The son of theatergoers, champion boxer, master of sports, coach, NKVD officer with a special mission - to kill Adolf Hitler. All this is about Igor Lvovich Miklashevsky, in our material about what was the fate of the man who became the tip of the spear of Soviet intelligence. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, the NKVD set itself the task of identifying and recruiting the most promising employees who speak German and are capable of conducting special operations behind enemy lines. Many professional operatives were already working in Berlin by that time, but the need to have such a specialist in the highest aristocratic Nazi circles came to the fore. And they found him. There were many facts in favor of Miklashevsky’s candidacy: a professional athlete - and therefore a person with an existing excellent cover that justifies frequent travel; good level of German language skills; patriot and citizen.
Igor Miklashevsky, 1940. His recruitment towards the end of 1941 was personally carried out by the Commissioner of State Security, head of the 3rd department of the Secret Political Directorate of the NKVD Viktor Nikolaevich Ilyin (later lieutenant general of the KGB) and Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov - head of the 2nd department The NKVD is an extremely significant name in the history of Soviet intelligence (who later became a writer, thanks to whom we were able to learn in detail the history of the assassination attempt we are describing).
Viktor Nikolaevich Ilyin As expected, Igor Lvovich gave his consent to carry out a secret mission behind enemy lines, without having the slightest idea about the plan, purpose and essence of the operation. At that time, intelligence schools and training bases were created in different parts of the USSR. At one of them, presumably on the territory of the Slobodsky Nativity of Christ Monastery near the city of Kirov, Miklashevsky underwent training in 1942. The school was also known for the fact that the future illegal intelligence officer, the great Nikolai Kuznetsov, allegedly trained on its territory. And already in December 1942, in accordance with a pre-thought-out “legend,” Igor Lvovich’s escape across the front line and surrender was staged. As was planned at Lubyanka, the Germans carefully checked Miklashevsky’s dossier and dug up his family connection with Vsevolod Blumenthal-Tamarin, who during the German occupation of Istra voluntarily went over to their side and became the editor of the Russian version of German Radio. Imitating Stalin's voice, Blumenthal-Tamarin voiced falsified decrees of the Soviet government, called for surrender and conducted propaganda against the Red Army. After the Germans retreated from Moscow, Blumenthal-Tamarin and his wife went with them to the west. Soon his broadcasts from Kyiv became regular in the occupied territories.
V. A. Blumenthal-Tamarin in the early 1940s. The Germans, appreciating the talents of actor Blumenthal-Tamarin, appointed him chief director of the Kyiv Russian Drama Theater, which resumed work shortly after the occupation of the city. He opened the theater season with a satirical play discrediting the Red Army called “This is how they fight...”, in which he personally played the main role. In 1942, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death in absentia. Of course, the fact of kinship strengthened the position of the sent intelligence officer and assured the Germans of the sincerity of their motives and escape. Using the cover of his traitor uncle, Miklashevsky had to settle in Berlin and prepare a group to infiltrate the Fuhrer’s entourage in order to deliver a fatal blow at a convenient moment. Among the famous personalities involved in this operation was the Polish prince Janusz Radziwill, as well as the famous German actress, the Fuhrer’s favorite and also Lavrentiy Beria’s liaison, Olga Chekhova. It was they who were supposed to guide Miklashevsky into the aristocratic circles of Berlin and introduce him to high society. Igor Lvovich began his journey to Germany in 1943, having previously spent several months in prisoner of war camps and joined the Russian Liberation Army (ROA) of General Vlasov, in order to strengthen the “legend” and self-confidence. Soon he was sent to Berlin, where he settled in an apartment that belonged to the Blumenthal-Tamarin spouses. The preparation stage has begun. While settling in in Berlin, Miklashevsky attended boxing matches and theatrical performances, at one of which he was introduced to Olga Chekhova. It was through her that Moscow received the news of Igor Lvovich’s safe arrival in Berlin. Trying to become noticeable without the help of fellow aristocrats, Miklashevsky took part in exhibition amateur fights, where he met famous German athletes, including Max Schmeling, the 1936 German heavyweight boxing champion, who was well-known in the highest Nazi circles.
Perhaps this particular photograph was given to Miklashevsky by Germany’s favorite boxer Max Schmeling. Gradually getting closer to Olga Chekhova and her entourage, Miklashevsky became a frequent visitor to the theater, and repeatedly had the opportunity to personally contact Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering. From Miklashevsky’s reports it followed that he had frequent access to the highest ranks of the Reich at numerous receptions and performances, and was ready at any moment to carry out the liquidation of not only Hitler, but also his closest subordinates. Igor Lvovich was waiting for just one order, everything was ready.
Adolf Hitler and Olga Chekhova But with the successes of the Red Army in battles on the Western Front, the leadership of the NKVD and Stalin began to doubt the advisability of killing Hitler. Soviet intelligence officers began to detect contacts between the Nazis and representatives of the US and British intelligence services. It was largely about the post-war structure and the safety of significant people of the Reich, prominent scientists and figures. This became especially clear towards the end of the war after the opening of the “Second Front” within the framework of the so-called Operation Sunrise and the activities of the ODESSA organization. Hitler at that time was an unpredictable and expressive figure for Western intelligence services, and his liquidation could significantly speed up the process of concluding a separate (unilateral and without the participation of the USSR) peace between Germany and its allies, in exchange for, say, the return of Britain to its possessions before 1939, which would allow the new leader of the Reich, who replaced Hitler, to concentrate all his efforts on the Eastern Front and leave the USSR alone in this war. After the victory at the Kursk Bulge on August 23, 1943, Soviet troops launched a decisive offensive, and this became a turning point in the war. Then there were no more doubts. The order to liquidate Hitler was canceled at the highest level, personally by Joseph Stalin. Subsequently, in order to maintain cover, he visited the “Vlasov” center on Victorianstrasse, where volunteers gathered to replenish the ROA, and in the summer of 1944 he took part in the battles against the Allied landings that landed in Normandy on June 6. Letters from his uncle Blumenthal-Tamarin to the artist Mikhail Ivanovich Cherkasheninov shed a little light on the fate of Igor Lvovich at the end of the Normandy operation: - “Fate continues to tempt me: our last hope, our adopted son, (my wife’s own nephew, was seriously, almost mortally wounded) son of her brother Lev Lashchilin) Igor. He, on his own initiative, joined the volunteer army, took part in the battles for Quarantin in Normandy and was seriously, almost mortally wounded, but it seems Osha will survive.” After this injury, Miklashevsky was taken to Germany, where he was treated in a hospital. Having met his uncle, retired Vlasov member Miklashevsky moves with him to a small town in southern Germany - Müsingen. This city became the last place of residence of Blumenthal-Tamarin. The radio station announcer and traitor, sentenced to execution by the NKVD, was killed by his nephew Miklashevsky, who dreamed of this even before the start of his business trip to Berlin. Little is known about the date of the murder. From the memoirs of Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov it follows that Blumenthal-Tamarin was killed back in 1944, and Miklashevsky after that fled to France, where he remained for another two years after the signing of the surrender. Having connections in the ROA, he, taking advantage of his infiltration into the organization, tracked down defectors to the West from the army of General Vlasov for two whole years. Thus ended the military part of the story of a man who was one step away from the title - “Hitler's killer.” Upon returning to the USSR in 1947, he returned to the sport as a coach and managed to train many future USSR champions.
Igor Lvovich Miklashevsky(May 30, 1918, Moscow - September 25, 1990, Moscow) - athlete, Leningrad middleweight boxing champion (1941), participant in the Great Patriotic War, NKVD employee, coach, sports judge. Cousin of Hero of Russia Natalia Alexandrovna Kachuevskaya (1922-1942).
Biography
1918-1941
Igor was born and raised in a theatrical family. His father, Lev Aleksandrovich Lashilin (1888-1955), was a famous ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher at the Bolshoi Theater. Mother, actress of the Chamber Theater Augusta Leonidovna Miklashevskaya (1891-1977). The parents were not officially married (by this time Lashchilin was already married). At the age of eight, Igor met the family of Lashilin’s sister, Inna Alexandrovna, whose husband (and, therefore, Igor’s uncle, although not by blood) was a prominent representative of the famous theater dynasty, Vsevolod Alexandrovich Blumenthal-Tamarin. While studying at school, Igor achieved success in learning the German language and especially in sports - he became interested in boxing. After graduating from school, he entered (but did not finish) the State Center for Physical Culture and Sports and received the title of Master of Sports.
In 1938 he was drafted into the army, served in Leningrad in anti-aircraft units, got married (his son Andrei was born in the marriage), briefly participated in the Soviet-Finnish War, then continued training and became the middleweight boxing champion of the Leningrad Military District. In the spring of 1941, due to the opponent’s refusal from the final fight at the Leningrad championship, he reached the final of the USSR championship (the championship did not take place). He met the Great Patriotic War as a sergeant loading anti-aircraft artillery guns on the Leningrad Front.
1941-1942
How an athlete with a good command of German came to the attention of intelligence services. His “recruitment” at the end of 1941 was personally carried out by NKVD officers V.N. Ilyin (commissioner of state security, head of the 3rd department of the Secret Political Directorate of the NKVD, was in prison from 1943 to 1952, since 1955 - secretary of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union , Lieutenant General of the KGB) and P. A. Sudoplatov (chief of the 2nd department of the NKVD, later, after a 15-year imprisonment, writer). He agreed to carry out a “special” (that is, secret) mission behind enemy lines, the essence of which was not revealed to him, and in 1942 he underwent appropriate training, presumably at an intelligence school located in the city of Slobodskoye near Kirov. In December 1942, his escape across the front line and surrender were staged. He passed a thorough check, during which it turned out (as was provided for by his “legend”) his relationship with Vsevolod Blumenthal-Tamarin, which was additional evidence of the sincerity of his act. The fact is that at the end of 1941, the Blumenthal-Tamarin spouses, who lived in a dacha cooperative occupied by the Germans near the village of Manikino not far from Istra, voluntarily left with the German troops retreating from Moscow. Already in February 1942, regular speeches by Blumenthal-Tamarin began on the radio, presumably from Kyiv, in which he, with all his acting skills, even imitating Stalin’s voice, called on Soviet soldiers to surrender and the population to cooperate with the invaders. At the same time, he was appointed by the German authorities as the chief director of the Kyiv Russian Drama Theater, which resumed work shortly after the occupation of the city. He staged A. Korneychuk’s play “Front”, turning it into an evil satire on the Red Army called “This is how they fight...”, and played the main role in it - General Gorlov (in the “remake” - General Gorlopanov). On March 27, 1942, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death in absentia.
"Special" task
The task Miklashevsky received was as follows: the NKVD drew up a plan for the liquidation of Hitler, according to which Janusz Radziwill (an influential Polish prince and politician who ended up in the NKVD in 1939 during the “partition” of Poland and agreed to cooperate) and Olga Chekhova who lived in Berlin (the Fuhrer’s favorite actress, the ex-wife of Mikhail Chekhov, and part-time the liaison of Lavrentiy Beria himself), were supposed to, with the help of their friends among the German aristocracy, provide access to Hitler to a group of agents abandoned in Germany and who were underground in Berlin. The leadership of the group was entrusted to Igor Miklashevsky, who was supposed to settle in Berlin with the help of Blumenthal-Tamarin.
Bohemian stories. Part 2. Before reading, it is advisable to read part one.
Seven-year-old Igor was not feeling well - he had another severe cold...
Igor Miklashevsky in 1927
Mama Gutya did not leave him a single step. Having sat in a chair all evening, Sergei quietly looked at Gutya, who was fussing over her sick son, and when he left, for the last time and for all, he said to her: “That’s all I need.” I remember, darling, I remember
The shine of your hair...
It’s not happy and it’s not easy for me
I had to leave you.
According to Sophia Tolstoy, in the manuscript this poem was dedicated to Augusta Leonidovna Miklashevskaya, and, therefore, it became the last one that Sergei Yesenin dedicated to Guta Miklashevskaya, with whom he fell in love once in 1923 - after Isadora Duncan.
True, on Guti’s part, love was unrequited, despite her wonderful and even reverent attitude towards the restless poet. Her own life was very difficult, which she did not like to talk about, trying to solve personal problems on her own.
The future Honored Artist of the RSFSR Augusta Leonidovna Miklashevskaya (née Spirova, 1891-1977) in 1916 divorced Ivan Miklashevsky, who gave her the surname, and fell madly in love with the outstanding dancer and choreographer Lev Aleksandrovich Lashchilin (worked at the Bolshoi Theater from 1906 to 1949. , in 1933 became Honored Artist of the RSFSR). Unfortunately, it was not possible to create a full-fledged family - he remained a “coming husband”, and then a “coming father”.
Augusta Leonidovna Miklashevskaya
On May 30, 1918, Augusta’s son Igor was born. An incomplete family and the difficulties of the first post-revolutionary years did not contribute to the improvement of the child’s health. The most serious problems began in 1923: the Moscow Chamber Theater under the direction of A. Ya. Tairov (Kornblit), in which she worked, went on her first foreign tour - Augusta had no one to leave her son with in Moscow, and there was no opportunity to take him with her either .
I had to leave the Chamber Theater and earn a living, wasting my talent by playing every night in cheap productions of the “Nerydai” theater and others. Then she worked in various provincial theaters - Bryansk (1926-1928), Moscow Mobile (1928-1930), at the Ryazan Drama Theater (1936-1938), at the Izhevsk Russian Drama Theater. V. G. Korolenko. In 1940-1943 she was a star of the Kirov Drama Theater. And in 1943, Tairov called her back to the Chamber Theater.
Igor Lvovich, without a doubt, was very lucky in his life with teachers. His mother and all his relatives hoped that he would enter one of the theater schools - but instead, Igor, who decided to make himself a student of elite school No. 86 on Krasnaya Presnya, took up boxing and in 1936 became a student at TsGOLIFK - the Central State Institute of Physical Culture. By the way, Igor went to school with Yesenin’s son Konstantin, who became a famous sports journalist.
In 1938, Igor Miklashevsky was drafted into the Red Army. He continues to practice boxing and repeatedly becomes the champion of the Leningrad Military District. In April 1941, public idol Oleg Zagoruichenko did not compete in the final fight of the Leningrad championship due to a hand injury; Miklashevsky is recognized as the winner and receives a ticket to the USSR Championship - which was not destined to take place.
Igor Miklashevsky in 1940.
Igor Miklashevsky met the Great Patriotic War as a sergeant loading the crew of an anti-aircraft gun of the 189th anti-aircraft artillery regiment. Unexpectedly, at the beginning of 1942, he was summoned to the headquarters of the Leningrad Air Defense. There, a whole major of state security (colonel translated into combined arms ranks) suggested that Miklashevsky carry out a special task for the Motherland, for which he immediately leave for Moscow.
State Security Major Viktor Nikolaevich Ilyin, the future lieutenant general, had been developing cultural and artistic figures for several years. When one of his “wards” Vsevolod Blumenthal-Tamarin went to the Germans, they immediately began to look for approaches to him, just in case. And they found: Blumenthal-Tamarin in 1940 married third-rate actress Inna Lashchilina, the sister of Lev Aleksandrovich Lashchilin, father of Igor Miklashevsky. Despite the fact that Blumenthal-Tamarin and the Miklashevskys did not have a particularly close relationship, they knew each other and met several times.
Miklashevsky agrees to justify the trust of the Motherland. After a special training course in April 1943, the Udarov agent was sent to the German rear under his own name. In a rather simple way - like an escaping penalty box. German counterintelligence almost split him during the first interrogations - his testimony did not correspond to the data received from several “real” defectors days earlier. However, a newspaper with an article by Blumenthal-Tamarin came to hand did its job: Igor was allowed through. Operation “Ring”, which was under the control of State Security Commissioner 3rd Rank P. Fitin and Head of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD P. Sudoplatov, began.
On June 15, 1943, Miklashevsky enlisted in the 437th ROA battalion. In October, he manages to inform the command about his successful legalization and the difficulty in approaching the goal of the mission. They began to prepare a group of assistants for him, but in the fall of 1943, the battalion where Miklashevsky served was withdrawn first to Warsaw, and then to France. Here counterintelligence again takes on him, not unreasonably, but to no avail, they tried to blame the failures of the Vlasovites in the partisan places near Roslavl on him.
In January 1944, Igor received leave and for the first time ended up with his uncle - who at that time lived in Königsberg on the estate of Koch himself. However, there was no opportunity for decisive action, and Igor returned to his place of duty.
His boxing training helps Igor earn a good reputation among the Germans. At one of the tournaments organized by the Germans, Miklashevsky defeats the famous French boxer Pilas. His boxing really pleased the German idol, world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling, who gave Igor his photograph with a dedicatory inscription - it became something of a safe conduct for the Russian boxer ROAshnik, a friend of Schmeling himself (it’s funny that the author of Schmeling’s biography, released in Germany in 2004, called Igor Boris - okay, not Rus-Ivan). Igor has noticeably climbed the social ladder; now he easily communicated with Foreign Ministry adviser Strecker, General Ernst Köstring, the leadership of the intelligence school of the Wustrau camp and other figures. They say he was also in contact with Hitler’s favorite artist Olga Chekhova (a possible NKVD agent).
Perhaps this particular photograph was given to Miklashevsky by Germany’s favorite boxer Max Schmeling.
After the Allied landing, Miklashevsky's unit enters into hostilities; Igor is seriously wounded in the neck and leg; the doctors literally pulled him out of the other world. He was commissioned and finally sent to Berlin, where he lives next to Blumenthal-Tamarin and conducts sports work in the training camp for Vlasov propagandists.
Shortly before the end of the war, Igor manages to steal a pistol from a familiar German officer (the Germans were extremely reluctant to trust even “their” Russians with personal weapons), and on May 10, 1945, the sentence in absentia was carried out.
In various texts available on the Internet, in relation to V. A. Blumenthal-Tamarin, the phrase “died under unclear circumstances” is often found. According to the FSB of the Russian Federation, the “unexplained circumstance” that ended the life of the traitor was named Igor Lvovich Miklashevsky.
After some time, together with the Blumenthal-Tamarin archive, he ended up in the Allied camp, where he identified himself as a Soviet intelligence officer. After a meeting with representatives of the command, he was identified by a password and immediately taken to Moscow.
Work behind the front line was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. After compiling all possible reports and reports, Igor did not go to the intelligence department, but returned to the sport. Unfortunately, he personally no longer achieved great success - but he became famous as a coach who trained several USSR champions, and as a judge of the all-Union category.
Igor Miklashevsky with all combat and sports regalia.
In the 1960s, the exploits of our intelligence began to be gradually declassified, and films began to be written and made about them. Igor Miklashevsky became the prototype of the main character of G. Sviridov’s book “Stand to the end.” Perhaps, for greater pathos, he came up with a more ambitious task - to kill Hitler.
1972, Augusta Miklashevskaya has guests (from left to right): artist K. Skopina, unknown, A. L. Miklashevskaya, B. A. Babochkin, K. S. Yesenin and I. L. Miklashevsky.
Vsevolod Aleksandrovich Blumenthal-Tamarin was rehabilitated “due to formal circumstances” in 1993.
Igor Lvovich Miklashevsky(May 30, 1918, Moscow - September 25, 1990, Leningrad), son of actress A.L. Miklashevskaya, athlete - Leningrad middleweight boxing champion (1941), WWII participant, NKVD employee, coach, sports judge.
1918-1941
Igor was born and raised in a theatrical family. His father, Lev Aleksandrovich Lashilin (1888-1955), was a famous ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher at the Bolshoi Theater. Mother, actress of the Chamber Theater Augusta Leonidovna Miklashevskaya (1891-1977). The parents were not officially married (by this time Lashchilin was already married). At the age of eight, he met the family of Lashchilin’s sister, Inna Alexandrovna, whose husband (and, therefore, uncle, although not by blood, of Igor) was a prominent representative of the famous theater dynasty, Vsevolod Alexandrovich Blumenthal-Tamarin. While studying at school, Igor achieved success in learning the German language and especially in sports - he became interested in boxing. After graduating from school, he entered (but did not finish) the State Center for Physical Culture and Sports and received the title of Master of Sports.
In 1938 he was drafted into the army, served in Leningrad in anti-aircraft units, got married (a son was born in the marriage), briefly participated in the Soviet-Finnish War, then continued training and became the middleweight boxing champion of the Leningrad Military District. In the spring of 1941, due to the opponent’s refusal from the final fight at the Leningrad championship, he entered the final of the USSR championship (the championship did not take place). He met the Great Patriotic War as a sergeant loading anti-aircraft artillery guns on the Leningrad Front.
1941-1942
How an athlete with a good command of German came to the attention of intelligence services. His “recruitment” at the end of 1941 was personally carried out by NKVD officers V.N. Ilyin (commissioner of state security, head of the 3rd department of the Secret Political Directorate of the NKVD, was in prison from 1943 to 1952, from 1955 - secretary of the Moscow branch of the Union writers, lieutenant general of the KGB) and P. A. Sudoplatov (chief of the 2nd department of the NKVD, later, after a 15-year imprisonment, writer). He agreed to carry out a “special” (that is, secret) mission behind enemy lines, the essence of which was not revealed to him, and in 1942 he underwent appropriate training, presumably at an intelligence school located in the city of Slobodskoye near Kirov. In December 1942, his escape across the front line and surrender were staged. He passed a thorough check, during which it turned out (as was provided for by his “legend”) his relationship with Vsevolod Blumenthal-Tamarin, which was additional evidence of the sincerity of his act. The fact is that at the end of 1941, the Blumenthal-Tamarin spouses, who lived in a dacha cooperative occupied by the Germans near the village of Manikino not far from Istra, voluntarily left with the German troops retreating from Moscow. Already in February 1942, regular speeches by Blumenthal-Tamarin began on the radio, presumably from Kyiv, in which he, with all his acting skills, even imitating Stalin’s voice, called on Soviet soldiers to surrender and the population to cooperate with the invaders. At the same time, he was appointed by the German authorities as the chief director of the Kyiv Russian Drama Theater, which resumed work shortly after the occupation of the city. He staged A. Korneychuk’s play “Front”, turning it into an evil satire on the Red Army called “This is how they fight...”, and played the main role in it - General Gorlov (in the “remake” - General Gorlopanov). On March 27, 1942, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death in absentia.
"Special" task
The task Miklashevsky received was as follows: the NKVD drew up a plan for the liquidation of Hitler, according to which Janusz Radziwill (an influential Polish prince and politician who ended up in the NKVD in 1939 during the “partition” of Poland and agreed to cooperate) and Olga Chekhova who lived in Berlin (the Fuhrer’s favorite actress, the ex-wife of Mikhail Chekhov and the niece of the writer Anton Chekhov, and also the liaison of Lavrentiy Beria himself), were supposed to, with the help of their friends among the German aristocracy, provide access to Hitler to a group of agents abandoned in Germany and who were underground in Berlin. The leadership of the group was entrusted to Igor Miklashevsky, who was supposed to settle in Berlin with the help of Blumenthal-Tamarin. A similar version is presented by Anthony Beaver: Miklashevsky was eager to destroy his traitor uncle, but he was entrusted with a larger mission - using Olga Chekhova’s contacts and influence in high German circles, to gain access to Hitler to assassinate him.
1943
Kinship with Blumenthal-Tamarin played a role. After spending several months in prison camps and joining the so-called “Russian Liberation Army” (ROA) of General Vlasov to gain the trust of the Germans, Igor was sent to Berlin and settled in an apartment allocated by the German authorities to the Blumenthal-Tamarin spouses. Gradually he became accustomed to Berlin. At one of the theater premieres, his uncle introduced him to Olga Chekhova, with whom he had known even before the war, and through her, information about Miklashevsky’s safe arrival reached Moscow. Using his boxing background and having performed several times in amateur fights, he made a very useful acquaintance with Max Schmeling, the popular 1936 world heavyweight boxing champion in Germany and, like O. Chekhov, a member of the highest Nazi circles. However, to his message about the real possibility of killing Hitler during his visit to one of the performances with the participation of O. Chekhova, and at the same time the second man of the Reich, Hermann Goering, a negative response was received from Moscow. As P. Sudoplatov, V. Karpov and E. Beaver write, Stalin doubted the advisability of the original plan to assassinate Hitler, fearing that if the operation was successful, Germany might try to conclude a separate peace treaty with the allies and leave the USSR alone. In addition, in the summer of 1943, as a result of the defeat of the Germans at the Kursk Bulge, a clear turning point emerged in the course of the war. Blumenthal-Tamarin, along with his radio station, was transported to Konigsberg, at the same time instructed to conduct propaganda among prisoners of war. At the end of 1944, when Soviet troops approached the borders of East Prussia, he returned to Berlin, where Igor awaited the final decision from Moscow. Instructions soon arrived - the assassination attempt on Hitler was finally canceled at the highest level.
1944-1945
The nephew, left without a goal or a cause, continued to live in his uncle’s apartment. He visited the “Vlasov” center on Victorianstrasse, where volunteers gathered to replenish the ROA, and already in the summer of 1944, as part of the “Eastern Battalion” of the ROA, he participated in the battles against the Allies who landed in Normandy on June 6. What happened next is known from two surviving letters from Blumenthal-Tamarin to the artist Mikhail Ivanovich Cherkasheninov, his former neighbor at the dacha in Manikhin, who was first captured and then in a camp for “displaced persons.” In a letter from Konigsberg dated June 18, 1944, he writes that his own nephew Igor, a volunteer, was seriously wounded in a battle with the Americans. In the second, dated July 5, 1944, he confirms: “Fate continues to tempt me: our last hope, our adopted son, (my wife’s nephew, the son of her brother Lev Lashchilin) Igor, was seriously, almost mortally wounded.<…>. He, on his own initiative, joined the volunteer army, took part in the battles for Quarantin in Normandy and was seriously, almost mortally wounded, but it seems he will survive.” Miklashevsky was indeed seriously wounded in the neck and leg and was treated in a German hospital. Blumenthal-Tamarin's letters refute allegations that appear from time to time in some interviews and memoirs that at the end of 1944, while in Belgium (and not in France), Miklashevsky was connected with the partisans, staged an explosion at some underground factory, fell under the suspicion of the Germans, fled to escape arrest, was wounded in the process and taken to a hospital in Paris dressed as peasants in uniform and with documents of a murdered German officer. Commenting on these statements, A. Vaksberg writes that Miklashevsky would hardly have been able to pass himself off as a German officer without fluent command of the German language and without knowing everything that he should have known in that case - the location of the unit in which he allegedly served, names of commanders, colleagues and much more. And if he had ended up in the hospital under a false name, then how could his uncle find out about his injury so quickly? In addition, on August 25, 1944, Paris was liberated from the Germans, and in September, almost the entire territory of Belgium. So there could not have been a German hospital in Paris and partisans in Belgium at the end of 1944, and Miklashevsky was treated in Germany in June-July.
Decommissioned from the ROA due to injury, Igor and his uncle in the winter of 1944-1945. spent in Berlin, then both moved to the city of Müsingen (the southwestern part of Germany near the border with France) (P. Sudoplatov provides other information: - “Miklashevsky fled to France in 1944 after the liquidation of his uncle”). Nearby there was a camp of Soviet prisoners of war, from which Vlasov’s “army” was replenished. Referring to a document from the FSB archive, A. Vaksberg writes that Blumenthal-Tamarin was killed on May 10, 1945 in Müsingen “under unclear circumstances.” Comparing different versions of these “circumstances,” he cites, in his opinion, the most probable: the traitorous uncle was killed by his beloved nephew, who then hid in France. After some time, Igor found himself in the Allied camp, where he identified himself as a Soviet intelligence officer and met with representatives of the Soviet command. The fact that he was in Paris in the fall of 1945 is reported in a letter received by Augusta Miklashevskaya from Irina Gromova, a stranger to her, and stored in her archive.
1945-1990
Miklashevsky remained in France for two years after the end of the war, according to some information he followed the Vlasovites who fled to the West - the remnants of General Vlasov’s army. He returned to the Soviet Union in 1947 and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. He did not serve in the intelligence unit, but returned to sports. He was only 29 years old, but the injury he received prevented him from performing in the ring. However, he achieved success as a coach, who trained several USSR champions, and as a judge in the all-Union category. For many years, until his retirement, he worked as a boxing coach in the sports society “Labor Reserves” (in the late 70s, one of his students was Ilya Derevyanko, later a famous writer and historian). He died on September 25, 1990 in Leningrad. He was buried in section 5 of the Perlovsky cemetery in Moscow.
V. A. Blumenthal-Tamarin was rehabilitated in 1993 “due to formal circumstances.” According to the Law of the Russian Federation “On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression” dated September 3, 1993 No. 5698-1 (Article 5): “The following acts are recognized as not containing public danger and are rehabilitated, regardless of the factual validity of the accusation, persons convicted of: a) anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda; b) dissemination of deliberately false fabrications discrediting the Soviet state or social system.”
Last week, a feature film about a man whose most of his life was classified as “secret” was shown on television. The “non-fiction” version is narrated by Vladimir Konovalov, a famous sports documentary filmmaker who was friends with Miklashevsky.
In life “after” he became an ordinary coach, working with children. I didn't box myself. He said: “The war took away too much health.” Maybe he was lying somewhere. Because I saw with my own eyes how Igor’s fists worked. We sat in a restaurant and celebrated the release of my film. There is a drunk company nearby, word for word - a fight. The already middle-aged Miklashevsky only needed a couple of blows to put the man down.
Igor’s mother is the famous actress of the Chamber Theater Augusta Miklashevskaya. Yesenin had perhaps the strongest feelings for her and dedicated poems (the cycle “The Love of a Hooligan”, 1923). Augusta’s relationship with Yesenin, however, never went beyond the “platonic framework.” Unlike the affair with the married dancer Lashchilin. Lashchilin is Igor's father.
Yesenin brought sweets to Augusta’s son and gave him a camera for his birthday. But Igor picked up boxing gloves much more often. He was a fighter, a C student. I received A's only for the German language.
He was drafted into the army in Leningrad, where he became the city's boxing champion. In 1941, I reached the final of the USSR Championship... The final did not take place, the war began. Instead of boxing - the defense of Leningrad. And then one day NKVD officer Ilyin (later KGB lieutenant general) came to pick him up from Moscow.
Ilyin himself told me about the order to “go after Hitler and destroy him.” Why did you choose Igor? Everything came together - both the language and boxing, which was idolized in Germany. World champion Max Schmeling was a special person for the Fuhrer (when he knocked out the American Louis, Hitler ordered the film “Schmeling’s Victory - Germany’s Victory” to be shown in all cinemas). Plus the Miklashevsky family.
After all, Igor’s uncle on his father’s side, the famous actor Blumenthal-Tamarin, defected to the Nazis at the beginning of the war. He worked on a German radio broadcasting in the occupied territories of the USSR, reading out fictitious decrees in the voice of Stalin, calling for surrender. And the actress Olga Chekhova, Hitler’s favorite, was Miklashevsky’s distant, but still relative. Chekhova herself, as Ilyin made it clear, was also recruited by us. Ideally, she should have provided Igor with access to the elite of Nazi Germany. Well, ours should have provided the bomb at the right time.
But first the legend. Igor allegedly accidentally doused an important person in a cafe. Then a fight, police, penal battalion, border crossing. Miklashevsky surrendered with the words: “I hate communists, I have an uncle in Berlin, and Olga Chekhova is almost my own aunt.” The Germans gave him a false execution - they put him against the wall and let him shoot bullets. And he bent his “aunt-uncle”. I asked him later: “Was it scary?” “No,” he said. “I knew they wouldn’t shoot me.” It seemed to me that he liked to tickle his nerves. By nature, Igor was a gambling person, an adventurer.
Well, they seemed to believe me and sent me to Normandy, to join the German army as a motorcyclist. There Igor met the Frenchman Maren, who boxed in a cafe. They began to enter the ring together, entertaining the officers. Igor overfed himself, began to win, and one day he heard from his superiors: “Get ready, you’re going to Germany for the army boxing championship.” The year was 1943.
Miklashevsky knocked out his opponent at the championship in the first round. Schmeling was sitting on the podium and liked the Russian boxer. We talked, the Fuhrer’s favorite told him that he would help him gain a foothold in Germany. Everything was going as well as possible. Igor was already able to meet with Chekhova... But news came from Moscow - the order to liquidate Hitler had been cancelled. The war was at a turning point, the Germans were retreating. Stalin feared that the death of the Fuhrer would weaken Germany and that it would come to an agreement with the allies behind the back of the USSR. The fact that the operation was canceled essentially saved Igor’s life. He said: “Before me, 6 people prepared an assassination attempt on Hitler, and all died.”
Igor was given a new task. He, not without the help of Schmeling, was able to get a job at a German bomb factory in Alsace. And he blew it up. When the Germans realized it, they shot everyone who worked at the plant. Igor received a bullet in the throat, it passed a millimeter from the aorta. The next morning, he was found, barely breathing, in a pile of corpses by the Frenchwoman Irene Spade. She pulled him out and took him to the partisans. Their doctor patched up Igor a little, but said: “We need a normal surgeon, otherwise he won’t last long.” And then a plan matured.
The partisans dressed Miklashevsky in a German uniform, put documents addressed to Senior Lieutenant Klug in his pocket and placed them on the road near an army car that had been bombed the day before. Soon the Germans drove along the road, picked up the “officer” and took him to their hospital. Miklashevsky simply could not give himself away; a wound to the throat did not allow him to make sounds. After a month and a half, things began to improve and the doctor said: “I see you, Klug, have gotten stronger. I have good news - your wife is coming to you from Berlin tomorrow.” What a joy, imagine! Klug's wife! While Igor was thinking about his plan of action, an elderly nurse entered the room and began humming a Russian song. He whispered: “Are you Russian?” “Yes,” the woman answered. “I am the wife of Professor Vinogradov, who was allowed to receive treatment in the West.” “And I’m from Moscow, from Konyushkov,” said Igor. - Help!
He got out of the hospital in a truck with laundry and joined the French partisans. After the victory, he registered with the commandant’s office and patrolled Paris. And one day a woman called out to him on the street. It was Irene Spade, whom Igor simply could not recognize - he was unconscious when she saved him... In general, they began a romantic relationship. But I don’t know how serious everything was there - after all, Igor had a wife waiting for him at home. He got married before the war.
Neither his wife nor his mother really knew where Igor was. They guessed that he was on a mission and hoped that he would return... And he returned. In 1947, I landed at a Moscow airfield and saw people with flowers. “What a meeting!” - I thought. But it turned out that the flowers were intended for the Dynamo team, who had arrived from a foreign tour. The NKVD was waiting for him. Interrogations, interrogations, interrogations... Relations with his wife became cool, because due to the investigation, Miklashevsky could not work or feed his family. Igor himself was surprised why they believed him in the end. Apparently, SUCH a story could not simply be made up. How were merits assessed? They just gave me a “Red Star”. That's all. Live and be silent. For the first time, Igor was able to tell something about himself only in the late 70s. And before that, for everyone, he was just a boxing trainer who loved to walk his dog. You know this dog. Rostotsky filmed it in his film - this is the same white Bim with a black ear.
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