Stalin’s son’s death. Consequently, Stalin was not told of the discovery.34 On 3 January 1951, the Daily Telegraph published an intriguing article by a ‘special correspondent’:
Quest for news of Stalin’s second son: Offer of reward
News of a curious quest by Russian agents in Germany has reached London. They are seeking information about the fate of Capt. Dzhugashvili, M. Stalin’s second [sic] son.
A reward of a million roubles for details of his whereabouts is offered. The Kremlin had hitherto accepted the general view that Capt. Dzhugashvili did not long survive his capture by the Germans in 1941.
His elder brother [a mistaken reference to his younger half-brother Vasilli] Lt.-Gen. Dzhugashvili is commanding general of an important Soviet Air Group. The sons retained their father’s family name.
Capt. Dzhugashvili was first reported in an officers’ prisoner-of-war camp in the province of Holstein. Here he showed complete unconcern about his fate and refused to submit to ordinary camp discipline.
It was reported of him that he would never address a German officer by rank, or rank and name, which is the usual custom. He would use the officer’s surname.
In Concentration Camp
Towards 1942 he was transferred to the notorious Oranienburg [Sachsenhausen] concentration camp near Berlin. It was from that camp that the German Army was informed that he had died, though the cause of death was not specified.
No reason for the sudden revival of interest in the young man has been given, but it has been stated in Russian Army circles in Europe that M. Stalin himself might have issued the order for the search. This theory is advanced to support a report that M. Stalin is ill.
Even if that were so, no Government department in Moscow could question the Marshal’s orders, however, strange.35
Major Johnnie Dodge, who had survived captivity, read this report and, shortly afterwards, arrived at the Foreign Office in London with a proposal that he and a fellow former resident of Sonderlager ‘A’, Colonel Jack Churchill, be sent to Moscow to meet Stalin to tell him what they knew about his son’s death in Sachsenhausen. Both had only arrived in the compound after Dzhugashvili’s death, so their information could only have been obtained second hand. In support of his proposal, Dodge bizarrely suggested that hearing about his son’s sad end might somehow ‘soften Stalin’s heart towards the West’. As Dodge’s version of events has Stalin’s son being pursued by a British soldier, with a knife shortly before his death, it defies reason that Dodge should think that this information would soften Stalin’s heart towards anyone, least of all the British. Perhaps Dodge’s real motivation was the reward mentioned in the newspaper article; in other words, what he may have wanted was, not so much to soften Stalin’s heart, as to lighten his pocket. Needless to say, the Foreign Office declined his offer. A Foreign Office staffer, who happened to have spent some time in the company of Dodge as a POW, advised, with compassionate understatement, that he was ‘not entirely dispassionate in judgement’.36
It seems, though, that Stalin, the ‘man of steel’, who was prepared to have millions sacrificed to maintain his hold on power, had in the end, begun to feel remorse for his ‘fool’ of a son, conceding, finally, that the boy had in fact been ‘a real man’.37
CHAPTER FOUR
TRAITORS
Sachsenhausen, March 1944
In the months following Stalin’s son’s death, a number of new prisoners arrived in Sonderlager ‘A’. They included two Polish RAF men and a group of former Red Army officers. They were joined later by an extraordinary group of British officers, a number of them survivors of The Great Escape. The first British arrival was Captain Peter Churchill, a Special Operations Executive (SOE) officer who had been captured in the company of his French fellow operative and lover, Odette Sansom, while attempting to build a resistance network in the south of France. In the hope that it would save both of them, they conspired to tell their Gestapo interrogators that he was related to Winston Churchill and that they were married. Despite initial German scepticism and repeated gruelling interrogations, the deception worked, at least for Churchill, and now considered a potential hostage, he was given the status of a special prisoner. Sansom, however, continued to be treated by the Gestapo as a French Résistant and spy. She was tortured and sentenced to be executed, although fortunately this was never carried out.
Churchill, on the basis of his assumed relationship with the British Prime Minister, was dispatched to Sachsenhausen. He must have feared what was in store for him given the reputation of that camp, but he was relieved when shown his new abode. He later described the Sonderlager he was escorted to as a ‘haven’ set within the desert of suffering that was Sachsenhausen. As he was admiring the tree-enclosed compound, a tall person with unruly red hair approached and saluted. ‘Sergeant Cushing at your service, Sorr [sic] and welcome to Sonderlager ‘A’.’1
Cushing introduced Churchill to his roommate Andy Walsh and to the two other Irish prisoners in an adjoining room, Patrick O’Brien and John Spence. Cushing asked if Churchill would like tea or a cigarette, to which the bemused officer quipped ‘both’. Within minutes, he sat on his allotted bunk, a teacup in hand, enjoying the first cigarette he had smoked for quite some time. The Irishmen were anxious to please. Churchill was the first British officer they had encountered since Friesack. How would they explain their presence here, and more particularly in Friesack? Would they be regarded as traitors? Since Stalingrad and the Allied invasion of southern Italy, it had become evident that the tide of war had turned in favour of the Allies and, with the prospect of victory, the thoughts of the former Friesack men would have begun to focus on their post-war reputations. The reaction of these officers to their tale of officer-sanctioned feigned collaboration would be important. It could make the difference between joyous liberation and court martial at war’s end.
First impressions were important and, as the Captain was made comfortable, Cushing and Walsh told him about their time in Friesack. Churchill was given to understand that it was their commanding officer, John McGrath, who suggested they enrol for training with the Germans in order to double-cross them. This of course was misleading, for, as we have learned, Cushing had already volunteered before McGrath’s arrival in that camp, but a little muddling of the timescales would help to deflect suspicion. No matter, Churchill was charmed by the two Irishmen. Following months of solitary confinement, he delighted in their brogue-infused storytelling. He believed them, although his confidence in them was not to be shared by later British arrivals.
A number of the recently arrived Russian prisoners were now sharing a hut with the Irish quartet. They had been placed there following the death of Stalin’s son and Kokorin’s departure. The group included generals who had apparently turned traitor and allied themselves with the Nazis. In the rapid encircling movements that characterised the 1941 German invasion, almost 900,000 Soviet troops were taken prisoner. (In total, 5.7 million were captured by the Germans or their allies during the war, more than half of whom died in captivity.2) Nazi racial theory, and the excuse that the Soviet Union had not ratified the Geneva Convention, contributed to mass murder, cruel exploitation and the fatal neglect of Russian prisoners. Nevertheless, the Nazis were always on the lookout for prestigious prisoners, including high-ranking officers, who might prove to be useful to them. Subsequently, when the German military began to experience serious manpower losses themselves, consideration was given to the recruitment of Russian prisoners into the German war machine. The most significant collaborator was Andrei Vlasov, a decorated Red Army General, who was allowed to establish a ‘Russian Liberation Army’, recruited from Russian prisoners of war. Another important General to agree to work with the Germans was Ivan Bessonov, who now shared accommodation with the Irish group in Sachsenhausen.
Bessonov,
