On this day in 1945 Mikhail Devyataev escapes with nine other Soviet inmates from a Nazi concentration camp in Peenemünde on the island of Usedom by hijacking the camp commandant’s Heinkel He 111.
On this day in 1945 Mikhail Devyataev escapes with nine other Soviet inmates from a Nazi concentration camp in Peenemünde on the island of Usedom by hijacking the camp commandant’s Heinkel He 111.
7 comments
At noon on 8 February 1945, as the ten Soviet POWs, including Devyataev, were at work on the runway, one of the work gang, Ivan Krivonogov, picked up a crowbar and killed their guard. Another prisoner, Peter Kutergin, quickly stripped off the guard’s uniform and slipped it on.
The work gang, led by the “guard”, managed to unobtrusively take over the camp commandant’s He 111 H22 bomber and fly from the island. Devyataev piloted the aircraft.
The Germans tried to intercept the bomber unsuccessfully. The aircraft was damaged by Soviet air defences but managed to land in Soviet-held territory. The escapees provided important information about the German missile program, especially about the V-1 and V-2.
Unfortunately, the NKVD did not believe Devyataev’s story, arguing that it was impossible for the prisoners to take over an airplane without cooperation from the Germans.
After a short time in hospital in late March 1945 seven of the escapees were sent to serve in a penal military unit, of the escapees, five died in action over the following months, while three officers including Devyataev spent time in prison during prolonged investigation.
Devyataev was discharged from the army in November 1945. However, his classification remained that of a “criminal”, and so he was unable to find a job for a long while.
Eventually, though, Devyataev found work as a manual laborer in Kazan.
Soviet authorities cleared Devyataev only in 1957, after the head of the Soviet space program Sergey Korolyov personally presented his case, arguing that the information provided by Devyataev and the other escapees had been critical for the Soviet space program.
Eventually, on 15 August 1957, Devyataev became a Hero of the Soviet Union. He died in 2002, aged 85.
Such a badass.
Sadly the Soviets liked sending their prisoners of war that escaped/ were freed to gulags, and unfortunately, this man was sent to one.
Communists sure know how to reward their heroes…
We are talking here about Karlshagen I, a subcamp of Ravensbrück for male prisoners, used by the Wermacht to work in the V-1 industrial plants. It wasn’t exactly a concentration camp, more like a forced labour subcamp. It had one of the highest death rate out of all Ravensbrück subcamps – 60%
Not a concentration camp but PoW camp.
So I always wonder, there are those three users with Romanian flairs and I see them consistently post Soviet achievements, anniversaries and various amazing individual feats (one of them has since moved on to posting more historic trivia).
What’s the source for this intimate knowledge of Soviet-related exploits among Romaina-flaired users?