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Missing from this article is why Devyatayev was considered a criminal: "The NKVD did not believe Devyataev's story, arguing that it was impossible for the pris
by throwaway803453 6y ago
Missing from this article is why Devyatayev was considered a criminal:
"The NKVD did not believe Devyataev's story, arguing that it was impossible for the prisoners to take over an airplane without cooperation from the Germans. Thus, Devyataev was suspected of being a German spy and sent to a penal military unit along with the other nine men. Of the escapees, five died in action over the following months. Devyataev himself spent the remainder of the war in prison."[1]
[1] https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Devyatayev https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Devyatayev
- rangibaby 6y agoWe’re there any returning POWs who weren’t considered to be criminals?
- lostlogin 6y agoRussian history is just brutal, particularly during the Soviet era. A meaningful portion of its citizens were deemed criminal and the definition of criminal changed with time. All sorts of things got you dead or imprisoned: your class, your region, your town, ethnicity, religion, friends, family, profession and everything else. There will be loads of good books about it, but Simon Sebag Montefiore has done a few - Young Stalin and The Court of the Red Czar come to mind immediately.
- orloffm 6y agoThey weren't considered criminals, they were sent to detention for clearing because otherwise it would've been easy for spies to get into army ranks. Of course, it sounds straight-forward in theory, but during war times the conditions in the detention were awful, and the whole Soviet system of gulags was very demanding of labor, so there weren't many incentives to get cleared.
- justinclift 6y agoSomeone seems to have added that text. :)