Escape from the Gulag (film). Way of the Cross Cornellius Growth Prizes and Awards

The Trud newspaper decided to talk about the most daring and ingenious, in our opinion, escapes in history

blue escape

Our marathon is opened by escape genius, an American con man and impostor (and, interestingly, homosexual Stephen Jay Russell. A book was written about his brilliant escapes by journalist Stephen McVicker, I Love You Philip Morris: A True Story of Life, Love, and Prison Escapes; later This book was made into a film of the same name.

It is difficult to say whether Stephen Russell really performed such virtuoso tricks with escapes, forged documents and scams. But if it really was, then he can rightly be called the "King of crooks", and the entire American prison system is simply ridiculous.

There are 14 known fictitious names that Stephen used to carry out his scams. These names helped him more than once. In one of the scams, with the help of a fake resume and name, Stephen managed to get a job at an insurance company as a financial director. Thus, he was able to gain about 800 thousand dollars from this company with the help of fraud with money. But that's not all, he earned his fame with his shoots.

In 1992, Stephen Jay Russell was behind bars for his fraudulent accounts. According to the book, it was during this term that he met his beloved Philip Morris. He managed to escape 4 times, resorting to all possible tricks. He pretended to be a judge and lowered his bail from $900,000 to $45,000. He even pretended to be an FBI agent and a doctor. And once Stephen was able to go beyond the walls of the prison, pretending to be a worker. But these are all flowers. The most ingenious was his escape from the Harris County Jail, which he landed in for stealing $800,000 from a Houston company that manages doctors' finances. For this, he was sentenced to 45 years, and another 20 years for previous escapes. Escape from this institution is simply amazing. Stephen read everything about AIDS in the library and managed to imitate the symptoms. He later faked his tests and secured a transfer to a private clinic. There he called the prison on behalf of a doctor and said that Stephen Russell had died of AIDS.

On the this moment Stephen Russell is serving his 144-year sentence in Michael Unit Prison. Where he spends 23 hours a day in a cell and spends one hour showering, exercising and communicating with his family.

Brilliant and simple

Directed by Michael Mann, Johnny D., based on Brian Barrow's novel Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-1934, is mind-blowing, especially when you realize who Johnny Dillinger really was. , which kept all of America at bay in the 30s. One of his brilliant escapes was from Crown Point Prison, which at that time was guarded not only by a large number of policemen, but even by the military from national guard. Interestingly, Johnny D. escaped from there with a fake pistol made of wood and painted black with shoe polish. With this gun, he forced the guards to open the door of his cell, locked them all, took two hostages and calmly drove out of the prison in the sheriff's car along with two hostages. The movie and the real story are almost the same. True, in the film, Johnny escaped with an accomplice, although this may have really been the case. After all, if you think about it, it is very doubtful that Dillinger locked up all the guards, managed to take two hostages and escape from prison. So it is worth paying tribute to Michael Mann for the realism of the picture. Be that as it may, this escape of Johnny D. cannot be repeated by anyone. And he takes an honorable place in our prison marathon.

Alcatraz

Over the 29 years of Alcatraz's existence, they tried to escape many times, but no one succeeded. Except for three prisoners: the two Anglin brothers - John and Clarence - and Frank Morris. These three showed amazing ingenuity. The FBI only after 17 years shrugged and closed the case. This escape inspired Don Siegel to make the movie "Escape from Alcatraz" the main role starring Clint Eastwood. According to the plot, the whole plan came up with the hero, who is just played by Eastwood, Frank Morris. But the real think tank was Allen West, the car thief. This confirms the conjecture that four planned to escape, but three succeeded.

The prisoners spent many months sawing the grates and chiselling a 20 cm pad of reinforced concrete in order to widen the hole, because otherwise it would be impossible to get through. They hollowed out everything that came to hand: a sharpened spoon, pieces of metal, etc. They carried out their work at certain hours - in the interval between two rounds, which were made at 17.30 and 21.30. While one worked, the other in his cell "was on the loose." By the way, the cameras in the 4-star Alcatraz Hotel were single. But punching a hole in the wall doesn't mean running away. Since Alcatraz is surrounded by water, a raft and life jackets had to be built. They were sewn from waterproof raincoats, which were obtained by fellow prisoners. But that's not all: in order to buy time, the prisoners made mannequins from toilet paper, concrete, soap and hair, which they got from the prison hairdresser. During the escape, instead of four, only three managed to get out: Allen West could not get through the hole due to the fact that the last time they almost got burned and had to patch up the hole a little. As a result, when Alain was able to squeeze through and climbed onto the roof, his accomplices were already sailing away, and he had to return to his cell. It is still unclear whether the fugitives survived, because there is a strong current in the bay and it was foggy that evening, so they could have been carried anywhere. But it is known for sure that the bodies of the prisoners were never found.

Escape from the Gulag

The fate of people who ended up in concentration camps during the Second World War is not a secret for anyone. Countless captives died under torture. There were many losses from Russia and from Germany. However, some managed to escape; one of these lucky ones was Cornelius Rost. His escape, as well as other escapes in our marathon, was filmed. It all started, of course, with the book of the journalist Josef Bauer "While My Feet Walk", written according to the manuscripts of Rost himself. Interestingly, in the book and in the film based on it - "Escape from the Gulag" - the name of the protagonist is fictitious. The name Clemens Forel came up with Bauer because he was afraid possible problems with the KGB.

Cornelius was captured and sent to the mines in distant Chukotka. The prisoners worked and lived underground there. Every 6 weeks they were let out for two hours outside for a walk - and then back. There was no need for barbed wire and guard towers. The camp was so far from civilization that there was simply nowhere to run from there. On the first escape attempt, Rost was caught and beaten. But he did not miss his last chance. The hope of escape was revived by the doctor Hein Stauffer. He himself was going to run away, but because he was diagnosed with cancer, he abandoned this venture. Everything that he managed to get for the escape, and the escape plan itself, he gave to Cornelius. And in October 1941 main character escaped again, and this time successfully. On the way, he met two criminal gold miners, with whom he soon parted. In spring and summer he moved south to railroad covering nearly 3,000 kilometers. There he boarded a freight train and reached Ulan-Ude. Later he ended up in the Caucasus, where smugglers helped him to secretly cross the border. He later turned himself in to the authorities and was arrested as a "Russian spy", no one believed the story of his escape; hope was on the uncle, who was supposed to identify him. Fortunately, he did, and Cornelius began a free life. 3 years after the escape, he ended up in Munich, while overcoming 14,000 kilometers. There is nothing fictitious about the film, and it faithfully tells this incredible story. Although there are small flaws, but in general the film conveys the whole atmosphere of that time and what Cornelius experienced.

big escape

The largest escape in the history of escapes was made on March 24, 1944 from the Luft III camp. About this escape, Paul Brickhill wrote the book "The great escape" ("The Great Escape"), on which the film of the same name was made. This escape is simple in concept, but very interesting in execution. The basic plan was to dig a tunnel and get to the nearest town. But here is the most interesting: there were three tunnels, and each had its own name. And what is even more striking is that 600 people took part in the preparations for the escape, of which 76 managed to escape. Later, 73 prisoners of war were caught and 50 shot, and of the remaining 23, four tried to escape again, but were caught and chained in solitary confinement. In the end, only three managed to escape. In the film, the writers exaggerated the importance of the American prisoners of war, since in reality the escape was organized by the British. Yes, the Americans helped dig the tunnel and participated in the early development of the plan, but failed to complete the tunnel. Several fictional scenes were also filmed to add drama and action to the film, such as the motorcycle scene. In addition, 600 people took part in the escape, and not 250, as was the case in the film. And the nearest city to the camp was not the German Neustadt, but the Polish Zhagan. Also, at the request of the former prisoners of war themselves, details about the assistance that prisoners of war received from their native countries were excluded: documents, tools, maps. In order not to reveal all the cards of the most numerous escape in history.

Shawshank

Well, for dessert - the film by Frank Darabont "The Shawshank Redemption", based on the book "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King, which has seven Oscar nominations, a Grammy Award nomination and many others awards and nominations. It is only unclear whether this story is true or the product of the brilliant brain of Stephen King. In any case, this escape is the standard by which almost all prisoners are guided.

According to the film and book, the main character is the banker Andy Dufresne, who ended up in Shawshank for the murder of his wife and her lover. But in the story, it immediately becomes clear that he is innocent. In the movie, Andy helps a lot of people with their taxes and other financial problems, which gives him some perks. He also turned the financial fraud of the prison, laundered money from drugs with the help of scams. And everything went like clockwork, but one morning Andy Dufresne did not leave his cell for the morning formation. After checking, it was revealed that he simply disappeared. Later, the head of the prison in Dufresne's cell discovered behind the poster a tunnel leading to a sewer pipe. It turns out that Andy has been digging this tunnel with a small hammer on stone for 20 years in the film, but 27 years in the book. But to get out, he still had to crawl 500 yards through the sewer pipe, which is impossible, if you think about it, since there is simply nothing to breathe there. But he succeeded. The film and the book have a lot of inconsistencies with reality. This once again confirms the conjecture that this is just a brilliant fantasy of Stephen King and there was no real such escape. Despite this, most of today's prisoners still draw their escape plan from this film, which once again speaks of the genius of Stephen King and his work.

Cornelius, Heinrich Heinrich Cornelius (known as Agrippa from Nettesheim; 1486, Cologne 1536, Grenoble) is a gifted and rich in knowledge, but prone to mysticism writer, doctor, philosopher, astrologer and lawyer. Agrippa took the name in honor of the founder of his ... ... Wikipedia

Carl August Peter Cornelius (German Carl August Peter Cornelius; December 24, 1824, Mainz October 26, 1874, ibid.) German composer and music critic. Nephew of the painter Peter Cornelius. Early began to study music and compose romances ... ... Wikipedia

Karl Adolf Cornelius (German Karl Adolf Cornelius; March 12, 1819, Würzburg February 10, 1903, Munich) German historian. The field of study of Cornelius is the era of the Reformation. His work: "Geschichte des Münsterischen Aufruhrs" (1855 1860) is based on ... ... Wikipedia

Cornelius- Peter von (Cornelius, Peter von) 1783, Düsseldorf 1867, Berlin. German artist, draftsman. From 1795 to 1800 he studied at the Dusseldorf Academy of Arts, where his father taught. From 1809 to 1811 he lived in Frankfurt am Main. Since 1811 he settled in ... ... European Art: Painting. Sculpture. Graphics: Encyclopedia

- (Cornelius) Peter (24 XII 1824, Mainz 26 X 1874, ibid) German. composer and music critic. Genus. in a family of actors. In his youth he was an actor, then a cellist in the Mainz troupe. In 1844, 48 took composition lessons from Z. Dehn in Berlin. Wrote music. critical ... Musical encyclopedia

Karl Sebastian Cornelius (German Karl Sebastian Cornelius; 1819 1896) German physicist. From 1851 he lectured in Halle on physics, mechanics, physical geography and meteorology. He printed: “Die Lehre von der Elektricität und dem Magnetismus. Versuch ... ... Wikipedia

Translator from fr. 1810 1820 (Vengerov) ... Big biographical encyclopedia

- (Cornelius) Peter von (September 23, 1783, Düsseldorf, March 6, 1867, Berlin), German painter. He studied at the Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf (from 1795), in 1811 19 he was a member of the Nazarene group (See Nazarenes) in Rome, from 1821 the director of the Düsseldorf, from 1825 ... ... Big Soviet encyclopedia

- (Cornelius), Hans (September 27, 1863 - August 23, 1947) - German. a philosopher, a representative of Machism, who sought to supplement it with the immanent philosophy and pragmatism of James. Prof. philosophy in Munich (since 1903), in Frankfurt am Main (since 1910). The basis ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Books

The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Cornelius Agrippa Henry. In the second half of 1509 and in the first months of 1510, Cornelius Agrippa, who became famous in his time as a magician, collected all the mystical knowledge obtained by the energy and zeal of his youth, and ...
Drifting Society, Cornelius Castoriadis. If it were necessary to summarize in the form of a conclusion the guiding line of Castoriadis's political thought - developed in extremely numerous works and presented in its dynamics ...

Oct 17, 2010

Our brave ones were here and fled, but where did the Hans run from Vorkuta?

although there, one damn thing fucked up and what a lucky asshole

Escape of Clemens Forell, all the same fictional.

From time to time, various German television channels show Feature Film“So weit die Fe tragen” (in Russian translation the film is called “Escape from the Gulag”, another name is “I’m going while my legs are carrying”), staged by the German director Hardy Martins (Hardy Martins) in 2001 based on the novel of the same name by the German writer Joseph Martin Bauer (1901 - 1970), which was released back in 1955.

In the annotations to the film, reviews of it emphasize that the plot of the novel, and therefore the film, is almost a mirror image of events in the life of Wehrmacht senior lieutenant Clemens Forell, who was captured on the Eastern Front at the end of 1944.

In October 1949, Forell fled from the Soviet camp, located right on Cape Dezhnev, that is, on the northeastern tip of the Chukotka Peninsula, passed through Siberia and Central Asia, crossed the Soviet-Iranian border. By Christmas 1952, he was in his native village in Bavaria, next to his loving wife and children.

In the mass consciousness, not only in Germany, but also far beyond its borders (including Russia), Clemens Forell is now considered the most famous German escapee from captivity during the war years and after it.

And so it was. In 1953, the Munich publisher Franz Ehrenwirth asked Bauer, already a well-known journalist and prose writer at that time, to literary process the notes that fell into his hands of a certain Cornelius Rost, who claimed that he had fled from Siberia, from the Soviet camp.

Bauer took on the task. In his office he hung on the wall detailed map Siberia and wrote a book, based also on his personal impressions gleaned during his stay in Russia during the war (Bauer served in the mountain rangers and was, by the way, among the climbers who raised the flag of Nazi Germany on Elbrus on August 21, 1942) .

Bauer named the protagonist of his novel Clemens Forell.

The novel, published by the Ehrenwirth publishing house in September 1955, immediately became a bestseller, went through dozens of reprints in 16 languages, and is still a success, the total circulation of the book has exceeded several million copies. Cornelius Rost, according to the testimony of people who knew him, was “physically and morally a ruin with a painfully pale face”, he suffered from a mania of fear of the NKVD, he constantly felt in danger, fearing that he would be kidnapped from Germany. Mention of him is completely absent in historical studies on the topic of German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. It is very likely that his recordings are a figment of the imagination of a mentally ill person.

A map of the location of prisoner of war camps is attached to a number of historical studies on German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. None of these maps show the camp at Cape Dezhnev, where, as Bauer claimed, the Germans were involved in the work on the extraction of lead ores.

All of the above evokes seditious thoughts that the plot that unfolds so colorfully and with such literary skill in Bauer's novel and then in the film based on it, which millions of readers and viewers are passionate about, is nothing but a beautiful invention.

And indeed, what kind of fantasies will not come to the head of a talented writer from God, looking at the map of vast Siberia from morning to evening! ..

Oct 17, 2010

That's about Hartmann, though after the war.

In December 1949, a trial took place that sentenced Hartmann to 25 years in prison. In 1950, he was transferred to Shakhty (Rostov Region), where Hartmann subsequently led a riot of prisoners. After the mutiny in the Mines, Hartmann was given another 25 years to serve.

Oct 17, 2010

Here they threw in the information about Otto Kretschmer's attempt to escape from the Canadian camp.

In the Canadian POW camp at Bowmanville.
Kretschmer decided it was time to organize his own escape. His senior lieutenant Kne-bel-Deberitz had long insisted on sending an appeal to Dönitz, containing a request to send a German submarine to the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in order to take on board maximum amount captured commanders.
Kretschmer agreed and proceeded to implement the plan. The following submarine commanders were in Bowmanville: Kretschmer himself, Knebel-Deberitz, Lieutenant Elf, formerly a junior lieutenant on U-99. He took command of the boat "U-93", which was sunk in the South Atlantic by the destroyer "Evening Star". In addition, Lieutenant Commander Ay, the commander of U-433, sent to the bottom by the Marigold corvette, was also here. It was decided that all four would leave. The officers planned to dig a tunnel at least 100 yards long, starting in one of the huts and ending in a forest behind barbed wire. To avert eyes, it was decided to dig two more tunnels in different directions in case the guards discovered the tunnel before it was completed. More than 150 prisoners took part in the work. At the same time, attempts were constantly made to contact Dönitz by radio.
In the chosen hut, an additional closet was built, reaching from floor to ceiling and spacious enough for two people to work in it with the doors closed. A hole was made in the ceiling, through which the earth rose to the attic. The shaft of the mine went vertically down 10 feet and ended in a "cave", the dimensions of which allowed two prisoners to be in it at the same time, though bent over. And in the attic, German engineers built a system of wooden rails leading to every corner. The roomy boxes that previously contained canned fruit were now equipped with wooden wheels. When the earth in bags was lifted up, it was poured into boxes, pulled up with ropes to the corners and carefully scattered and tamped along the walls.
It took more than a month to build the vertical shaft. Then the construction of a horizontal tunnel towards the fence began. Work was carried out around the clock in shifts. Each shift consisted of 8 people: two - in the tunnel, one - in the cave puts the earth in bags, one - in the closet lifts these bags, four - in the attic receive the bags, pour out the earth and return the empty container back. Even more prisoners worked on the construction of "fake" tunnels. By the end of the fourth month, it was decided to abandon the latter and concentrate all forces on the construction of the main tunnel.
In the meantime, the prisoners still managed to establish contact with Dönitz, however, not by radio, but through encrypted correspondence. As a result, an agreement was reached that, when everything was ready for the escape, an ocean-going submarine would be waiting for the fugitives at a specified location off the east coast of Canada. Now everything depended on the speedy completion of construction. Six months later, that is, by the end of 1943, the tunnel looked like a modern coal mine. It was spacious enough to make it convenient for the diggers to work, the earth was not pulled out by hand, but along wooden rails in a kind of trolley, the engineers even provided the workers with electric lighting. About 500 cans were interconnected by welding, through this pipe air entered the tunnel. The work was carried out for many months, but the camp administration did not show any visible interest and did not show in any way that they knew about the impending escape. Kretschmer was very worried about the condition of the attic. So much earth had already accumulated there that the ceiling began to sag under its weight. The work was coming to an end. Four dummies had already been made, which were supposed to replace the fugitives on the night of the escape. But, despite all the efforts of the craftsmen, they could not get the mannequins to walk. Their limbs remained motionless.
Finally, Kretschmer set a date for the escape. It had been communicated to Dönitz in advance. The answer came in a letter from Knebel-Deberitz's mother. It said that the 740-ton submarine U-577, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Sheinberg, would surface for two hours every night for two weeks in a small bay of the flooded mouth of the St. Lawrence River. This meant that Kretschmer and his comrades had fourteen days to get to the meeting point after escaping from the camp.
By the end of the ninth month, the tunnel was already 106 yards long and had reached the required point. There were 2 feet to the surface. Four officers had civilian suits, boots, shirts, hats, and documents certifying that all four were merchant seamen. Even the fact that the rendezvous point with U-577 could be in an area where the movement of civilians is prohibited was taken into account. Considering that a photograph was published in one of the local newspapers, which depicted the order of the commander of the Navy of the east coast of Canada with his personal signature, the craftsmen made permits for free movement in the coastal zone, where they copied the signature from the newspaper. A week before the escape, Kretschmer sent a message to Germany.
One night, the ceiling still could not withstand the load and the prisoners sleeping in the house were covered with earth. They immediately took the most active measures to eliminate the traces of destruction, but the noise made was too loud, and the house was filled with guards. The fact that a tunnel was being dug somewhere became quite obvious. It only remained to find out exactly where. Over the next day, the prisoners, by all means available to them, diverted the attention of the guards from the cherished closet. They even made it possible to discover one of the "fake" tunnels. However, after examining it, it became obvious that it had been abandoned for quite some time, since it had already filled with water. A second tunnel was also found, but the new commandant, Major Taylor, realized that it was too small for the amount of earth that was hidden in the attic. The search continued for another day. Tired prisoners doomedly waited for the result of their many months of efforts to be discovered. However, to everyone's relief, the guards left with nothing.
Kretschmer realized that he could not wait any longer. The escape was scheduled for the next night. The day dragged on like never before. In the evening, one of the captives, known to be a great floriculture enthusiast, went around the camp in search of some special soil for his flower beds. This one was found close to the fence. The guards on the towers looked at him, occasionally exchanging jokes, and the prisoner, as if nothing had happened, continued to pour soil into the bag with a shovel. Suddenly, he dug a little deeper, and the shovel fell into the ground, and the florist, who did not expect this, collapsed face-first into the mud. The roof of the tunnel collapsed under his weight, and the flower lover disappeared into the hole.
The secret became clear. With the help of small charges of dynamite, the guards liquidated the tunnel, quickly found a false cabinet, and filled up the mine. Kretschmer held an emergency meeting with the officers, at which it was decided to try to contact U-577 by radio and report that all plans had collapsed. He feared that if the boat waited too long, it might be discovered and sunk. Since communication could not be established, Lieutenant Commander Heida proposed his plan. (Heida was the commander of U-434, which was sunk by the destroyer Stanley.) He wanted to escape alone, get to the rendezvous point with U-577, and inform her commander of what had happened. His plan was bold and very risky. The power line, through which the camp was supplied with electricity, was located for the most part on the other side of the fence. And only in the far corner did one of the wooden poles get inside the barbed wire fence. Heida was going to use a seat attached to two wooden carts that would be hung from wires. On this very peculiar cable car, he expected to get to the next pillar, located already outside the camp. After a long and heated discussion, the plan was adopted.
The prisoners pulled the nails out of the floorboards and drove them into the soles of the boots of the future fugitive. It turned out spikes that were supposed to help him climb the pole. The seat and carts were also made quite quickly. The next evening, Heida, dressed in a civilian suit, hid near the sports ground, and one of the mannequins took his place. At night, he climbed onto a pole, carefully sat on a wooden seat, and, whispering a prayer, slid along the wires. In order to distract the guards, the prisoners started a brawl in one of the huts, as a result of which almost all the guards rushed there to pacify the "riot" ....

http://lib.ololo.cc/b/172829/read#t17
Post has been editedSlavyan: 17 October 2010 - 01:19

Oct 17, 2010

Until the 45th, when the supply of prisoner-of-war camps on the territory of the Union was very scarce and there was a high mortality rate, there was no question of riots and escapes - people were too exhausted. In addition, with knowledge of the German language, you can’t run far from the camp. Those who spoke Russian were mostly appointed to good camp positions, which sometimes gave them many privileges ... it made no sense for them to flee ... After the 45th year, the supply and attitude towards prisoners improved significantly, some had the opportunity even a free exit from the camp. All sorts of petty discontent, strikes and hunger strikes took place and were mainly associated with protracted announced shipments home and other camp household garbage (for example, once, Hungarian officers were starving against the decision of the authorities to cut everyone short ... And the camp authorities made concessions) . Among other things, in the 47th, it was announced that the next year would be held under the slogan: "1948 - the year of repatriation" (this did not concern the SS and the police). Therefore, people sat and waited in the wings. Despite the slogan, they began to let people go home even before the 48th: elderly, seriously ill and incapacitated. Therefore, some skillfully "mowed down" also had the opportunity to go home in an official way ... Something like that, in general ...

Oct 17, 2010

In addition to the above... There was another way to get home early (besides self-mutilation) - to become a member of Antifa: these guys were leaving home in the first rows. Those who tried to escape from the camps located outside the Arctic Circle reached the maximum only to the Polish border, where they were caught and sent back.

Oct 17, 2010

"Russia is great... but there is nowhere to run..."
Until the 45th, when the supply of prisoner-of-war camps on the territory of the Union was very scarce and there was a high mortality rate, there was no question of riots and escapes - people were too exhausted. In addition, with knowledge of the German language, you can’t run far from the camp. Those who spoke Russian were mostly appointed to good camp positions, which sometimes gave them many privileges ... it made no sense for them to flee ... After the 45th year, the supply and attitude towards prisoners improved significantly, some had the opportunity even a free exit from the camp. All sorts of petty discontent, strikes and hunger strikes took place and were mainly associated with protracted announced shipments home and other camp household garbage (for example, once, Hungarian officers were starving against the decision of the authorities to cut everyone short ... And the camp authorities made concessions) . Among other things, in the 47th, it was announced that the next year would be held under the slogan: "1948 - the year of repatriation" (this did not concern the SS and the police). Therefore, people sat and waited in the wings. Despite the slogan, they began to let people go home even before the 48th: elderly, seriously ill and incapacitated. Therefore, some skillfully "mowed down" also had the opportunity to go home in an official way ... Something like that, in general ...

I read the memoirs of an SS tanker here, was the commander of the Tiger, defended Berlin. He was captured during an attempt to escape to the Americans beyond the Elbe with part of his crew. He sat in a camp near Stalino, worked either as a clerk, or something like that, his driver (by the way, the SS scarführer) worked in general as a carrier on a truck with a semi-free regime. The third radio operator, however, got to the mine. Everyone returned home at 48. So much for the harsh repression against the SS men ....

Oct 17, 2010

"Russia is great... but there is nowhere to run..."

It also happened if the SS-Manov documents confirmed that their unit did not participate in punitive operations: they let go and drove, and signalmen, etc. And some of those SS who got into the American zone ended up at home already in June 45th . The SS-Viking suffered the least. But, in the same American zone, they were seriously cleaned and tested. On our territory, the checks were even tougher and longer. Even those groups of prisoners of war who were sent home passed filtration camps along the road to Germany and not all of the original composition crossed the border. First of all, the LAH, the Dead Head, the 4th Panzer-Motorized Infantry Division of the SS Police, Florian Geyer and Hohenstaufen were identified. Most of the SS and police remained lying in our lands. When filtering, even those who, after suffering an ulcer of the sweat gland, had post-painful rubs under the armpit, were left.

— Sveta Gogol

Anyone who did not live under a totalitarian regime, in an occupied or any other territory surrounded by barbed wire, is unlikely to be able to understand the desperation of a person for whom even a “sip” of freedom can cost their head. But, as you know, hopeless situations do not happen. And people who really love freedom will not be stopped by walls, borders, or mighty armies.

And then amazing stories are born, six of which we bring to your attention.

1. Escape from East Germany on the air balloon

Peter Strelzik and Günter Watzel raved about the idea of getting their families out of East Germany. Freedom was very close, but the way to it was blocked by the most guarded border on earth. After long discussions, it was decided to make aircraft. The helicopter seemed to be the ideal solution, but it was not possible to find a sufficiently powerful engine for it. Then one of them saw a program on TV that told about balloon flights. This idea seemed to friends simply ingenious. That's what they decided on.

"Inconspicuous. Just what you need"

The lack of experience in the field of aeronautics was compensated by the relevant literature. They quickly figured out what was what, did the necessary mathematical calculations, bought equipment, went to the nearest city for a fabric that seemed suitable to them, and got down to business. The wives sat down at the sewing machine. It was a real dinosaur, with foot control and 40 years of experience. The men constructed the ignition system from a motorcycle engine, a car muffler, and an iron chimney that belched "hell flames."

The first tests, for which the two families retired further into the forest, failed. It turned out that the fabric was not dense enough to hold air. The defective ball was burned, and for a new one ("this is for our yacht club") I had to go to the other end of the country. Work began again. The old sewing machine now and then balked and threatened to exhaust the seamstresses physically. Then they attached a motor to it and things went more fun.

After all the improvements, she knew how to knit.

The Streltsik family launched their ball (the Watzelis got scared at the last moment and left the game) after 16 months of careful preparation. They took to the air, almost flew to the border and ... crashed. 200 meters to freedom.

There was nothing left but to throw the ball and go back. They were well aware that the ball, in the end, would be found, the identities of not only the Streltsiks, but also the Vatzels would be established, and the whole honest company would inevitably end up in prison. It was just a matter of time. In addition, they would have to explain the purpose of the fabric, which they purchased on an industrial scale for the first ball.

"Believe me, sir, this is not for a balloon!" "Oh, well then, I'm sorry."

Any suspicious events at that time were promptly reported "to the right place". Therefore, this time, in order not to attract too much attention, they traveled all over the country, buying up a little raincoat fabric, sheets, curtains of various colors - in general, everything more or less suitable for the cherished goal. Meanwhile, at home, the old sewing machine worked tirelessly. She had to sew a ball larger than before - one that eight people could lift.

The result was a hulk 18 meters wide, almost 23 meters high. It was the largest balloon ever flown over Europe. They again rose into the air, but at some point they knocked over the burner and the balloon caught fire. There was only one way out: run the engine at full power and try to slip through. The gas in the cylinders quickly ran out, they began to descend, but the balloon was so big that it behaved like a parachute, so the descent was not very fast.

This plan was definitely too good to fail.

This time the border guards noticed them. But while they contacted the authorities and received permission to open fire, our heroes were already gone. Finally, the balloon landed. But since the fugitives were flying in complete darkness, they had no idea which side of the border they were on. The men went to "reconnaissance". And only when they encountered the West German law enforcement officers did they realize that the escape plan was a success.

The best thing about this story is that they had a bottle of champagne on board. And this despite the fact that every extra kilogram increased the risk of a crash! So they immediately celebrated their triumph: "we read that all balloon travelers do this after landing."

This is even more impressive than the fact that sober people worked tirelessly to implement a completely crazy idea.

2. Crossing Cornelius Rost through Stalinist Russia

The Soviet lead mine at Cape Dezhnev was perhaps the worst place to spend even a small part of your life there. The prisoners who got there had only two alternatives: either fast and sudden death during a collapse in the mine, or slow and painful - from lead poisoning. Needless to say, all the prisoners of war who ended up there dreamed of escaping as one.

And what did they miss?

Escaping from there was absolutely disastrous. The problem was not so much that the camp was well guarded, but in geography: the nearest settlement in Russia was further from Cape Dezhnev than some cities in Alaska. With the same success, one could escape on foot from the moon. But this did not stop the German prisoner of war Cornelius Rost. The former paratrooper made some supplies, got hold of skis and a pistol somewhere. And, in the company of four other fugitives, he headed west.

They had to go 14,000 kilometers. It's like walking from New York to Los Angeles and back. Then back to Los Angeles. Then to Chicago...

And drop by White Castle for a bite to eat.

But this, as it turned out, was not so bad. One of the prisoners betrayed and shot three of his comrades, after which he pushed Rost off a cliff and left him for dead. Wounded, but alive, Rost somehow dragged himself to the forest village, found a local distribution point there and stated that he, they say, had been sent to “accompany the timber”. The local authorities provided him with new clothes, which were due to every worker, and a train ticket, which allowed him to safely travel 650 kilometers in a westerly direction. Plus food and hot showers.

So, comfortably, he reached Central Asia. Then - hitchhiking to North Caucasus, robbing the railway station along the way. One compassionate guy helped him cross the border, whom the grateful Rost later fondly remembered as a “Jew”. Finally, yesterday's prisoner of war was free. In Iran. Where, we think, he quickly found work in a lead mine.

Every man should have a favorite thing.

3 Anti-Communist Teenagers Plow the Road to Freedom

What if there are not one but two frontiers on the path to freedom? Plus several hundred miles of enemy territory in between. With the police, secret services and two armies, finally.

You can ask the Masin brothers - they've been through it. Josef and Chtirad Masiny are from the Czech Republic. Their childhood was quite heroic - during the Second World War, when they were 13 and 15 years old respectively, they, following the example of their father, received medals for fighting the Nazis.

The regime established in the Czech Republic after the war seemed to them little better than the Nazis, and they organized a resistance group. We are not talking about the usual youthful maximalism, which, in the worst case, threatens with piercings all over the body. We are talking about a group of young people who committed brutal raids on police stations with murder and theft of weapons and ammunition.

In 1953 they decided it was time to flee the country. However, in order to leave the territory controlled by the communists, they had to first cross the Czech border, and then move through East Germany to its Western part.

Along the way, they robbed several perfume shops.

Maiming and killing everyone who got in the way, the entire company leaked through the first border. In East Germany, things did not go so smoothly - they were already looking for. When they tried to buy train tickets, the cashier became suspicious and called the police. But they managed to escape even before the arrival of law enforcement officers.

Soon the military of East Germany despaired of coping with the presumptuous brothers on their own and turned to the help of those stationed in Germany. Soviet troops. As a result, at least 5,000 people were involved in the operation.

Three police officers were killed during a fight at the station while crossing from East Germany. And this time luck was on the side of the Czech scum.

In the end, three broke through to the West: the Masin brothers and Milan Paumer. One of them is sitting under a train car in the Berlin subway.

Where it must have been much cleaner than in the carriage itself.

How did this story end for the brothers? They ended up exactly where their talents and burning hatred for communism were appreciated. At Fort Bragg military camp (the largest military base US Army, located in Cumberland County, North Carolina; approx. mixednews). That's right - they entered the service in the army special purpose USA.

4. Günther Pluschow's Journey from China to Germany

Flying in an airplane during World War I was as safe as diving down an elevator shaft in your bedside table.

Their wings could be replaced with outdated umbrellas, with about the same success.

Therefore, the German pilot Günther Plushow was not in the best situation from the moment he chose his profession. After the outbreak of the First World War, he ended up in China, at the base of the German army Qingdao. When the fortress was under siege, Plushov received a package full of secret documents and an order to deliver them to neutral territory. He had to fly (on an already damaged aircraft!) First through a wall of anti-aircraft fire, and then over a vast territory swarming with enemy troops. Yes, his chances were not very high.

But Plushov somehow managed to avoid death, safely overcame 250 kilometers and made an emergency landing in a rice field. He burned the plane so that it would not go to the enemy (although, if our knowledge of the early military aviation are correct, this plane was supposed to catch fire on its own, and long before landing) and continued its journey on foot.

To your Germany. From China.

Where is Marco Polo!

Plushov reached the nearest Chinese city. Here, dodging meetings with the local authorities, who pursued him on his heels, he made his way onto a ship bound for the then Chinese capital, Nanjing. Using all his charm, he persuaded some woman to get him a Swiss passport and a ticket .. to San Francisco.

Now he, along with his secret documents, was on the other side of the planet, in the USA (and this was a time when illegal immigrants in this country were even more illegal than today). And still not close enough to Germany. By this time, he was already being hunted by a mass of people, as his movements aroused the suspicions of even his own government. He again fooled his pursuers and took a train to New York. Then he got on a ship bound for the shores of Italy, which remained neutral in this war. Plushov was sure he could feel safe.

That thought vanished as the ship docked unexpectedly at the Gibraltar dock. He was arrested by the British authorities and sent to a POW camp in the south of England.

Double guards kept their eyes on him day and night

And yet, in spite of everything, he was now closer to home than he had ever been on his odyssey. It is not hard to guess that Plyushov still escaped (the only German who managed to do this in the entire history of the First World War!); got on a ship to Holland. After that, there were mere trifles - to cross the Dutch-German border.

5. Frank Bessac and his trip to Tibet

Frank Bessac was an anthropologist who studied the life of nomadic tribes in Inner Mongolia. In the summer of 1949, as the Chinese Revolution spread to the steppes of the western part of the country, Bessac decided it was time to take off. But he wasn't just some old expatriate scientist in a panic. He was, in the past, a commando who rescued wounded American pilots during World War II and an agent of the Office of Strategic Services.

Probably, it was possible to find an easy way to leave the country, but our researcher with a good imagination would not be interested in it.

Bessac and several of his comrades, including a CIA agent named McKiernan, joined forces led by anti-Chinese leader Osman Bator. Then they went to Tibet, which at that time still retained independence, but foreigners were not favored there, to put it mildly. To avoid problems on the border with Tibet, McKiernan contacted the US State Department by radio and asked to warn the Tibetan side about the visit of their small detachment.

They were separated from Tibet by the desert, which the locals called nothing more than " White death". Finding the cards wasn't that hard. True, they did not help much, since all the lakes and mountains were encrypted, and in some places it was scrawled by hand: “careful, lions,” which completely confused the travelers.

And now to the left of the sea serpent.

Despite the rarefied air and the constant lack of water, by winter they reached the mountains that border Tibet. We set up camp and waited for spring. They were saved from boredom by books that McKiernan prudently took with him on the road. How many times have you re-read War and Peace? Bessac read it three times this winter.

In March, finally, the mountains became passable. Note that the cold was still dog-like, and they only had yak dung for fuel (By this time they had exhausted all the books on toilet paper).

In April, the first settlement of Tibetan nomads came into view. It would seem that here it is - freedom! Happy travelers raised their hands and went towards the border guards.

Those, without understanding, opened fire ... Only Bessak and another of his comrades survived, and they were seriously wounded.

At the border, they obviously did not receive a message from the US State Department. The two surviving captives were sent to the city of Lhasa (with terrible luggage - a bag with the heads of dead comrades).

Tibet is not only cute monks and "man-breakers".

Halfway to the city, they met a courier who was just carrying the ill-fated entry permit for Bessac and his friends to the border. Yes, after half a year of an exhausting journey, almost the entire group died only because the messenger was late for some five days!

Bessac was offered to take a gun and shoot the captain of the border guards, but he refused. Not only that, he intervened when, later, the entire patrol was sentenced to severe punishment by a court-martial. Thanks to the nobility of the scientist, the perpetrators got off with just a flogging.

What, (if you're lucky with the performer), is not such a terrible punishment.

At the end of his stay in Tibet, Bessac even received the blessing of the young Dalai Lama. Then - 500 kilometers through the Himalayas to India on a mule. As a result, his entire journey was almost 3,000 kilometers. And it took almost a whole year to overcome it.

6. Hugh Glass and his return from the dead.

All that an ordinary person can hope for when faced with an angry grizzly bear is a quick death. But the story that will be discussed took place in 1823, and its hero, the former pirate Hugh Glass, was not an ordinary person. And in his fight with the bear, it was the bear that was unlucky.

Judging by this portrait, very unlucky.

Glass won the fight, but he himself was pretty dented. However, he miraculously continued to live, despite a broken leg, ribs and a hole in his throat, from which blood bubbles appeared when he breathed.

The main group of settlers with whom he had previously lived left, leaving two, James Bridger and John Fitzgerald, with instructions to bury Glass when he finally died. After two days, Bridger and Fitzgerald got tired of waiting. They threw the dying man into a shallow grave and left, taking with them all the poor man's goods. The one who fought the bear and won.

The bear could not have weighed more than 300-600 kilograms.

When Glass regained consciousness, he pulled his tormented body from his own grave, cleaned the wounds as best he could, fixed his broken leg and crawled to the nearest settlement, which was called Fort Kiowa. To do this, you first had to get to the Cheyenne River (flows through the states of Wyoming and South Dakota; approx. mixednews), which was located 160 kilometers east of his grave. Driven by passionate desire massacre over Bridger and Fitzgerald, Glass crawled for more than a day or two. He crawled for six weeks.

Safely avoiding hostile Indian Arikara tribes, wolves and bears, eating berries, rotting animal carcasses, and even rattlesnakes, Glass finally crawled to the river. The Sioux Indians, who were hunting in these parts, stumbled upon him, half dead, and helped to make hastily the raft on which our hero eventually reached Fort Kiowa without incident. Here Glass rested and began to hunt for Bridger and Fitzgerald. And when I found it, I forgave it. But only after I got my rifle back!

During World War II, he escaped from a Soviet camp in Siberia. His memoirs formed the basis of a book, television series and film.

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Biography

Rost was born on March 27, 1919 in Kufstein, Austria. When did the second World War Rost lived in Munich. He also returned there after his imprisonment and began working in the printing house of Franz Ehrenwirt. However, during his stay in the concentration camp, he developed color blindness, due to which he ruined a lot of covers. Ehrenwirth decided to find out the reason for such an indisposition and, having heard the story of Rost, asked him to write it down, but the original text of Rost was very poorly and sparingly written, which is why Ehrenwirth, interested in this story, hired Bauer, who was a professional writer, to finish the text Growth to the mind. Cornelius Rost died on October 18, 1983 and was buried in the Munich Central Cemetery. His real identity was made public only 20 years after his death, when Ehrenwirth's son Martin told everything to radio journalist Arthur Dietelmann when he was preparing a story on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Bauer's birth.

Book

The same Dietelmann in 2010 on the air of the Bavarian radio for three hours cited various results of his research on the history of Growth, from which it turned out that Bauer's novel has a bunch of inconsistencies. In particular, according to the Munich registration office, the USSR officially released Rost on October 28, 1947, which does not fit with Bauer's novel, in which Clemens Forel escapes in 1949 and wanders until 1952. Clemens Forel himself in the novel bears the title of "Wehrmacht officer", Cornelius Rost, according to his documents of 1942, was a simple private. Finally, the novel had geographical and historical errors: the text states that the prisoner-of-war camp in which Clemens Forel was kept was located on Cape Dezhnev, where in reality there were never any camps (including during the period described). And at the beginning of the text it is reported that Forel participated in the March of the Prisoners in Moscow, but Rost calls the street along which he and his comrades were led "Nevsky Prospekt".