in the 1285th Infantry Regiment of the 60th Infantry Division of the 65th Army, and was the commander of a 45-mm gun crew. He distinguished himself during the Battle of the Dnieper. On October 17, 1943, in the area of the village of Radul, Repkinsky district, Chernigov region, Mesnyankin, using improvised means, together with his gun crew, crossed the Dnieper and, gaining a foothold on the right bank, destroyed several enemy firing points with artillery fire, “which facilitated the crossing of other units to the bridgehead” ( 48).
On October 30, 1943, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, for “the exemplary execution of combat missions of the command on the front of the fight against the Nazi invaders and the courage and heroism displayed,” Red Army soldier Pyotr Mesnyankin was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and medal “ Gold Star" number 1541, becoming the first hero in the regiment. After the end of the war, he remained to serve in the Soviet Army. He graduated from artillery school, received the rank of lieutenant, and commanded a training platoon of the 690th artillery regiment of the 29th separate guards Latvian rifle brigade. April 5, 1948 Hero of the Soviet Union Lieutenant
Mesnyankin was arrested and urgently transferred to Moscow. In the Main Counterintelligence Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security, he was charged with treason, expressed in the fact that he “... as coming from a kulak family, surrendered to the Germans and collaborated with them in the territory of the temporarily occupied Kursk region... Living in the village of Komyakino Ivaninsky district Mesnyankin began restoring his former kulak household, moved into a house that had previously been confiscated from them, called relatives to his place, and in February 1942 he voluntarily enlisted in the German punitive authorities... carried out searches, took away food and belongings from local residents , arrested Soviet citizens, interrogated them and carried out pro-fascist agitation; the property taken from the collective farmers was transferred through the “magistrate’s” court to the kulaks who returned to the region; handed over 10 communists and Komsomol members to the German punitive authorities, against whom he was investigating; took part in the execution of the former chairman of the collective farm, communist Rassolov...”
By a resolution of the Special Meeting of the USSR Ministry of State Security dated August 21, 1948, Mesnyankin was sentenced to 10 years in forced labor camps. He served his sentence in the Vorkuta camps and worked in the medical unit. In 1954 he was released early from the camp. By a resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated July 7, 1955, the criminal record was expunged. He lived in Kharkov, worked on a state farm as a foreman of a vegetable growing team. He repeatedly sent petitions for reinstatement of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but they were all rejected. Pyotr Mesnyankin died on July 14, 1993. He was buried in the 3rd city cemetery of Kharkov (49).
The fate of Stalin and Vlasov’s “falcon” Semyon Trofimovich Bychkov (1918-1946) - a Soviet military pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union (1943), deprived of titles and awards in 1947 for participation in the “Vdasov” movement during the Great Patriotic War, was also striking. Patriotic War. He was born on May 15, 1918 in the village of Petrovka, Nizhnedevitsky district, Voronezh region. Graduated from the flying club (1938), Borisoglebsk Aviation School named after V.P. Chkalova (1939). Since 1939 he served in the 12th reserve aviation regiment. From January 30, 1940 - junior lieutenant, from March 25, 1942 - lieutenant, then senior lieutenant, from July 20, 1942 - deputy squadron commander. In 1942, for committing the accident, he was sentenced by a military tribunal to 5 years of forced labor camps, to be served after the war. That same year, the conviction was overturned. From May 28, 1943 - captain. In 1943 - navigator of the 937th Fighter Aviation Regiment, deputy commander of the 482nd Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 322nd Fighter Division. For distinction in battles he was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner. On September 2, 1943, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal for personally shooting down 15 enemy aircraft (in addition, he shot down one aircraft in a group).
The presentation for the award noted that Bychkov “proved himself to be an excellent fighter pilot, who combines courage with great skill. He enters the battle boldly and decisively, carries it out at a fast pace, imposes his will on the enemy, using his weaknesses. He proved himself to be an excellent commander and organizer of group air battles.” On December 10, 1943, Bychkov was shot down by enemy anti-aircraft artillery fire and taken prisoner wounded. He was held in prison camps. At the beginning of 1944, Colonel Viktor Maltsev, who had been collaborating with the German authorities since 1941, convinced him to join the Ostland aviation group.
During the investigation in 1946, Bychkov claimed that he took this step under extreme pressure, since another Hero of the Soviet Union, Bronislav Antilevsky, who by that time was already collaborating with the Germans, allegedly beat him. According to other sources, Bychkov decided to go over to the enemy’s side voluntarily, and they were friends with Antilevsky. He took part in ferrying aircraft from aircraft factories to field airfields on the Eastern Front, as well as in anti-partisan combat operations in the Dvinsk region. Together with Antilevsky, he addressed the captured pilots in writing and orally with calls to cooperate with the Germans. After the disbandment of the Ostland group in September 1944, Bychkov, under the leadership of Maltsev, took an active part in the formation of the 1st aviation regiment of the ROA Air Force, and became the commander of the 5th fighter squadron, which was armed with 16 aircraft. On February 5, 1945 he was promoted to major. At the end of April 1945 he surrendered to American troops, along with other “Vlasov” pilots he was interned in the French city of Cherbourg and in September 1945 he was handed over to the Soviet authorities. On August 24, 1946, he was sentenced to death by the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District. The sentence was carried out in Moscow on November 4 of the same year (50: 22-30).
Bronislav Romanovich Antilevsky (1916-1946) was a Stalin and Vlasov “falcon” - a Soviet military pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union (1940), deprived of titles and awards in 1950. Born in 1916 in the village of Markovtsy, Uzdensky district of Minsk region in a peasant family. Pole. Graduated from technical school (1937), special purpose aviation school in Monino (1938), Kachinsky Red Banner Military Aviation School (1942). From October 1937 he served in the Red Army. During the Soviet-Finnish War, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. Since April 1942 - junior lieutenant, participated in the Great Patriotic War as part of the 20th Fighter Regiment of the 303rd Fighter Division of the 1st Air Army.
On August 28, 1943, the deputy squadron commander, Senior Lieutenant Antilevsky, was shot down in an air battle and captured. He was held in prisoner camps. At the end of 1943 he joined the Ostland aviation group. Like Semyon Bychkov, he participated in aircraft ferrying and in anti-partisan combat operations, and urged captured pilots to cooperate with the Germans. After the disbandment of the Ostland group, he took an active part in the formation of the 1st Aviation Regiment of the ROA Air Force. From December 19, 1944, he was commander of the 2nd attack squadron of night attack aircraft. On February 5, 1945, he was promoted to captain. He was awarded two German medals and a personalized watch. In April 1945, Antilevsky's squadron took part in the fighting on the Oder against the Red Army.
There is information that at the end of April 1945 Antilevsky was supposed to pilot the plane on which General Andrei Vlasov was supposed to fly to Spain, but Vlasov refused to flee.
He was interned from the American sector of Germany in September 1945. On July 25, 1946, he was sentenced to death by the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District under Article 58-1 “b” of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. The sentence was carried out on the same day (51: 17-22).
It is believed that the third Hero of the Soviet Union in the ROA may have been Ivan Ivanovich Tennikov, a career pilot, Tatar by nationality. Carrying out a combat mission to cover Stalingrad on September 15, 1942 over Zaikovsky Island, he fought with enemy fighters, rammed a German Messerschmitt-110, shot it down and survived. There is a version that for this feat he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but his name is not on the list of people who were deprived of this title. Tennikov served in Soviet aviation until the fall of 1943, when he was shot down and considered missing.
While in a prisoner of war camp, he entered the service of German intelligence and was then transferred to the Vlasov army. Due to health reasons, he was unable to fly and served as a propaganda officer. Nothing is known about the further fate of this man after April 1945. According to documents of the Main Personnel Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, he is still listed as missing (104).
The fate of the Heroes of the Soviet Union father and son Sokolov also turned out to be difficult. Emelyan Lukich Sokol was born in 1904 in the village of Pomerki, Lebedinsky district, Sumy region of Ukraine. Graduated from six classes. In 1941-1943 Sokol lived with his family in territory temporarily occupied by German troops. After his release, he was drafted into the army and became a machine gunner in the 1144th Infantry Regiment of the 340th Infantry Division of the 38th Army of the Voronezh Front. His son Grigory, born in 1924, served with him in the same machine-gun crew. Both were awarded medals "For Courage". Father and son distinguished themselves during the Battle of the Dnieper, October 3, 1943, when repelling an attack by enemy units, they cut off infantry from tanks with machine-gun fire, and then destroyed a tank and an armored personnel carrier. After that, Grigory Sokol used a grenade to destroy the track of the second German tank.
After the end of the battle, it was reported to the headquarters that Emelyan and Grigory Sokoly had died, and on January 10, 1944, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, “for the courage and heroism shown in the fight against the Nazi invaders,” they were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously. After the war, it turned out that father and son Sokoly remained alive; it turned out that they had replaced the “death medallions” of the killed soldiers and surrendered. According to some reports, Emelyan Sokol, while in captivity, held the position of head of the prisoner of war barracks, and then joined the police and became the head of the department. On May 5, 1945, he was released from captivity by Czechoslovak partisans. After passing the test, he was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. In 1945, Emelyan Sokol was transferred to the reserve, returned to his native village, and worked on a collective farm (52).
According to some reports, while in captivity, Sokol Jr. served as the head of the investigation department of the police. On May 5, 1945, he, like his father, was released from captivity by Czechoslovak partisans. After passing the test, he was also awarded the Gold Star medal and the Order of Lenin. He continued his military service as a sergeant major in a military bakery. In April 1947, Grigory Sokol was transferred to the reserve, returned to his native village and also began working on a collective farm (53). In 1947, father and son Sokoly were arrested by officers of the USSR Ministry of State Security on charges of voluntary surrender. The court sentenced the father to 10 years and the son to 8 years in forced labor camps. November 14, 1947. The Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of January 10, 1944 on awarding them the titles of Heroes of the Soviet Union was canceled. After serving their sentences, they both returned to their native village. The father died in 1985, and the son in 1999.
Heroes of the Soviet Union Ivan Kilyushek, Pyotr Kutsy, Nikolai Litvinenko and Georgy Vershinin also turned out to be accomplices of the enemy. Kilyushek Ivan Sergeevich was born on December 19, 1923 in the village of Ostrov, Rivne region of Ukraine. At the beginning of the war he found himself in occupied territory. After liberation in March 1944, Kilyushek was drafted into the army and within three months distinguished himself during the crossing of the Western Dvina River. On July 22, 1944, Kilyushek was awarded the title of Hero, the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal for “the courage and bravery shown during the capture and retention of the bridgehead on the banks of the Western Dvina River.” On July 23, 1944, Kilyushek received a month's leave to his homeland, and on August 10, militants of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army broke into his house and kidnapped him. It is not known for certain whether Kilyushek gave voluntary consent to the armed struggle against the “Muscovites”, or was forcibly held by the militants, but on March 14, 1945, he was arrested in the attic of his house with a machine gun in his hands. He was accused of counter-revolutionary activities, participation in the execution of a partisan family of five people, including two children, and the recruitment of youth into the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
During the investigation, Kilyushek admitted guilt, but justified himself by saying that he was forced into the formation of the UPA and remained there only under the threat of reprisals against his family. On September 29, 1945, the military tribunal of the 13th Army sentenced Kilyushek to 10 years in prison with disqualification for 5 years and confiscation of property. In 1958 he was released and lived in the Irkutsk region. In 2009, during the opening of a bunker in the Volyn region, in which the UPA formation was based during the war, Kilyushek’s “Gold Star” medal was discovered (54).
Kutsy Petr Antonovich also found himself in occupied territory at the beginning of the war. In the spring of 1942, Kutsy joined the police commandant's office of the neighboring village of Velykiy Krupol, Zgurovsky district, Kyiv region, which was headed by his father, and his uncle was the secretary. He took part in the abduction of Soviet citizens to Germany and raids on partisans, during which he was wounded twice. After the liberation of the area, he was called up to serve in the Red Army, where he served as commander of a section of the 1318th Infantry Regiment. On the night of October 1–2, 1943, Kutsyi and his squad crossed to Zhukovka Island on the southern outskirts of Kyiv, recaptured it from German units, thereby ensuring the crossing of other units of his regiment. October 29, 1943 By Decree
From the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, for “the exemplary execution of combat missions of the command on the front of the fight against the Nazi invaders and the courage and heroism displayed,” Red Army soldier Pyotr Kutsy was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.
At the beginning of 1953, together with two comrades, Kutsy came to his native village and started a fight in a club there, during which he beat the chairman of the village council. In February 1953 he was arrested. The Berezansky District Court of the Kyiv Region sentenced Pyotr Kutsy to 5 years in prison. A few days later he was released under the “Beria amnesty”, but during the investigation, testimony against him was given by fellow villagers who fought in partisan detachments during the war. On their basis, a petition was written, and by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of January 30, 1954, for “misdemeanors discrediting the title of order bearer,” Pyotr Kutsy was deprived of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (55).
Nikolai Vladimirovich Litvinenko also found himself in German-occupied territory at the beginning of the war. In December 1941, he began to cooperate with the occupation authorities. At first he worked as a statistician in an agricultural community in his native village, then as a secretary of the village government. Since March 1942, Litvinenko has served in the German police. As a police officer, he took part in punitive operations against partisans in the Sumy, Chernigov and Poltava regions, and also protected populated areas from partisans. In August 1943, during the advance of the Red Army, he was evacuated to the Vinnitsa region, to the rear of the German troops, where he remained until the arrival of Soviet troops, and in January 1944 he was mobilized into the active army. On September 23, 1944, for “exemplary fulfillment of command assignments and demonstrated courage and heroism in battles with the Nazi invaders,” junior sergeant Nikolai Litvinenko was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In January 1945, Sergeant Major Litvinenko was sent to study at the infantry school in Riga, and in June 1946 the facts of his betrayal were revealed. In August 1946, Litvinenko was arrested, and on October 11 of the same year, the military tribunal of the South Ural Military District was sentenced to 10 years in prison with disqualification for 3 years. On October 14, 1947, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Litvinenko was stripped of all titles and awards. Nothing is known about his further fate (56).
Vershinin Georgy Pavlovich served as a squad commander in the sapper and demolition company of the 23rd Airborne Brigade of the 10th Airborne Corps. He distinguished himself during operations in the German rear, when on May 29 - June 3, 1942, the 23rd Airborne Brigade of 4,000 people was landed on the territory of the Dorogobuzhsky district of the Smolensk region. The brigade was tasked with ensuring a way out of the encirclement of the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps of Major General Belov and the 4th Airborne Corps of Major General Kazankin.
On the night of June 3, 1942, the battalion of the airborne brigade in which Vershinin served secretly approached the village of Volochek, destroyed German patrols, broke into the village, destroyed more than 50 German soldiers and officers and captured 2 armored personnel carriers and 4 mortars. A German tank column passed near the village, whose tankers made a halt next to the paratroopers’ ambush. The tankers who got out of their vehicles were destroyed and 22 tanks were captured. Repelling the attack, Vershinin's squad destroyed the bridge across the river along with the three German tanks on it. Holding back the enemy until nightfall, the paratroopers retreated, having completed their main task - to pull back part of the enemy forces to allow the encircled corps to break out of the encirclement. Junior Sergeant Vershinin was considered killed in the explosion of the bridge, and on March 31, 1943, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for “courage and heroism shown in the fight against the Nazi invaders.” In fact, Vershinin remained alive and was captured by the Germans. Under interrogation, he revealed all the information he knew about the landing, expressed a desire to serve in the German armed forces, and already in June 1942 he was enlisted in the auxiliary security battalion. He served as a guard on a railway bridge behind German lines. For sleeping while on duty, he was arrested and sent to a prisoner of war camp, where he fell ill with typhus. After recovery in May 1943, he again entered service with the Germans in a working sapper battalion. He collaborated with the Germans until June 1944 and, during the defeat of German troops in Belarus, went over to the partisans. When the partisans joined forces with the Red Army, he was transferred to SMERSH and was tested in a filtration camp in the Murmansk region, where he worked as a driller at the Severonickel plant. On February 28, 1945, Vershinin was arrested. On July 6, 1945, the military tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Murmansk region sentenced him to 10 years in forced labor camps with loss of rights for 5 years, confiscation of property and deprivation of awards. Died January 1, 1966 (57).
The Star of the Hero of the USSR is a special symbol of distinction, which was awarded for collective or personal services to the Fatherland, as well as for performing a feat. In total, 12,776 people were awarded the title of Golden Star, including those who had two, three and even four sets of awards. But there were also those who, for various reasons, could not preserve the honor and dignity of the hero - the star was taken away from 72 people. Another 61 cavaliers were stripped of their rank, but were later reinstated.
For betrayal
Having shown courage in battle, some heroes could not bear the hardships of captivity and entered into collaboration with the Germans. Soviet pilots Bronislav Antilevsky and Semyon Bychkov are masters of their craft who showed extraordinary courage and fortitude during the Great Patriotic War. One is a radio operator gunner who had 56 successful missions, the other is the owner of two Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Courage, the Order of Lenin and the Golden Star for 15 shot down enemy aircraft.
In 1943, while carrying out a mission, both pilots were shot down in battle and captured. It is still not known for certain whether their transition to the Germans was forced or voluntary. At the trial, Bychkov explained that the commander of the ROA aviation, Viktor Maltsev, was recruiting Soviet pilots who were in the Moritzfeld camp. For refusing to join the ranks of the Vlasovites, Semyon was beaten half to death, after which he spent two weeks in the hospital. But even there psychological pressure was exerted on Bychkov. Maltsev assured that upon returning to the USSR he would be shot as a traitor, and threatened him with an even worse life in concentration camps. In the end, the pilot lost his nerve and agreed to join the ROA.
Bychkov’s words were not believed at the trial. He, like Antilevsky, enjoyed great confidence among the Germans. Recordings of their calls to go over to the enemy’s side were broadcast on the Eastern Front. The pilots received German ranks, good positions, they were trusted with combat vehicles and personnel.
If for some defendants the presence of medals “For Courage” and the title of Hero of the USSR were a mitigating circumstance, in the case of defectors and traitors this factor played a fatal role. Both “Vlasov falcons” were stripped of all ranks and sentenced to death.
“There were only 28 of them, and Moscow was behind us”
Everyone who is interested in the history of the Second World War knows about the feat of the Panfilov soldiers who stopped the fascists on the outskirts of Moscow. The biography of one of them - Ivan Dobrobabin (Dobrobaby according to the metric) - could become the basis for an action-packed film. In November 1941, Ivan, at the head of the legendary 4th company of the 2nd battalion of the 1075th rifle regiment of the 8th division, took on an unequal battle with the enemy. For his feat before the Fatherland in July 1942 he was awarded posthumously.
Meanwhile, Dobrobabin remained alive. Severely shell-shocked, he was captured, where he began to collaborate with the Germans, joining the police. In 1943, he crossed the front line and fled to Odessa. He was again enlisted in the ranks of Soviet soldiers. It was only in 1947 that someone recognized his face as a former Nazi policeman.
In court it turned out that Ivan Dobrobabin was one of Panfilov’s men, a Hero of the Soviet Union. He was stripped of all titles and awards and found guilty of collaborating with the occupiers, giving him 15 years in prison.
The story could have ended there if new circumstances had not been discovered in 1955, confirming the fact that the Red Army soldier joined the police force on the orders of the commander of the partisan detachment. That same year, Dobrobabin was amnestied, and only in 1993, by decision of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, was he completely cleared of all charges.
The title of Hero of the USSR was never returned to him. Dobrobabin died three years later, completely rehabilitated in the eyes of society, but never having managed to restore historical justice.
Payment for love
The life of Georgy Antonov is a story of great success and rapid decline. The officer met the beginning of the Great Patriotic War as part of the 660th artillery regiment of the 220th rifle division. By that time, the experienced commander had already proven himself in the liberation battles in Western Ukraine and the Karelian Isthmus.
During the clash near Orsha, Antonov replaced the killed artillery chief, taking command of the regiment upon himself, and ensured the completion of the assigned combat missions, for which he was awarded the highest award for the rank of captain - the Order of the Red Banner.
Then there were battles on the banks of the Berezina River, where, under the command of Antonov, the artillery of a rifle regiment covered the advancing infantry. For heroism and courage shown in battles, the commander was nominated for a Gold Star.
By the end of the war, Hero of the Soviet Union Georgy Antonov had already served as commander of an artillery division at the Allensteig training ground in Austria. After the surrender of Germany, this large facility came under the control of the Soviet occupation forces.
The military command did its best to prevent military personnel from contacting the local population, especially women. Violation of the order threatened with immediate deportation to the USSR under escort. At home, regardless of rank and position, the officer was expelled from the party and dismissed from the army.
Georgy Antonov, despite his military bearing, turned out to be a very down-to-earth person. Outside of duty, he could “take it to his chest,” relax and go in search of adventure, for which he was repeatedly subjected to disciplinary sanctions. However, the title of Hero of the USSR kept the authorities from taking serious measures.
The last straw was the intimate relationship of the major, whose wife was waiting in Moscow, with the Austrian Franziska Nesterval. Due to the “moral decomposition of the individual,” it was decided to send Antonov to the Transcaucasian Military District. “Attached” to the case was the fact of friendship with the former regiment doctor Lazarev, who was convicted of treason in 1947, the major’s public praise of American military equipment and his addiction to alcohol.
Having learned about the impending departure, the serviceman began planning his escape. As follows from the materials of the criminal case, “On May 26, 1949, Antonov, having packed his personal belongings into three suitcases, took them in a truck to the city of Allensteig and put them in a storage room, sold his personal car for 5,000 shillings to a taxi driver, an Austrian citizen, and I agreed with him that he would take him to Vienna for 450 shillings along with his partner.”
The lovers even managed to move to that part of Vienna that was under American control. Antonov, by order of the chief of artillery of the Soviet army, was recognized as a “traitor to the Motherland and a deserter” and expelled from the Armed Forces. Due to the inaccessibility of the accused, he was sentenced in absentia to 25 years in forced labor camps with complete confiscation of personal property. The titles and numerous medals that he deservedly received for his heroism during the Great Patriotic War were taken away from him. Antonov was also stripped of all military regalia.
False Hero
On May 22, 1940, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper published an essay about the “exploits” of Hero of the Soviet Union Valentin Purgin. The list of them is so large that it would be enough for several lives. This includes carrying out a special mission in the Far East in 1939, and being wounded in battles with Japanese militarists, and heroic battles with the White Finns in 1940. As a result of the war with Finland, Valentin Purgin, holder of the Order of the Red Banner and two Orders of Lenin, received the title of Hero of the USSR.
However, from a photograph published in the newspaper, employees of the competent authorities recognized Valentin Golubenko as a criminal who was wanted after escaping from prison. During the investigation, it turned out that the swindler, who already had several prison terms behind him, with the help of his mother, who worked as a cleaner in the building of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, stole orders and award books, and put stamps on personally written letters of recommendation and orders.
Golubenko-Purgin, who skillfully gained the trust of people and used personal connections, traveled all over the country using forged documents as a journalist for Pravda and Komsomolskaya Pravda. And during the Finnish campaign, he stayed with a friend in Moscow, spending travel allowances for his own pleasure. And even his presence in the Irkutsk hospital with a serious wound was skillfully fabricated.
The innate charm and fame of the “living Ostap Bender” did not help the criminal. In August 1940, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR stripped him of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and all awards he had illegally received. In November 1940, by decision of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, at the age of 26, Valentin Purgin was shot.
FLYING WEREWELS
(defector pilots in the Great Patriotic War)
This topic remained taboo for many years. After all, we were talking about Soviet pilots who flew to the enemy or were captured, including several Heroes of the Soviet Union, who then fought shoulder to shoulder with the Luftwaffe aces against their former brothers-in-arms.
ESCAPE
Unfortunately, as it turned out, the Germans never experienced any difficulties in forming Russian aviation units and testing the latest types of Soviet aircraft, which came to them unharmed. The flow of defector pilots who flew to the enemy’s side in their own aircraft did not dry out throughout the war, and was especially large in the first years of the war.
Already on June 22, 1941, during the bombing of Koenigsberg, the navigator of the SB high-speed bomber abandoned his serviceable vehicle and parachuted over the territory of East Prussia, leaving his crew without navigational support. In the summer of 1941, the crew of a Su-2 bomber from the 735th Air Regiment defected to the enemy during a combat mission and voluntarily landed at a German airfield. As a result of the proceedings, the regiment did not receive the rank of guards, although it had already been nominated for it.
It must be recognized that these were far from isolated cases of desertion. A clear confirmation of this can be at least the Order of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 229, issued on August 19, 1941, “On measures to combat hidden desertion among individual pilots.”
But neither cash bonuses for combat missions and downed enemy aircraft (then, after the war, this money would be taken away from front-line soldiers by the predatory monetary reform of 1948, exchanging savings one in ten), nor high government awards could “dry up” the flow of defector pilots.
In 1943 alone, 66 aircraft voluntarily flew to the Germans (and not only fighters, so one can only guess about the number of military personnel who were part of the crews). And in three months of 1944, a seemingly victorious offensive year, another 23 Soviet crews decided to surrender to the mercy of the German troops suffering defeat after defeat.
It is hardly possible to check these figures using materials from domestic archives and give them an adequate assessment: there are no such admissions in them, because for a unit commander, agreeing with the fact of his pilot’s desertion would mean being accused of complicity, or at least connivance, and the end of his entire career. In addition, the one who decided to fly hardly outwardly betrayed his intentions; he simply got lost in the sky, falling behind the group and going west unnoticed, then being listed in reports as “missing in action” or “not returning from battle.”
Another indirect evidence of many cases of treason by flight personnel is a significant number of Soviet aircraft that fell into enemy hands practically undamaged. The largest number, naturally, were captured at airfields in 1941. However, later, throughout the war and even with the retreat of the Germans the number of captured vehicles, including the most modern ones, remained noticeable and allowed the Luftwaffe not only to conduct comparative tests of Soviet equipment, getting acquainted with its combat qualities, but also to use dozens of fully functional “captured” vehicles in its ranks.
The last episodes of flights were observed just a few days before the end of the war. Although it is doubtful that the pilots then chose German airfields. Most likely, their target was neutral states or allied air bases. Thus, the last case of desertion by a Soviet crew was recorded in April 1945! The Pe-2 bomber from the 161st Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment left the combat formation in the air and, not responding to the shouts of the group commander, disappeared into the clouds. The pilot Senior Lieutenant Batsunov and navigator Kod (the gunner-radio operator is not named) who flew away on it had previously aroused suspicion (they said that ordinary people in Europe live better than in the USSR, at flight gatherings they did not raise toasts in honor of Comrade Stalin, etc. ), and after a collision the day before in flight with another plane, they were completely accused of sabotage and even cowardice; A Smershevits officer often visited their “pawn” in the parking lot. So the question of their fate was most likely resolved. But the crew, apparently, managed to draw conclusions earlier... No one heard anything more about the fate of this crew.
Similar cases of flights took place in other countries, whose pilots resolved conflicts with their command or the social system in such an unconventional way.
The downed pilot who was captured was faced with the same shock as other military personnel from the fact that he had already been sentenced in absentia at home: “having a personal weapon in his hands, he surrendered and thereby betrayed his Motherland,” for which Article 58-1 provided for the inevitable 25 years of imprisonment followed by deportation to remote places, and in aggravating circumstances, execution. (What was considered aggravating circumstances was decided during the war by SMERSH and then by the MGB.) This was not an invention of Vlasov’s emissaries: Mikhail Devyatayev’s famous escape from captivity on a captured He111H-22 ended in “atonement” for the pilot and the 11 comrades he saved in the camp, now already native, Soviet. However, then the pilot was credited with a German secret vehicle, a carrier of Fi103 cruise missiles, delivered to his friends, and was released ahead of schedule, in which one of the founders of the Soviet missile program and the Chief Designer of OKB-1, S.P. Korolev, took a significant part. (The remaining 7 people, who escaped with M. Devyatayev from German captivity and helped him in this, served time from bell to bell, and four died of hunger and disease in places of detention.)
Perhaps that is why in August 1942, in the Osinovka camp near Orsha, a group of captured Soviet pilots suggested that the Germans form a separate Slavic air unit within the Luftwaffe. The initiators of the creation of the aviation unit were Major Filatov, Captain Ripushinsky and Lieutenant Plyushchev.
An air group was created, but the Nazis were in no hurry to provide it with aircraft. The fact is that yesterday's Stalinist aces had only a few dozen hours of flight time. Therefore, the Germans organized a kind of educational program for Soviet pilots who wanted to fight shoulder to shoulder.
Initially, the theory of flight, navigation and equipment in the group was studied by 22 people, including nine pilots, three navigators and four radio operator gunners. At the same time, groups of technical personnel were formed from among captured volunteers servicing the aircraft.
But even the Luftwaffe generals were in no hurry to involve even properly trained Soviet pilots in combat missions. What was needed was an enthusiast who would believe in the effectiveness of participation in military operations by yesterday's enemies. And he was found...
HALTERS' "CHICKS". CLOSED BIOGRAPHIES
It is believed that the first person to draw attention to the anti-Soviet captured pilots was Oberst-Lieutenant (Lieutenant Colonel) Holters, an officer at the headquarters of the Luftwaffe Vostok Command. It was he who came up with the idea of creating a combat flight unit from Russian volunteers. To implement this project, Holters brought in Colonel Viktor Maltsev.
Maltsev Viktor Ivanovich
born into a peasant family on April 25, 1895 in the town of Gus-Khrustalny, Vladimir province. Colonel of the Red Army (1936). Member of the “Vlasov” movement. Major General and Commander of the Air Force of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR, 1945).
In 1918, he voluntarily joined the Red Army, graduated from the Yegoryevsk School of Military Pilots (1919), and fought in the Civil War. In 1918-1921, 1925-1938 and 1940-1941. - Member of the Communist Party. In 1921, he was expelled on suspicion of being related to the major businessman Maltsev, then reinstated, and expelled again in 1938 due to his arrest.
He was an instructor at the Yegoryevsk School of Military Pilots. According to some sources, he was one of V.P.’s instructors. Chkalov and even released him on his first independent flight. It is no coincidence that all works on the biography of the outstanding pilot avoid the issue of Valery Pavlovich’s flight teachers. In 1925-1927 - Head of the Central Airfield near Moscow, in 1927-1931. - assistant chief, since 1931 - head of the Air Force Directorate of the Siberian Military District, then was in reserve. Since 1936 - colonel. Since 1937, he was the head of the Turkmen Civil Air Fleet Department and was nominated for the Order of Lenin for high performance.
However, instead of a reward, on March 11, 1938, he was arrested by the NKVD on charges of participation in an “anti-Soviet military conspiracy.” He was held in the Ashgabat department of the NKVD, where he was tortured, but did not plead guilty. On September 5, 1939 he was released, rehabilitated and reinstated in the party. However, months in the dungeons of the NKVD, interrogations and torture left an indelible mark: Maltsev became an irreconcilable opponent of the Stalinist regime. He was not returned to significant leadership work, and in December 1939 he was appointed head of the Aeroflot sanatorium in Yalta.
In November 1941, after the occupation of Yalta by German troops, in the uniform of a Red Army Air Force colonel, he appeared at the German commandant's office and declared his desire to fight the Bolsheviks. He spent some time in a prisoner of war camp (as a senior reserve officer); after his release, he refused to begin identifying Soviet and party workers who remained in the city. Then the German authorities instructed him to check the work of the Yalta city government. During the inspection, I discovered serious shortcomings in her work. After this, in March 1942, he agreed to become the burgomaster of Yalta, but already in May he was removed from this position as having previously been a member of the Communist Party. From September 1942 he was a magistrate in Yalta. Since December of the same year, he was involved in the formation of anti-Soviet military formations. The book he wrote, “The GPU Conveyor,” was published in a large circulation (50 thousand copies), dedicated to his arrest and imprisonment and actively used in German propaganda work.
Soon, Colonel Maltsev was introduced to Lieutenant General Andrei Vlasov, who was captured, processed by the Germans and was already toying with the idea of organizing the ROA.
In 1943, he began to form the Russian Eastern Aviation Group. In particular, he visited prisoner of war camps, encouraging pilots to join this military unit. In 1944 he made anti-Stalin speeches on the radio and in prisoner of war camps. In the same year, he led the formation of several aviation groups from among captured Soviet pilots to ferry aircraft from German factories to active units of the German army.
In the fall of 1943, Lieutenant Colonel Holters proposed to his superiors to form a flying combat unit from captured Soviet pilots. No sooner said than done. Already in October, Soviet pilots began to be taken to a special camp located near the town of Suwalki to undergo a medical examination and test for professional suitability. By the end of November, in Moritzfeld near Inserburg, the Holters Air Group was fully staffed with former camp prisoners and ready to carry out combat missions.
“Holters Chicks” were trained under the Luftwaffe pilot training program, which was radically different from similar training in the Air Force of the Workers' and Peasants' Army. Judge for yourself, a graduate of a Soviet aviation school had only 15-20 hours of flight time before being sent to the front, and besides this, he often had no aerial shooting practice. German instructors believed that their graduates should have 450 hours of flight time and be able to shoot well!
Many Soviet pilots, once captured, were interested in the ideas of the Liberation Movement from the very beginning. A number of officers - from lieutenants to colonels - declared their readiness to cooperate with the “Holters-Maltsev Air Group,” as it came to be called. Among them were such commanders as the Chief of Staff of the Air Force of the Oryol Military District, Colonel A.F. Vanyushin, who distinguished himself as commander of the aviation of the 20th Army in battles against the Germans near Lepel and Smolensk in the summer of 1941; commander of the bomber regiment, Colonel P.; Major P. Sukhanov; captain S. Artemyev; Hero of the Soviet Union Captain S.T. Bychkov; Captain A. Mettl, who served in the Black Sea Fleet aviation; captain I. Pobedonostsev; Hero of the Soviet Union, Senior Lieutenant B.R. Antilevsky and others. Major Serafima Zakharovna Sitnik, chief of intelligence of the 205th Fighter Division, found her way to her compatriots. Her plane was shot down and she was wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans. Mother and child Sitnik lived in occupied territory, and the pilot had no doubt that the Germans had killed them. Imagine her joy when the plane of the Vostok intelligence processing point delivered her loved ones to Moritzfeld!
The key to the favorable atmosphere established in the air group was the absence of disagreements between Holters and Maltsev. Both were staunch supporters of German-Russian cooperation. When Lieutenant General Vlasov first visited Moritzfelde in early March 1944, Holters explained to him that he was “very, very happy that fate brought him together with Russian pilots, and would do everything to completely transfer the air group led by Colonel Maltsev to an independent Liberation Army."
Holters ensured that Russian volunteers were completely equal in rights and support to German pilots, and Captain Strik-Strikfeldt, Vlasov’s German assistant, noted that the Reich Marshal himself, if he had been in Moritzfeld, would not have been able to distinguish Russian pilots from German ones.
Yesterday's inhabitants of the camps were housed four people per room. Each has a separate bed with snow-white bed linen. Two sets of uniforms. Ration according to Luftwaffe standards. The allowance is 16 marks per month.
At the end of 1943, the Auxiliary Night Assault Group Ostland was formed from Russians as part of the 1st Air Fleet. The squadron was armed with captured U-2, I-15, and I-153.
Unfortunately, little is known about the effectiveness of Ostland, but its combat work was rated quite highly. The chests of many pilots of the Holters-Maltsev Air Group were decorated with Iron Crosses of the 1st and 2nd degree. In addition, reports from both Russian and German leadership emphasized the high combat readiness of Russian pilots. During the fighting, the air group lost only three aircraft in battle. Nine pilots were killed (landing seriously wounded at their airfields), and a dozen pilots were wounded.
The audacity and courage of the “Eastern pilots” is also evidenced by the fact that two of them flew to the Soviet rear and, having taken their relatives, returned safely to the German base. But not one of the “Holters chicks” flew on a plane to the east! No one!
True, three pilots in Belarus went into the forests to join the partisans... Why didn’t they fly over? We believe that their train of thought was as follows: well, we’ll fly over to our own people, what’s next? They immediately soldered in 25 years of camps according to the well-known Stalinist order for those who surrendered. And so, let's go to the partisans, there are simple men there, they will understand everything! We came ourselves! And then we will show that they fought the Germans conscientiously, the commander of the partisan detachment and the commissar will write a good description, the native Soviet authorities will appreciate and forgive... But nothing has been known about these pilots who went to join the partisans. Most likely, having honestly told who they were, where and by whom they served with the Germans, they were immediately shot... Someone else's life, someone else's fate - why stand on ceremony with them? What if they were sent? There’s no time to figure it out, then we’ll find out... War... In war everything is permitted, everything is possible! You can even decide from the position of God who lives and who immediately dies. And to see these eyes of people pleading for life, for whom, perhaps, elderly parents, wives, and children are waiting somewhere. And your word here decides everything!.. Before the war, he was an accountant on a collective farm, or sold seeds at the collective farm market, or sold suspenders in a city haberdashery, and here - God and king over people! Here she is, she’s in power!.. And no one will ask! And if they ask, I’ll say: I killed the traitors on the orders of Comrade Stalin!.. That’s what I told the pioneers later: they fought the traitors!..
Since the autumn of 1944, in Cheb (Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, i.e. the current Czech Republic), V. Maltsev formed an aviation unit, which in February 1945 formed the basis of the Air Force of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR).
On December 19, 1944, the chief of aviation of the Third Reich, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, gave the go-ahead for the formation of aviation for the Russian Liberation Army (ROA). According to Maltsev’s plans, ROA aviation was supposed to consist of 4,500 people. Therefore, he submitted a petition to G. Goering to call up all those interested from among the Russians who had already served in German units. The Reichsmarshal authorized the conscription. Soon, Maltsev, on the recommendation of General A. Vlasov, was appointed commander of the aviation of the Army of the Peoples of Russia, and was also promoted to the rank of major general.
On February 2, 1945, G. Goering received Vlasov and Maltsev at his residence. The result of this meeting was an order from the Chief of the Air Force Main Staff, Lieutenant General Karl Kohler, which legally confirmed the independence of the ROA Air Force from the Luftwaffe.
By the spring of 1945, the KONR Air Force included up to 5 thousand people, including an aviation regiment equipped with flight personnel and equipment (40-45 aircraft), an anti-aircraft artillery regiment, a parachute battalion, and a separate communications company. Command posts in the aviation regiment were occupied by both emigrant pilots and two Heroes of the Soviet Union who were captured by the Germans. The headquarters of the KONR Air Force was located in Marianske Lazne.
The fighter squadron was headed by Hero of the Soviet Union, Major Semyon Bychkov, and Hero of the Soviet Union, Captain Bronislav Antilevsky, led the high-speed bomber squadron. Both Stalin's falcons were shot down in September 1943 and captured. It is interesting that just three months before his capture, Semyon Bychkov received the Order of Lenin in the Kremlin from the hands of Stalin himself. The pilot had 15 downed enemy aircraft; Bronislav Antilevsky received his title of Hero during the Finnish campaign.
Bychkov Semyon Trofimovich
born on May 15, 1918 in the village of Petrovka, Khokholsky district, Voronezh province. In 1936 he graduated from the 7th grade of high school and the Voronezh flying club, after which he remained there as an instructor. In September 1938 he graduated from the Tambov Civil Air Fleet School and began working as a pilot at Voronezh Airport. From January 16, 1939 - in the ranks of the Red Army. He studied to fly at the Borisoglebsk Military Aviation School named after V.P. Chkalova. On November 5, 1939, he was released as an I-16 fighter pilot and sent to the 12th reserve aviation regiment (Order of the USSR NKO No. 04601). On January 30, 1940, he was awarded the military rank of "junior lieutenant", from December 16 - junior pilot of the 42nd Fighter Aviation Regiment, from December 1941 to September 1942 - pilot of the 287th Fighter Aviation Regiment.
In June 1941 he graduated from fighter pilot courses at the Konotop Military School. On March 25, 1942, he was awarded the military rank of lieutenant, and from July 20 of the same year - deputy squadron commander.
There is a mention of it in the famous book “The Country's Air Defense Forces in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945”, where the following message is placed on page 93:
“March 7, 1942. During the day, units of the 6th IAK Air Defense carried out tasks to cover the troops of the Western and Northwestern fronts, railway transportation and rear facilities. 184 sorties were carried out, 5 air battles were carried out. 3 enemy aircraft shot down: junior lieutenant S.T. Bychkov (287th IAP) shot down a Xe-113 in the Yukhnov area, and six fighters of the same regiment (leading - captain N.I. Khromov) also destroyed 2 Me-109s in the Yukhnov area.”
It should only be noted that in those days, “He-113” meant the new German fighter Me-109F.
The newspaper “Red Star” No. 66 dated March 20, 1942 published a photo of the pilots of the 287th IAP, senior lieutenant P.R. Grobovoy and junior lieutenant S.T. Bychkov, who shot down 3 German planes the day before (that is, March 19): Grobovoy - 2 Yu-88 (according to M.Yu. Bykov, these were Yu-87) and Bychkov - 1 Me-109.
In 1942, S.T. Bychkov was found guilty by a military tribunal of causing the plane crash and sentenced to 5 years in forced labor camps, using Note 2 to Article 28 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. By decision of the Military Council No. 037/44 of October 1, 1942, the criminal record was cleared.
From July to November 1943, he fought in the 937th Aviation Regiment, and then in the 482nd Aviation Regiment (322nd Fighter Aviation Division).
On May 28, 1943, he was awarded the military rank of captain. Soon he was appointed deputy commander of the 482nd Fighter Aviation Regiment. Awarded two Orders of the Red Banner.
For the exemplary performance of combat missions of the command, courage, bravery and heroism shown in the fight against the Nazi invaders, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated September 2, 1943, Captain Bychkov Semyon Trofimovich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold medal Star" (No. 1117).
In total he made 230 combat missions. Having carried out 60 air battles, he shot down 15 enemy aircraft personally and 1 in a group. (M.Yu. Bykov in his research points to 9 personal and 5 group victories.) Photo by S.T. Bychkova (in a group photo of famous Soviet aces, dated August 1943) was even included in the famous book “Stalin’s Aces. 1918-1953." (authors Thomas Polak and Christopher Shores), although not a word is said about the pilot himself in this publication... Perhaps this is one of the last photographs of Koltsov and Bychkov. The fate of both pilots would be tragic: soon one of them would die in battle, and the other would be captured and shot after the war.
On December 10, 1943, Captain S.T. Bychkov was shot down by enemy anti-aircraft artillery fire in the Orsha area and captured wounded. On March 7, 1944, by order of the State Administration of the NKO of the USSR No. 0739, he was excluded from the lists of the Red Army.
S. Bychkov was kept in a camp for prisoner of war pilots in Suwalki, which was guarded by Luftwaffe soldiers, not SS men. In 1944, in the Moriifeld camp, he agreed to join the Russian aviation group of G. Holters - V. Maltsev. He took part in ferrying German aircraft from factories to field airfields on the Eastern Front, as well as in combat operations of the Russian squadron against partisans in the Dvinsk region in March - June 1944.
After the disbandment of the group in September 1944, he arrived in Eger (Czech Republic), where he took an active part in the creation of the 1st aviation regiment of the Committee for the Liberation Movement of the Peoples of Russia. Together with Hero of the Soviet Union, Senior Lieutenant B.R. Antilevsky and Colonel V.I. Maltsev repeatedly spoke in prisoner-of-war and eastern workers' camps with propaganda anti-Soviet speeches.
In December 1944, Captain S.T. Bychkov led the formation of the 5th Fighter Squadron named after Colonel A.A. Kazakov of the 1st aviation regiment, which became the 1st flight squadron of the KONR Air Force.
On February 4, 1945, Lieutenant General A.A. Vlasov was awarded a military order. On February 5, he was promoted to the rank of major in the KONR Air Force.
Antilevsky Bronislav Romanovich
born in July 1917 (according to other sources in 1916) in a peasant family. Pole. In 1937 he graduated from the technical school of national economic accounting.
From October 1937 he served in the Red Army. In 1938 he graduated from the Special Purpose Aviation School in Monino. Since July 1938 - gunner-radio operator of the 21st Long-Range Bomber Regiment. Participated in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. For the exemplary performance of combat missions of the command on the front of the fight against the Finnish White Guard, he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (No. 304).
In 1942 he graduated from the Kachin Red Banner Military Aviation School named after. A. Myasnikova. Since April 1942 - junior lieutenant, participated in the Great Patriotic War as part of the 20th Fighter Regiment of the 303rd Fighter Division of the 1st Air Army. Lieutenant (1942).
From December 15, 1942 - flight commander of the 203rd IAP. From April 15, 1943 - deputy squadron commander. Senior Lieutenant (1943). Awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Battle (08/03/1943).
On August 28, 1943, a Yak-9 was shot down in an air battle and was soon captured. During interrogations, he told the Germans about the location of the airfields of the division in which he served and the types of aircraft in service with his regiment. He was kept in a camp in the Suwalki area, then in Moritzfeld.
At the end of 1943, Colonel V. Maltsev convinced B. Antilevsky to join the Ostland aviation group. And he took part in ferrying aircraft from aircraft factories to field airfields on the Eastern Front, as well as in anti-partisan combat operations in the Dvinsk region.
Of course, having gained such venerable pilots into their networks, the Germans decided to make full use of them, primarily for propaganda purposes. Together with another Hero of the Soviet Union, Semyon Bychkov, Bronislav Antilevsky addressed the captured pilots in writing and orally with calls to cooperate with the Germans. On March 29, 1944, the newspaper of the Vlasov army “Volunteer” published an appeal to Soviet captured pilots, signed by both Heroes of the Soviet Union Bychkov and Antilevsky:
“Knocked down in a fair fight, we were captured by the Germans. Not only did no one torment us or subject us to torture, on the contrary, we met from the German officers and soldiers the warmest and comradely attitude and respect for our shoulder straps, orders and military merits.”
And Captain Artemyev expressed his feelings in the poem “To German pilots, comrades in arms”:
"You greeted us like brothers,
You managed to warm our hearts,
And today, as a united army
We are flying towards the dawn.Let our homeland be under oppression,
But the clouds can't hide the sun
We fly airplanes together
To defeat death and terror."
It is also curious that, according to the foreign press, S. Bykov and B. Antilevsky, according to a special decision of the Luftwaffe command, had every right to wear their Gold Stars of Heroes while serving in the German armed forces. After all, according to the Germans, any award received in the army of another country confirmed only the valor and courage of its owner.
In September 1944, after the disbandment of the Ostland group, Antilevsky arrived in Cheb, where, under the leadership of V. Maltsev, he took an active part in the formation of the 1st aviation regiment of the Vlasov Air Force of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia.
From December 19, 1944, he was the commander of the 2nd attack squadron (it was armed with 16 aircraft), which was later renamed the 2nd night attack squadron. On February 5, 1945 he was promoted to captain. He was awarded two medals (including a German insignia) and a personalized watch.
In April 1945, the squadrons of S. Bychkov and B. Antilevsky took part in the fighting on the Oder against the Soviet army. And a few weeks before the end of the war, there were fierce air battles over Germany and Czechoslovakia. The air heard the crackle of cannon and machine gun bursts, abrupt commands, curses of the pilots and groans of the wounded that accompanied the fights in the air. And, sometimes, Russian speech was heard on both sides - in the skies over the center of Europe, Russian military pilots met in fierce air battles for life and death...
CORKSCREW
The rapid offensive of the Red Army “grounded” the fighting of Vlasov’s aces. Maltsev and his comrades understood perfectly well that if they were captured, reprisals would be inevitable, so they tried in every possible way to go west to meet the Americans. But negotiations with the leadership of the 12th Corps of the 3rd US Army, at which Maltsev asked to grant them the status of political refugees, ended to no avail. All that remained was to rely only on the mercy of Providence.
The surrender of weapons on April 27 in Langdorf, between Zwiesel and Regen, took place in an orderly manner. The Americans immediately separated officers from privates and divided prisoners of war into three categories (so that military organizational forms immediately disintegrated).
The first group included officers of the air regiment and some officers of the parachute and anti-aircraft regiments. This group, consisting of 200 people, after temporary internment in the French city of Cherbourg, was handed over to the Soviet authorities in September 1945. Among them were the commander of the fighter squadron, Major Bychkov, and the head of the training staff of the flight school, the commander of the transport squadron, Major Tarnovsky (the latter, being an old emigrant, was not subject to extradition, but he insisted on sharing the fate of his comrades and was extradited to the USSR).
The second group - about 1,600 people - spent some time in a prisoner of war camp near Regensburg. The third group - 3,000 people - was transferred from the prison camp at Kama to Nierstein, south of Mainz, before the end of the war. This was apparently prompted by Brigadier General Kenin's desire to save the Russians from forced repatriation. Indeed, both of these groups for the most part avoided extradition, so the fate of the KONR air force units was not as tragic as the fate of the 1st and 2nd ROA divisions.
Viktor Maltsev also fell into the hands of the NKVD officers. The “Commander-in-Chief of the ROA Air Force” twice tried to commit suicide. During a brief stay in a Soviet hospital in Paris, he cut the veins in his arms. In order to protect Maltsev from trying to escape the trial, he was taken on the Douglas to Moscow. From 1945 he was kept in Butyrka prison (initially in the prison hospital). During the investigation he pleaded guilty. The unpredictability of Maltsev’s behavior, like that of some other Vlasovites, led to the fact that the trial against them was declared closed. (There were fears that the defendants might begin to express their views, which objectively coincided with the sentiments of a certain part of the population dissatisfied with the Soviet regime.) At the trial he also pleaded guilty. The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death. On August 1, 1946, he was hanged in the courtyard of Butyrskaya prison along with generals Vlasov, Shkuro, Zhilenkov and other high-ranking leaders of the ROA in the presence of the Minister of State Security, Colonel General V. Abakumov. (Before hanging, General Shkuro shouted to the then all-powerful Minister of State Security: “You don’t have long to walk on earth! You’ll be killed by your own people! See you in hell!” As you know, Viktor Abakumov was arrested under Stalin, tortured, but did not admit guilt. However, after the death of the “father of nations”, he was shot by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR...)
By the way, before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Hero of the Soviet Union Semyon Bychkov appeared as a witness for the prosecution, who told how exactly at the end of January 1945, in the Moritzfelde camp, Maltsev recruited captured Soviet pilots. According to Bychkov, this was the case.
When he, Bychkov, refused Maltsev’s offer to serve in the “ROA aviation” in January 1945, he was so beaten that he was sent to the infirmary, where he lay for two weeks. Maltsev did not leave him alone there either. He was intimidated by the fact that in the USSR he “would still be shot as a traitor,” and if he still refused to serve in the ROA, then he, Maltsev, would make sure that Bychkov was sent to a concentration camp, where he would undoubtedly die.
However, the Lubyanka directors of this performance made several mistakes. Firstly, there was no prisoner of war camp in Moritzfeld: there was a camp there for former Red Army pilots who had long ago declared their voluntary consent to join the ROA, and, therefore, there was no need to force anyone to take this step. Secondly, in January 1945, Moritzfelde, located near St. Petersburg, had long been in the hands of the Soviet army. And thirdly, Major Bychkov, Hero of the Soviet Union, awarded the Order of Lenin and the Red Banner of Battle, commander of the ROA Air Force fighter squadron named after Colonel Kazakov, already at the beginning of 1944, together with V. Maltsev, a former colonel at that time, and Hero of the Soviet Union Senior Lieutenant B. Antilevsky spoke in prisoner-of-war and eastern workers’ camps, openly calling for the fight against the Stalinist regime, and then, as part of the Aviation Group, he personally took part in combat missions against the troops of the Red Army.
Now the priest Plyushchev-Vlasenko, who was once Maltsev’s adjutant during the war, having learned about such testimony from Bychkov, rightly called the Soviet judicial performance “an obvious fake.” But here it is not clear: either the Lubyanka investigators demanded such testimony, regardless of reality, or, having agreed to act as a witness against V. Maltsev, S. Bychkov himself said a lot of absurdities so that historians could understand that he was lying, however the very fact of using such testimony to prove the forced nature of the creation of the ROA Air Force and presenting them in an unfavorable light testifies to the high moral and political spirit that reigned in the ranks of the ROA Air Force, which had to be belittled at any cost, even in closed trials of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR! Bychkov S., by the way, was promised the preservation of his life for giving the necessary testimony. But on August 24 of the same year, the military tribunal of the Moscow District sentenced Bychkov himself to death. It is noteworthy that the verdict did not contain a single line about depriving this defendant of titles and awards! The sentence was carried out on November 4, 1946.
By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated March 21, 1947, Semyon Bychkov, who betrayed the Motherland and fought on the side of the enemy, was deprived of all awards, officer rank and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Therefore, he was shot while still remaining a Hero of the country he betrayed.
The fate of Bronislaw Antilevsky is somewhat confused. There is a version that at the end of April 1945 he was supposed to pilot the plane on which General A. Vlasov was supposed to fly to Spain, but Vlasov allegedly refused to flee and decided not to abandon his army. It is possible that this version became the basis for the legend that Antilevsky finally made it to Spain, where he lived for many years. The version may also be based on the fact that in the criminal case of treason, in which Antilevsky was sentenced to death by a Soviet court, there is no document on the execution of the sentence. On this basis, those who believe in this legend believe that Antilevsky was convicted in absentia, because he was inaccessible to Soviet justice in Franco’s Spain.
According to another version, after the surrender of Germany, B. Antilevsky was detained while trying to get into the territory of the USSR. He went to the Soviet Union with documents addressed to a member of Berezovsky’s anti-fascist partisan detachment in Czechoslovakia. But during an inspection by the NKVD, a Gold Star medal issued by B.R. was found in the heel of his boot. Antilevsky, by which he was identified.
But in fact, on April 30, 1945, Bronislav Antilevsky, together with other ROA pilots and technicians, surrendered to the soldiers of the 12th Corps of the 3rd American Army. In September 1945, he was handed over to representatives of the Soviet repatriation commission.
In Moscow, Bronislav Antilevsky was repeatedly interrogated and was completely convicted of treason. Antilevsky's criminal activities in captivity were also proven by witness testimony. On July 25, 1946, the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District sentenced him to death under Article 58-1 “b” of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. And on the same day he was executed.
On July 12, 1950, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Antilevsky Bronislav Romanovich, as a traitor to the Motherland, was deprived of all titles and awards. As we see, this pilot also died as a Hero of the Soviet Union and an officer...
In 2001, after a re-examination of the Antilevsky case, the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office issued a verdict: Antilevsky B.R. was convicted legally and is not subject to rehabilitation.
Chief Major V.D. Tukholnikov.
Human Resources Department.
Chief Captain Naumenko.
Propaganda Department.
1. Chief: Major A.P. Albov;
2. editor of the newspaper “Our Wings” Ar. Usov;
3. War correspondent Second Lieutenant Junot.
Legal department.
Chief Captain Kryzhanovsky
Intendant service.
Chief Second Lieutenant of the Quartermaster Service G.M. Goleevsky.
Sanitary service.
Chiefs Lieutenant Colonel Dr. V.A. Levitsky, then Major General P.Kh. Popov
Special purpose platoon.
Cadets of the 1st Russian Cadet Corps named after. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. Commander Lieutenant Fatyanov.
1st Aviation Regiment
1. commander (12.1944-01.1945): Colonel L.G. Kayak. Commander of the 5th Air Regiment of the Yugoslav Air Force. Chief of the regiment garrison in Eger (01.-20.04.1945). Head of the training unit of the aviation center in Eger (11.-12.1944).
2. NSh Major S.K. Shebalin.
3. Adjutant of the regiment commander, Lieutenant G. Shkolny.
1st Fighter Squadron named after Colonel Kazakov
Air Force Commander Major S.T. Bychkov. Captain of the 937th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Red Army, Hero of the Soviet Union. Stationed in Carlsbad. On January 14, 1945, a squadron of 16 Me109-G-10 aircraft received the equipment, prepared it for flight, and showed high combat readiness during an inspection by General Aschenbrenner. Bychkov received gratitude from Vlasov.
2nd Fast Bomber Squadron.
12 Yu-88 light bombers.
Air Force Commander Captain B.R. Antilevsky, Hero of the Soviet Union. Senior lieutenant of the Red Army. Received gratitude from Vlasov.
3rd Reconnaissance Squadron.
2 Me109, 2 Ju88, 2 Fi 156.2 U-2, 1 He 111, 1 Do 17.
Air Force commander Captain S. Artyomov.
4th Transport Squadron
Air Force commander Major M. Tarnovsky. Captain RIA. In exile he lived in Czechoslovakia. Member of the NTS. He insisted on his extradition. Shot.
Communications Squadron.
Reserve squadron.
Pilot school.
Chief: Colonel L.I. Kayak.
Engineering and technical service.
Communications company.
Commander Major Lantuh
Airfield service.
Anti-aircraft artillery regiment.
2,800 people, having been trained as anti-aircraft gunners, were reassigned to the infantry course.
1. commander Lieutenant Colonel Vasiliev.
2. RIA officer Lyagin. In exile he lived in Yugoslavia.
3. RIA officer Filatiev. In exile he lived in Yugoslavia.
Parachute battalion.
The personnel were armed with Soviet and German machine guns, bladed weapons and were staffed by the most physically developed volunteers, mainly from among the police.
1. commander: Lieutenant Colonel Kozar.
1. TsAMO, f. 33, op. 682525, units hr. 159.
2. TsAMO, f. 33, op. 682526, no. 723.
3. Katusev A.F., Oppokov V.G. “The Movement That Wasn’t”, “Military History Magazine”, 1991 No. 12, pp. 31-33.
4. Konev V.N. “Heroes without Gold Stars. Cursed and forgotten." Moscow, 2008, ed. "Yauza EKSMO", page 28.
5. “The country’s air defense troops in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.” Moscow, Voenizdat, 1968, p. 93.
6. Bortakovsky T.V. "Executed Heroes of the Soviet Union." Series “Military Secrets of the 20th Century”. Moscow, ed. Veche, 2012. Chapter “Stalin’s Falcons of General Vlasov”, p. 304.
7. Zvyagintsev V.E. "Tribunal for Heroes." Series "Dossier". Moscow, ed. “OLMA-PRESS Education”, 2005. Chapter 16 “Falcons of General Vlasov”, p. 286.
8. Hoffman J. “History of the Vlasov Army.” Paris. “Ymca-press”, 1990. Chapter 4 “ROA Air Force”. (on a five-point scale) and clicking the RATING button at the top of the page. For the authors and site administration, your ratings are extremely important!
The topic related to the participation of Soviet air aces in the Great Patriotic War on the side of the Germans was, until recently, one of the most closed. Even today it is called a little-studied page of our history. These issues are most fully presented in the works of J. Hoffmann (“History of the Vlasov Army.” Paris, 1990 and “Vlasov against Stalin.” Moscow. AST, 2005) and K. M. Alexandrov (“Officer Corps of the Army General - Lieutenant A. A. Vlasov 1944 - 1945" - St. Petersburg, 2001; "Russian Wehrmacht soldiers. Heroes and traitors" - YAUZA, 2005)
The Russian aviation units of the Luftwaffe were formed from 3 categories of pilots: those recruited in captivity, emigrants and voluntary defectors, or rather “flyers” to the enemy’s side. Their exact number is unknown. According to I. Hoffmann, who used German sources, quite a lot of Soviet pilots voluntarily flew to the German side - in 1943 there were 66 of them, in the first quarter of 1944 another 20 were added.
It must be said that escapes of Soviet pilots abroad happened before the war. So, in 1927, the commander of the 17th air squadron, Klim, and senior engine mechanic Timashchuk fled to Poland in the same plane. In 1934, G. N. Kravets flew to Latvia from one of the airfields of the Leningrad Military District. In 1938, the head of the Luga flying club, Senior Lieutenant V.O. Unishevsky, flew to Lithuania on a U-2 plane. And during the Great Patriotic War, under the influence of German propaganda and our failures at the front, such flights increased many times over. In historical literature, among the Russian “flyers”, personnel officers of the Red Army Air Force are mentioned: Lieutenant Colonel B. A. Pivenshtein, Captains K. Arzamastsev, A. Nikulin and others.
The bulk of those who went into service in the Luftwaffe were pilots shot down in air battles and recruited while in captivity.
The most famous "Stalin's falcons" who fought on the side of the Germans: Heroes of the Soviet Union Captain Bychkov Semyon Trofimovich, Senior Lieutenant Antilevsky Bronislav Romanovich, as well as their commander - Colonel of the Red Army Air Force Viktor Ivanovich Maltsev. Various sources also mention those who collaborated with the Germans: acting commander of the Air Force of the 20th Army of the Western Front, Colonel Alexander Fedorovich Vanyushin, who became Maltsev’s deputy and chief of staff, chief of communications of the 205th Fighter Air Division, Major Serafima Zakharovna Sitnik, squadron commander of the 13th Air Regiment high-speed bombers Captain F.I. Ripushinsky, Captain A.P. Mettl (real name - Retivov), who served in the Black Sea Fleet aviation, and others. According to the calculations of the historian K. M. Alexandrov, there were 38 people in total.
Most of the air aces who were captured were convicted after the war. Thus, on July 25, 1946, the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District sentenced Antilevsky to death under Art. 58-1 paragraph "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. A month later, the district court convicted Bychkov under the same article and to the same penalty.
In the archives, the author had the opportunity to study other sentences passed on Soviet pilots shot down during the war, who then served in aviation on the side of the Germans. For example, on April 24, 1948, the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District considered case No. 113 in a closed court session against the former pilot of the 35th high-speed bomber regiment Ivan (in the works of K. Aleksandrov - Vasily) Vasilyevich Shiyan. According to the verdict, he was shot down while carrying out a combat mission on July 7, 1941, after which in a prisoner of war camp he was recruited by German intelligence agencies, after graduating from the espionage and sabotage school, “for reconnaissance and sabotage purposes, he was dropped into the location of the troops of the 2nd Shock Army,” in the fall From 1943 until the end of the war, he “served in the aviation units of the treacherous so-called Russian Liberation Army,” first as deputy commander of the “1st Eastern Squadron, and then as its commander.” The verdict further stated that Shiyan bombed partisan bases in the area of the cities of Dvinsk and Lida, for active assistance to the Germans in the fight against partisans he was awarded three German medals, received the military rank of “Captain”, and after being detained and filtered, he tried to hide his treasonous activities , calling himself Vasily Nikolaevich Snegov. The tribunal sentenced him to 25 years in the camps.
The court also meted out the same amount to Lieutenant I. G. Radionenkov, shot down on the Leningrad Front in February 1942, who, in order to “disguise his identity, acted under a fictitious name and surname Mikhail Gerasimovich Shvets.
“At the end of 1944, Radionenkov betrayed his Motherland and voluntarily enlisted in the air unit of the traitors, the so-called ROA, where he was awarded the rank of Lieutenant of the ROA Aviation... was part of a fighter squadron... made training flights on a Messerschmitt-109.”
Due to the scarcity of archival sources, it is impossible to categorically assert that all the pilots repressed after the war actually served in the German aviation, since MGB investigators could force some of them to give “confession” statements using well-known methods of that time.
Some of the pilots experienced these methods themselves in the pre-war years. For V.I. Maltsev, being in the basements of the NKVD was the main motive for going over to the side of the enemy. If historians are still arguing about the reasons that prompted General A. A. Vlasov to betray his Motherland, then with regard to the commander of the Air Force of his army, V. I. Maltsev, everyone agrees that he really was an ideological anti-Soviet and pushed him to accept such a decision would subject the former Colonel of the Red Army Air Force to unjustified repression. The story of his transformation into an “enemy of the people” was typical of that time.
Viktor Ivanovich Maltsev, born in 1895, one of the first Soviet military pilots. In 1918, he voluntarily joined the Red Army, the following year he graduated from the Yegoryevsk School of Military Pilots, and was wounded during the Civil War. Maltsev was one of V.P. Chkalov’s instructors during his training at the Yegoryevsk Aviation School. In 1925, Maltsev was appointed head of the Central Airfield in Moscow, and 2 years later he became assistant head of the Air Force Directorate of the Siberian Military District. In 1931, he headed the district's aviation and held this position until 1937, when he was transferred to the reserve, receiving the post of head of the Turkmen Civil Aviation Department. For the successes achieved in his work, he was even nominated for the Order of Lenin.
But on March 11, 1938, he was unexpectedly arrested as a participant in a “military fascist conspiracy” and only on September 5 of the following year was released due to lack of proof of the charges. During his imprisonment in the basements of the Ashgabat NKVD department, Maltsev was repeatedly tortured, but he did not admit to any of the fabricated charges. After his release, Maltsev was reinstated in the party and in the ranks of the Red Army, receiving an appointment to the post of head of the Aeroflot sanatorium in Yalta. And on November 8, 1941, on the very first day of the occupation of Crimea by German troops, in the uniform of a Colonel of the Red Army Air Force, he appeared at the German military commandant’s office and offered his services to create an anti-Soviet volunteer battalion.
The fascists appreciated Maltsev’s zeal: they published his memoirs “GPU Conveyor” in 50,000 copies for propaganda purposes, and then appointed him burgomaster of Yalta. He repeatedly spoke to the local population with calls for an active fight against Bolshevism, and for this purpose he personally formed the 55th punitive battalion to combat partisans. For the zeal shown in this case, he was awarded a bronze and silver badge for the eastern peoples “For Bravery”, II class with swords.
Much has been written about how Maltsev got along with Vlasov and began to create the ROA aviation. It is known that back in August 1942, in the area of the city of Orsha, on the initiative and under the leadership of former Soviet officers Major Filatov and Captain Ripushinsky, a Russian air group was created under the so-called Russian National People's Army (RNNA). And in the fall of 1943, Lieutenant Colonel Holters came up with a similar initiative. By that time, Maltsev had already submitted a report on joining Vlasov’s army, but since the formation of the ROA had not yet begun, he actively supported Holters’ idea of creating a Russian volunteer air group, which he was asked to lead.
During interrogations at SMERSH, he testified that at the end of September 1943, the Germans invited him to the town of Moritzfeld, where there was a camp of aviators recruited to serve under Vlasov. By that time there were only 15 pilots - traitors. At the beginning of December of the same year, the German Air Force General Staff allowed the formation of an “eastern squadron” from Russian prisoners of war pilots who had betrayed their homeland, the commander of which was appointed the White emigrant Tarnovsky. The Germans entrusted him, Maltsev, with leadership in the formation and selection of flight personnel. The squadron was formed, and in the first half of January 1944, he escorted it to the city of Dvinsk, where he handed it over to the commander of the Air Force of one of the German Air Armies, after which this squadron took part in combat operations against partisans. Upon returning from the city of Dvinsk, he began to form “ferry groups” from captured Soviet pilots to ferry aircraft from German aircraft factories to active German military units. At the same time, he formed 3 such groups with a total number of 28 people. The pilots were processed personally, recruiting about 30 people. Then, until June 1944, he was engaged in anti-Soviet propaganda activities in the prisoner of war camp in the city of Moritzfeld.
Maltsev was unstoppable. He tirelessly traveled around the camps, picking up and processing captured pilots. One of his addresses said:
“I was a communist throughout my entire conscious life, and not in order to carry a party card as an additional ration card, I sincerely and deeply believed that this way we would come to a happy life. But the best years passed, my head turned white, and along with This brought the worst thing - disappointment in everything I believed and worshiped. The best ideals turned out to be spat upon. But the most bitter thing was the realization that all my life I had been a blind instrument of Stalin’s political adventures... Even if the disappointment in my best ideals was hard. “Even if the best part of my life is gone, I will devote the rest of my days to the fight against the executioners of the Russian people, for a free, happy, great Russia.”
Recruited pilots were transported to a training camp specially created by the Germans in the Polish city of Suwalki. There, the “volunteers” were subjected to comprehensive testing and further psychological treatment, trained, took an oath, and then went to East Prussia, where an air group was formed in the Moritzfeld camp, which in historical literature was called the Holters-Maltsev group...
J. Hoffmann wrote:
“In the fall of 1943, Lieutenant Colonel Holters of the General Staff, head of the Vostok intelligence processing point at the headquarters of the Luftwaffe Command (OKL), who processed the results of interrogations of Soviet pilots, proposed forming a flight unit from prisoners ready to fight on the side of Germany. At the same time, Holters enlisted the support of the former Colonel Soviet aviation Maltsev, a man of rare charm..."
The captured "Stalin's Falcons" - Heroes of the Soviet Union Captain S. T. Bychkov and Senior Lieutenant B. R. Antilevsky - soon found themselves in the networks of the "charming" Maltsev.
Antilevsky was born in 1917 in the village of Markovtsy, Ozersky district, Minsk region. After graduating from the College of National Economic Accounting in 1937, he joined the Red Army and the following year successfully graduated from the Moninsky Special Purpose Aviation School, after which he served as a gunner and radio operator of the DB-ZF long-range bomber in the 21st Long-Range Bomber Aviation Regiment. As part of this regiment, he participated in the Soviet-Finnish War, shot down 2 enemy fighters in an air battle, was wounded, and was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his heroism on April 7, 1940.
In September 1940, Antilevsky was enrolled as a cadet in the Kachin Red Banner Military Aviation School named after Comrade. Myasnikov, after graduation he received the military rank of “Junior Lieutenant” and from April 1942 participated in the Great Patriotic War as part of the 20th Fighter Aviation Regiment. He flew on Yaks and performed well in the August 1942 battles near Rzhev.
In 1943, the regiment was included in the 303rd Fighter Aviation Division, after which Antilevsky became deputy squadron commander.
Aviation Major General G.N. Zakharov wrote:
“The 20th fighter specialized in escorting bombers and attack aircraft. The glory of the pilots of the 20th regiment is a quiet one. They were not particularly praised for the downed enemy aircraft, but were strictly questioned for the lost ones. They were not relaxed in the air to the extent that any fighter strives in open combat, they could not abandon the Ilya or Petlyakov and rush headlong into enemy aircraft. They were bodyguards in the most literal sense of the word, and only bomber pilots and attack aircraft pilots could fully give them their all. due... The regiment performed its tasks in an exemplary manner, and in this work it probably had no equal in the division.”
The summer of 1943 was going well for Senior Lieutenant B.R. Antilevsky. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and then, in the August battles, he shot down 3 enemy aircraft in 3 days. But on August 28, 1943, he himself was shot down and ended up in German captivity, where at the end of 1943 he voluntarily joined the Russian Liberation Army and received the rank of Lieutenant...
Hero of the Soviet Union Captain S. T. Bychkov became a particularly valuable acquisition of Maltsev.
He was born on May 15, 1918 in the village of Petrovka, Khokholsky district, Voronezh province. In 1936 he graduated from the Voronezh flying club, after which he remained to work there as an instructor. In September 1938, Bychkov graduated from the Tambov Civil Air Fleet School and began working as a pilot at Voronezh Airport. And in January 1939 he was drafted into the Red Army. He studied at the Borisoglebsk Aviation School. Served in the 12th reserve aviation regiment, 42nd and 287th fighter aviation regiments. In June 1941, Bychkov graduated from the fighter pilot courses at the Konotop Military School. Flew on an I-16 fighter.
He fought well. During the first 1.5 months of the war, he shot down 4 fascist planes. But in 1942, the deputy squadron commander, Lieutenant S. T. Bychkov, was tried for the first time. He was found guilty of causing the plane crash and sentenced to 5 years in forced labor camps, but on the basis of Note 2 to Art. 28 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, the sentence was suspended with the convict being sent to the active army. He himself was eager to fight and quickly atoned for his guilt. Soon his criminal record was cleared.
The year 1943 turned out well for Bychkov, as well as for his future friend Antilevsky. He became a famous air ace and received two Orders of the Red Banner. They no longer remembered his criminal record. As part of the fighter aviation regiments of the 322nd Fighter Division, he took part in 60 air battles, in which he destroyed 15 aircraft personally and 1 in a group. In the same year, Bychkov became deputy commander of the 482nd Fighter Regiment; on May 28, 1943, he was given a Captain, and on September 2, a Gold Star.
The submission for awarding him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union stated:
“Participating in fierce air battles with superior enemy aviation forces from 12 Mühl to 10 August 1943, he proved himself to be an excellent fighter pilot, whose courage is combined with great skill. He enters the battle boldly and decisively, carries it out at a great pace, imposes his will to the enemy..."
Luck changed Semyon Bychkov on December 10, 1943. His fighter was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery fire in the Orsha area. The shrapnel also wounded Bychkov, but he jumped out with a parachute and was captured after landing. The hero was placed in a camp for captured pilots in Suwalki. And then he was transferred to the Moritzfelde camp, where he joined the Holters-Maltsev aviation group.
Was this decision voluntary? There is no clear answer to this question even today. It is known that in the court hearing of the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR in the case of Vlasov and other leaders of the ROA, Bychkov was interrogated as a witness. He told the court that in the Moritzfeld camp, Maltsev invited him to join the ROA aviation. After the refusal, he was severely beaten by Maltsev’s henchmen and spent 2 weeks in the infirmary. But Maltsev did not leave him alone there, continuing to intimidate him with the fact that in his homeland he would still be “shot as a traitor” and that he had no choice, since if he refused to serve in the ROA, he would make sure that he, Bychkov, was sent to a concentration camp where no one comes out alive...
Meanwhile, most researchers believe that no one actually beat Bychkov. And although the arguments presented are convincing, they still do not provide grounds to unequivocally assert that after his capture Bychkov was not treated by Maltsev, including with the use of physical force.
The majority of Soviet pilots who were captured faced a difficult moral choice. Many agreed to cooperate with the Germans in order to avoid starvation. Some hoped to defect to their own people at the first opportunity. And such cases, contrary to I. Hoffmann’s statement, actually occurred.
Why didn’t Bychkov and Antilevsky, who, unlike Maltsev, were not ardent anti-Sovietists, do this? After all, they certainly had such an opportunity. The answer is obvious - at first they, young 25-year-old guys, were subjected to psychological treatment, convincing them, including with specific examples, that there was no going back, that they had already been sentenced in absentia and upon returning to their homeland they would face execution or 25 years in the camps. And then it was too late.
However, all this is speculation. We do not know how long and how Maltsev processed Heroes. The only established fact is that they not only agreed to cooperate, but also became his active assistants. Meanwhile, other Heroes of the Soviet Union from among the Soviet air aces, who found themselves in German captivity, refused to go over to the side of the enemy, and showed examples of unparalleled perseverance and unbending will. They were not broken by sophisticated torture and even death sentences handed down by Nazi tribunals for organizing escapes from concentration camps. These little-known pages of history deserve a separate detailed story. Here we will name only a few names. Heroes of the Soviet Union passed through the Buchenwald concentration camp: deputy squadron commander of the 148th Guards Special Purpose Fighter Aviation Regiment, Senior Lieutenant N.L. Chasnyk, pilots from long-range bomber aviation, Senior Lieutenant G.V. Lepekhin and Captain V.E. Sitnov. The latter also visited Auschwitz. For escaping from a camp near Lodz, he and stormtrooper captain Viktor Ivanov were sentenced to hanging, but were then replaced by Auschwitz.
2 Soviet aviation Generals M.A. Beleshev and G.I. Thor were captured. The third - the legendary I.S. Polbin, shot down on February 11, 1945 in the sky over Breslau, is officially considered dead as a result of a direct hit by an anti-aircraft shell on his Pe-2 attack aircraft. But according to one version, he, in serious condition, was also captured and killed by the Nazis, who only later established his identity. So, M.A. Beleshev, who commanded the aviation of the 2nd Shock Army before being captured, was found guilty of collaborating with the Nazis without sufficient grounds and convicted after the war, and the deputy commander of the 62nd Bomber Air Division, General - Aviation Major G. I. Thor, who was repeatedly persuaded by both the fascists and the Vlasovites to join the Nazi army, was thrown into the Hammelsburg camp for refusing to serve the enemy. There he headed an underground organization and, for preparing an escape, was transferred to a Gestapo prison in Nuremberg, and then to the Flossenburg concentration camp, where he was shot in January 1943. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union to G.I. Thor was awarded posthumously only on July 26, 1991.
Guard Major A.N. Karasev was kept in Mauthausen. In the same concentration camp, the prisoners of the 20th penal officer block - the "death block" - were Heroes of the Soviet Union Colonel A. N. Koblikov and Lieutenant Colonel N. I. Vlasov, who, together with former aviation commanders Colonels A. F. Isupov and K. M. Chubchenkov became the organizers of the uprising in January 1945. A few days before it began, they were captured by the Nazis and destroyed, but on the night of February 2-3, 1945, the prisoners still rebelled and some of them managed to escape.
Heroes of the Soviet Union pilots I. I. Babak, G. U. Dolnikov, V. D. Lavrinenkov, A. I. Razgonin, N. V. Pysin and others behaved with dignity in captivity and did not cooperate with the enemy. Many of them managed to escape from captivity and after that they continued to destroy the enemy as part of their air units.
As for Antilevsky and Bychkov, they eventually became close associates of Maltsev. At first, planes were transported from factories to field airfields on the Eastern Front. Then they were entrusted with speaking in prisoner-of-war camps with anti-Soviet speeches of a propaganda nature. Here is what, for example, Antilevsky and Bychkov wrote in the Volunteer newspaper, published by the ROA since the beginning of 1943:
“Knocked down in a fair battle, we found ourselves captured by the Germans. Not only were we not tormented or tortured by anyone, on the contrary, we met from the German officers and soldiers the warmest and comradely attitude and respect for our shoulder straps, orders and military merits.” .
In the investigative and court documents in the case of B. Antilevsky it was noted:
“At the end of 1943, he voluntarily entered the Russian Liberation Army (ROA), was appointed commander of an air squadron and was engaged in ferrying aircraft from German aircraft factories to the front line, and also taught ROA pilots how to pilot German fighters. For this service, he was rewarded with two medals and a personalized watch and the conferment of the military rank of Captain. In addition, he signed an “appeal” to Soviet prisoners of war and Soviet citizens, which slandered Soviet reality and the leaders of the state. His portraits with the text of the “appeal” were distributed by the Germans both in Germany and in the occupied territory. Soviet Union. He also repeatedly spoke on the radio and in the press calling on Soviet citizens to fight against Soviet power and go over to the side of the Nazi troops..."
The Holters-Maltsev air group was disbanded in September 1944, after which Bychkov and Antilevsky arrived in the city of Eger, where, under the leadership of Maltsev, they took an active part in the creation of the 1st KONR aviation regiment.
The formation of the ROA aviation was authorized by G. Goering on December 19, 1944. The headquarters was located in Marienbad. Aschenbrenner was appointed as the representative of the German side. Maltsev became commander of the Air Force and received the rank of Major General. He appointed Colonel A. Vanyushin as his chief of staff, and Major A. Mettl as the head of the operational department. General Popov was also at the headquarters with a group of cadets from the 1st Russian Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Cadet Corps, evacuated from Yugoslavia.
Maltsev again developed vigorous activity, began to publish his own newspaper “Our Wings”, and attracted many officers of the Imperial and White armies to the aviation units he formed, in particular General V. Tkachev, who during the Civil War commanded Baron Wrangel’s aviation. Soon the strength of the Vlasov Army Air Force, according to Hoffmann, reached about 5,000 people.
The first aviation regiment of the ROA Air Force, formed in Eger, was headed by Colonel L. Baidak. Major S. Bychkov became commander of the 5th fighter squadron named after Colonel A. Kazakov. The 2nd attack squadron, later renamed the night bomber squadron, was headed by Captain B. Antilevsky. The 3rd reconnaissance squadron was commanded by Captain S. Artemyev, the 5th training squadron was commanded by Captain M. Tarnovsky.
On February 4, 1945, during the first review of aviation units, Vlasov presented his “falcons,” including Antilevsky and Bychkov, with military awards.
In M. Antilevsky’s publication about the pilots of the Vlasov army you can read:
“In the spring of 1945, a few weeks before the end of the war, there were fierce air battles over Germany and Czechoslovakia. On the air there was the crackle of cannon and machine-gun bursts, abrupt commands, curses of pilots and groans of the wounded that accompanied the fights in the air. But on some days, Russian speech was heard from both sides - in the sky over the center of Europe, the Russians came together in fierce battles for life and death.”
In fact, Vlasov’s “falcons” never had time to fight at full strength. It is only known for certain that on April 13, 1945, the aircraft of Antilevsky’s bomber squadron entered into battle with units of the Red Army. They supported with fire the advance of the 1st ROA division on the Soviet bridgehead of Erlenhof, south of Fürstenberg. And on April 20, 1945, by order of Vlasov, Maltsev’s aviation units had already moved to the city of Neuern, where, after a meeting with Aschenbrenner, they decided to begin negotiations with the Americans about surrender. Maltsev and Aschenbrenner arrived at the headquarters of the 12th American Corps for negotiations. The corps commander, General Kenya, explained to them that the issue of granting political asylum did not fall within his competence and offered to surrender their weapons. At the same time, he gave guarantees that he would not hand over the Vlasov “falcons” to the Soviet side until the end of the war. They decided to capitulate, which they did on April 27 in the Langdorf area.
An officer group of about 200 people, in which Bychkov found himself, was sent to a prisoner of war camp in the vicinity of the French city of Cherbourg. All of them were transferred to the Soviet side in September 1945.
Soldiers of the 3rd American Army took Major General Maltsev to a prisoner of war camp near Frankfurt am Main, and then also transported him to the city of Cherbourg. It is known that the Soviet side repeatedly and persistently demanded his extradition. Finally, the Vlasov General was nevertheless handed over to the NKVD officers, who, under escort, took him to their camp, located not far from Paris.
Maltsev tried to commit suicide twice - at the end of 1945 and in May 1946. While in a Soviet hospital in Paris, he opened the veins in his arms and made cuts on his neck. But he failed to avoid retribution for betrayal. On a specially flown Douglas, he took off for the last time and was taken to Moscow, where on August 1, 1946 he was sentenced to death and soon hanged along with Vlasov and other leaders of the ROA. Maltsev was the only one of them who did not ask for mercy or mercy. He only reminded the judges of the military board in his last word about his unfounded conviction in 1938, which undermined his faith in Soviet power. In 1946, Colonel A.F. Vanyushin, who held the position of Chief of Staff of the Air Force of the KONR Armed Forces, was also shot by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
S. Bychkov, as we have already said, was “reserved” in the main trial of the leadership as a witness. They promised that if they gave the necessary testimony, they would save their lives. But soon, on August 24 of the same year, the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District sentenced him to death. The sentence was carried out on November 4, 1946. And the decree depriving him of the title of Hero took place 5 months later - March 23, 1947.
As for B. Antilevsky, almost all researchers on this topic claim that he managed to avoid extradition by hiding in Spain under the protection of Generalissimo Franco, and that he was sentenced to death in absentia. For example, M. Antilevsky wrote:
“The traces of the regiment commander Baydak and two officers of his staff, majors Klimov and Albov, were never found. Antilevsky managed to fly away and get to Spain, where, according to information from the authorities who continued to look for him, he was spotted already in the 1970s. Although he and was sentenced in absentia to death by a decision of the Moscow Military District court immediately after the war, for another 5 years he retained the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and only in the summer of 1950 the authorities, who came to their senses, deprived him of this award in absentia."
The materials of the criminal case against B. R. Antilevsky do not provide grounds for such allegations. It is difficult to say where B. Antilevsky’s “Spanish trace” originates. Perhaps for the reason that his Fi-156 Storch plane was prepared for flight to Spain, and he was not among the officers captured by the Americans. According to the case materials, after the surrender of Germany, he was in Czechoslovakia, where he joined the “false partisan” detachment “Red Spark” and received documents as a participant in the anti-fascist movement in the name of Berezovsky. Having this certificate in hand, he was arrested by NKVD officers on June 12, 1945, while trying to enter the territory of the USSR. Antilevsky-Berezovsky was repeatedly interrogated, completely convicted of treason and on July 25, 1946, convicted by the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District under Art. 58-1 paragraph "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to capital punishment - execution - with confiscation of personally owned property. According to the archival books of the military court of the Moscow Military District, the sentence against Antilevsky was approved by the military board on November 22, 1946, and carried out on November 29 of the same year. The decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to deprive Antilevsky of all awards and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union took place much later - on July 12, 1950.
To what has been said, it only remains to add that, by a strange irony of fate, according to the certificate seized from Antilevsky during the search, a member of the Red Spark partisan detachment Berezovsky was also named Boris.
Continuing the story about the Soviet air aces, who, according to available data, collaborated with the Nazis while in captivity, it is worth mentioning two more pilots: V. Z. Baydo, who called himself Hero of the Soviet Union, and, ironically, B. A., who never became a Hero. Pivenshtein.
The fate of each of them is unique in its own way and is of undoubted interest to researchers. But information about these people, including because of the “black spot” recorded in their profiles and service records, is extremely scanty and contradictory. Therefore, this chapter was the most difficult for the author and it should be noted right away that the information presented on the pages of the book needs further clarification.
There are a lot of mysteries in the fate of fighter pilot Vladimir Zakharovich Baido. After the war, one of the Norillag prisoners cut out a five-pointed star for him from yellow metal, and he always wore it on his chest, proving to others that he was a Hero of the Soviet Union and that he was among the first to be awarded the Golden Star, receiving it for No. 72 ...
The author first encountered the name of this man in the memoirs of a former prisoner from Norilsk, S. G. Golovko, “The Days of Victory of Syomka the Cossack,” recorded by V. Tolstov and published in the newspaper Zapolyarnaya Pravda. Golovko claimed that in 1945, when he ended up at the camp point at the 102nd kilometer, where the Nadezhdinsky airport was being built and became a foreman there, in his brigade “there were Sasha Kuznetsov and two pilots, Heroes of the Soviet Union: Volodya Baida, who was the first after Talalikhin, Nikolai Gaivoronsky, a fighter ace, carried out a night ram.
A more detailed story about the prisoner of the 4th department of Gorlag, Vladimir Baido, can be read in the book of another former “prisoner” G.S. Klimovich:
"...Vladimir Baida, in the past, was a pilot and aircraft designer. Baida was the first Hero of the Soviet Union in Belarus. Once Stalin personally presented him with the Golden Star, once in Minsk the first hero was met by members of the republican government, and in his his hometown of Mogilev, when he arrived there, the streets were strewn with flowers and crowded with jubilant people of all ages and positions. But soon the war began to find him in one of the aviation formations of the Leningrad Military District, where he served. under the command of the future Air Marshal Novikov, and already on the second day of the war, Baida was a direct participant in the war. Once he and his squadron bombed Helsinki and were attacked by Messerschmitts. There was no fighter cover, he had to defend himself, the forces were unequal. , he himself was captured. In an open car with the inscription “Soviet Vulture” on the side, he was driven through the streets of the Finnish capital, and then sent to a prisoner of war camp - first in Finland, and in the winter of 1941 - in Poland, near Lublin.
For more than 2 years he strengthened himself, endured all the hardships of the fascist concentration camp, waited for the Allies to open a second front and the end of the torment would come. But the allies hesitated and did not open a second front. He got angry and asked to fight in the Luftwaffe on the condition that he would not be sent to the Eastern Front. His request was granted, and he began to beat the allies over the English Channel. He, it seemed to him, was taking revenge on them. For his courage, Hitler personally presented him with the Knight's Cross with diamonds at his residence. He capitulated to the Americans, and they, having taken the “Gold Star” and the Knight’s Cross from him, handed them over to the Soviet authorities. Here he was tried for treason and, sentenced to 10 years in prison, was transported to Gorlag...
Baida perceived such a sentence as an offensive injustice; he did not feel guilty, he believed that it was not he who betrayed his Motherland, but she who betrayed him; that if at the time when he, rejected and forgotten, languished in a fascist concentration camp, the Motherland had shown even the slightest concern for him, there would have been no talk of any betrayal, he would not have had anger towards his allies, and he would not have would sell himself to the Luftwaffe. He shouted about this truth of his to everyone and everywhere, wrote to all authorities, and so that his voice would not be lost in the Taimyr tundra, he refused to obey the administration. Attempts to call him to order by force met with due resistance. Baida was decisive and had very trained hands - with a direct blow from his fingers he could pierce a human body in self-defense, and with the edge of his palm he could break a 50-mm board. Having failed to deal with him in Gorlag, the MGB took him to Tsemstroy."
This is such an incredible story. It is apparently based on the stories of Baido himself and, perhaps, somewhat embellished by the author of the book. Figuring out what was true and what was fiction in this story is far from easy. How, for example, should we evaluate the statement that V. Baido was the first Belarusian to receive the title of Hero of the Soviet Union? After all, he is officially listed as the brave tanker P. Z. Kupriyanov, who in the battle near Madrid destroyed 2 enemy vehicles and 8 guns. And the “Gold Star” No. 72, as is easy to establish, was awarded on March 14, 1938 not to Captain V.Z. Baido, but to another tanker - Senior Lieutenant Pavel Afanasyevich Semenov. In Spain, he fought as a mechanic - driver of the T-26 tank as part of the 1st separate international tank regiment, and during the Great Patriotic War he was deputy battalion commander of the 169th tank brigade and died a heroic death at Stalingrad...
In general, there were many unanswered questions. And even today there are many of them left. But we will still answer some of them. First of all, it was possible to establish that V. Baido was indeed a fighter pilot. He served in the 7th Fighter Aviation Regiment, heroically proved himself in air battles with the Finns and Germans, was awarded two military orders, and on August 31, 1941, while performing a combat mission, he was shot down over the territory of Finland.
Before the war, the 7th IAP was based at the airfield in Maisniemi, near Vyborg. On the second day of the war, the commander of the 193rd Air Regiment, Major G.M. Galitsin, was instructed to form an operational group from the remnants of the destroyed air units, which retained the number of the 7th IAP. On June 30, the renewed regiment began performing combat missions. In the first months of the war, it was based at the airfields of the Karelian Isthmus, then at the suburban airfields of Leningrad, protecting it from the north and northwest. By the time of his capture, Baido was one of the most experienced pilots, and his regiment became one of the advanced units of the Leningrad Front Air Force. The pilots carried out up to 60 combat missions a day, many of them were awarded orders and medals.
Q. 3. Baido was awarded the military orders of the Red Star and Red Banner. But there was no information about awarding him the “Gold Star”. Materials from an archival investigative and judicial case or at least supervisory proceedings could have brought some clarity. But neither the Supreme Court of Russia nor the Main Military Prosecutor's Office could find any traces of this case.
But the missing information from the personal file of V. 3. Baido No. B-29250, which is stored in the departmental archive of the Norilsk plant, was reported to the author by Alla Borisovna Makarova in her letter. She wrote:
"Vladimir Zakharovich Baida (Baido), born in 1918, July 12, native of the city of Mogilev, Belarusian, higher education, design engineer at TsAGI, non-partisan. Held in prison from July 31, 1945 to April 27, 1956 on two cases , according to one of which he was rehabilitated, and according to the other he was sentenced to 10 years in prison... Released "due to the termination of the case by decision of the commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated April 25, 1956 due to the unfoundedness of the conviction..."
It followed from the letter that after his release, Baido remained in Norilsk, worked as a turner in an underground mine, as a design engineer, as the head of an installation site... From 1963 until his retirement in 1977, he worked in the laboratory of the Mining and Metallurgical Experimental Research Center . Then he moved with his wife Vera Ivanovna to Donetsk, where he died.
Regarding the awarding of Baido with the “Gold Star”, A. B. Makarova wrote that few people in Norilsk believed in it. Meanwhile, his wife confirmed this fact in a letter that she sent to the Norilsk Combine Museum...
The mountain camp in Norilsk, where Baido was kept, was one of the Special Camps (Osoblagov) created after the war. Particularly dangerous criminals convicted of “espionage,” “treason,” “sabotage,” “terror,” and participation in “anti-Soviet organizations and groups” were sent to these camps. The majority were former prisoners of war and participants in national insurgent movements in Ukraine and the Baltic states. Baido was also convicted of “treason.” This happened on August 31, 1945, when a military tribunal sentenced him under Art. 58-1 paragraph "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to 10 years in the camps.
A particularly strict hard labor regime was established for Gorlag prisoners, the institution of early release for hard work was not in effect, and there were restrictions on correspondence with relatives. The names of the prisoners were abolished. They were listed under the numbers indicated on the clothes: on the back and above the knee. The length of the working day was at least 12 hours. And this was in conditions when the air temperature sometimes reached minus 50 degrees.
After Stalin's death, a wave of strikes and uprisings swept through several Special Camps. It is believed that one of the reasons for this was the amnesty of March 27, 1953. After its announcement, more than 1 million people were released from the camps. But it practically did not affect the prisoners of Osoblagov, since it did not apply to the most serious points of Article 58.
In Norillag, the immediate cause of the uprising was the murder of several prisoners by guards. This caused an explosion of indignation, fermentation began, resulting in a strike. As a sign of protest, the “convicts” refused to go to work, hung mourning flags on the barracks, created a strike committee and began to demand the arrival of a commission from Moscow.
The uprising in Norilsk in May - August 1953 was the largest. The unrest swept through all 6 camp departments of Gorlag and 2 departments of Norillag. The number of rebels exceeded 16,000 people. Baido was part of the rebel committee of the 5th department of Gorlag.
The demands in Norillag, as in other camps, were similar: abolish hard labor, stop the arbitrariness of the administration, review the cases of those unreasonably repressed... S. G. Golovko wrote:
“During the uprising in Norillag, I was the head of security and defense of the 3rd Gorlag, I formed a regiment of 3,000 people, and when Prosecutor General Rudenko came to negotiate, I told him: “There is no rebellion in the camp, the discipline is perfect, you can check.” Rudenko I walked around with the head of the camp, turning my head - indeed, the discipline was perfect. In the evening, Rudenko lined up all the convicts and solemnly promised that he would personally convey all our demands to the Soviet government, that Beria was no more, that he would not allow us to violate the law, and that with his power he was giving us 3. a day to rest, and then offers to go to work. He wished him all the best and left.”
But no one was going to fulfill the demands of the prisoners. The next morning after the departure of the Prosecutor General, the camp was cordoned off by soldiers and the assault began. The uprising was brutally suppressed. The exact number of deaths is still unknown. A researcher of this topic, A. B. Makarova, wrote that in the cemetery book of Norilsk for 1953 there is a record of 150 nameless dead buried in a common grave. The employee of the cemetery near Schmidtikha told her that this particular entry refers to the victims of the massacre of the rebels.
New cases were opened against 45 of the most active rebels, 365 people were transferred to prisons in a number of cities, and 1,500 people were transferred to Kolyma.
By the time the uprising took place in the camp, one of its participants - V. Z. Baido - already had 2 convictions behind him. In February 1950, the camp court sentenced him under Art. 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for 10 years in prison for slanderous statements "on one of the leaders of the Soviet government, on Soviet reality and military equipment, for praising life, military equipment of capitalist countries and the existing system there."
Having information that V. Z. Baido was rehabilitated in this case by the Krasnoyarsk Regional Prosecutor's Office, the author turned for help to Sergei Pavlovich Kharin, who works in this prosecutor's office, his colleague and long-time friend. And soon he sent a certificate, which was compiled based on the materials of the archival criminal case No. P-22644. It said:
"Baido Vladimir Zakharovich, born in 1918, native of Mogilev. In the Red Army since 1936. On August 31, 1941, being an assistant squadron commander of the 7th Fighter Aviation Regiment, Captain V.Z. Baido was shot down over territory of Finland and captured by the Finns.
Until September 1943 he was kept in the 1st officer camp at the station. Peinochia, after which he was handed over to the Germans and moved to a prisoner of war camp in Poland. In December 1943, he was recruited as a German intelligence agent under the pseudonym "Mikhailov". He gave the appropriate signatures about cooperation with the Germans and was sent to study at an intelligence school.
In April 1945, he voluntarily joined the ROA and was enlisted in the personal guard of the traitor to the Motherland Maltsev, where he was awarded the military rank of Captain.
On April 30, 1945, he was captured by US troops and subsequently handed over to the Soviet side. On August 31 of the same year, the military tribunal of the 47th Army was convicted under Art. 58-1 p.b2 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to 10 years of labor camp with loss of rights for 3 years without confiscation of property.
He served his sentence in the Mountain Camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs in Norilsk, worked as a labor engineer, head of the 1st column in the 2nd camp department, and a dental technician in the 4th camp department (1948 - 1949).
Arrested on December 30, 1949 for carrying out anti-Soviet activities. On February 27, 1950, by a special camp court of the Mountain Camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, he was convicted under Art. 58-10 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to 10 years in prison with serving in a correctional labor camp with loss of rights for 5 years. Unserved sentence on the basis of Art. 49 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR has been absorbed.
On March 30, 1955, the appeal for reconsideration was denied. 23 Mulya 1997 was rehabilitated by the Krasnoyarsk prosecutor's office."
S.P. Kharin also reported that, judging by the materials of the case, the basis for his termination and rehabilitation of Baido for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda was that, while expressing critical remarks, he did not call on anyone to overthrow the existing system and weaken Soviet power. But he was not rehabilitated for treason. From this verdict it followed that in 1945 the military tribunal filed a petition to deprive V. Z. Baido of the Orders of the Red Banner and the Red Star. There was no information in the materials of the criminal case that Baido was a Hero of the Soviet Union.
A negative response to the author’s request also came from the Department for Personnel Issues and State Awards of the Administration of the President of Russia. The conclusion is clear: V. 3. Baido was never awarded and, accordingly, was not deprived of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. It can be assumed that he was only nominated for the Golden Star award. And, having learned about this from the command, he considered himself an accomplished Hero of the Soviet Union. But for some reason this idea was not realized.
No less interesting is the fate of the hero of Chelyuskin’s epic, Lieutenant Colonel Boris Abramovich Pivenshtein, born in 1909 in the city of Odessa. In 1934, he took part in the rescue of the crew of the Chelyuskin steamship on an R-5 plane. Then 7 pilots became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union. Pivenstein would probably also have become a Hero if not for the squadron commander N. Kamanin, who, after the breakdown of his plane, expropriated the plane from him and, having reached the Chelyuskin ice camp, received his “Gold Star”. And Pivenstein, together with mechanic Anisimov, remained to repair the command aircraft and in the end was awarded only the Order of the Red Star. Then Pivenstein participated in the search for the missing plane of S. Levanevsky, arriving in November 1937 on Rudolf Island to replace Vodopyanov’s detachment on the ANT-6 plane as a pilot and secretary of the party committee of the air squad.
Before the war, B. Pivenstein lived in the notorious house on the Embankment. There is a museum in this house where he is listed as killed at the front.
At the beginning of the war, Lieutenant Colonel B. A. Pivenstein commanded the 503rd Assault Aviation Regiment, then was the squadron commander of the 504th Assault Aviation Regiment. According to some data that needs clarification, in April 1943, his Il-2 attack aircraft was shot down by the Nazis in the skies of Donbass. Lieutenant Colonel Pivenstein and air gunner Sergeant Major A.M. Kruglov were captured. At the time of capture, Pivenstein was wounded and tried to shoot himself. Kruglov died while trying to escape from a German camp.
According to other sources, as already mentioned, Pivenstein voluntarily fled to the side of the Nazis. Historian K. Aleksandrov names him among the active employees of Lieutenant Colonel G. Holters, the head of one of the intelligence units at the Luftwaffe headquarters.
The author managed to find in the archives materials from the court proceedings in the case of B.A. Pivenshtein, from which it follows that until 1950 he was actually listed as missing, and his family, who lived in Moscow, received a pension from the state. But soon the state security authorities established that Pivenstein, “until June 1951, living on the territory of the American zone of occupation of Germany in the city of Wiesbaden, being a member of the NTS, served as secretary of the Wiesbaden emigrant committee and was the head of the temple, and in June 1951 he left for America ".
On April 4, 1952, B. A. Pivenshtein was convicted in absentia by a military board under Art. 58-1 p.b" and 58-6 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and was sentenced to death with confiscation of property and deprivation of military rank. The verdict stated:
“Pivenstein in 1932 - 1933, while on military service in the Far East, had a criminal connection with the resident of German intelligence Waldman. In 1943, being the commander of an air squadron, he flew on a combat mission to the rear of the Germans, from where he did not return to his unit.. .
While in the pilot prisoner-of-war camp in Moritzfeld, Pivenstein worked in the Vostok counterintelligence department, where he interviewed Soviet pilots captured by the Germans, treated them in an anti-Soviet spirit and persuaded them to betray the Motherland.
In January 1944, Pivenstein was sent by the German command to the counterintelligence department stationed in the city. Koenigsberg..."
The verdict further noted that Pivenstein’s guilt in treason and collaboration with German counterintelligence was proven by the testimony of arrested traitors to the Motherland V.S. Moskalets, M.V. Tarnovsky, I.I. Tenskov-Dorofeev and the documents available in the case.
The author does not know what the future fate of B. A. Pivenshtein was after he left for America.
(From the materials of the book by V. E. Zvyagintsev - “The Tribunal for Stalin’s Falcons.” Moscow, 2008)
