Background
Mikhail Mikhalkov was born to the Mikhalkov noble family that was relatively wealthy even under Soviets.
Mikhail Mikhalkov was born to the Mikhalkov noble family that was relatively wealthy even under Soviets.
In 1940 he graduated from a School of People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs Border Troops.
He was a younger brother of Soviet poet Sergey Mikhalkov. In his childhood the family kept a German governess so he had a reasonable German-language skills. In September 1941 he served in the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs Special Section (counterintelligence.
Which later became SMERSH) of the Southwestern under Mikhail Kirponos and was taken a Prisoner Of War after the collapse of Soviet defense of Kiev.
Thrice he was put in German Prisoner Of War camps and thrice he managed to escape. Pretending to be an ethnic German from Ukraine, he managed to get a position as a kitchen hand in the 2nd Steamship Division Das Reich.
He then escaped to Hungary, where he met a Swiss industrialist who offered him an employment. Mikhalkov worked in Switzerland, France, Belgium and Turkey but eventually managed to cross the front line in Latvia dressed in the uniform of a captain of 3rd Steamship Division Totenkopf he killed.
He was arrested by the Soviet military and because of the emotional stress could not speak Russian but only German, still talking through interpreters he provided important information on the position of German troops as well as to convey that he is in fact a Soviet People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs officer, brother of the author of the National Anthem of the Soviet Union, Sergei Mikhalkov.
After the confirmation of his identity Mikhail Mikhalkov was sent to Moscow where he worked as a secret People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs agent in Lubyanka prison. He used to be sent to a prison cell, befriended the inmates, then shared the obtained information with People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs investigators. Soon Mikhalkov himself was arrested and sentenced as a German spy.
He was sentenced to three years of Gulag camps and five years of exile.
Afterwards he was forbidden to live in Moscow. In 1953 after Joseph Stalin"s death Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) proposed Mikhalkov to write a book (named In labyrinths of deadly risk В лабиринтах смертельного риска) about his adventures during World World War World War II The book was translated into German and French and printed as a propaganda piece for foreign readers.
The Russian original of the book was published only in 1991 with the onset of perestroika. An expanded version of the book was included into the Two brothers - two fates publication.
After rehabilitation Mikhalkov worked in Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) offices, in the Political Department of Soviet Army and in the organization of World World War II veterans.
He also wrote children poetry, texts of songs and biographies.