Table of contents:
- Flight to the Russians, or how did the German aviator Müller end up in the USSR?
- How did a German aircraft mechanic become a Soviet spy?
- How did the reconnaissance officer "Melnik" work for the good of the USSR and what tasks were assigned to him?
- For what “merits” did the Germans estimate “Melnik” and his partner at a million marks?
- How saboteurs acted in the port of Berlin
Video: How the fascist pilot Mueller began to serve for the good of the USSR and what came of it: The twists and turns of the fate of the Soviet-German saboteur
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The Germans, who went over to the side of the Red Army for ideological reasons, were especially valuable personnel for the Soviet special services during the Great Patriotic War. Unlike recruited prisoners of war, who often surrendered to the fascist authorities immediately, the German communists had a real desire to resist the brown plague. One of them, Heinz Müller, is a flight mechanic who hijacked a plane to get into Soviet territory and help the Red Army fight Nazism.
Flight to the Russians, or how did the German aviator Müller end up in the USSR?
Heinz Müller was drafted into service almost at the end of 1943 - before that, his postponement from the army was due to unreliability: the young man since 1931 was a member of the Communist Youth Union of Germany and at one time actively participated in the anti-fascist movement in the Saar region. After repeated arrests, Heinz was finally sentenced to two years in the Dachau concentration camp, where young Germans, unlike the rest, were sent not for destruction, but for "re-education." By the end of his term, the German army was already in dire need of soldiers, and therefore Muller was drafted into the army as soon as he gained freedom, regardless of his political preferences.
On the front, Heinz, with the rank of non-commissioned officer, was assigned to serve as a flight mechanic in the 1st military transport air squadron, which in November 1943 was located in Odessa. From here, departures were made with a cargo of food and ammunition for the soldiers of the Wehrmacht, surrounded by units of the Red Army in the region of Nikolaev and the Crimea. On January 4, 1944, returning from the delivery of the cargo, Müller, threatening with a pistol, disarmed the crew. He forced the pilots to change course and land the Junkers in Soviet-occupied territory. On the ground, Heinz handed over his and the captured weapons to the captain who ran up with a group of fighters, and also gave personal documents, among which was a certificate confirming serving time in Dachau.
How did a German aircraft mechanic become a Soviet spy?
Later, already at the headquarters of the air unit, Müller shared information about the composition and location of the flight squadron in Odessa, and also spoke about the surrounded units of the German army, to which the sorties were made. In August, the former flight mechanic was transported to Moscow, where he began to master the basics of working as an intelligence officer at the Central Anti-Fascist School. Here Heinz, officially released from captivity in the same month, met famous people of his time - the Italian communist Palmiro Togliatti, the leader of the French communist movement Maurice Torez, German poet and translator Erich Weinert.
A month later, Mueller was settled in the village of Bykovo near Moscow in order to continue training with more experienced intelligence officers - professionals from the People's Commissariat of State Security. Together with him, the future partner on the upcoming assignments, the German anti-fascist Paul Lampe, was trained. The newly minted scouts did not change their names - they remained the same in order to avoid accidental confusion - but they assigned pseudonyms: so Heinz Müller became "Miller" with the conspiratorial number 70860.
How did the reconnaissance officer "Melnik" work for the good of the USSR and what tasks were assigned to him?
The scouts did not include the introduction of the Nazis into the cadre. The goal of Müller and Lampe was to determine the location of secret objects, to clarify their significance, as well as to carry out operations related to the detonation of warehouse ammunition, strategic communications, etc. and explosives.
The road to the capital of the Third Reich took a long, but from the point of view of safety, a justified route. The scouts first crossed the front line with the help of parachutes, and then by rail arrived in Berlin, where they had an appointment at the Frankfurterallee apartment of verified agents. Having found out, after arriving in the city, the location of the Gestapo, Feljandarmerie and the security service, Müller and a friend established contact with familiar anti-fascists and began to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage operations.
For what “merits” did the Germans estimate “Melnik” and his partner at a million marks?
The underground group formed numbered about 15 people who became Heinz and Lampe's assistants. Having successfully coped with several tasks to find previously relocated important objects of the Reich, on March 31, 1945, the scouts planned to undermine a large Nazi headquarters. However, in the course of the implementation of the plan, an unforeseen incident happened, which almost turned into a collapse for the performers.
The fact is that the operation required a car in order to, having filled it with explosives, set up an explosion in the immediate vicinity of the fascist institution. While trying to get a car on the freeway, the scouts stopped a limousine with military numbers. In the cabin there were three SS men who were shot by Mueller before they had time to figure anything out. Having managed to drag the bodies into the roadside bushes, the group was just about to get into the car, when a car with other representatives of the Waffen-SS stopped nearby - those, seeing the headquarters transport, decided to ask what happened and provide assistance.
A conversation with them would be tantamount to exposure, so at Heinz's signal, the saboteurs fled and safely disappeared in the direction of the railway. A few days later, when the search for the underground group was unsuccessful, an announcement sounded on the radio: a reward of 100,000 Reichsmarks was assigned for assistance in the capture of persons involved in the murder of SS officers. A similar proposal appeared in the popular Berliner newspaper Morgenpost. After 9 days, on April 12, the amount of the promised reward has already reached one million Reichsmarks.
How saboteurs acted in the port of Berlin
Anticipating the imminent fall of Berlin, Müller decided to help the Soviet troops by blowing up a large ammunition and weapons depot in the East Port area on the Promenade. Five people took part in the sabotage - "Melnik" distracted the guards, his comrades set up charges. The subsequent powerful explosion in the warehouse did not arouse any suspicion among the Germans: by an amazing coincidence, it coincided with the air raid, so everything was attributed to hitting the shells of an aerial bomb.
In the last days of the fighting for Berlin, the Miller group actively supplied the Soviet commanders with valuable information.
And another Soviet pilot became a Stalinist falcon.
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