The (Russian) Great Escape

In the final months of World War II, Europe was engulfed in chaos. The Soviet Red Army was pushing westward, liberating Nazi-occupied territories one by one, while the Germans, desperate to hold their crumbling empire together, resorted to increasingly brutal tactics. Among the countless prisoners trapped in Nazi concentration camps was a Soviet fighter pilot named Mikhail Devyataev. A seasoned airman with nine confirmed kills, Devyataev had found himself in the most unlikely and deadly of places—the forced labor camp on the island of Usedom, a site deeply entrenched in the German missile program. The Nazis were using prisoners as expendable labor to repair the runways and clear unexploded ordnance at Peenemünde, where the Reich’s most advanced weapons—the V-1 and V-2 rockets—were being developed. For Devyataev and his fellow inmates, the camp was little more than a slow death sentence. The conditions were brutal, with malnutrition, disease, and violence rampant. Escape seemed impossible. But if there was one thing Devyataev had learned from his years as a pilot, it was that even the most dangerous plans could work—if executed at the right moment.

On July 13, 1944, Devyataev’s fate took a sharp turn when his fighter was shot down near Lviv. He bailed out, only to land in enemy-occupied territory. Captured by the Germans, he was thrown into the Łódź concentration camp, where he quickly realized the grim reality of Soviet prisoners of war—brutal treatment and near-certain death. Determined to escape, he made an attempt just a month later, on August 13, but was caught and transferred to Sachsenhausen, a notorious camp where few survived long. Knowing that his identity as a Soviet pilot put a target on his back, he managed to swap identities with a dead Soviet infantryman named Nikitenko. This ruse spared him from immediate execution but did little to improve his situation. Eventually, he was sent to Usedom, where the Nazis used prisoners for the backbreaking labor of maintaining their missile testing grounds. Devyataev understood that he wouldn’t last long under such conditions. He also realized something else: Peenemünde had planes. If he could get to one of those aircraft, he had a shot at making it out alive.

By early 1945, with the war shifting against the Nazis, security at the camp remained tight, but cracks were beginning to show. Devyataev, who had spent his life flying planes, took stock of the airfield and saw an opportunity. He managed to convince a small group of fellow prisoners—Sokolov, Krivonogov, Nemchenko, and a few others—that their only chance of survival was to steal a plane and escape. At first, they thought he was insane. A guarded Nazi airfield was no place for a ragtag group of starved prisoners to attempt a breakout. But Devyataev’s sheer confidence and knowledge of aircraft mechanics gave them hope. The plan was risky, but the alternative—staying in the camp—meant certain death.

The prisoners carefully timed their escape. On February 8, 1945, at noon, the group was working on the airstrip when Ivan Krivonogov, wielding a crowbar, struck and killed a guard. In the moments of panic that followed, another prisoner, Peter Kutergin, quickly stripped the uniform off the dead guard and put it on. Posing as a Nazi officer, he took control of the work gang and led them toward the aircraft. Their target was a Heinkel He 111 H22 bomber, a large twin-engine aircraft capable of making the long flight to Soviet-held territory. The group moved swiftly, avoiding suspicion, until they reached the plane.

With Devyataev in the cockpit, the next obstacle was figuring out the German instruments. He had flown Soviet planes, but a Heinkel was an entirely different beast. He had no manuals, no prior experience with the aircraft, and no second chances. As the engines roared to life, German soldiers on the ground realized something was wrong. Alarms blared. Guards scrambled. A few tried to stop the aircraft, but it was too late. Devyataev, relying on instinct and sheer audacity, gunned the engines and took off. As the plane climbed, Nazi fighters were dispatched in pursuit, but the bomber was already out of range.

The Soviet lines were within reach, but one last challenge remained—getting past Soviet air defenses. The Red Army wasn’t expecting a Heinkel to be piloted by escaped prisoners, and as Devyataev approached friendly territory, anti-aircraft batteries opened fire. Dodging incoming rounds, he managed to land the battered aircraft in Soviet-controlled territory. The group had done it. They had escaped from the heart of a Nazi missile base using one of the Reich’s own planes.

Rather than being greeted as heroes, the escapees were met with suspicion. Stalin’s paranoia ran deep, and Soviet intelligence refused to believe that a group of prisoners could pull off such an escape without German help. Instead of being welcomed, Devyataev and his comrades were interrogated, accused of espionage, and sent to an NKVD filtration camp. The mere fact that they had been captured at all made them suspect. Some of his fellow escapees were sent to penal battalions, where most perished in combat. Devyataev himself languished under suspicion until the end of the war, only narrowly avoiding being labeled a traitor.

Despite this, the intelligence he brought back about Peenemünde was invaluable. Soviet engineers used his firsthand account to understand the German missile program, information that later played a role in shaping the Soviet space race. But Devyataev himself didn’t see any immediate rewards. He was discharged from the army in November 1945 and struggled to find work, carrying the stigma of a former POW in a country that often treated its returning prisoners with contempt. For years, he labored in obscurity as a manual worker in Kazan.

It wasn’t until 1957 that his story was finally recognized. Sergey Korolyov, the chief architect of the Soviet space program, personally intervened, crediting Devyataev’s escape with providing crucial intelligence that helped the USSR develop its missile and space technology. That same year, Devyataev was officially rehabilitated and awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The former pilot who had been treated as a pariah was now a celebrated figure. He went on to become a captain of hydrofoil passenger ships on the Volga, living out the rest of his days in relative peace.

Mikhail Devyataev’s story is one of resilience, bravery, and an almost cinematic sense of daring. His escape wasn’t just about survival; it was about defiance. In the face of impossible odds, he turned the enemy’s own weapon against them and delivered critical intelligence to his homeland. Yet, for years, his greatest battle wasn’t against the Nazis but against the very system he fought for—a regime that distrusted its own heroes. His legacy stands as a testament to the indomitable will of the human spirit, a reminder that sometimes, the most extraordinary victories come from the unlikeliest of circumstances.