were likely to be double-crossed. Thomas Cushing, while charming and entertaining at times, could be short-tempered and quick to use his fists. O’Brien was even more disreputable; as we have learned, he was suspected of child molestation and had himself boasted of picking fights with co-workers on work details, especially foreigners.21 Walsh was the only one others regarded as normal: a fourth Irishman present, Private William Murphy, was mentally unstable.
The four Irishmen and the two Soviet prisoners were billeted in the same hut. This was within a newly built compound, known as Sonderlager ‘A’, located on the north-eastern perimeter of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was built to house special prisoners whom the SS wished to keep segregated from the general camp population. Why the Irish group were housed there is unclear; it may have been because they were still considered to warrant equivalent POW status, but, because they knew so much about secret missions they could not be sent back to normal POW camps. Walsh and Cushing shared accommodation and appear to have overcome their differences arising from their mutual accusations in Berlin, although, perhaps not entirely, for the sound of raised voices was regularly heard from their quarters.
Originally housing political prisoners, Sachsenhausen and its satellite camps contained over 30,000 prisoners by early 1943, including Communist, Social Democrats, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, criminals and ‘anti-socials’. It also housed thousands of Soviet captives along with political and military prisoners from other occupied countries. Although gas chambers had only just been installed, its reputation as a death camp had already been well established. Thousands of prisoners had already been executed. Jewish prisoners had been transported to Auschwitz for extermination in 1942. However, its primary function by 1943 was to supply slave labour to local industries. Thousands worked in factories in nearby Oranienburg where they laboured for up to twelve hours a day, nourished by only small amounts of bread and watery soup.
Cushing and the other Irish inmates did not have to endure these conditions. During daylight hours, they could roam freely within their small compound. The civilian clothes they had been wearing during training were taken from them and they were re-supplied with military attire. They weren’t assigned work and occasional Red Cross parcels provided them with much needed extra food and cigarettes. It had been some months after their arrival in Sachsenhausen when they were joined by Dzhugashvili and Kokorin who shared with them a washroom and toilet. They, as special prisoners, enjoyed better conditions than their Soviet compatriots in the main camp, who were treated appallingly. However, their treatment was harsher than that of the Irish. Despite being officers, the two were required to work and, like all Russian prisoners, they had no access to Red Cross parcels.
At first, relations between the Russians and the Irishmen appear to have been good, but soon the mood changed. Despite his difficulties with his father, Yakov was proud to be Stalin’s son and he remained a committed Communist. This led to arguments with Cushing who was a staunch anti-Communist. In addition, there were rows about food, especially the distribution of the contents of Red Cross parcels. It was usual for POWs to share parcels and Cushing claimed to have shared his with the Russians,22 presumably, though, this generosity ceased when relations soured. Doubtless, language and cultural differences caused misunderstandings: they could only communicate using a German camp patois.
On the fateful day, an argument arose about the state of their shared toilet. Cushing, who had assumed the role of hut superintendent, accused Dzhugashvili of fouling the toilet seat. Murphy, unstable at the best of times, joined in the attack. O’Brien, likewise, needed no urging to get involved. He called Kokorin ‘a Bolshevist shit’. Kokorin replied in kind and blows were exchanged.23 It was hardly an even contest, for it was three, if not four, against two: it’s not clear if Walsh joined the affray, for he subsequently claimed to have liked Dzhugashvili and to have been traumatised about what happened. Moreover, the two Russians were smaller men, weakened by inadequate diet, and Kokorin would have been unsteady on his near toeless feet, while the tall Cushing had been a boxer during his time in the US Army. At some point during the fracas, Cushing is alleged to have produced a knife and chased Dzhugashvili down a corridor. To save himself, the Georgian jumped through an open window, which led to him standing outside after curfew time.24
Cushing afterwards described what happened as he watched from a window of their shared hut. He said that Yakov ‘suddenly rushed outside, sprinted across the compound, scrambled up the wall and attempted to crawl through the perimeter wire’. The Georgian called out to the guard, ‘Don’t be a coward, shoot me!’25 Cushing continued, ‘A shot rang out, followed by a blinding flash, and poor Jakob [sic] hung there, his body horribly burnt and twisted.’26 This account of Yakov’s end is broadly in line with the statement of Konrad Harfich, the SS guard who shot him, during his post-war trial:
He put one leg through the trip-wire, crossed over the neutral zone and put one foot into the barbed wire entanglement. At the same time he grabbed an insular with his left hand. Then he got out of it and grabbed the electrified fence. He stood for a moment with his right leg back and his chest pushed out and shouted at me ‘Guard, don’t be a coward, shoot me!’27
The guard fired a single shot with the bullet entering just in front of his right ear. Cushing later remarked that ‘it was the first time I felt sorry for the poor bastard’.28 Not the most worthy of tributes, although he went on to say; ‘it was one of the saddest events of my life’.29 Yet, while expressing sorrow, he avoided any suggestion of culpability.
It was a sad end for a young man whose dream of reconciliation with his father were only to be realised posthumously. The ‘murderers’ did shoot him as Stalin predicted, although he did not have confirmation of this until after the war. Keindl, the camp commandment, was potentially at risk of being disciplined, or worse, for allowing the loss of such a valuable hostage. To minimise blame, it is believed that he conspired with all concerned, including the Irish prisoners, to have the matter portrayed as a straightforward suicide; there was no mention of Stalin’s son being chased by a knife-wielding Irishman.30
A traumatised Kokorin was transferred to the prison bunker of Sachsenhausen. This was presumably to avoid any further conflict with the Irish. But things didn’t get any better for the little Russian. He was put in a cell with another Russian officer who attempted suicide by cutting his wrists one night when Kokorin was asleep. When an air raid alert sounded during the night, Kokorin got down from the top bunk and stepped into a pool of the man’s blood. Payne Best who was housed in the same prison bunker at that time was told about Kokorin and his abject state by one of the wardens he was friendly with. The Englishman claimed that he used his influence with the guards to have him moved to an adjoining cell where, although he was not permitted to have direct contact with the Russian, he was able to cheer him up somewhat by having some of his allocation of tobacco sent to him, and by turning up the volume on his radio whenever cheery music was being broadcast.31
The Irishman, Murphy, was also transferred, in this instance to another camp entirely, although it is not clear if this had anything to do with the events just described. He was one of many prisoners of war who lost their mind. He survived the war, but died soon after in Netley, a mental institution for servicemen near Southampton.32 His place in the hut was filled by an Irish-born Liverpudlian, John Spence.33 As we will discover, Spence was to prove an unpopular and suspect figure within Sonderlager ‘A’. Later arrivals included a group of British officers, survivors of the ‘Great Escape’ from Stalag Luft III, one of whom was Major Johnnie Dodge, an American who was a relative of Winston Churchill through marriage.
Soon after the end of the war, the Americans uncovered an SS report about Yakov Dzhugashvili’s death which they passed on to the British. The contents created a dilemma for the British Foreign Office. It was initially thought that they might present Stalin with a copy of the file at the upcoming Potsdam Conference in July 1945, presumably while tendering their condolences. However, when the contents were perused, the ‘unpleasant’ and embarrassing fact that Yakov Dzhugashvili’s suicidal action was preceded by an argument with a British fellow prisoner – Cushing – was discovered. The mandarins therefore advised
