The BRUTAL Execution Of Stalin’s Son JJ

On the 14th of April 1943, inside of a German concentration camp, the son of one of the most dangerous and brutal dictators in history was rotting behind a barbed wire fence. He had been constantly mocked and taunted by fellow captives, and his father wanted very little to do with him. After finding out his own son had been captured by his most hated enemies, the dictator refused to spare his son and save him.

 And he wished his son had taken more drastic action against himself rather than surrender. The man inside of Sachsenhausen concentration camp was Yakov Dzhugashvili, a name which is not very familiar around the world. However, he was eldest son and the first child of Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union. Stalin hated his son, and especially despised the fact he was captured by the Germans during World War II.

But Yakov would not see out the end of the war. As for on that date, the 14th of April 1943, his life would come to an end as he was driven to the ultimate fate in rather strange and debatable circumstances. But many claimed after the war who witnessed his death that the son of Stalin was actually shot by German soldiers after he ran towards an electrified fence following an argument.

But the truth about the death of Stalin’s son is much more complex and also very dark. Yakov Dzhugashvili was born on the 31st of March 1907 to Kato Svanidze and Joseph Dzhugashvili. This was years before his father took the surname of Stalin, and Stalin, as we’ll refer to him, was at the time a rather criminal character.

He was involved in a number of bank robberies, including one which forced his young family and child to leave their city as he feared arrest. Svanidze, Yakov’s mother, was though at the time rather ill, and she died before his first birthday. It’s believed that she contracted typhus at some point, but Joseph Stalin left his son in the care of his first wife’s relatives, and he would not see him for many years.

For the next 14 years, Yakov was raised by his aunts, and he was rather fond of them. But then in 1921, he was sent to Moscow to live with his father. At this time, Stalin was carving a rather promising political career for himself, and he would in 1922 become the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

 But there were many issues between father and son. Stalin didn’t really want Yakov there, and he preferred his other children with his second wife. And also, Yakov didn’t understand Russian, and he struggled to communicate with his father. And Stalin also banned him from ever using his new name of Stalin. It’s not known for certain why he despised Yakov so much.

 One theory is that he reminded the dictator of his first wife, and that he never got over the loss of Yakov’s mother. He also could have reminded Stalin of happier times, times where there was much less stress. But Yakov remained living inside of the Kremlin, and he was forbidden from having his own bedroom, and instead he slept in what was the dining room.

Yakov was though a good, kind-natured person, and he was close to his other siblings and also his stepmother. He was held back considerably by his father though. Stalin didn’t allow him to study at university to begin with, and he was admitted late into this. But following his graduation, he then held many jobs, and from working as a chimney sweep inside of electrical plant, he then went into the military.

But there were further issues between Yakov and his father. Yakov in 1928 had wanted to marry a lady named Zoya Gulin, but she was a daughter of an Orthodox priest, and Stalin banned his son from marrying this lady. This led to Yakov attempting to bring his life to an end, turning the pistol on himself and shooting himself in the chest.

He only just survived this, missing his heart by a matter of centimeters. Stalin, rather than being sympathetic, mocked his son, claiming “Yakov can’t even shoot straight.” And following his recovery, Yakov did marry Zoya against his father’s wishes. They had a daughter, but this was a very tragic marriage as his daughter died at 8 months old from pneumonia, and then the couple separated.

Yakov then was linked to other women. However, his father continued to mock his romantic pursuits. He did then marry a lady named Yulia Meltzer, a well-known dancer. It’s considered that Meltzer probably married him to try and gain favor in Stalin’s court, and the thought of possible power and wealth through his father may have been more attractive to her than the prospect of actually marrying Yakov and taking him as a husband.

But Stalin, of course, hated his son, and Meltzer benefited very little from this marriage. But one relief from Stalin’s bullying was when Yakov joined the Red Army. In 1937, he joined the Artillery Academy, and he graduated from there in May 1941. Of course, a matter of months later, the Second World War would be brought truly to Stalin’s front door as a German army invaded the Soviet Union in what was known as Operation Barbarossa.

This was the largest military invasion in human history, and the attack upon Stalin’s lands would result in the biggest and costliest military offensive, and around 10 million soldiers took part in the opening parts of this. There were by the end of the operation around 8 million casualties, and it opened up the Eastern Front, which was also the deadliest land war in history.

Hitler and his Nazi officials had began with signing non-aggression pacts with the Soviets. This made Stalin feel safe as agreements such as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact guaranteed no military action between Germany and the Soviet Union for 10 years. But of course, this was ripped up, and Hitler would violate this when he launched his invasion.

Anyone who had read Hitler’s book Mein Kampf would have realized his true intentions, to destroy communism and move Germans into lands to the east. The invasion began on the 22nd of June 1941 with a huge ground and air assaults. Army Group South invaded from occupied Poland, and then further troops joined from Romania weeks later.

Within a matter of months, significant towns and cities in the east were under German and Axis occupation, and the Axis forces pushed through towards Moscow. Ultimately, they were plagued with logistical issues, and they were not prepared for the rough terrain and also the brutal winter conditions, as well as the dogged and determined Soviet resistance.

Yakov may have joined the Soviet Red Army to get away from his father or in an attempt to try and make his father proud of him once and for all. Stalin ensured that Yakov was sent directly to the front lines to fight and help defend his nation from invasion. He served specifically in the 14th Howitzer Regiment of the 14th Tank Division and was stationed near to Vitebsk.

But it wasn’t long until Yakov Dzhugashvili, son of Stalin, found himself a captured prisoner of war in the hands of his enemy. During the Battle of Smolensk, his battalion was under very heavy fire and was decimated by the Axis forces, and with this, the son of Stalin actually surrendered to his enemies. There were different accounts as to what specifically happened.

One witness claimed that, I quote, “The Germans surrounded Yakov’s battery. The order was given to retreat, but Yakov did not obey that order. I tried to persuade him, but Yakov answered, ‘I am the son of Stalin, and I do not permit the battery to retreat.'” Others have claimed that fellow Soviet soldiers who were hostile to Stalin and his regime informed the Germans where Yakov was based, and that he was then seized based upon this information.

Documents from the archives also state that Yakov gave himself up willingly, and that he surrendered without a fight, and that there was no bloodshed when he was seized. On the 19th of July 1941, less than a month after the invasion of the Soviet Union had began, the Germans announced that they had within their captivity the son of Joseph Stalin.

 The message got back to the Soviet dictator, and he was understandably furious. He saw his son as a disgrace and said he wished he would have shot himself rather than falling into the hands of his enemies. He also suspected that someone had betrayed him, and Stalin even ordered Yakov’s wife arrested as he was suspicious that she may have even been a spy who gave over information to the Germans.

Photographs taken at the time of Yakov’s capture show him being treated relatively well. He wasn’t battered or beaten by the Germans, but his photograph was published in many German newspapers, and leaflets were dropped showing him smiling with his captors. These were dropped over Soviet soldiers, and this was an attempt by the Germans to demoralize the Soviets into surrendering.

 One leaflet stated, I quote, “Dear father, I’ve been taken prisoner. I am in good health. I will soon be sent to a camp for officers in Germany. I’m being treated well. I wish you good health. Greetings to everyone, Yasha.” Another piece of German propaganda claimed, I quote, “This is Yakov Dzhugashvili, Stalin’s son and artillery officer, who on the 16th of July has surrendered near Vitebsk together with thousands of other soldiers and officers. Follow his example.

 He is alive and well and feels great. Why do you fight to the death when even the son of your leader has surrendered?” Inside of German captivity, Yakov criticized the allies of the Soviet Union, calling the British weak, and he actually praised the Germans and said their empire, which was growing, was something to be admired.

He was also rather openly anti-Semitic, despite the fact his wife was Jewish, and he may have been doing this to appease his captors. But strangely, Stalin then awarded Yakov the significant Order of the Red Banner, a military award for his work during the Battle of Smolensk. This was an attempt to rehabilitate his son’s reputation, but this did very little.

Stalin’s son was then moved back towards Germany, and specifically he was transferred to a large villa in Berlin, where he was guarded by army officers, and the plan was for Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, to use him in anti-Soviet broadcasts. However, this never really went anywhere, and he was then sent on to Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Sachsenhausen was an established camp, set up near Oranienburg, and throughout its time in operation, it did hold many important and prominent prisoners. It was a labor camp, but did have a gas chamber and an area for human medical experimentation. Prisoners at the site were treated terribly, and many were executed out in the open, and they were systematically starved, too.

At least 30,000 prisoners died at the camp throughout its time in operation, and specific torture centers and rooms were set up. Also held within Sachsenhausen were prominent political prisoners and also enemy agents who were captured. When he was locked up there, Yakov was visited by many people who wanted to speak to him about his father.

They were trying to collect intelligence, and eventually Yakov got fed up with this. He also was rather volatile, and he fell out and argued with many other inmates, particularly British prisoners, and these altercations often turned physical, with guards having to break things up. It’s possible that Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, and the man who ultimately oversaw the concentration camps, ordered Stalin’s son to be kept alive for possible prisoner swaps.

We know that following the surrender of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus at the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943, that the Germans offered to swap Yakov for Paulus. But this was rejected by Stalin himself, as he claimed, I quote, “Just how many sons ended up in camps? Who would swap them for Paulus? Were they any worse than Yakov?” Militarily, it made no sense to swap a field marshal for such a lower-ranking soldier, but it was also claimed that there were further proposals to swap Yakov for family members of Hitler, who were much

closer to the Führer. It’s believed that negotiations did take place to swap Yakov for Heinz Hitler, the nephew of the Führer, and also Hitler’s half-nephew, Leo Raubal, but these were not accepted. So, Yakov Dzhugashvili’s fate inside of Sachsenhausen was rather miserable. He knew he would be locked up for a significant time and would never face freedom.

There would have been a chance that towards the end of the conflict that he could have been executed after large-scale prisoner shootings took place, but he wouldn’t live that long. On the 14th of April, 1943, Stalin’s son died inside of a concentration camp in rather uncertain circumstances, but it is known that his death was rather horrific.

One version of events is that after having a fight and argument with British soldiers, he ran into the high-voltage electrified fence, which surrounded the camp. Another was that he’d been shot by the Germans. At the end of the Second World War, British officers delved into captured German archives, and they discovered papers relating to Yakov’s death inside of Sachsenhausen.

They confirmed that he’d been shot following running into electric fence following having an argument. A postmortem autopsy record showed that he had died from electrocution before his body was littered with bullets. It was claimed by one guard who worked over the camp that day that, I quote, “Yakov was shot four times,” but the guard claimed that Yakov was already dead when the bullets were fired into him.

At the end of the Second World War, Stalin offered a huge reward in East Germany for information about how his son died, but the British and Americans knew the full story, but they decided to withhold the information to spare Stalin any more personal pain. After hearing of his son’s death, Stalin stared at his photograph for hours and would openly weep and sob.

He finally admitted that his son was a real man, and he lived with significant regret about how he treated his son for many years. He didn’t realize until Yakov had gone what a terrible father he had truly been. So, the official record of events which happened to Yakov Dzhugashvili, the son of Stalin, was he died after running into a high-voltage electrified fence, and his body was then littered by German bullets.

As for where he is buried today, there is no official marked grave for the son of Stalin. It’s believed by most historians that his body was either thrown into a mass grave inside of Sachsenhausen, or that it was cremated within the large ovens of the crematoria. It is possible that the Germans decided to keep the body instead of cremating it to possibly use it later against Stalin.

But the story of the execution of Yakov Dzhugashvili is one which is surrounded by the overwhelming terror and evil his father inflicted upon his tragic life. Thanks for watching. If you did find this video interesting, maybe click subscribe. Once again, thank you so much for watching one of these videos.