This venture was not a carefully planned conspiracy of the "golden youth" against Stalin - the organization created by the son of the USSR People's Commissar of Aviation Vladimir Shakhurin was more like a silly game of children of high-ranking parents. Therefore, the retribution for the existing only on paper "Fourth Reich" followed at that time "vegetarian".
Shots fired on the Bolshoy Kamenny bridge
It all started with a double murder - in Moscow, not far from the Kremlin. At the beginning of June 1943, shots were heard on Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge - one, followed by a second. The officers of the NKGB who arrived at the scene found a murdered teenage girl and a badly wounded in the temple, but still alive, a young man who seemed to be the same age as shot. It soon became clear that the deceased (the guy died after a while) were the children of high-ranking parents, Nadya Umanskaya and Volodya Shakhurin. Nadia's father was an ambassador and the other day he was supposed to fly with his family to Mexico, and Volodya's father held the post of People's Commissar of Aviation of the USSR. The mechanism of the double murder was more or less clear from the very beginning - Shakhurin first shot at the girl, and then tried to commit suicide. The investigation had to establish where the pistol came from. Father Volodya did not take it. They searched the Shakhurins' apartment. Among the belongings of the deceased, they found a notebook, the contents of which shocked the Chekists.
Another "Reich" in the rear of a belligerent country
Based on the content of Shakhurin's diary, a secret organization "Fourth Reich" operated in Moscow, which included children of the Soviet elite who attended the 175th Moscow school, where "golden youth" studied - the offspring of members of the Politburo, people's commissars and other party and military Soviet bosses. Shakhurin's list included two sons of Anastas Mikoyan and the son of his secretary, as well as the nephew of Stalin's wife, along with the son of the head of Moscow hospitals, other "majors" with a total number of about 10 people … All of them were arrested.
It turned out that Vano Mikoyan had given the pistol to Shazurin. Where he got it from has remained unclear. The official motives for the murder boiled down to a tragic spat on the basis of love - classmates confirmed that Shakhurin and Umanskaya loved each other, and Volodya most likely did not want to let his beloved go to Mexico, where she was going to fly with her family after the ambassador-father. But most of all the investigators were interested in the activities of the "Fourth Reich". Indeed, judging by Shakhurin's notes, the teenagers expected to occupy key posts in the Soviet government in the future (though not in a revolutionary way, but in an evolutionary way, without violence and blood, so to speak). In this "bright future" Stalin was to play the role of a wise "elder" helping the new leadership of the state. Nazi Germany appears to bemembers of the "Fourth Reich" inspired - teenagers called themselves Gruppenfuehrer and Reichsfuehrer … In addition, the diary was replete with quotes from the works of Hitler and Nietzsche.
Promotional video:
Future leaders pledged to do more physical training, master the skills of driving a car, and make a series of parachute jumps. Quietly removed from the capital Everyone who was on Shakhurin's list was arrested and placed in the internal prison of the NKGB, where prominent political prisoners were kept. The interrogations lasted six months, the teenagers were forced to confess that they were members of an anti-Soviet organization. Taking into account the social origin of the "majors", they were not beaten or tortured in any other way, like the rest of the prisoners.
High school students blamed everything on Shakhurin and unanimously claimed that he alone came up with a stupid game and played it himself, dragging in unsuspecting friends and classmates. By and large, the way it was, the teenagers did not think of any overthrow of the government. However, investigators who had extensive experience in "exposing" the "enemies of the people" were not used to reckoning with this point of view. Moreover, Stalin, who from the very beginning kept the case of the “Fourth Reich” under personal control, did not in any way push the Chekists to such conclusions.
In the end, it was the Supreme Commander-in-Chief who personally made the decision on the fate of the children's group of "advisers". In order not to inflate the case (if it was promoted, the heads of all the parents of the participants in the “Fourth Reich” would inevitably fly off, and perhaps not only of them), they decided to do without a trial. The teenagers were sent from Moscow to remote regions of the USSR for a year - to the Urals, Tajikistan and Siberia … Given the severity of the charge, this was a very mild punishment - if not for the situation of their parents, each of them, at least, would have received a very long prison term.
