Biography
Magsum Akhmetkhanovich Akhmetshin was born in 1921 in the city of Agryz in the Tatar Autonomous Oblast. Before the war he worked as a clerk at the Agryz railway station and he was called into the Soviet Army in May 1941.
In July 1942, Akhmetshin was sent behind German lines near the Oredezhskiy region of the Leningrad Oblast as a member of an intelligence team attached to the Volkhov Front. He was captured and recruited by German forces and assigned to a German intelligence section, where he distributed disinformation, reportedly leading to the capture of a Soviet pilot. From November 1942 to November 1944, he worked in a German intelligence team subordinate to Abwehrgruppe-312 and participated in operations against Soviet forces in the region where he was captured, and later in the Pskov Oblast, for which the Germans awarded him medals. However, in the summer or fall of 1944, German police arrested him for attempting to kill the detachment commander. He was seen in July 1945 dressed in civilian clothes among Soviet officers in Germany when American forces transferred them to Soviet control. He may have passed Soviet repatriation screening and served in a Soviet military unit in Berlin as of 1949. No further information is available about Akhmetshin.[i]
In July 1942, Akhmetshin was sent behind German lines near the Oredezhskiy region of the Leningrad Oblast as a member of an intelligence team attached to the Volkhov Front. He was captured and recruited by German forces and assigned to a German intelligence section, where he distributed disinformation, reportedly leading to the capture of a Soviet pilot. From November 1942 to November 1944, he worked in a German intelligence team subordinate to Abwehrgruppe-312 and participated in operations against Soviet forces in the region where he was captured, and later in the Pskov Oblast, for which the Germans awarded him medals. However, in the summer or fall of 1944, German police arrested him for attempting to kill the detachment commander. He was seen in July 1945 dressed in civilian clothes among Soviet officers in Germany when American forces transferred them to Soviet control. He may have passed Soviet repatriation screening and served in a Soviet military unit in Berlin as of 1949. No further information is available about Akhmetshin.[i]
Notes
- [i] “KGB Wanted List,” 1969, p. 27.