Love tragedy at the walls of the Kremlin: Why in 1943 they dealt with the daughter of the Soviet ambassador and what does the Nazis have to do with it

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In 1943, at the very apogee of the Great Patriotic War, Moscow was shocked by a crime, all the details of which were immediately classified. Not only did the suicide criminal and his victim turn out to be the children of eminent Soviet officials, but everything also happened under the Kremlin itself. While the brave people of the USSR were dying on the fronts, Moscow investigators were investigating a complicated case that led to the discovery of a secret pro-Nazi association. And if the members of the underground group turned out to be ordinary Soviet citizens, they would most likely be turned into camp dust.

Details of the murder

In the summer of 1943, the Red Army men were preparing to clash with the Wehrmacht in the decisive battle at the Kursk Bulge. And then on June 3, an emergency occurs in the heart of the capital. Shots were heard three steps from the Moscow Kremlin, right on the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge. The police officers who arrived at the scene found the lifeless body of a young girl and a wounded boy, who was promptly sent to the hospital. Doctors who examined the patient with a gunshot wound did not give many chances.

The young man soon died. The shooting in Moscow in the midst of the war, as expected, aroused suspicions of a sabotage background, and with the establishment of the names of the victims, the security forces completely fell into a stupor. The daughter of the Soviet ambassador to Mexico, Nina Umanskaya, was killed, the second victim was the son of the People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry Vladimir Shakhurin. And the most curious thing was that the seriously wounded Volodya was shooting. First, he killed Umanskaya from the German "Walter", and then himself.

Chekists' versions of German saboteurs

An experienced professional detective Sheinin was assigned to investigate such a slippery matter. After the classmates of the murdered were interviewed, it became known about the love affair that took place. To find out the circumstances of the crime, Sheinin searched the murderer's room, where he found the young man's personal diary. What was written testified that Shakhurin, together with his classmates, were part of an underground anti-Soviet organization with the name "The Fourth Reich" that amazed investigators. They revealed the entries in the diary and a complete list of members of the pro-fascist group.

In addition to the killer, these ranks included the Mikoyan brothers (Vano and Sergo), the son of the famous academician Pyotr Bakulev, the generals' offspring Felix Kirpichnikov and Artem Khmelnitsky, and a number of other representatives of the "golden youth" of the USSR. In the diary of Alexei Shakhurin, it was reported that he and his associates in the future plan to take state power into their own hands and build a new country in the image and likeness of Nazi Germany. The pages were full of quotes from Nietzsche and Hitler himself. And the young imperialists were called Fuhrer, vows to each other to learn new philosophy and develop physically. There was no talk of a violent seizure of power. The stake was on quality education in order to occupy the overwhelming number of responsible government posts in the future. And then already reform the Soviet system, starting from their convictions.

This diary reached Beria, who gave the command to classify the case. The children of honored Soviet officials who admire the aesthetics of fascism in 1943 are unheard of.

Mikoyan's son's pistol

The question arose: where did Alexei get the pistol? Shakhurin's father claimed that Walter had nothing to do with his family. Investigators soon established that the weapon belonged to the People's Commissar of Trade Anastas Mikoyan, whose son Ivan was a classmate and friend of the late Shakhurin. This course of events did not please the investigator: all roads led to the highest echelons of power, which threatened even the very career of the security officials. If there were unreasonable underground conspirators from the families of ordinary peasants, they would quickly end up in the camps, if it did not come to execution.

But here everything turned out to be more complicated. On the one hand, everyone understood that this was spoiled bravado and youthful maximalism. But, on the other hand, at the height of the war with the Germans in the capital, an underground Nazi organization profiled. And conspirators from the families of the party elite entered the homes of the people's commissars, even having indirect access to the leader himself. Stalin knew that those close to him would not forgive him so many repressed children. And the internal political split in 1943 was not needed at all. In December, the People's Commissar for State Security Merkulov announced a mild court sentence to the students. All of them were sent from Moscow to the Urals, Siberia and Central Asia for a period of 12 months. And after the war, the Soviet elite recalled the episode with the "Fourth Reich" as a harmless childish prank.

Soviet love tragedy

There are still no open official sources of investigation about the case of the young "Reikhites" in the heart of the USSR - as if there was no incident at all. There are only a few near-documentary written works, where the author's fantasy is not demarcated from the truth. Despite the ambiguity, circumstantial evidence is present, including real graves at the Novodevichy cemetery of the persons involved in this deadly drama, as well as individual recollections of contemporaries of the incident and friends of the deceased. For example, Stalin's nephew Vladimir Alliluyev, who is quite familiar with Shakhurin, mentions the events of that day in 1943 in his book Chronicle of a Family. He writes that while walking in the courtyard of his house, he heard the sound of two shots, after which he went to the scene of the incident in the company of the guys. “When we ran up to the stairs, everything was over…” - Alliluyev testifies.

Describing that episode, he was referring to the CEC housing complex on the capital's embankment near Bolotnaya Square, where the Soviet ruling elite lived. And he calls the descent of the Stone Bridge, leading directly to the Kremlin, a staircase. There, on an unfortunate summer evening, the fateful meeting between Shakhurin and his beloved classmate Umanskaya took place. It turned out that Nina learned that she and her parents would soon fly to the United States. And the hopelessly in love with the girl began to persuade her not to fly, but to stay with him in Moscow. This request seemed ridiculous to Nina, and she, outraged by the feelings of the young man, waved her hand goodbye and went to the stairs. At that moment, Volodya took out a loaded pistol, firing immediately at Nina, and then at his own temple.

In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, the phenomenon known today as the Red Terror emerged. His victims many people have become. And the real tragedy happened to the Popenov family of merchants.