Yakov Dzhugashvili

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Yakov Dzhugashvili

German propaganda 1941. "Do not shed your blood for Stalin! He has already fled to Samara! His own son has surrendered! If Stalin's son is saving his own skin, then you are not obliged to sacrifice yourself either!"

Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili (Georgian: იაკობ ჯუღაშვილი, Russian: Яков Иосифович Джугашвили) (1907 - April 14,1943) was one of Joseph Stalin's three known children, along with Svetlana Stalin and Vasily Stalin. Dzhugashvili was the son of Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze.

Yakov was born in the village of Borji (near Kutaisi) in Georgia, then part of Imperial Russia. Until the age of fourteen, Yakov was raised by his aunt in Tbilisi. In 1921, Yakov’s uncle Alexander Svanidze urged him to leave for Moscow to acquire a higher education. Yakov only spoke Georgian and after his arrival in Moscow he commenced with learning the Russian language, aiming to apply for University studies.

Yakov and his father Stalin never got along. Allegedly once Stalin referred to Yakov as a "mere cobbler." Later according to Yakov's stepmother Nadezhda Alliluyeva she saw a young girl running away from their Moscow dacha in tears. When she entered she saw a despairing Yakov looking near faint in the room. He ran immediately to his bedroom. It turned out that the girl was Yakov's fiancee and when they told Stalin of their engagement he became enraged.

While Stalin and his wife were arguing about this a shot was heard from Yakov's room. He tried to kill himself with a shot in the head but due to frayed nerves from his father's tirade only managed in wounding himself. While she tended to his wounds and sent for a doctor all his father said was, "He can't even do that right."

Dzhugashvili did marry and was survived by two children. His son, Yevgeni, gave many interviews about his grandfather. He also has a daughter, Galina.

Dzhugashvili served in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. He was captured by the Wehrmacht during the war. The Germans offered to exchange Yakov for Friedrich Paulus, the German Field Marshal captured by the Soviets after the Battle of Stalingrad.

Stalin's son, Yakov Dzhugashvili captured by the Germans

Stalin believed that Yakov had surrendered intentionally, therefore regarding him a coward. In response to the offer to trade Yakov for Field Marshal Paulus, Stalin purportedly told the Germans that "I have no son named Yakov." Other variations on Stalin's reaction to the German offer are, "I have only one son", "I have no son", and "A lieutenant is not worth a general!" It is unknown which, if any, of these statements are correct. However Stalin fretted constantly about his son's fate and far from abandoning his son and holding him up to ridicule, as had been thought, Josef Stalin ordered Soviet Military Intelligence to make at least two rescue attempts in 1942, but Yakov died in captivity, aged 36. It is not clear when and how he died. The Germans stated officially that Yakov died by running into an electric fence. Some have contended that Yakov committed suicide at the camp while others have suggested that he was murdered.

Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being suggests Dzhugashvili took his own life: "Crying out to heaven in the most terrifying of Russian curses, he took a running jump into the electrified barbed-wire fence that surrounded the camp."