The Man Who Stole a Nazi Plane to Escape the Camp — Transcript

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1. 0:00February 8th, 1945. Pinamunda, Nazi Germany's  most secret weapons facility. A man weighing
2. 0:0838 kg is about to steal a bomber. A Hankle He11,  two engines, wingspan of 74 ft. A machine designed
3. 0:19for trained pilots with months of instruction.  Miky Deviatay has never sat in a Hankle cockpit,
4. 0:27never touched German controls, never read  German instruments. He's a Soviet prisoner
5. 0:34of war. Number one 04534, a walking skeleton in  striped rags who hasn't eaten a full meal in 8
6. 0:44months. His arms are so weak he can barely lift  them above his shoulders. In exactly 47 minutes,
7. 0:52this dying man will climb into the pilot  seat of a Nazi bomber, start both engines,
8. 0:59taxi past armed guards, take off from one of  the most heavily defended airfields in Germany,
9. 1:06and fly 300 km across enemy territory while  being shot at from the ground and the air.
10. 1:15The Hankl he 111 requires 50 lb of force to  pull back the control column during takeoff.
11. 1:23Deviatv weighs 84 lb total. He will attempt this  escape with nine other prisoners. Men so starved
12. 1:32they've forgotten what strength feels like. Men  who know that capture means immediate execution.
13. 1:39They have no weapons, no tools, no map, no radio,  no training on German aircraft. What they have is
14. 1:47one Soviet fighter pilot who refuses to die in a  concentration camp. This is the story of the most
15. 1:55impossible escape of World War II and the reason  the Soviet Union tried to bury it for 12 years.
16. 2:07July 1944, 6 months earlier, Lieutenant  Male Deatay banks his Yak 1 fighter through
17. 2:16anti-aircraft fire over Lviv. 17 confirmed  kills. Two orders of the red banner. One
18. 2:23of the best pilots in the Soviet Air Force.  A German Faka Wolf catches him from above.
19. 2:29Cannon rounds tear through his engine. The  Yak shutters and drops. Deviatay bails out at
20. 2:362,000 ft. German soldiers are waiting when  he lands. They transfer him to a P camp,
21. 2:44but Deviatay can't stop being a pilot. He  tries to escape, gets caught, tries again,
22. 2:51gets caught again. After his third  attempt, the Germans reclassify him.
23. 2:57No longer a prisoner of war, now a dangerous  subversive. They send him to Saxonhausen,
24. 3:04a Nazi concentration camp. 30,000 prisoners, gas  chambers, death rate of 800 per month. Deviate
25. 3:14arrives in late summer 1944. A decorated  fighter pilot reduced to a number 104534.
26. 3:24Prisoners work 12-hour shifts. They receive 700  calories per day. Average survival time is 4
27. 3:32months. You work until your body consumes itself.  Then you die. Deviet watches men collapse around
28. 3:40him. Watches the smoke rise from the crerematorium  every night. He decides he will not die here. But
29. 3:48how do you escape from a Nazi concentration camp?  electrified fences, machine guns, deep in German
30. 3:55territory, no papers, no language skills. Then in  October 1944, the Nazis solve his problem. They
31. 4:05need workers at a secret facility. Prisoners with  technical skills. Deviatives volunteers. He has no
32. 4:13idea where they're sending him, but anywhere is  better than waiting to die. Pinamund, island of
33. 4:21Yusedam, Baltic Sea coast. The prisoners arrive at  night. In the morning, Deviatay understands where
34. 4:28he is. Rockets rise from the ground like giant  bullets. Pinamunda is Nazi Germany's most advanced
35. 4:36weapons research center. The birthplace of the  V1 and V2 missiles reigning terror on London.
36. 4:43Devia is now a slave laborer at the airfield  adjacent to the rocket facility. But he notices
37. 4:51something else. Airplanes. Hankle bombers on the  tarmac. Messersmidt fighters taxiing to runways.
38. 4:58Transport planes landing constantly. Devia  watches everything. Flight schedules, which
39. 5:05aircraft are fueled, which guards patrol where.  Because he's not a slave laborer. He's a fighter.
40. 5:13pilot with 17 kills. Put him in any aircraft and  he becomes dangerous. The problem, German planes
41. 5:21are different. The Hankl11 cockpit has over 100  switches labeled in a language he can't read.
42. 5:30His experience is single engine fighters. The  He111 is a twin engine bomber. Heavy, complex,
43. 5:38unforgiving. But the average prisoner at Pinamunda  survives 8 weeks. He's been there for three. He
44. 5:45starts studying. Every work detail becomes  reconnaissance. He watches mechanics service
45. 5:51engines, watches pilots run pre-flight checks,  memorizes movements, matches instrument positions
46. 5:58to functions through observation. One aircraft  keeps appearing. A Hankle He11 with markings GA
47. 6:07on its fuselage. Always fueled, always ready.  It belongs to the deputy commandant. Kept in
48. 6:14constant readiness for urgent flights. Davia picks  his target. Now he needs a crew. Concentration
49. 6:23camp prisoners don't trust easily. Everyone is  desperate. Everyone will do anything to survive.
50. 6:30The guards deliberately use prisoner informants.  Report on escape talk. Get extra food. The system
51. 6:37destroys solidarity. Deviatay needs people he  can trust. Absolutely. People strong enough
52. 6:44to help. People with nothing left to lose. He  starts with even Soviet P former sergeant. Big
53. 6:53man. Even after months of starvation, Creonog has  already attempted escape twice from other camps.
54. 7:00He's been beaten nearly to death both times.  He doesn't care anymore. Death from escape or
55. 7:06death from exhaustion. At least escape is faster.  Through Creonog Deviat recruits others slowly,
56. 7:15carefully testing each man with small  conversations before revealing anything
57. 7:21about the plan. Vladimir Sokalof, tank mechanic  captured at Korsk, understands engines might
58. 7:29be useful with the Hankl systems. Mikail  Yeetsz, infantry soldier, small and quick,
59. 7:36good for anything requiring stealth. Poter Coutan,  artillery observer, calm under fire, the kind of
60. 7:44man you want beside you when everything goes  wrong. One by one, Deviat builds his team.
61. 7:51Nine men in total plus himself. 10 desperate  prisoners planning to steal an airplane.
62. 7:58The odds are absurd. They have no weapons to  overpower guards, no tools to access the aircraft,
63. 8:05no detailed knowledge of the airfield's security  protocols. Deviatav's plan relies on one factor.
64. 8:13Surprise. No prisoner has ever tried to steal  an aircraft. It's considered impossible. The
65. 8:21guards don't defend against impossible attacks.  They watch for fence cutting, tunnel digging,
66. 8:28traditional escape methods. They don't watch  the aircraft. The plan is simple in concept,
67. 8:35terrifying in execution. Step one, eliminate  the guard quietly. Take his uniform. Step two,
68. 8:43march the other prisoners across the airfield as  a work detail. The man in the guard uniform leads.
69. 8:50Normal sight happens every day. Step three, reach  aircraft GA. Overpower any personnel nearby. Step
70. 8:59four, get inside. Start engines. Take off before  anyone realizes what's happening. Step five,
71. 9:08fly 300 km east to Soviet lines. Each step  can fail fatally. march wrong and they're
72. 9:16challenged. Reach the wrong aircraft and it won't  start. Get inside too slowly and reinforcements
73. 9:24arrive. Fail to start the engines and they're  trapped in a metal coffin. Take off wrong and
74. 9:31they crash. Fly wrong and they're shot down. 10  steps to freedom. Anyone can mean death for all
75. 9:39of them. Deviat explains the odds honestly.  They're probably going to die, but they're
76. 9:45definitely going to die if they stay. Every man  agrees. They set the date. February 8th, 1945.
77. 9:56February 8th, 1945. 11:30 a.m. Light snow falls  on Pinamunda. Visibility is low. Perfect cover
78. 10:04for what's coming. Deviet's group is assigned  to runway maintenance. Standard work detail. 10
79. 10:11prisoners, one guard. They've been doing this for  weeks. Nothing unusual. The guard is new, young,
80. 10:18doesn't know the prisoner's faces, doesn't  watch closely. Perfect. They work slowly,
81. 10:24gathering tools, moving into position, waiting  for the moment. Criven is the strongest. At 12:15,
82. 10:32the guard steps into a drainage ditch to  relieve himself. Hidden from the watchtowers,
83. 10:38alone with the prisoners for 30 seconds. Kranog  moves. A shovel rises, falls. The guard drops
84. 10:47without a sound. They strip his uniform quickly.  Ivan Konog puts it on. It doesn't fit right. Too
85. 10:55tight across the shoulders, but from a distance in  the snow, it will pass. Now they're a work detail
86. 11:02with a guard escort. Normal expected. Kvenov barks  orders in rough German. The other nine prisoners
87. 11:10fall into line. They march toward the airfield,  heart pounding, eyes fixed forward. Every step
88. 11:18bringing them closer to either freedom or death.  The aircraft are 400 m away. 300 m. A real guard
89. 11:28approaches. Vermached enlisted man, rifle on his  shoulder. Deviatv's group keeps marching. Konog
90. 11:36shouts something unintelligible. The real guard  shrugs. Wrong accent. Maybe foreign volunteer.
91. 11:44Maybe. There are thousands of non-German personnel  at Pinamunda. He lets them pass. 100 m. Aircraft
92. 11:53GA sits on the tarmac. Two German mechanics work  nearby. Routine maintenance. The engines are cold,
93. 12:01but the fuel tanks are full. This is it. The  group approaches the aircraft. Creonog gives
94. 12:09a command. The prisoners scatter toward  the hankl as if assigned to work on it.
95. 12:15The mechanics look up confused. They weren't  expecting a work detail. Before they can speak,
96. 12:23Couturan and Yemens are on them, fists and elbows.  The mechanics go down unconscious. Deviatay runs
97. 12:32for the cockpit. The door is unlocked. He climbs  inside. The instrument panel stretches before
98. 12:38him. A hundred controls he's never touched. Labels  he can't read. Systems he doesn't understand. He
99. 12:46has perhaps 3 minutes before someone notices the  fallen mechanics. Mikail Deviatay, concentration
100. 12:53camp prisoner number 104534, weighing 38 kg,  sits down in the pilot seat of a Hanklehe1 bomber
101. 13:05and tries to remember how to fly. The aircraft  smells like fuel and leather. German engineering,
102. 13:13German precision, every switch in a specific place  for a specific reason. Deviatv has watched Hankl
103. 13:21pilots run pre-flight checks from a distance.  He memorized the sequence of hand movements,
104. 13:27but memorizing and executing are different things.  He finds what he thinks is the fuel primer,
105. 13:34pumps it, finds the ignition switches, flips  them. Nothing happens. The other prisoners are
106. 13:40piling into the aircraft. Nine men crowding  into a space designed for five crew members.
107. 13:48They don't know what's wrong. They just see  Deviatav sitting frozen in the pilot's seat. Start
108. 13:55it. Someone hisses. Deviat is missing something. A  step in the sequence. Something the German pilots
109. 14:03did that he didn't understand. Battery switch.  He scans the panel. Finds something that might be
110. 14:10it. Flips it up. The instrument lights flicker  on. Now the ignition. The left engine coughs,
111. 14:18sputters, catches. The propeller begins to spin.  The right engine next. Same sequence. Fuel prime
112. 14:27ignite. Both engines running, but they're not  out yet. Devotay has never taxied a twin engine
113. 14:34aircraft. The steering uses differential braking.  Press the left brake to turn left, right brake to
114. 14:42turn right. Get it wrong and you spin in circles.  Get it really wrong and you flip the aircraft. He
115. 14:50releases the wheel brakes. The Hankle begins  to roll too fast. He's heading toward another
116. 14:58parked aircraft. He stamps on the left brake.  The bomber lurches, sloohs sideways, almost tips.
117. 15:06The prisoners in the back are thrown against the  walls. Someone curses. Deviatay finds a balance.
118. 15:13Gentle corrections let the aircraft find its  path. Behind them, someone finally notices what's
119. 15:21happening. Shouts in German. An alarm begins to  sound. They're 500 m from the runway threshold.
120. 15:29400. A truck appears from behind a hanger.  Soldiers in the back racing toward the taxiing
121. 15:37bomber. 300 m. the truck is gaining. If it reaches  them before they take off, the soldiers will shoot
122. 15:45through the cockpit windows or shoot out the tires  or simply ram the aircraft 200 m. Deviatv reaches
123. 15:55the runway, turns the bomber to align with the  center line. The truck is 100 m behind. He pushes
124. 16:03both throttles forward. The Hankle He11 weighs  14,000 kg fully loaded. It requires 400 m of
125. 16:14runway to reach takeoff speed and it requires the  pilot to pull back the control column with 50 lb
126. 16:20of force to lift the nose off the ground. Male  Deviat weighs 38 kg. He cannot lift the nose.
127. 16:31The Hankle is racing down the runway at 140 km per  hour. Deviata pulls the control column toward his
128. 16:40chest. It doesn't move. He's not strong enough.  8 months of starvation. His muscles have consumed
129. 16:46themselves. He can't generate the force required  to rotate the aircraft. Behind them, the truck has
130. 16:53reached the runway edge. Soldiers are jumping out,  raising rifles. If the bomber doesn't lift off in
131. 17:00the next 10 seconds, it will run out of runway  and crash into the perimeter fence. Deviatatef
132. 17:07screams for help. Two prisoners, Sulof and Coutan,  stumble forward through the chaos. They grab the
133. 17:15control column with Deviatay. Three men pulling.  The column moves inches. Bullets crack past the
134. 17:23cockpit. Someone in the back screams, "Hit  or terrified. Impossible to know. The nose
135. 17:30rises just slightly, just enough. The wheels  leave the ground. Aircraft GA ahankle. He 111
136. 17:39carrying 10 escaped concentration camp prisoners  becomes airborne at 12:21 p.m. on February 8th,
137. 17:471945. They climb into the gray sky. Snow swirls  around the wings. The airfield falls away
138. 17:54below. For a moment, there is silence. Then  Pinamunda's air defense batteries open fire.
139. 18:03Anti-aircraft rounds burst around the hankle.  Black puffs of smoke. Shrapnel pinging off the
140. 18:10fuselage. Devativ throws the aircraft into  a banking turn west first to confuse pursuit
141. 18:17about their intended direction, then north over  the Baltic Sea, then east towards Soviet lines.
142. 18:24The German anti-aircraft crews track them for  2 minutes. Then the bomber disappears into the
143. 18:31clouds. Inside the aircraft, chaos. One prisoner  is wounded. They have nothing to bandage it with.
144. 18:39Someone tears a strip from his prison uniform  and wraps the wound. The hankl shudders and
145. 18:45groans. Deviatay doesn't know how badly damaged  it is. Don't know how much fuel they have.
146. 18:52doesn't know exactly where they are. The aircraft  has navigation instruments, but they're useless to
147. 18:59him. Compass. Yes, he can read that. But the radio  equipment, the beacons, the German navigation
148. 19:06charts, all meaningless without training. He  navigates by instinct. East. Keep flying east.
149. 19:15The front line is somewhere ahead. The altitude  indicator shows 2,000 m. The speed indicator shows
150. 19:24280 km hour. The fuel gauge shows something.  Maybe half full, maybe less. He can't read
151. 19:33German measurements. They've been airborne for  20 minutes. When the weather clears below them,
152. 19:40fields, forests, roads with military vehicles,  all German. They're still deep in enemy territory,
153. 19:48at least 200 km from the front. Dev Yatev pushes  the throttles forward. Every minute of flight
154. 19:56is a minute closer to freedom. 40 minutes in the  air, the fuel gauge needle has moved significantly
155. 20:05lower. They're burning through reserves. 50  minutes, smoke begins trailing from the left
156. 20:13engine. Damage from the anti-aircraft fire finally  showing. Deviatives adjusts the fuel mixture,
157. 20:20reduces power to the damaged engine, tries to  balance the aircraft. The Hankle wants to yaw
158. 20:28left. He fights the controls constantly.  60 minutes below. The landscape changes.
159. 20:36More shell craters, burned villages. The signs of  recent combat. They're approaching the front line
160. 20:43and then the Soviet anti-aircraft batteries see a  German bomber flying toward their positions. Now,
161. 20:51stop right here because what happens next is  something that could only happen in the Soviet
162. 20:57Union. Something so cruel, so absurd that it  will haunt these men for the rest of their lives.
163. 21:06Before we continue, if you're enjoying this story,  please subscribe. It helps us create more content
164. 21:12like this. Now, let's see what the Soviets do to  their own heroes. They're flying a shot up German
165. 21:19bomber towards Soviet lines, and the Soviets are  trying to shoot them down. Soviet anti-aircraft
166. 21:26gunners see a Hanklehe11 approaching their  positions. They don't ask questions. They open
167. 21:33fire. Tracer rounds rise from the ground. Deviatv  throws the bomber into evasive turns, but it's too
168. 21:41heavy, too damaged, too slow. Bullets rip through  the fuselage. Men scream in the back. The left
169. 21:48engine explodes, not metaphorically. Actual flames  pour from the cowling. Oil sprays across the wing.
170. 21:57The engine dies on one engine. The Hankl can't  maintain altitude. It starts dropping fast. 1,000
171. 22:06m above the ground. 600 m. Deviet can see Soviet  trenches below. Artillery positions. Soldiers
172. 22:16staring up at the falling bomber. 300 m. He has  seconds to make a decision. Try to reach a proper
173. 22:24airfield and risk the second engine quitting  or crash land right here and hope they survive.
174. 22:31He aims for a snowcovered field and pulls back on  the controls. The hankle hits the ground like a
175. 22:38bomb. The landing gear collapses instantly. The  belly scrapes across frozen earth. Metal tears.
176. 22:47The propeller hits the ground and disintegrates  into deadly shrapnel. Snow sprays everywhere.
177. 22:53The bomber slides 200 m, shedding pieces before  finally stopping. Deviatv is alive, bleeding,
178. 23:03shaking. He looks back into the cabin. Nine men,  all moving, all alive. Out now. They scramble
179. 23:13through the exits and fall into the snow, crawl  away from the wreckage as fuel drips onto hot
180. 23:19metal. Soviet soldiers sprint toward them from the  trenches. Rifles up, yelling in Russian. Deviatv
181. 23:26stands. He's 38 kg, wearing concentration camp  stripes covered in blood and fuel. Don't shoot.
182. 23:34We're Soviet. We escaped from Pinamunda. Who  the hell are you? Lieutenant Mikail Deviatay,
183. 23:42Soviet Air Force. We just stole this aircraft  from a Nazi rocket base. The soldiers look at
184. 23:49each other. Nobody believes him. And that's when  things got worse. Soviet counter inelligence took
185. 23:55them into custody immediately. Not as heroes,  as suspects. For weeks, they were interrogated.
186. 24:03How did you survive when millions died? How did  you learn to fly German aircraft? Are you spies,
187. 24:11collaborators? Dev Yatay told them everything.  Pinamunda's layout, the V2 rockets, launch
188. 24:18sites. His intelligence would eventually help the  Soviet space program, but they didn't thank him.
189. 24:25They sent him to a penal military unit, still  under suspicion. The war ended 3 months later.
190. 24:34They released Deviet, but didn't give him his rank  back, didn't restore his pilot status, didn't call
191. 24:42him a hero. He went home and disappeared into  silence. His story was classified. The Soviet
192. 24:49doctrine was brutal. Real soldiers die fighting.  Anyone who survived captivity was suspect,
193. 24:57a traitor. For 12 years, Mikail Deviat lived as  a forgotten man. While the Soviet Union used his
194. 25:05intelligence from Panamunda to build their space  program, he worked a regular job in obscurity.
195. 25:12Then in 1957, everything changed. Rocket scientist  Sergey Corv told officials the truth. This man's
196. 25:22escape had helped launch the Soviet space race. On  August 15th, 1957, 12 years after his impossible
197. 25:32flight, Deviatay was finally awarded Hero of the  Soviet Union, the highest honor. For an escape,
198. 25:40his government had tried to erase. He  weighed 38 kg when he stole that bomber,
199. 25:47flew through enemy fire, saved nine men, and his  country treated him like a criminal for 12 years.
200. 25:56Sometimes surviving isn't the hard  part. It's surviving what comes after.