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Nikolay Dyatlenko
Nikolay Dmitriyevich Dyatlenko (Ukrainian: Микола Дмитрович Дятленко; Russian: Николай Дмитриевич Дятленко; 26 November 1914 – 11 October 1996) was a Ukrainian Soviet officer, interrogator and translator who was part of a team that attempted to deliver a message of truce (sometimes referred to as an "ultimatum") to the German Sixth Army at the Battle of Stalingrad in January 1943. He also acted as the translator at the interrogation of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus a few weeks later.
Dyatlenko was born in 1914 to a peasant family in the village of Kulichka in present-day Sumy Raion, Sumy Oblast, Ukraine. He graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk Railway Transport Tekhnikum in 1935, then studied philology at the University of Kyiv. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Dyatlenko joined the Red Army as an ordinary soldier in June 1941. On account of his knowledge of German, Dyatlenko was assigned to the 7th Department of the Political Directorate of the Southwestern Front, engaged in agitation attempting to persuade German soldiers to surrender and cooperate with Soviet forces. He served as a writer and translator for a newspaper produced by the front political directorate targeting German soldiers. In August he became a senior instructor of the 7th Department for work among enemy troops and population with the rank of captain. Dyatlenko held this position for the rest of the war, and continued serving with the department when the Southwestern Front was renamed the Stalingrad Front in mid-1942.
A fluent German speaker, Captain Dyatlenko was transferred to the 7th Department of the Stalingrad Front in the autumn of 1942 to help with the interrogations of German prisoners of war. Antony Beevor claims that he was a member of the NKVD, but this is not supported by his military records. There is no mention of this in Dyatlenko's account of the ultimatum delivery, and the index in John Erickson's Road to Berlin lists him as a Red Army officer.
Together with Major Aleksandr Mikhailovich Smyslov from Red Army Intelligence, Dyatlenko was chosen by NKVD and Red Army officers to deliver notice of truce to the beleaguered German forces in the Kessel at the Battle of Stalingrad. Smyslov was to be the truce envoy and carried the truce papers in an oilskin packet, whilst Dyatlenko was his interpreter.
Dyatlenko had no idea of the sort of behaviour that was expected of a truce envoy, later admitting that all he knew of the necessary protocols came from Solovyov's play Field Marshal Kutuzov, about the French invasion of Russia in 1812. On 7 January 1943 the two envoys were dressed in the finest uniforms available (the Russian quartermaster assured them that they would be "dressed like bridegrooms") and were driven with Colonel Vinogradov in a Willys jeep to the edge of 24th Army's sector at Kotluban. All shooting ceased during the night and on 8 January 1943, Dyatlenko and Smyslov, accompanied by a Red Army trumpeter armed with a three-note trumpet and a white flag, approached the German lines. On their first approach they were driven back by German fire. On a second approach they had no better luck; the fire was not aimed directly at them, but, as on the previous day, was meant to drive them back.
According to one account, the Stavka was keen to call off any further attempts to initiate a truce but on the evening of 8–9 January Soviet planes overflew the Kessel, dropping leaflets signed by Voronov and Rokossovsky addressed to "Deutsche Offiziere, Unteroffiziere und Mannschaften" and printed with an ultimatum to Paulus; they also dropped bombs. German soldiers later admitted that they had picked up these leaflets and read them, so the ultimatum was known about in the defending German army. Dyatlenko and Smyslov were driven to the HQ of the 96th Rifle Division near Marinovka, then a staff car drove them to the front line, from where they proceeded on foot.
On their second attempt, the envoys forgot their white flag, so a new one had to be made from a sheet belonging to the divisional commander; this was nailed to a branch from an acacia. They were again accompanied by a trumpeter, this time a warrant officer named Siderov, whose call "Attention! Attention", although sounding to Dyatlenko more like 'The Last Post'", had the effect of attracting the attention of a German warrant officer. He asked their business.
"We are truce envoys from the commander of the Red Army," Dyatlenko shouted back in German. "We are on our way to your commander-in-chief with a message. We ask you to receive us according to international law."
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Nikolay Dyatlenko
Nikolay Dmitriyevich Dyatlenko (Ukrainian: Микола Дмитрович Дятленко; Russian: Николай Дмитриевич Дятленко; 26 November 1914 – 11 October 1996) was a Ukrainian Soviet officer, interrogator and translator who was part of a team that attempted to deliver a message of truce (sometimes referred to as an "ultimatum") to the German Sixth Army at the Battle of Stalingrad in January 1943. He also acted as the translator at the interrogation of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus a few weeks later.
Dyatlenko was born in 1914 to a peasant family in the village of Kulichka in present-day Sumy Raion, Sumy Oblast, Ukraine. He graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk Railway Transport Tekhnikum in 1935, then studied philology at the University of Kyiv. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Dyatlenko joined the Red Army as an ordinary soldier in June 1941. On account of his knowledge of German, Dyatlenko was assigned to the 7th Department of the Political Directorate of the Southwestern Front, engaged in agitation attempting to persuade German soldiers to surrender and cooperate with Soviet forces. He served as a writer and translator for a newspaper produced by the front political directorate targeting German soldiers. In August he became a senior instructor of the 7th Department for work among enemy troops and population with the rank of captain. Dyatlenko held this position for the rest of the war, and continued serving with the department when the Southwestern Front was renamed the Stalingrad Front in mid-1942.
A fluent German speaker, Captain Dyatlenko was transferred to the 7th Department of the Stalingrad Front in the autumn of 1942 to help with the interrogations of German prisoners of war. Antony Beevor claims that he was a member of the NKVD, but this is not supported by his military records. There is no mention of this in Dyatlenko's account of the ultimatum delivery, and the index in John Erickson's Road to Berlin lists him as a Red Army officer.
Together with Major Aleksandr Mikhailovich Smyslov from Red Army Intelligence, Dyatlenko was chosen by NKVD and Red Army officers to deliver notice of truce to the beleaguered German forces in the Kessel at the Battle of Stalingrad. Smyslov was to be the truce envoy and carried the truce papers in an oilskin packet, whilst Dyatlenko was his interpreter.
Dyatlenko had no idea of the sort of behaviour that was expected of a truce envoy, later admitting that all he knew of the necessary protocols came from Solovyov's play Field Marshal Kutuzov, about the French invasion of Russia in 1812. On 7 January 1943 the two envoys were dressed in the finest uniforms available (the Russian quartermaster assured them that they would be "dressed like bridegrooms") and were driven with Colonel Vinogradov in a Willys jeep to the edge of 24th Army's sector at Kotluban. All shooting ceased during the night and on 8 January 1943, Dyatlenko and Smyslov, accompanied by a Red Army trumpeter armed with a three-note trumpet and a white flag, approached the German lines. On their first approach they were driven back by German fire. On a second approach they had no better luck; the fire was not aimed directly at them, but, as on the previous day, was meant to drive them back.
According to one account, the Stavka was keen to call off any further attempts to initiate a truce but on the evening of 8–9 January Soviet planes overflew the Kessel, dropping leaflets signed by Voronov and Rokossovsky addressed to "Deutsche Offiziere, Unteroffiziere und Mannschaften" and printed with an ultimatum to Paulus; they also dropped bombs. German soldiers later admitted that they had picked up these leaflets and read them, so the ultimatum was known about in the defending German army. Dyatlenko and Smyslov were driven to the HQ of the 96th Rifle Division near Marinovka, then a staff car drove them to the front line, from where they proceeded on foot.
On their second attempt, the envoys forgot their white flag, so a new one had to be made from a sheet belonging to the divisional commander; this was nailed to a branch from an acacia. They were again accompanied by a trumpeter, this time a warrant officer named Siderov, whose call "Attention! Attention", although sounding to Dyatlenko more like 'The Last Post'", had the effect of attracting the attention of a German warrant officer. He asked their business.
"We are truce envoys from the commander of the Red Army," Dyatlenko shouted back in German. "We are on our way to your commander-in-chief with a message. We ask you to receive us according to international law."
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