Quote:
Originally Posted by landser88
Well they were even a problem. I try to explain this a bit, because I made two interviews with two members of the so called "Eisenbahnexperten".
And last but not least, in the book KG 55 you can read: "Der Feindnachrichten-Abhördienst im Stabe General Pflugbeil berichtete uns, wie der Schwiegersohn Stalins (der damalige Eisenbahnminister General Karganowitsch) über die Schmidt'schen Vandalen schimpfte und befahl, diese Himmelskunde herunterzuholen."
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Thank you very much for an interesting background story, Miro. Two very interesting people to interview!
The Abhördienst story is somewhat inaccurate, as is common with such tales. Two different people are confused, perhaps for enhanced effect:
Ла́зарь Моисе́евич Кагано́вич (English: Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich) was head of the People’s Commissariat of Ways of Communications (NKPS), the Soviet railway ministry.
Андре́й Алекса́ндрович Жда́нов (English: Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov) was head of the Leningrad City Committee of the Communist Party during the war. It was he who could be considered Stalin’s brother-in-law (
Schwiegerbruder), but Zhdanov’s son married Stalin’s daughter only after Zhdanov himself had died in 1948.
There is a similar story about the famous Soviet P-39 Airacobra ace, Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Покры́шкин (English: Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin). The story runs that from spring 1943 Soviet radio intercept stations heard German alert messages with the text "Achtung! Pokryshkin ist in der Luft!" I assume that in both of the above cases, the actial radio communications were rather more prosaic and to the point
Possibly, both stories were intended to maintain morale during a period of extremely high atrittion for both the German and Soviet air forces on the Eastern front.
Miro, I have sent you a private message.
Warm regards,
Paul