Mikhail Petrovich Devyataev

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Mikhail Petrovich Devyataev (1972)
Memorial stone in Peenemünde, Ostseestrasse with the names "MP Dewjatajew" and (below) the 9 prisoners who fled with him, in Cyrillic

Mikhail Devyatayev ( Russian Михаил Петрович Девятаев * June 25 jul. / 8. July  1917 greg. In Torbejewo , Tambov Governorate , Russian Empire (now Mordovia / Russia ); † 24. November 2002 in Kazan , Tatarstan / Russia) was Lieutenant and fighter pilot in the Red Army . He became famous for his spectacular escape shortly before the end of the Second World War in a German aircraft from the Karlshagen I labor camp (see Karlshagen Memorial ), a subcamp of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, which is part of the Peenemünde-West air force test site on the island of Usedom . Predominantly Soviet prisoners of war were housed there for forced labor .

After he had been exposed to allegations of collaboration with the Germans due to doubts about the course of his escape and had spent two months in custody, he came home in the summer of 1945. Twelve years later, through the efforts of Sergei Korolev, he became known in the Soviet public and was given the honorary title of " Hero of the Soviet Union ". However, he never flew an airplane again, but worked in his learned profession as a ship master in civil shipping.

Life

Training and military service

Dewjatajew was born in Torbejewo in 1917 as the thirteenth child of a farming family. He began an apprenticeship as a ship navigator at the technical college for shipping in Kazan , which he completed in 1938 with the "authorization of a captain's assistant on Volga ships". During his college days he enrolled at the local aero club. Then he was the captain of a small ship on the Volga . In the same year he was drafted into the Red Army and began his training as a fighter pilot at the 1st  Orenburg flying school "IS Polbin", which he finished in 1940 and was then transferred to the 15th Air Army with the rank of second lieutenant.

Just two days after the German attack on the Soviet Union , Dewjatajew scored his first kill on June 24, 1941 - a Ju-87 . For this he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner . In 1942 he flew a MiG-3 defending Moscow. He was shot down during aerial battles over Tula and severely wounded in the thigh. After a long hospital stay that followed, on the advice of the doctors, he was initially used as a pilot of a U-2 on bombing and supply flights and for transporting the wounded, sometimes also from the enemy hinterland. For these flights he received the Order of the Red Banner a second time. After meeting Alexander Pokryschkin in May 1944, he was again a fighter pilot in the 2nd Air Army , in which he served. During the entire course of the war, Devyatajew shot down nine German aircraft in 150 missions.

Capture and escape

On July 13, 1944, Dewjatajew was shot down as a chain commander in the 104th GwIAP (Gardejagdfliegerregiment) on his 185th mission, in which he flew as a Rottenhund for his regimental commander, behind the German lines in the Ukraine near Lwow . After jumping out of his La-5 , he was captured seriously wounded. First he was imprisoned in the Klein-Königsberg concentration camp near Łódź . Together with fellow prisoners, he dug an escape tunnel. After the failed attempt to escape on August 13, he was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp at the end of September . Allegedly, with the help of fellow prisoners, he is said to have assumed the identity of a deceased prisoner and from then on lived under the name "Nikitenko". In November he finally ended up in the Karlshagen I concentration camp labor camp, which was part of the Peenemünde-West air force test site, and which housed mainly Soviet prisoners of war for forced labor. In the inmate register of the Karlshagen I concentration camp labor camp, he was listed under the number 11024 with the name “Dewjatajew, Michail”, which contradicts the legend that was later passed on in the Soviet Union and the GDR that he had acquired a new identity in Sachsenhausen.

A German inmate made sure that Dewjatajew was assigned to a command that worked directly on the airfield. There he had to repair damaged runways with other prisoners of war and camouflage test aircraft parked there. Devyatajew then began to work out escape plans with a small group of prisoners. They observed the preparations for take-off by the German pilots, and a member of the group translated the German labels on instruments from aircraft wrecks. During these preparations it was important that Dewjatajew could watch a German pilot preparing a twin-engine Heinkel He 111 for take-off. The pilot willingly showed Dewjatajew all the necessary processes and steps.

On February 8, 1945 the time had come. On that day, the work detachment consisted of ten Soviet prisoners, who were only guarded by one soldier. The prisoners had the task of covering several Heinkel He 111 bombers with large camouflage nets. At lunchtime they were alone at the airfield with the guard, Private Alfred Johnen. The prisoners killed the Landsturmmann, got on a He 111, and Michael Dewjatajew managed to start the bomber after mastering a few problems. In addition to Dewjatajew as a pilot, Vladimir Sokolow, Ivan Kriwonogow, Mikhail Jemez, Pyotr Kutergin, Vladimir Nemchenko, Nikolaj Urbanovich, Trofim Serdyukov, Fyodor Adamov and Ivan Olejnik were also involved in the flight. Attempts by the German side to intercept the aircraft failed. They flew in a south-easterly direction and after a while crossed the front line via Pomerania. Since they were flying in a German bomber, they were shot at by the Soviet flak. Dewjatajew managed to land the bomber on a meadow. The escaped prisoners were not welcomed with open arms by their comrades, because the Soviet officers from the SMERSh military intelligence service questioned the representation of Devyataev. The Soviet defense was of the opinion that escape would have been impossible without cooperation with the German side. Devyatajew was suspected of being a German spy and transferred to a punitive unit of the army. Devyatajew remained in custody until September 1945 and was repeatedly interrogated. His nine comrades were enlisted in the fighting troops shortly after they had fled and deployed on particularly loss-making sections of the front. Only three of them survived the battles for Berlin, six of them died in the last days of the war in the battle for Berlin . Dewjatajew was finally only released from prison after statements by former inmates and an interrogation report by the German Air Fleet Command 6 contributed to his discharge. The refugees allegedly provided the Soviet authorities with valuable information about the German missile program, although in Peenemünde they were only used for auxiliary work at the airfield and could not hear anything about the development of the V2 missile in the neighboring Peenemünde Army Research Center .

Life after World War II

After the end of the war, Devyatajew worked as a dock worker in Kazan . It was not until 1957 that he was acquitted of the allegation of collaboration with the Germans, after the head of the Soviet space program Sergei Pavlovich Korolev had spoken out on his behalf and argued that the information provided by Dewjatajew and his companions were of crucial importance for Soviet space travel. On August 15 of the same year, Devyataev was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union . Several books and newspaper articles have appeared about him. He continued to live in Kazan and worked as a captain of passenger ships on the Volga.

Devyataev was the first captain of a hydrofoil of the Meteor type (1961).

Devyataev died in Kazan in 2002 and was buried in the city's honorary cemetery. In his hometown Torbejewo a museum is dedicated to him, in Kazan and in Peenemünde on Usedom monuments remind of him. The city of Wolgast granted him honorary citizenship on July 17, 1970 . Until shortly before his death he was a guest in Peenemünde several times, where the historical-technical museum is located on the site of the power station of the former army research institute , in which the memorial stone for Dewjatajew's escape can be viewed. In June 1999, he met the German pilot who had been commissioned to pursue and shoot him down with a Junkers Ju 88 .

Devyatajew was two-time bearer of the Order of the Red Banner and also received the Order of Lenin and the Soviet Order of the Great Patriotic War, first and second class.

literature

Web links

Commons : Mikhail Petrovich Dewjatajew  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d Bernd Schilling: One of Pokryschkin's Guard . In: Wolfgang Sellenthin (Ed.): Fliegerkalender der DDR 1979 . Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1978, p. 153 .
  2. a b c d e Bernd Schilling: One of Pokryschkin's Guard . In: Wolfgang Sellenthin (Ed.): Fliegerkalender der DDR 1979 . Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1978, p. 154 .
  3. a b Bernd Schilling: One of Pokryschkin's Guard . In: Wolfgang Sellenthin (Ed.): Fliegerkalender der DDR 1979 . Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1978, p. 155 .
  4. ↑ List of inmates of the Karlshagen I concentration camp labor camp, HTM Peenemünde, archive, EC / 45/17
  5. 70 years ago: Escape from Peenemünde, information sheet of the Förderverein Peenemünde, No. 1/2015; Retrieved from: http://www.foerderverein-peenemuende.de/infoblatt0115/inbl0115.htm
  6. ^ History of the hydrofoil line Vienna - Bratislava wien-vienna.at, September 2, 2017, accessed October 7, 2017.