Today in the "Chronicle of the War" I want to raise a topic that struck me at the very beginning of the 90s, when I read in one of the newspapers a message that the German pilot Erich Hartmann shot down 352 aircraft during the war, and only four of them were American. A little later, the number of American losses increased to 7, but still 352 enemy downed - it seemed too much. List of victories of the best Soviet ace Ivan Kozhedub - only 64 aircraft).
I couldn't wrap my head around how this could be. Even more impressive was the decoding of Hartmann's battle account. I will take only a few days of the summer of 1944. Offhand. So, on June 1, 6 downed aircraft (5 Lags and 1 Airacobra). June 2 - 2 Air Cobras, June 3 - 4 aircraft (two Lags and Air Cobras each). June 4 - 7 aircraft (all except one - "Aircobra"). June 5 - 7 aircraft (of which 3 "Lag"). And, finally, on June 6 - 5 aircraft (of which 2 "Lag"). In total, 32 Soviet aircraft were shot down in 6 days of fighting. And on August 24 of the same year, 11 aircraft at once.
Wishful thinking?
But what is strange: Eric Hartmann shot down 32 aircraft in the first six days of June, and all the Luftwaffe by day: 1st - 21, 2nd - 27, 3rd - 33, 4th - 45, 5th - 43 , 6th - 12. Total - 181 aircraft. Or an average of more than 30 aircraft per day. And how many were the losses of the Luftwaffe? The official figures for June 1944 are 312 aircraft, or just over 10 per day. It turns out that our losses are 3 times more? And if we take into account that the losses of the Germans also include aircraft shot down by our anti-aircraft artillery, then the ratio of losses is even greater!
As a person who had military aviation directly related, such arithmetic seemed very strange to me. I don’t remember that they wrote somewhere that in June 1944 the Germans had a threefold superiority in the number of downed aircraft. Especially not in the first months of the war, when the Nazis had complete air superiority, but less than a year before the great Victory.
So where is the dog buried? Are these Hartmann figures from the evil one? Let's first assume that everything is true. And let's compare two pilots - the same Hartmann and three times Hero of the Soviet Union Ivan Kozhedub. Hartmann made 1404 sorties and shot down 352 aircraft, on average, about 4 sorties took one aircraft; Kozhedub's figures are as follows: 330 sorties and 62 enemy aircraft, an average of 5.3 sorties. In terms of numbers, everything seems to match ...
But there is one small peculiarity: how were downed planes counted? I cannot but quote an excerpt from the book by American researchers R. Toliver and T. Constable about Hartmann:
“The rest of the squadron pilots dragged the happy Blond Knight to the mess hall. The party was in full swing when Hartmann's technician burst in. The expression on his face instantly extinguished the jubilation of those assembled.
- What happened, Bimmel? Erich asked.
- Gunsmith, Herr Lieutenant.
- Something is wrong?
- No, everything is okay. It's just that you fired only 120 shots for 3 downed aircraft. I think you need to know this.
A whisper of admiration ran among the pilots, and the schnapps flowed like water again.
Worthy grandchildren of Baron Munchausen
You don't have to be a great aviation expert to suspect something is wrong. On average, for each downed Il-2, namely, Hartmann announced the victory over such aircraft at that time, it took him about 40 shells. Is it possible? Somewhere in the conditions of a training air battle, when the enemy himself is substituted, it is very doubtful. And here everything happened in combat conditions, at exorbitant speeds, and even taking into account the fact that the same fascists called our "Ilyushin" - "flying tank". And there were reasons for this - the mass of the armored hull in the course of fine-tuning and changes reached 990 kg. Elements of the armored hull were tested by shooting. That is, the armor was not placed from the floundering bay, but strictly in vulnerable places ...
And what does a proud statement look like after that, that in one battle three Ilyushins were shot down at once, and even 120 bullets?
Something similar happened to another German ace, Erich Rudoferr. Here is an excerpt from another book - “The Encyclopedia of Military Art. Military pilots. Aces of the Second World War”, published in Minsk.
“On November 6, 1943, during a 17-minute battle over Lake Ladoga, Rudorffer announced that he had shot down 13 Soviet vehicles. It was, of course, one of the greatest successes in fighter aviation and at the same time one of the most controversial battles ... "
Why exactly 13 planes in 17 minutes? You need to ask Erich about this. His words were not subject to any doubts. True, there was an unbeliever Thomas, who asked, and who can confirm this fact? To which Rudoffer, without batting an eyelid, said: “How do I know? All thirteen Russian planes fell to the bottom of Ladoga.
Do you think this fact confused the compilers of the Guinness Book of Records? No matter how! Rudoffer's name is included in this book as an example of the highest combat effectiveness.
Meanwhile, some researchers emphasize that the number of actually shot down aircraft and those assigned was a ratio of approximately 1:3, 1:4. As an example, the same Aleksey Isaev in his book “Ten Myths of the Second World War” cites the following episode:
“Let's take as an example two days, May 13 and 14, 1942, the height of the battle for Kharkov. On May 13, the Luftwaffe claims 65 Soviet aircraft shot down, 42 of which are credited to the III Group of the 52nd Fighter Squadron. The documented losses of the Soviet Air Force for May 13 are 20 aircraft. The next day, the pilots of Group III of the 52nd Fighter Squadron report 47 Soviet aircraft shot down during the day. The commander of the 9th squadron of the group, Herman Graf, announced six victories, his wingman Alfred Grislavsky chalked up two MiG-3s, Lieutenant Adolf Dikfeld announced nine (!) victories that day. The real losses of the Red Army Air Force on May 14 were three times less, 14 aircraft (5 Yak-1, 4 LaGG-3, 3 Il-2, 1 Su-2 and 1 R-5). MiG-3s are simply not on this list.”
Why were such additions necessary? First of all, in order to justify a large number of losses on their part. It's easy to ask a regimental commander who lost 20-27 aircraft in one day. But if in response he tells about 36-40 downed enemy planes, then the attitude towards him will be completely different. No wonder the guys gave their lives!
By the way, the best English ace - Colonel D. Johnson - made 515 sorties during the war, but shot down only 38 German aircraft. The best French ace - lieutenant (lieutenant colonel in the British Air Force) P. Klosterman - made 432 sorties during the war and shot down only 33 German aircraft.
Were they so less skilled than the same Hartmann and Rudoffer? Unlikely. Only the scoring system was more real...
Until recently, the participation of Soviet pilots on the side of Germany in the Great Patriotic War was classified information. All archives were classified, there was no public access to them. To date, this page of history has been very little studied, but some of the archival documents were nevertheless declassified.
Long before World War II was declared, some Soviet Air Force pilots used their own vehicles to escape abroad. So, the commander of the 17th air squadron, Klim, and the senior minder, Timashchuk, flew to Poland on the same plane. The pilot of the Civil Air Fleet G. N. Kravets flew to the territory of Latvia. For its own purposes, it was used by the sabotage and reconnaissance "Zeppelin Enterprise" as the head of the reconnaissance group. Their mission was to blow up infrastructure facilities in the Soviet rear - bridges on railway across the Volga and Kama.
The powerful propaganda campaign carried out by the Germans pushed the Soviet pilots to fly. Leaflets, issued in large numbers, called for the transition to the side of "brothers in arms - pilots of the Luftwaffe". Referring to the data of German military documents, 20 crews took advantage of the escape for the first time in 3 months of 1944. The first such case occurred during the bombing of Koenigsberg. The navigator jumped from the plane by means of a parachute from his "SB". In this situation, preference was given to desertion instead of returning to the same airfield. It was not possible to fight flights, even despite the measures taken against covert desertion - section of the order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR No. 229 of 1941. This trend continued until 1945. [С-BLOCK]
The first instance of the German Armed Forces, who submitted proposals to use Russian pilots from among prisoners of war, was the Abwehr. In 1942, a training air group as part of the RNNA began to operate, led by Major Filatov. It consisted of 22 people. But with a change in leadership, it was closed. The second successful attempt was realized in early October 1943 in the city of Letzen (East Prussia) on the initiative of V. I. Maltsev.
Significant role in the ranks of the Russian Liberation Movement belongs to Viktor Ivanovich Maltsev (05/25/1895-08/1/1946). In the Red Army, he held a number of command and staff positions. In November 1941, he voluntarily went over to the side of the Germans in order, in his words, to "fight against the Bolsheviks." In 1942, he took the post of burgomaster of Yalta in 1942, but stayed for a short time due to his earlier membership in the Communist Party. He worked as a justice of the peace and was engaged in the formation of anti-Soviet military formations. In 1943 he began to work on the creation of the Russian Eastern Aviation Group. [С-BLOCK] Selected military aviators were sent to the air base in Suwalki, where they underwent a tough professional and medical selection. At the end of 1943, Russian pilots were sent to Eastern front where they fought against their compatriots. The "Auxiliary night assault group Ostland", which was equipped with U-2, I-15, I-153, and other obsolete aircraft. The pilots - "ostfliegers" included 2 Heroes of the Soviet Union: fighter captain S. T. Bychkov, senior lieutenant B. R. Antilevsky. The squadron made 500 sorties, there is little data on the content of the tasks performed. Her work was highly appreciated by the German command, some of the flight personnel were awarded the Iron Crosses.
The title ace, in reference to military pilots, first appeared in French newspapers during the First World War. In 1915 journalists nicknamed "aces", and in translation from French the word "as" means "ace", the pilots who shot down three or more enemy aircraft. The first to be called an ace was the legendary French pilot Roland Garros (Roland Garros)
The most experienced and successful pilots in the Luftwaffe were called experts - "Experte"
Luftwaffe
Eric Alfred Hartman (Bubi)
Erich Hartmann (German Erich Hartmann; April 19, 1922 - September 20, 1993) - German ace pilot, considered the most successful fighter pilot in the history of aviation. According to German data, during the Second World War, he shot down "352" enemy aircraft (of which 345 were Soviet) in 825 air battles.
Hartmann graduated from the flying school in 1941 and in October 1942 was assigned to the 52nd Fighter Squadron on the Eastern Front. His first commander and mentor was the well-known Luftwaffe expert Walter Krupinsky.
Hartmann shot down his first plane on November 5, 1942 (IL-2 from the 7th GShAP), but over the next three months he managed to shoot down only one plane. Hartmann gradually improved his flying skills, emphasizing the effectiveness of the first attack.
Oberleutnant Erich Hartman in the cockpit of his fighter, the famous emblem of the 9th staffel of the 52nd squadron is clearly visible - a heart pierced by an arrow with the inscription "Karaya", in the upper left segment of the heart the name of Hartman's bride "Ursel" is written (the inscription is almost invisible in the picture) .
German ace Hauptmann Erich Hartmann (left) and Hungarian pilot Laszlo Pottiondi. German fighter pilot Erich Hartmann - the most productive ace of World War II
Krupinski Walter the first commander and mentor of Erich Hartmann!!
Hauptmann Walter Krupinski commanded the 7th Staffel of the 52nd Squadron from March 1943 to March 1944. The picture shows Krupinski wearing the Knight's Cross with oak leaves, he received the leaves on March 2, 1944 for 177 victories in air battles. Shortly after this photograph was taken, Krupinski was transferred to the West, where he served in 7 (7-5, JG-11 and JG-26, the ace ended the war on Me-262 as part of J V-44.
Pictured in March 1944, from left to right: commander of 8./JG-52 Lieutenant Friedrich Obleser, commander of 9./JG-52 Lieutenant Erich Hartmann. Lieutenant Karl Gritz.
The wedding of Luftwaffe ace Erich Hartmann (1922-1993) and Ursula Paetsch. To the left of the married couple is Hartmann's commander, Gerhard Barkhorn (1919 - 1983). On the right is Hauptmann Wilhelm Batz (1916-1988).
bf. 109G-6 of Hauptmann Erich Hartmann, Buders, Hungary, November 1944.
Barkhorn Gerhard "Gerd"
Major / Major Barkhorn Gerhard / Barkhorn Gerhard
Began flying with JG2, transferred to JG52 in autumn 1940. From 01/16/1945 to 04/01/45 he commanded JG6. He ended the war in the "squadron of aces" JV 44, when on 04/21/1945 his Me 262 was shot down during landing by American fighters. He was severely wounded and was held captive by the Allies for four months.
The number of victories - 301. All victories on the Eastern Front.
Hauptmann Erich Hartmann (04/19/1922 - 09/20/1993) with his commander Major Gerhard Barkhorn (05/20/1919 - 01/08/1983) studying the map. II./JG52 (2nd Group of the 52nd Fighter Squadron). E. Hartmann and G. Barkhorn are the most productive pilots of the Second World War, having 352 and 301 air victories in their combat account, respectively. In the lower left corner of the picture is E. Hartmann's autograph.
The Soviet fighter LaGG-3 destroyed by German aircraft while still on the railway platform.
The snow melted faster than the white winter coloration from the Bf 109 was washed away. The fighter is taking off straight through the spring puddles.)!.
Captured Soviet airfield: I-16 stands next to Bf109F from II./JG-54.
The Ju-87D bomber from the StG-2 "Immelmann" and the "Friedrich" from I./JG-51 are in close formation to carry out the combat mission. At the end of the summer of 1942, the pilots of I./JG-51 will transfer to FW-190 fighters.
Commander of the 52nd Fighter Squadron (Jagdgeschwader 52) Lieutenant Colonel Dietrich Hrabak, Commander of the 2nd Group of the 52nd Fighter Squadron (II.Gruppe / Jagdgeschwader 52) Hauptmann Gerhard Barkhorn and an unknown Luftwaffe officer at the Messerschmitt fighter Bf.109G-6 at Bagerovo airfield.
Walter Krupinski, Gerhard Barkhorn, Johannes Wiese and Erich Hartmann
Commander of the 6th Fighter Squadron (JG6) of the Luftwaffe Major Gerhard Barkhorn in the cockpit of his Focke-Wulf Fw 190D-9 fighter.
Bf 109G-6 "double black chevron" commander I./JG-52 Hauptmann Gerhard Barkhorn, Kharkov-South, August 1943
Note the aircraft's own name; Christi is the name of the wife of Barkhorn, the second most successful fighter pilot in the Luftwaffe. The picture shows the aircraft that Barkhorn flew when he was the commander of I./JG-52, then he had not yet crossed the milestone of 200 victories. Barkhorn survived, shooting down 301 aircraft in total, all on the eastern front.
Gunther Rall
German ace fighter pilot Major Günther Rall (03/10/1918 - 10/04/2009). Günter Rall is the third most successful German ace of World War II. On account of his 275 air victories (272 on the Eastern Front), won in 621 sorties. Rall himself was shot down 8 times. On the pilot's neck is visible the Knight's Cross with oak leaves and swords, which he was awarded on 09/12/1943 for 200 air victories won.
"Friedrich" from III./JG-52, this group in the initial phase of the operation "Barbarossa" covered the troops of the Xi countries operating in the coastal zone of the Black Sea. Pay attention to the unusual angular side number "6" and "sine wave". Apparently, this aircraft belonged to the 8th Staffel.
Spring 1943, Rall watches approvingly as Lieutenant Josef Zwernemann drinks wine from a bottle
Gunther Rall (second from left) after his 200th aerial victory. Second from right - Walter Krupinski
Downed Bf 109 by Günther Rall
Rally in his Gustav 4th
After severe wounds and partial paralysis, Oberleutnant Günther Rall returned to 8./JG-52 on 28 August 1942, and two months later he was made a Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves. Rall ended the war, taking the honorable third place among Luftwaffe fighter pilots in terms of performance.
won 275 victories (272 - on the Eastern Front); shot down 241 Soviet fighters. He made 621 sorties, was shot down 8 times and wounded 3 times. His "Messerschmitt" had a personal number "Devil's Dozen"
The commander of the 8th Squadron of the 52nd Fighter Squadron (Staffelkapitän 8.Staffel / Jagdgeschwader 52), Lieutenant Günther Rall (Günther Rall, 1918-2009) with the pilots of his squadron, in between sorties, plays with the squadron's mascot - a dog named "Rata" .
In the photo in the foreground, from left to right: Sergeant Manfred Lotzmann, Sergeant Werner Höhenberg, and Lieutenant Hans Funcke.
In the background, from left to right: Lieutenant Günther Rall, Lieutenant Hans Martin Markoff, Sergeant Major Karl-Friedrich Schumacher and Lieutenant Gerhard Luety.
The picture was taken by front-line correspondent Reissmüller on March 6, 1943 near the Kerch Strait.
photo of Rall and his wife Herta, originally from Austria
The third in the triumvirate of the best experts of the 52nd squadron was Gunther Rall. Rall flew a black fighter with tail number "13" after his return to service on August 28, 1942 after being seriously wounded in November 1941. By this time, Rall had 36 victories on his account. Before being transferred to the West in the spring of 1944, he shot down another 235 Soviet aircraft. Pay attention to the III./JG-52 symbols - the emblem in the front of the fuselage and the "sine wave" painted closer to the tail.
Kittel Otto (Bruno)
Otto Kittel (Otto "Bruno" Kittel; February 21, 1917 - February 14, 1945) - German ace pilot, fighter, participant in World War II. He made 583 sorties, scored 267 victories, which is the fourth result in history. The Luftwaffe record holder for the number of downed Il-2 attack aircraft is 94. He was awarded the Knight's Cross with oak leaves and swords.
in 1943, luck turned to face him. On January 24, he shot down the 30th aircraft, and on March 15, the 47th. On the same day, his plane was seriously damaged and crashed 60 km behind the front line. With a frost of thirty degrees, Kittel went out to his own on the ice of Lake Ilmen.
So Kittel Otto returned from a four day trip!! His plane was shot down behind the front line, at a distance of 60 km!!
Otto Kittel on vacation, summer 1941. Then Kittel was the most common Luftwaffe pilot with the rank of non-commissioned officer.
Otto Kittel in the circle of comrades! (marked with a cross)
At the head of the table "Bruno"
Otto Kittel with his wife!
He died on February 14, 1945 during the attack of the Soviet Il-2 attack aircraft. Shot down by the gunner's return fire, Kittel's Fw 190A-8 aircraft (serial number 690 282) crashed in a swampy area in the location Soviet troops and exploded. The pilot did not use the parachute, as he died while still in the air.
Two Luftwaffe officers bandaging the hand of a wounded captured Red Army soldier near the tent
Plane "Bruno"
Novotny Walter (Novi)
German ace pilot of the Second World War, during which he made 442 sorties, scoring 258 victories in the air, 255 of them on the Eastern Front and 2 over 4-engine bombers. The last 3 victories won by flying jet fighter Me.262. He won most of his victories flying the FW 190, and about 50 victories on the Messerschmitt Bf 109. He was the first pilot in the world to score 250 victories. Awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds
Hundreds if not thousands of books have been written about former Soviet generals and officers who went over to the side of the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, not to mention newspaper notes. And about the Nazi military who fought under the banner of the Red Army - almost nothing.
But after all, there were also very remarkable figures among them - what is the only great-grandson of Otto von Bismarck himself, Count Heinrich von Einsiedel worth. The Germans from the Union of German Officers fought shoulder to shoulder with the Red Army, and the collaborationist Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR), General Andrei Vlasov, had a Soviet analogue - the National Committee "Free Germany", whose leadership included Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus. The Nazi military even participated in the partisan movement, and one of them was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union, though posthumously.
Until now, historians are arguing on whose side there were more defectors - from the Soviet or from the German. As a rule, those who are of the opinion that the number of Nazis who went over to the Soviet side is relatively small, use the official statistics of the NKVD. And it is this: during the war years, "recruited for subversive and intelligence activities from among the prisoners of war by the NKVD: 5341 Germans, 1266 Romanians, 943 Italians, 855 Hungarians, 106 Finns, 92 Austrians, 75 Spaniards, 24 Slovaks." But, firstly, we are talking only about those who were recruited by the NKVD, and besides them, several other departments were recruiting. And, secondly, only scouts and saboteurs are taken into account. Therefore, the statistics are incomplete - in it, for example, there is no data on the Red Army units of the Union of German Officers. By the way, these units more than once distinguished themselves in battles with the Nazis, in particular during the Zelovsko-Berlin operation. According to the German memoirist Helmut Altner, “they went into battle in German uniforms, with German awards and differed from the Nazi troops only by a bandage on their sleeves, made in the colors of the flag of the Weimar Republic (the current flag of Germany. - Ed.)”. So the question of the exact number of defectors is still open.
The first German defector is considered to be Alfred Liskov, a Wehrmacht soldier who informed the Soviet military about the impending war the day before it began. Liskov served in the 15th Infantry Division stationed in the Sokal region (now the Lviv region of Ukraine) - this unit was supposed to be one of the first to cross our border. Upon learning of the impending offensive, on June 21, Liskov fled from the unit, swam across the Bug and at about 9 pm surrendered to the Red Army border guards. All summer Liskov participated in the propaganda activities of the Comintern, and in the fall he had a fight with its leader Georgy Dimitrov. And he declared the defector "a fascist and an anti-Semite." Liskov was arrested, and in 1942 he was shot.
Upon learning that one of his favorites had defected to the enemy, Hitler announced a generous reward for being returned to the Reich, dead or alive, - as much as half a million Reichsmarks
Two days after the start of the war, a German Junkers bomber suddenly landed in the vicinity of Kyiv. His entire crew - consisting of Hans Hermann, Hans Kratz, Wilhelm Schmidt and Adolf Appel - voluntarily surrendered. As the Sovinformburo reported, "not wanting to fight against the Soviet people, the pilots first dropped bombs into the Dnieper, and then landed near the city, where they surrendered to the local peasants." The example of the Junkers crew in just two summer months of the first year of the war was followed by at least two dozen other German pilots. But the most famous ace defector was undoubtedly Heinrich von Einsiedel. The aristocrat, great-grandson of the first chancellor of the German Empire Bismarck, von Einsiedel, who was barely 20 years old by the beginning of World War II, enjoyed the patronage of Hitler himself. He served in the elite 3rd Fighter Squadron, named after the famous ace pilot of the First World War, Ernst Udet. In the battles near Belgrade and Paris, Lieutenant von Einsiedel shot down two dozen aircraft, and in 1942 Hitler sent him to the East, admonishing: “Clean up the sky over Stalingrad, Count. I believe you will." Bismarck's great-grandson was shot down over Sarepta, he was taken prisoner, and he was sent to an officer camp near Moscow. There he met Friedrich Paulus, with whom they created, one might say, the collaborationist committee "Free Germany", untold money at that time. But fate smiled on the descendant of Bismarck: after the war, he went to Germany, where he lived to an advanced age.
The fate of Lieutenant General Walther von Seidlitz-Kurzbach was a little less dramatic than that of the odious head of the KONR. The division he commanded participated in the breakthrough of the Maginot Line and marched victoriously through Poland and Holland. For this, the Fuhrer awarded his heroic general the Knight's iron cross. Von Seydlitz-Kurzbach ended up on the Eastern Front in the first days of the war, and in January 1943 the general was captured along with the headquarters of the corps entrusted to him shortly before this. Seydlitz-Kurzbach was, as they say, a "military bone" and did not like the Fuhrer's "upstart" too much. In a prisoner of war camp, he, together with Generals Otto Korfes, Martin Lattmann and Alexander von Daniels, decided to cooperate with the Soviet authorities in order to overthrow Hitler.
In the fall of 1943, at the founding conference in Lunevo, von Seidlitz-Kurzbach was elected chairman of the Union of German Officers, and then deputy chairman of the Free Germany National Committee. For eyes Soviet generals began to call von Seydlitz-Kurzbach "German Vlasov". Meanwhile, the military court of Dresden sentenced the general in absentia to death penalty. At the end of the war, the Union of German Officers was dissolved, and for the next five years of his life, the general worked in the military-historical department of the USSR General Staff. But after von Seidlitz-Kurzbach applied for repatriation to the Soviet zone of occupation, he was arrested. In 1950, the moratorium on the death penalty was lifted in the USSR and the general was again sentenced to capital punishment - for the second time in his life. But then the “tower” was replaced with 25 years in prison and sent to Butyrka, where he was kept for five years. He was released in 1955 and immediately returned to Germany. 
Even outwardly, Fritz Schmenkel somewhat resembled the good soldier Schweik, the hero of the novel by Yaroslav Hasek. The short, densely built guy obviously did not differ in special heroism: when in 1938 he was called up for service in the Wehrmacht, he preferred to "slope", citing poor health. Then there were hospitals and a bed in a lunatic asylum - just like Hasek's. And then the "refusenik" Schmenkel was placed in prison. In general, I had to ask to go to war so as not to rot in a cell with criminals. In the rank of corporal, Schmenkel ended up on the Eastern Front. But he did not have to fight for his native country for a long time - in the fall of 1941, he fled from the location of the unit and hid in the villages of the Smolensk region until the policemen caught him. They put Schmenkel in a barn under lock and key. And then there are the partisans.
The partisan detachment, in which Schmenkel fell, was called "Death to fascism." At first, our people gathered to shoot the prisoner. But by some miracle, the German managed to prove that he, in general, was also against Hitler. All right, the partisans said, let's test you in battle. And in the very first skirmish with the Nazis, Schmenkel managed to distinguish himself: he shot a German sniper, who was firing at the partisans from an ambush. In August 1942, Schmenkel, dressed in a German uniform, captured 11 policemen without a fight and handed them over to the partisan court. Further more. Having obtained the uniform of a German general somewhere, Schmenkel stopped the German convoy with food and ammunition and sent it into the forest, straight to the partisan ambush. It ended with the fact that the Nazis learned about German soldier, who was a partisan with the Russians, was given a large bounty on his head. And the partisans by that time already held Schmenkel for their own and even called him not Fritz, but Ivan Ivanovich.
In early 1944, not far from Minsk, the brave Schmenkel was captured by the Nazis. On February 22, he was shot by the verdict of a military court ... In 1964, Fritz Schmenkel was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union - posthumously.
The topic related to the participation of Soviet air aces in the Great Patriotic War on the side of the Germans, until recently, was one of the most closed. Even today it is called a little-studied page of our history. These issues are most fully set out 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 soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Heroes and traitors" - YaUZA, 2005.)
Russian aviation units of the Luftwaffe were formed from 3 categories of pilots: recruited in captivity, emigrants and voluntary defectors, or rather "flyers" to the side of the enemy. Their exact number is unknown. According to I. Hoffmann, who used German sources, quite a lot of Soviet pilots voluntarily flew to the side of Germany - in 1943 there were 66 of them, in the first quarter of 1944 another 20 were added.
I must say that the escapes of Soviet pilots abroad happened even before the war. So, in 1927, the commander of the 17th air squadron, Klim, and the senior minder, 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 the historical literature, among the Russian "flyers" they mention career officers of the Red Army Air Force Lieutenant Colonel B. A. Pivenshtein, Captains K. Arzamastsev, A. Nikulin and others.
The bulk of those who went to serve 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: the acting commander of the Air Force of the 20th Army Western front Colonel Vanyushin Alexander Fedorovich, who became deputy and chief of staff at Maltsev, head of communications of the 205th fighter air division Major Sitnik Serafima Zakharovna, squadron commander of the 13th high-speed bomber regiment Captain F. I. Ripushinsky, Captain A. P. Mettl (real name - Retivov), who served in aviation Black Sea Fleet, other. According to the estimates of the historian K. M. Aleksandrov, there were 38 of them in total.
Most of the air aces who were captured were convicted after the war. So, on July 25, 1946, the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District sentenced Antilevsky to death under Art. 58-1 p. "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. A month later, under the same article and to the same measure of punishment, the district court convicted Bychkov.
In archival attire, the author happened to study other sentences handed down in relation to Soviet pilots shot down during the war years, 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 writings of K. Aleksandrov - Vasily) Vasilyevich Shiyan. According to the verdict, he was shot down while performing a combat mission on July 7, 1941, after which he was recruited by German intelligence agencies in a prisoner of war camp, after graduating from a spy-sabotage school "with reconnaissance and sabotage purposes he was thrown into the location of the troops of the 2nd shock army", since autumn 1943 and until the end of the war "served in the aviation units of the traitorous so-called Russian Liberation Army", first as deputy commander of the "1st Eastern Squadron, and then as its commander." Further, the verdict 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 Snegov Vasily Nikolaevich. The tribunal sentenced him to 25 years in the camps.
The court also measured the same amount to Lieutenant I. G. Radionenkov, who was shot down on the Leningrad front in February 1942, who, in order to “disguise his identity, acted under the fictitious name and name Shvets Mikhail Gerasimovich.
"At the end of 1944, Radionenkov betrayed his Motherland and voluntarily entered the service in the air unit of traitors, the so-called ROA, where he was awarded the rank of Lieutenant of Aviation of the ROA ... he was part of a fighter squadron ... he made training flights on the Messerschmitt-109."
Due to the paucity of archival sources, it cannot be categorically stated that all the pilots repressed after the war actually served in German aviation, since MGB investigators could force some of them to give "confessions" using well-known methods of that time.
Some of the pilots experienced these methods on 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 the 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, the use of unreasonable repressions against the former Colonel of the Air Force of the Red Army. 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 Yegorievsk school of military pilots, in the years civil war got injured. Maltsev was one of the instructors of V.P. Chkalov, while he was studying at the Yegorievsk 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 aviation and held this position until 1937, until he was transferred to the reserve, receiving the post of head of the Turkmen Civil Aviation Administration. For the successes achieved in his work, he was even presented for the award of the Order of Lenin.
But on March 11, 1938, he was unexpectedly arrested as a participant in the "military - fascist conspiracy" and only on September 5 of the following year was released for lack of evidence. During the period of imprisonment in the basements of the Ashgabat department of the NKVD, Maltsev was repeatedly tortured, but he did not admit to any of the trumped-up charges. After his release, Maltsev was reinstated in the party and in the ranks of the Red Army, having been appointed 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 the Crimea by German troops, in the form 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 they appointed him the burgomaster of Yalta. He repeatedly spoke to the local population with calls for the need for an active fight against Bolshevism, personally formed the 55th punitive battalion to fight partisans for this purpose. For the diligence shown at the same time, he was awarded bronze and silver signs for the Eastern peoples "For Courage" II class with swords.
A lot has been written about how Maltsev got along with Vlasov and began to create 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 filed 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 in SMERSH, he testified that at the end of September 1943, the Germans invited him to the town of Moritzfelde, where the camp of aviators recruited for the service of Vlasov was located. By that time there were only 15 traitor pilots there. At the beginning of December of the same year, the German Air Force General Staff allowed the formation of Russian prisoners of war pilots who had betrayed their Motherland into an "Eastern Squadron", the commander of which was the white emigrant Tarnovsky. On him, Maltsev, the Germans entrusted the leadership of 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 military operations against partisans. Upon his return 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 processing of the pilots was carried out 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 have been a communist all my conscious age, and not in order to wear a party card as an additional food card, I sincerely and deeply believed that in this way we will come to happy life. But now the best years have passed, my head has turned white, and with it the worst thing has come - disappointment in everything that I believed and worshiped. The best ideals were spat on. But the most bitter was the realization that all my life I had been a blind instrument of Stalin's political adventures... Let it be hard to be disappointed in my best ideals, let the best part of my life be gone, but I will devote the rest of my days to the fight against the executioners of the Russian people, for a free, happy , great Russia".
The 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 processing, trained, sworn in, and then sent to East Prussia, where an air group was formed in the Moritzfelde camp, which received the name of the Holters-Maltsev group in historical literature ...
J. Hoffmann wrote:
“In the autumn of 1943, Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff Holters, head of the Vostok intelligence processing center at the Luftwaffe Command Headquarters (OKL), who processed the results of interrogations of Soviet pilots, proposed to form a flight unit from prisoners who were 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
In September 1940, Antilevsky was enrolled as a cadet in the Kachinsky Red Banner Military Aviation School named after comrade. Myasnikov, after which he received the military rank of "Junior Lieutenant" and from April 1942 he participated in the Great Patriotic War as part of the 20th Fighter Aviation Regiment. He flew on "Yaks", showed himself well in the August battles of 1942 near Rzhev.
In 1943, the regiment was included in the 303rd Fighter Aviation Division, after which Antilevsky became deputy squadron commander.
Major General of Aviation G.N. Zakharov wrote:
"The 20th fighter specialized in escorting bombers and attack aircraft. The glory of the pilots of the 20th regiment is not loud. They were not particularly praised for downed enemy planes, but they were strictly asked for their own lost ones. They were not relaxed in the air to the extent to which any fighter strives in open combat, they could not abandon the "Ilys" or "Petlyakovs" and rush headlong into enemy aircraft. They were bodyguards in the truest sense of the word, and only pilots - bombers and pilots - attack aircraft could fully give them due ... The regiment performed its tasks exemplarily, and in this work it, perhaps, 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 at once 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, received the rank of Lieutenant ...
A particularly valuable acquisition of Maltsev was the Hero of the Soviet Union, Captain S. T. Bychkov.
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 as an instructor there. In September 1938, Bychkov graduated from the Tambov School of the Civil Air Fleet and began working as a pilot at the Voronezh airport. And in January 1939 he was drafted into the Red Army. He studied at the Borisoglebsk aviation school. He served in the 12th Reserve Aviation Regiment, 42nd and 287th Fighter Aviation Regiments. In June 1941, Bychkov graduated from the fighter pilot courses of the Konotop military school. He flew an I-16 fighter.
He fought well. During the first 1.5 months of the war, he shot down 4 fascist aircraft. But in 1942, the deputy commander of the squadron, Lieutenant S. T. Bychkov, was for the first time under the tribunal. He was found guilty of committing an aircraft accident and sentenced to 5 years in labor camps, but on the basis of note 2 to Art. 28 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, the sentence was postponed with the direction of the convict to active army. He himself was eager to fight and quickly redeemed himself. Soon his conviction was expelled.
1943 for Bychkov, as well as for his future friend Antilevsky, developed successfully. He became a famous air ace, received two Orders of the Red Banner. His criminal record was no longer mentioned. 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 the Captain, and on September 2 - the Golden Star.
The submission for awarding him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union said:
"Participating in fierce air battles with superior enemy aircraft from 12 Mule to 10 August 1943, he proved to be an excellent fighter pilot, whose courage is combined with great skill. He enters the battle boldly and decisively, conducts it at a high pace, imposes his will enemy..."
Luck changed Semyon Bychkov on December 10, 1943. His fighter was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery fire in the Orsha region. Shrapnel also wounded Bychkov, but he jumped out with a parachute, and after landing he was captured. 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 single answer to this question even today. It is known that in the court session 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 offered him to go to serve in 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, because in case of refusal to serve in the ROA, he would make sure that he, Bychkov, was sent to a concentration camp where no one gets out alive...
Meanwhile, most researchers believe that in fact no one beat Bychkov. And although the arguments are convincing, they still do not give grounds to unequivocally state that after the capture of Bychkov, Maltsev was not processed, 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. Someone expected to go over to their own at the first opportunity. And such cases, contrary to the statement of I. Hoffmann, really took place.
Why didn't Bychkov and Antilevsky do this, who, unlike Maltsev, were not ardent anti-Soviet? After all, they certainly had such an opportunity. The answer is obvious - at first they, young 25-year-olds, were subjected to psychological treatment, convincing, including concrete examples, that there was no turning back, that they had already been sentenced in absentia and that upon returning to their homeland they would be shot or 25 years in the camps. And then it was too late.
However, these are all assumptions. We do not know how long and in what way he processed the Maltsev Heroes. The established fact is only 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, showed examples of unparalleled stamina 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 the Buchenwald concentration camp: deputy squadron commander of the 148th Special Purpose Guards 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 the captain - attack aircraft Viktor Ivanov were sentenced to hang, but then they were replaced by Auschwitz.
2 Soviet aviation Generals M.A. Beleshev and G.I. Thor were captured. The third - the legendary I.S. Polbin, who was 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 projectile in his Pe-2 attack aircraft. But according to one version, he was also captured in a serious condition 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 captivity, was without sufficient grounds found guilty of collaborating with the Nazis and convicted after the war, and the deputy commander of the 62nd bomber air division, Major General of Aviation G. I. Thor, whom both the Nazis and the Vlasovites repeatedly persuaded to go to serve in 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 the 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 G.I. Thor was awarded posthumously only on July 26, 1991.
Major A. N. Karasev was kept in Mauthausen. In the same concentration camp, 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 in January 1945 became the organizers of the uprising. 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, aircraft were ferried from factories to field airfields on the Eastern Front. Then they were entrusted to speak in prisoner of war camps with anti-Soviet propaganda speeches. 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 fight, we were captured by the Germans. Not only did no one torment or torture us, on the contrary, we met the warmest and comradely attitude and respect for our epaulettes, orders and military merits from the German officers and soldiers" .
In the investigative and judicial 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 the technique of piloting German fighters. For this service, he was rewarded with two medals, nominal watches and conferring the military rank of Captain. In addition, he signed an "appeal" to Soviet prisoners of war and Soviet citizens, which slandered Soviet reality and state leaders. His portraits, with the text of the "appeal" by the Germans, were distributed both in Germany and in the occupied territory Soviet Union. He also repeatedly spoke on the radio and in the press with calls 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 command of Maltsev, they took an active part in the creation of the 1st Aviation Regiment of KONR.
The formation of the ROA aviation was authorized by G. Goering on December 19, 1944. The headquarters is located in Marienbad. Aschenbrenner was appointed 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 the chief of his staff, and Major A. Mettl as the head of the operational department. At the headquarters was also General Popov with a group of cadets of the 1st Russian Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich cadet corps evacuated from Yugoslavia.
Maltsev again developed a vigorous activity, began to publish his own newspaper "Our Wings", 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 the aviation of Baron Wrangel. 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 assault squadron, later renamed the squadron of night bombers, was headed by Captain B. Antilevsky. The 3rd reconnaissance squadron was commanded by Captain S. Artemiev, the 5th training squadron was commanded by Captain M. Tarnovsky.
On February 4, 1945, during the first review of aviation units, Vlasov presented military awards to his falcons, including Antilevsky and Bychkov.
In the publication of M. Antilevsky about the pilots of the Vlasov army, one can read:
“In the spring of 1945, a few weeks before the end of the war, fierce air battles were going on over Germany and Czechoslovakia. The crackling of cannon and machine-gun bursts, jerky commands, curses of pilots and the groans of the wounded that accompanied fights in the air sounded on the air. But on some days, Russian speech was heard from both sides - in the sky over the center of Europe, in fierce battles, not for life, but for death, the Russians converged.
In fact, Vlasov's "falcons" did not have time to fight in full force. It is only known for certain that on April 13, 1945, aircraft of the Antilevsky bomber squadron entered the battle with units of the Red Army. They supported the offensive of the 1st division of the ROAN with fire at the Soviet Erlenhof bridgehead, south of Furstenberg. And on April 20, 1945, on the orders of Vlasov, Maltsev’s aviation units had already moved to the city of Neuern, where, after a meeting with Ashenbrenner, they decided to start negotiations with the Americans on 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 was not within his competence and offered to hand over their weapons. At the same time, he gave guarantees that he would not give out the Vlasov "Falcons" Soviet side until the end of the war. They decided to capitulate, which they did on April 27 in the Langdorf area.
The officer group, numbering about 200 people, which included Bychkov, 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.
Major General Maltsev was taken by soldiers of the 3rd American Army to a prisoner of war camp near Frankfurt am Main, and then also transported 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 his veins in his arms and inflicted cuts on his neck. But he did not manage 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 and pardon. He only reminded the judges of the military board in the last word about his unfounded conviction in 1938, which undermined his faith in Soviet power. In 1946, Colonel A.F. Vanyushin, who held the post of Chief of Staff of the Military - Air Force SU CONR.
S. Bychkov, as we have already said, was "saving" the main trial of the leadership as a witness. They promised that if they gave the necessary evidence, 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 to deprive him of the title of Hero took place 5 months later - on March 23, 1947.
As for B. Antilevsky, almost all researchers of 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:
“Traces of the regiment commander Baidak and two officers of his headquarters, majors Klimov and Albov, were never found. Antilevsky managed to fly away and get to Spain, where, according to information from those who continued to look for his organs, he was noticed already in the 1970s. Although he and was sentenced in absentia to death by a decision of the MVO 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 realized it, deprived him of this award in absentia.
The materials of the criminal case against B. R. Antilevsky do not give grounds for such assertions. It is difficult to say where the "Spanish trace" of B. Antilevsky originates from. Perhaps for the reason that his Fi-156 Storch aircraft was prepared for a flight to Spain, and he was not among the officers captured by the Americans. According to the materials of the case, after the surrender of Germany, he was in Czechoslovakia, where he joined the "pseudo-partisan" detachment "Red Iskra" and received documents of a member of the anti-fascist movement in the name of Berezovsky. Having this certificate in hand, he, while trying to get into the territory of the USSR, was arrested by the NKVD on June 12, 1945. Antilevsky-Berezovsky was repeatedly interrogated, fully convicted of treason, and on July 25, 1946, he was convicted by the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District under Art. 58-1 p. "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to capital punishment - execution - with confiscation of personally owned property. According to the archive 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 on November 29 of the same year it was carried out. 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.
It remains only to add to what has been said that, by a strange irony of fate, according to the certificate seized from Antilevsky during the search, a member partisan detachment"Red spark" Berezovsky was also called Boris.
Continuing the story of the Soviet air aces, who, according to available data, while in captivity, collaborated with the Nazis, it is worth mentioning two more pilots: who called himself the Hero of the Soviet Union V. 3. Baido and, ironically, never became the Hero of B. A. 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 what is written in their questionnaires and track record"black fad", extremely stingy and contradictory. Therefore, this chapter was the most difficult for the author, and it should immediately be noted that the information provided 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 sawed 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 "Gold Star", receiving it for No. 72 ...
For the first time, the author came across the name of this person in the memoirs of the former "convict" of the Norilsk citizen S. G. Golovko - "Days of the Victory of Syomka the Cossack", recorded by V. Tolstov and published in the newspaper "Zapolyarnaya Pravda". Golovko claimed that in 1945, when he got to the camp site at the 102nd kilometer, where the Nadezhda airport was being built and became a foreman there, in the brigade he "had Sasha Kuznetsov and two pilots, Heroes of the Soviet Union: Volodya Baida, who was the first after Talalikhin, he made a night ramming, and Nikolai Gaivoronsky, an ace fighter.
A more detailed story about the prisoner of the 4th department of the Gorlag, Vladimir Baido, can be read in the book of another former "convict" G.S. Klimovich:
"... Vladimir Baida, in the past was a pilot - an aircraft designer. Baida was the first Hero of the Soviet Union in Belarus. Once Stalin personally handed him the "Gold Star", once in Minsk the first hero was met by members of the republican government, and in his hometown Mogilev, when he arrived there, the streets were strewn with flowers and crowded with jubilant people of all ages and conditions. Life turned its best side to him. But soon the war began. She found 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 on the second day of the war Baida was a direct participant in the war. Once he bombed Helsinki with his squadron and was attacked by Messerschmitts. There was no fighter cover, we had to defend ourselves, the forces were unequal. Bayda's plane was shot down, he himself was taken prisoner. In an open car with the inscription "Soviet Vulture" on board, he was taken 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 braced himself, endured all the hardships of the fascist concentration camp, waited for the allies to open a second front and end the torment. But the allies hesitated, they 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 seemed to be 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 away the "Gold Star" and the Knight's Cross from him, handed over to the Soviet authorities. Here he was tried for treason and sentenced to 10 years in prison, transferred to the Gorlag...
Bayda perceived such a sentence as an insulting injustice; he did not feel guilty, he believed that it was not he who had betrayed the Motherland, but she had betrayed him; that if at the time when he, outcast and forgotten, was languishing in a fascist concentration camp, the Motherland showed even the slightest concern for him, there would be no question of any betrayal, he would not have developed anger towards the allies, and he would not to sell themselves to the Luftwaffe. He shouted about this truth 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 a due rebuff. Bayda was decisive and had very trained hands - with a direct blow of his fingers he could pierce the human body in self-defense, and with the edge of his palm he could break a 50-mm board. Having failed to cope with him in the Gorlag, the MGB delivered him to Tsemstroy.
This is such an incredible story. It is based, apparently, on the stories of Baido himself and, perhaps, somewhat embellished by the author of the book. Figuring out what was true in this story and what is fiction is far from easy. How, for example, to evaluate the statement that V. Baido was the first Belarusian to receive the title of Hero of the Soviet Union? After all, officially he is listed as a brave tanker P. 3. Kupriyanov, who destroyed 2 enemy vehicles and 8 guns in a battle near Madrid. Yes, and the "Golden Star" under No. 72, as it 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 near Stalingrad ...
In general, there were many unanswered questions. Yes, there are many of them today. 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, not far from Vyborg. On the second day of the war, the commander of the 193rd air regiment, Major G. M. Galitsin, was instructed to form a task force from the remnants of the defeated air units, for which the number of the 7th IAP was retained. On June 30, the renewed regiment began to carry out combat missions. In the first months of the war, it was based on the airfields of the Karelian Isthmus, then - on the suburban airfields of Leningrad, protecting it from the north and northwest. By the time Baido was captured, he was one of the most experienced pilots, and his regiment became one of the advanced units of the Air Force of the Leningrad Front. The pilots performed up to 60 sorties daily, many of them were awarded orders and medals.
B. 3. Baido was awarded the military orders of the Red Star and the Red Banner. But there was no information about awarding him the "Gold Star". The materials of the archival investigative and court case, or at least the supervisory proceedings, could bring some clarity. But neither the Supreme Court of Russia nor the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office could find any traces of this case.
And here is the missing information from the personal file of V. 3. Baido No. B-29250, which is stored in the departmental archive of the Norilsk Combine, Alla Borisovna Makarova informed the author in her letter. She wrote:
"Vladimir Zakharovich Baida (Baido), born in 1918, July 12, a native of the city of Mogilev, Belarusian, higher education, TsAGI design engineer, non-partisan. He was held in places of detention from July 31, 1945 to April 27, 1956 in two cases , according to one of which he was rehabilitated, and on 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 of April 25, 1956 due to the groundlessness of the conviction ..."
It followed from the letter that after his release, Baido remained in Norilsk, worked as a turner at an underground mine, as a design engineer, head of the assembly site ... From 1963 until his retirement in 1977, he worked in the laboratory of the Mining and Metallurgical Experimental and Research Center . Then he moved with his wife Vera Ivanovna to Donetsk, where he died.
Regarding Baido's being awarded the "Gold Star", A. B. Makarova wrote that few people in Norilsk believed in it. Meanwhile, his wife confirmed this fact in a letter she sent to the museum of the Norilsk Combine...
The mountain camp in Norilsk, where Baido was kept, was one of the Special Camps (Osoblagov) created after the war. Especially dangerous criminals convicted of "espionage", "treason", "sabotage", "terror", for participation in "anti-Soviet organizations and groups" were sent to these camps. The majority were former prisoners of war and members of the national rebel movements in Ukraine and the Baltic states. Baido was also convicted of "treason." It happened on August 31, 1945, when a military tribunal sentenced him under Art. 58-1 p. "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for 10 years in camps.
For Gorlag prisoners, a particularly strict penal servitude was established, the institution of early release for shock work did not operate, and there were restrictions on correspondence with relatives. The names of the prisoners were abolished. They were numbered under the numbers indicated on the clothes: on the back and above the knee. The duration of the working day was at least 12 hours. And this is 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 the Special Camps, since it did not apply to the most serious paragraphs of the 58th article.
In Norillag, the immediate cause of the uprising was the murder of several prisoners by the 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. Unrest swept all 6 camp departments of the Gorlag and 2 departments of the Norillag. The number of rebels exceeded 16,000 people. Baido was a member of the rebel committee of the 5th branch of the Gorlag.
The demands in the Norillag, as in other camps, were similar: to abolish hard labor, stop the arbitrariness of the administration, reconsider 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, 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 it.” Rudenko walked with the head of the camp, turned his 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, he would not allow breaking the law and that with his power he gave us 3 day to rest, and then offers to go to work. He wished 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 Attorney General, the camp was cordoned off by soldiers and the assault began. The uprising was brutally suppressed. The exact number of deaths is still not known. The researcher of this topic A. B. Makarova wrote that in the cemetery book of Norilsk for 1953 there is an entry about 150 nameless dead buried in a common grave. An employee of the cemetery near Shmidtikha told her that this particular entry refers to the victims of the massacre of the rebels.
Against the 45 most active rebels, new cases were initiated, 365 people were transferred to prisons in a number of cities, 1,500 people were transferred to Kolyma.
By the time the uprising took place in the camp, one of its participants - V. 3. Baido - had already 2 previous convictions. 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 capitalist countries and the system existing there.
Having information that V. 3. Baido was rehabilitated in this case by the Krasnoyarsk Regional Prosecutor's Office, the author turned to Sergei Pavlovich Kharin, his colleague and long-time friend, who works in this prosecutor's office, for help. 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, a native of the city of Mogilev. In the Red Army since 1936. On August 31, 1941, as an assistant squadron commander of the 7th Fighter Aviation Regiment, Captain V. Z. Baido, while performing a combat mission, was shot down over Finnish territory and captured by the Finns.
Until September 1943, he was kept in the 1st officer camp at st. 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 on cooperation with the Germans and was sent to study at the intelligence school.
In April 1945, he voluntarily joined the ROA and was enrolled in the personal guard of the traitor Maltsev, where he was awarded the military rank of Captain.
On April 30, 1945, he was captured by US troops and subsequently transferred 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 disqualification for 3 years without confiscation of property.
He served his sentence in the Mining 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, dental technician in the 4th camp department (1948 - 1949).
Arrested for carrying out anti-Soviet activities on December 30, 1949. On February 27, 1950, a special camp court of the Mountain Camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs was convicted under Art. 58-10 hours 1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to 10 years in prison with serving in a correctional labor camp with disqualification for 5 years. Unserved punishment on the basis of Art. 49 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR absorbed.
On March 30, 1955, the appeal for retrial was denied. On 23 Mul, 1997, he was rehabilitated by the Krasnoyarsk prosecutor's office.
S.P. Kharin also said that, judging by the materials of the case, the reason 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 for treason, he was not rehabilitated. From this verdict it followed that the military tribunal in 1945 filed a petition to deprive V. 3. Baido of the orders of the Red Banner and the Red Star. There was no information that Baido was a Hero of the Soviet Union in the materials of the criminal case.
A negative response to the author's request was also received from the Directorate for Personnel Issues and State Awards of the Administration of the President of Russia. The conclusion is unequivocal: 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 presented 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 implemented.
No less interesting is the fate of the hero of the Chelyuskin epic, Lieutenant Colonel Boris Abramovich Pivenshtein, who was born in 1909 in the city of Odessa. In 1934, he participated in the R-5 aircraft in rescuing the crew of the Chelyuskin steamer. Then 7 pilots became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union. Pivenstein, for sure, would 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 ice camp of the Chelyuskinites, received his "Gold Star". And Pivenshtein, together with the mechanic Anisimov, remained to repair the commander's aircraft and, as a result, was awarded only the Order of the Red Star. Then Pivenshtein participated in the search for the missing plane of S. Levanevsky, arriving in November 1937 on Rudolf Island to replace the Vodopyanov detachment on the ANT-6 plane as a pilot and secretary of the party committee of the squadron.
Before the war, B. Pivenshtein lived in a notorious house on the Embankment. In this house there is a museum where he is listed as dead at the front.
At the beginning of the war, Lieutenant Colonel B.A. Pivenshtein commanded the 503rd assault aviation regiment, then he was the squadron commander of the 504th assault aviation regiment. According to some data that need to be clarified, in April 1943, his Il-2 attack aircraft was shot down by the Nazis in the sky of Donbass. Lieutenant Colonel Pivenshtein and air gunner Sergeant A. M. Kruglov were captured. At the time of captivity, Pivenstein was wounded and tried to shoot himself. Kruglov died while trying to escape from the German camp.
According to other sources, as already mentioned, Pivenshtein voluntarily flew over to the side of the Nazis. Historian K. Alexandrov names him among the active employees of Lieutenant Colonel G. Holters, the head of one of the intelligence units at the headquarters of the Luftwaffe.
The author managed to find in the archives the materials of the court proceedings in the case of B. A. Pivenshtein, from which it follows that until 1950 he was really 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 in the territory of the American zone of occupation of Germany in the city of Wiesbaden, being a member of the NTS, acted 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 paragraph "b" and 58-6 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and sentenced to death with confiscation of property and deprivation of military rank. The verdict stated:
"Pivenstein in 1932 - 1933, while in military service on Far East, had a criminal connection with the resident of German intelligence Waldman. In 1943, being the commander of an air squadron, he flew out on a combat mission to the rear of the Germans, from where he did not return to his unit ...
While in the prisoner of war pilots camp in Moritzfeld, Pivenshtein worked in the Vostok counterintelligence department, where he interviewed Soviet pilots who were captured by the Germans, treated them in an anti-Soviet spirit and persuaded them to treason.
In January 1944, Pivenshtein was sent by the German command to the counterintelligence department, stationed in the mountains. Königsberg..."
Further, the verdict noted that Pivenshtein's guilt of treason to the Motherland and cooperation with German counterintelligence was proved by the testimony of the arrested traitors to the Motherland V. S. Moskalets, M. V. Tarnovsky, I. I. Tenskov - Dorofeev and the documents available in the case.
How the further fate of B. A. Pivenshtein developed after his departure to America is unknown to the author.
(From the materials of the book by V. E. Zvyagintsev - "The Tribunal for" Stalin's falcons ". Moscow, 2008)