Abdurahman Fatalibeyli

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Abdurahman Ali oglu Fatalibeyli, born Abo Dudanginski (1908, Dudangi – 1954, Munich) was a Soviet army major who defected to the German forces during World War II.

[edit] Life

Fatalibeyli-Dudanginski was born in the village of Dudangi (in present-day Sharur, Azerbaijan) to a family of Kurdish origin. His classmate from the Chief of Staff Academy years (possibly Frunze Military Academy) future Marshal of Soviet Union, Minister of Defense of USSR Andrey Grechko said the following about Fatalibeyli: "He possessed with incredibly sharp intelligence and analytical thinking. He was a commander by birth. In the questions of military tactics none of us could compare to him."

Dudanginski participated in the Russo-Finnish War of 1939, receiving the Order of the Red Star. He became major in 1941, but surrendered to German troops during the invasion of that year. After (or during) imprisonment in Poland, he joined the Wehrmacht and became a liaison officer in 1942 within the Azerbaijani division as part of the 804th battalion, and later the 806th and I/73rd. While fighting guerrila attacks, he received the Iron Cross and promoted to major of the German military in 1943.

Head of the "Azerbaijan National Committee" and one of the architects of the Azerbaijani Legion helped by Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, Mufti of Jerusalem, and several Moslem quislings, such as Ali Khan (North Caucasus) Dr. Szymkewicz, mufti of the Ostland zone occupied by the Germans (Poland and occupied areas of the USSR), and Mohammed Al Gazani, Moslem poet and one of the chiefs of the anti-Soviet Moslem Union.

In November 1943, a broadcast of radio DNB (Deutsche Nachrichten Buro) announced that the first battalion of Azerbaijanis, which had actively fought against the Bolshevism during more than one year, "proved their valor, and were included in German Storm Troops and decorated by the German Army." It was also announced that a conference about Azerbaijan had place in Berlin on November 7, under the command of major Dudanginski. A dispatch dated November 16, 1943 mentioned specifically that this conference had been followed "by the Mufti of Jerusalem" and "the representatives of the peoples of the Caucasus, the Ural and Turkestan."

More than 700 Azeris participated in the battle of Berlin in 1945. Abo surrendered to Allied forces, and began to work for American intelligence. After the war, Fatalibeyli was cleared by the U.S. War Department's Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency.

In 1953 he began working for CIA-funded Radio Liberty in Munich, becoming chief of the Azerbaijani desk. In September 1954, the body of Leonid Karas, a Belarusian writer, was found in the Isar River near Munich. Two months later, Fatalibeyli was found garroted in the apartment of Mikhail Izmailov. Although never conclusively proved, KGB involvement was suspected in both cases.^[1]