Rybin, Y. Luftwaffe ace Walter Schuck researched / Christer Bergstrom, Yuriy Rybin. - Sweden : [s. l.], 2019. - 190 p. : ill.

WALTER SCHUCK FACTS 2 RUDI MULLER’S FATE IN SOVIET CAPTIVITY tPH In 1942-1943, the German fighter ace Rudi Muller was a living legend. Everyone on the German side in the Far North and many of the Soviets knew his name. What happened to him after he had been shot down in April 1943 has been subject of much speculation. What is clear is that Muller belly-landed his shot up Me 109 G-2 on the frozen surface of a lake near Murmansk. An Airacobra made a strafing run, but Muller could save himself by taking cover behind some rocks. Then, when the Soviet aircraft flew away, Muller made it for the German lines. He had a pair of short skis in his plane, and being a good sportsman did his utmost to avoid capture. He made it 20 kilometres from his crashed aircraft before he was captured by a group of two Norwegians and five to six Soviet Finns. Muller was brought to 258 SAD’s base at Murmashi. Rudi Muller’s time in Soviet captivity is surrounded by rumours and unconfirmed accounts. In the German POW camps, it was rumoured that Miiller served as “fighter instructor” for the Soviets. One of the authors of this book, Yuriy Rybin, has met and interviewed Rudi Mtiller’s Soviet interrogator, Pavel Sutyagin. It has been possible to establish that Muller was interrogated on three occasions. The first time was 22 April 1943. During his next interrogation, on 6 May 1943, he gave a detailed account of air combat tactics, illustrated with diagrams. On 16 May 1943, Muller was interrogated by a Soviet Naval Air Force Headquarters senior officer in Krasnogorsk near Moscow. The official account that Muller was killed on 21 October 1943 has been doubted. Muller is said to have been seen in a Soviet POW camp in 1944 and 1947. Among several wild rumours, the most fantastic is the one which asserts that Muller served as a pilot trainer in the Soviet Union into the 1980s, when he was supposed to have been killed in an accident! However, this must be dismissed as unfounded rumours. There simply is nothing which would indicate that the information that Muller was killed in October 1943 is wrong. Rudi Muller’s mother, Margarethe Muller (Frau Ruth) made an inquiry to the Soviet Union via the German Red Cross on 1 June 1959, and she received two official answers, on 31 July 1967 and 11 February 1969. On both occasions, the answer was that that Rudolf Karl Muller died in captivity on 21 October 1943. In November 1993, author Yuriy Rybin made an inquiry at the Archives of Personal Records of Prisoners of War in Moscow, and received the answer that Muller was killed on on 21 October 1943 when he was escorted to camp No. 58 in Mordvinian ASSR. Thus the case must be regarded as closed.