Is the story of a captured Soviet soldier who promised German Erich Hauer to win?

A story allegedly told by a participant in World War II is distributed over the network. We checked whether this is a real case.

The story that has become popular on the Internet is written on behalf of the Soviet soldier. Her hero talks about how he was captured in the summer of 1942, when the advantage in the war was on the side of Germany. During the interrogation, he cheered the interlocutor with his confidence in the upcoming victory:

“Suddenly his eyes perked up:
- Russian, I'll let you go now. But if you believe in victory so, then give me a word. If you win the war, you will find me!
- And who should I look for? - I was taken aback, not believing that the German would just let me go.
- Erich Hauer.
- I promise!"

Some publications report that after the surrender of Germany, the protagonist could not find out anything about Hauer, others say that he died in the days of the war.

This small text in recent years has been actively spreading through social networks - popular publications are posted in Facebook, Telegram, "VKontakte" And Instagram.

There are not many details in the story: neither the place where events take place, nor the title of German military, nor the name of the narrator. The only clarification is the name of the German: Erich Hauer.

IN database burials of soldiers who died in the First and Second World Wars, the German army is only one Erich Hauerwho, by age, could interrogate the prisoner soldier in 1942 (the other two of his full namesakes at that time were still teenagers).

However, this Erich Hauer finished his days in September 1945, after the end of the hostilities, with the rank of chief comparrator, which belongs to the ordinary composition. Judging by the newcomers to ours days numerous certificates, prisoners of war interrogated, as a rule, officers.

There are other details in the story that are doubtful of its truthfulness. So, the German exclamation “Er ist TOT!”, Transferred as “Said”, actually literally means "He died!" And it has no figurative meaning. Identical The Russian German -speaking expression sounds like “Ich Lach Mich Tot” and does not look like a text used at all. At the same time, the rest of the German -speaking phrases in the replica of Erich Hauer are correct.

It is unlikely that such a slight gaining freedom to Soviet prisoners of war on the basis of an unauthorized decision of a separate German military man seems unlikely. Regulations Appeals with the soldiers of the USSR was as much as possible harsh (Unlike representatives of European countries). By different data, up to 3.3 million out of 5.73 million servicemen of the Red Army that fell into German captivity, as a result were killed or died due to inhuman conditions of maintenance in the camps.

At the same time, certain categories could receive freedom - “Germans (Volksdouche), Ukrainians, Belarusians, Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Romanians, Finns.” The released, as a rule, received a certificate and had to be noted in the commandant’s office in the occupied territory.

That is, theoretically, a prisoner of war could be released, but the reason for the generosity of a German officer sounds implausible. Soviet soldiers were released either by strict regulations, or after providing certain information.

Finally, the origin of the text itself looks even less believable. "Checked" did not find traces publications of such a story in books or periodicals of both the 20th century, when the memoirs of war veterans and XXI were recorded. The story about the case in German captivity is distributed after 2020, and exclusively through social networks and entertainment sites.

The oldest “tested” publication of the story about Erich Hauer and the Soviet soldier was dated April 17, 2020, when this text appeared in the channel ”They fought for their homeland"In" Zen "and collected 271,000 views. The publication in no way claimed that the described case is real. In the description of the most anonymous channel it is: “The exploits of our ancestors during the Second World War. Many materials behind the confusion of memories have undergone art processing. There are stories based on the author’s imagination on the channel. ” The last proposal confirms the hypothesis that the whole story of German captivity is nothing more than fiction.

Photo on the cover: wwii.space

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

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