Smersh: Stalin's Secret Weapon: Soviet Military Counterintelligence in WWII

by Vadim Birstein

  8. An order of G. N. Safonov, Acting Prosecutor, to apply the death penalty to teenagers, dated December 22, 1941. Document No. 217, in Deti GULAGa: 1918–1956, ed. by S. S. Vilensky et al., 376 (Moscow, Demokratiya, 2002) (in Russian).

  9. GKO orders dated February 14 and October 7, 1942, quoted in M. I. Semiryaga, Kak my upravlyali Germaniei. Politika i zhizn’ (Moscow: Rosspen, 1995), 160–61 (in Russian).

  10. Instruction No. 35523, 3rd NKO Directorate, dated June 27, 1941. Document No. 327, in Organy gosudarctvennoi bezopasnosti, 2 (1), 90–93.

  11. Milshtein’s report, dated October 31, 1941. Document No. 202, in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 317–8.

  12. Interview with Grigory Falkovsky, former infantryman, September 21, 2008 (in Russian), http://www.iremember.ru/pekhotintsi/falkovskiy-grigoriy-yakovlevich.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.

  13. Directive to commanders and military councils of all fronts, dated September 12, 1941, dictated by Stalin. Zvyagintsev, Voina na vesakh Femidy, 402. Stalin repeated this order as part of NKO Order No. 227, known as ‘No Step Back!’

  14. P. N. Palii, ‘V nemetskom plenu,’ in Nashe nedavnee, Vol. 7 (Paris: YMCA Press, 1987), 56 (in Russian).

  15. B. I. Gavrilov, Dolina smerti. Tragediya i podvig 2-i Udarnoi Armii, (Moscow: Dubrava, 2006), 225 (in Russian).

  16. Report by Dmitrii Me’lnikov to Abakumov, dated August 6, 1942, pages 31–34 in L. Ye. Reshin and V. S. Stepanov, ‘Sud’by general’skie…’ VIZh, no. 5 (1993), 28–37 (in Russian).

  17. Report of Security Major Ivanov, dated September 1942. Quoted in Zvyagintsev, Voina na vesakh Femidy, 448–49.

  18. N. N. Nikoulin, Vospominaniya o voine (St. Petersburg, Izdatel’stvo Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha, 2008), 45–46 (in Russian).

  19. NKO Order No. 0321, dated August 26, 1941. Document No. 59, in Russkii arkhiv. Velkaya Otechestvennaya. Prikazy, 13 (2-2), 74.

  20. A. F. Bichekhvost, ‘K istorii sozdzniya spetsial’nykh i proverochnofil’tratsionnykh lagerei dlya sovetckikh voennoplennykh i organizatsiya v nikh ‘gosudarstvennoi proverki,’ in Voenno-istoricheskie issledovaniya v Povolzh’e. Sbornik nauchnykh trudov. Vypusk 7 (Saratov, 2006), 256-80 (in Russian), http://www.sgu.ru/files/nodes/10090/033.pdf, retrieved September 6, 2011.

  21. Interview with Roman Lazebnik, former partisan, December 2, 2008 (in Russian), http://iremember.ru/partizani/lazebnik-roman-evseevich.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.

  22. NKVD’s ‘Information on Vetting of Servicemen from the German Encirclement and Captivity by October 1, 1944’, quoted in V. N. Zemskov, ‘GULAG (istoriko-sotsiologicheskii aspekt)’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, no. 6 (1991), 10-27 (in Russian).

  23. Assault battalions were created on Stalin’s secret directive dated August 1, 1942. Zvyagintsev, Voina na vesakh Femidy, 389–90.

  24. In the movie Escape From Sobibor (1987), the actor Alan Arkin played Pecherski’s role.

  25. Leonid Terushkin, ‘Spartak Sobibora,’ Novaya Gazeta, No. 47, May 5, 2010 (in Russian), http://uisrussia.msu.ru/docs/nov/2010/47/nov_2010_47_02.htm, retrieved September 6, 2011.

  26. Private collection, Moscow.

  27. Delagrammatik, ‘Voennye tribunaly za rabotoi.’

  28. Beria’s report No. 1066/B, dated June 18, 1942. Document No. 223, in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 349–50.

  29. Kazakevich’s report to Abakumov, dated February 17, 1943. Document 90 in Stalingradskaya epopeya: Materialy NKVD SSSR i voennoi tsenzury iz tsentral’nogo arkhiva FSB RF, edited by F. Pogonii et al., 403–10 (Moscow: Zvonnitsa-MG, 2000) (in Russian).

  30. NKO Order No. 227, dated July 28, 1942. Document No. 1027, in Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, 3 (2), 76–80. Additionally, GKO Order No. 298 entitled ‘On penal detachments’, dated September 28, 1942, in Skrytaya pravda voiny, 359–65.

  31. Zvyagintsev, Voina na vesakh Femidy, 392.

  32. Stalin’s order, August 1943. Document No. 159, in Russkii arkhiv. Velikaya otechestvennaya. Prikazy, 13 (2-3), 198.

  33. Joint Instructions of the NKVD Commissar Beria and USSR prosecutor Bochkov No. 185, dated April 29, 1942, and No. 194/17/11692/s, dated May 7, 1942. Document Nos. 910 and 918, in Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, 3 (1), 387–88 and 403–4.

  34. Sergei Krapivin, ‘Starshina Grigorii Vlasenko: ‘Ya byl radistom shtrafbata’,’ Sovetskaya Belorussiya, April 1, 2005 (in Russian), http://sb.by/post/42729, retrieved September 6, 2011.

  35. Yakov Aizenstadt, Zapiski sekretarya voennogo tribunala (London: Overseas Publications Interchange Ltd., 1991), 62 (in Russian).

  36. Zvyagintsev, Voina na vesakh Femidy, 394–5.

  37. N. V. Petrov, ‘Vnesudebnye repressii protiv voennoplennykh nemtsev v 1941–1946 gg.,’ in Problemy voennogo plena: istoriya i sovremennost’:Materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii 23–25 oktyabrya 1997 g. g. Vologda. Chast’ 2 (Vologda: Vologodskii institut, 1997), 77–94 (in Russian).

  38. Joachim Hoffmann, Stalin’s War of Extermination, 1941–1945: Planning, Realization and Documentation, translated by William Deist (Capshaw, AL: Theses & Dissertation Press, 2001), 244–78.

  39. Stalin’s telephone conversation with Zhukov on September 4, 1941 (a transcript). In Boris Sokolov, ‘Pokayanie v Den’ Pobedy,’ Grani.ru, May 8, 2001 (in Russian), http://www.grani.ru/Society/History/p.3770.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.

  40. Document from the Central FSB Archive (Fond 7, Opis’ 1, Delo 137), cited in Petrov, ‘Vnesudebnye repressii protiv voennoplennykh nemtsev v 1941–1946 gg.,’ 79.

  41. Ibid., 79–80.

  42. For instance, a transcript of the interrogation of Otto Naumen, in Lubyanka v dni bitvy, 380–2.

  43. Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin, translated from Serbo-Croat by Michael B. Petrovichn (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World Co., 1962). 54.

  44. For instance, Geoffrey Roberts, Victory at Stalingrad: The Battle That Changed History (London: Longman, 2002).

  45. On ‘hiwis’ see, for example, Lev Kopelev, No Jail For Thought, translated and edited by Anthony Austin (London: Secker & Warburg, 1977), 98.

  46. Report by Isai Babich, dated January 1, 1942. Lubyanka v dni bitvy, 302–6.

  47. Sculptor N. P. Gavrilov’s visit to K. K. Rokossovsky’s troops in December of 1941. Document No. III-43 in Moskva voennaya, 1941–1945: memuary i arkhivnye dokumenty, edited by K. I. Bukov, M. M. Gorinov, and A. N. Ponomarev, 586–98 (Moscow: Mosgorarkhiv, 1995) (in Russian).

  48. L. K. Brontman, ‘Dnevniki 1932–1947 gg.,’ Samizdat, 2004 (in Russian), http://militera.lib.ru/db/brontman_lk/1944.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.

  Part IV. German Intelligence Services at the Eastern Front

  CHAPTER 13

  German Military Intelligence at the Eastern Front

  By 1943, a complex German intelligence network existed at the Eastern Front and in the occupied territories. After the creation of SMERSH, Soviet counterintelligence’s main goal became finding and arresting members of German intelligence and counterintelligence. Arrest of Soviet collaborators and vetting of Soviet citizens living in areas that had been occupied by German troops was also an important part of SMERSH’s work. Since the German secret services at the Eastern Front have never been described in detail in historical sources in English, their general structure and activities are presented below.

  There were two main German intelligence services, the Abwehr, military intelligence and counterintelligence, and the SD (Sicherheitsdienst) or Amt (Office) VI, the foreign intelligence within the State Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshautamt or RSHA) of the SS (Schutzstaffel, a military organization of the Nazi Party). Abwehr can be described as the Red Army’s Intelligence Directorate merged together with the UOO, while the RSHA’s function was similar to that of the GUGB in the NKVD or the NKGB in 1941. In addition to their headquarters in Berlin, both services had branches in the field and in the occupied territory.

  Abwehr, its Leaders and the RSHA

  Abwehr was part of the Nazi military leaders
hip structure. Formally, the High Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or OKW) directed operations of the German Armed Forces that included the Army (Heer), Navy (Kriegsmarine), and Air Force (Luftwaffe). Abwehr was one of four OKW branches, and its full name was the Overseas Department/Office in Defense of the Armed Forces High Command (Amt Ausland/Abwehr im Oberkommando der Wehrmacht). The OKW’s Operations Branch distributed Abwehr’s intelligence information and its summaries to the intelligence evaluation sections of the army, navy, and air force. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Abwehr’s head, reported to the German High Command, consisting of OKW Chief Wilhelm Keitel, Operations Branch Chief Alfred Jodl, and his deputy, Walter Warlimont. Canaris was ‘a slim man of medium height… possessed of an extraordinary lively intelligence’.1 Every day the German High Command reported to Hitler about the war situation, but the most important intelligence information Canaris reported to Hitler personally.

  Abwehr’s structure was established on June 1, 1938, four months before Beria reorganized the NKVD.2 Abwehr had three operational departments (Abteilungen) of five: I (intelligence), II (sabotage), and III (counterintelligence). Its headquarters in Berlin were small; in March 1943 only sixty-three officers served in Abteilung I, thirty-four in Abteilung II, and forty-three in Abteilung III.3 Therefore, Abteilung III’s HQ in Berlin was 15 times smaller than SMERSH’s HQ in Moscow (646 officers) organized the same year with a similar counterintelligence function.4

  Abwehr’s Abteilung I collected intelligence on foreign armies, was in charge of identifying foreign spies in the armed forces (similar to the UOO and partly to the SMERSH mandate), disseminating disinformation among enemies, and guarding military and state secrets.5 It consisted of twelve groups, organized according to geography and economic principles. Colonel Hans Piekenbrock, ‘a Rhinelander who enjoyed life and was always ready for a joke’, headed Abteilung I from 1936 until March 1943 and was, possibly, Admiral Canaris’s best friend.6 Admiral Canaris called him ‘Pieki’, and ‘Pieki’ ‘called Canaris “Excellency”, a title to which general officers had a right under the Kaiser’. Piekenbrock was so popular among his colleagues that one of the Abwehr’s operations against Britain in 1940 was even called ‘Operation Elena’ after his wife. Piekenbrock frequently accompanied Canaris on his trips abroad, establishing contacts with foreign intelligence services and organizing and inspecting the work of Abwehr I outposts. Before the war he visited seventeen countries.

  In March 1943 Piekenbrock left the Abwehr for the army, and Colonel Georg Hansen succeeded him as head of Abteilung I. He was 38, ‘blond, tall, slim, good-looking, who in contrast to the elegant Piekenbrock often buddied up to the enlisted men’.7 In May 1945, Piekenbrock was taken prisoner by SMERSH.

  In the Soviet structure, military intelligence had functions similar to the main function of Abteilung I. From April 18, 1943 onwards, there were two intelligence organizations: Razvedupr or RU (an abbreviation from Razvedyvatel’noe upravlenie or Intelligence Directorate; headed by Fyodor Kuznetsov) of the Red Army’s General Staff (field intelligence) and Glavnoe razvedyvatel’noe upravlenie (Main Intelligence Directorate) or GRU (headed by Ivan Il’ichev) of the Defense Commissariat (NKO) (in charge of foreign intelligence).8 There were three operational departments within RU: the 1st, in charge of field intelligence; the 2nd, in charge of agent intelligence, and the 3rd that analyzed the incoming information. The Investigation Department, along with the 1st and 2nd departments, interrogated the German POWs.

  Until the summer of 1943, Colonel Erwin von Lahousen, ‘an Austrian officer and a bitter enemy of Hitler’, headed the Abwehr’s Abteilung II in charge of sabotage.9 Before the Anschluss, the incorporation of Austria into the Third Reich in 1938, Lahousen served in the Intelligence Department of the Austrian General Staff as a specialist on Czechoslovakia. He was six foot tall, called ‘Long L’ in the Abwehr and ‘gained the complete confidence of his chief’, Canaris.10 In August 1943, von Lahousen was sent to the Eastern Front, and another of Canaris’s close associates, Baron Wessel von Freytag-Loringhoven, succeeded him.11 In 1944, Loringhoven provided the detonator charge and explosives for the assassination attempt against Hitler. On July 26, 1944 he committed suicide after being arrested by the Gestapo.

  Von Lahousen’s deputy, Colonel Erwin Stolze, called ‘Saboteur No. 2’, headed Group 2A within Abteilung II, which specialized in diversions and terrorism in the Soviet Union. Until 1936, Stolze served in Abwehr I and was responsible for the intelligence collected in Eastern and Southeastern Europe.12 He supervised a number of White Russian officers, including General Yevgeny Dostovalov and Colonel Pyotr Durnovo, who conducted analysis of the Soviet press and used other Russian sources to provide Stolze with information. Stolze did not know that General Dostovalov was a double agent. From 1923 on, he worked for Soviet intelligence, and later he even moved to the Soviet Union, where he was arrested and executed in 1938.13 Therefore, most probably he provided Stolze with disinformation. Colonel Durnovo, on the contrary, became head of Abwehr’s agents in Yugoslavia in 1941. In February 1945 he and his family were killed during the infamous bombing of Dresden.14 Stolze’s close relations with the leaders of the Ukrainian emigration community were helpful in Abwehr’s preparation for Operation Barbarossa. On May 31, 1945, SMERSH arrested Stolze in Berlin.

  The function of Abteilung II was based on the activity of the division Brandenburg-800.15 This division began in October 1939 as a battalion of Volksdeutsche, Germans living outside of Germany who were fluent in Polish. They were very successful saboteurs during the invasion of Poland, operating in the rear of the Polish troops. The original Brandenburg-800 battalion consisted of four companies, one of which comprised men from the Baltic countries and Russians, mostly emigrants. Later, volunteers from Soviet POWs were added. When the Brandenburg-800 expanded into a division, it included British, Romanian, African, Arab, and other units. From the end of 1942, the division was attached directly to Abteilung II. The men of the division became known as the Brandenburgers.

  In action, a Brandenburger unit could be as small as a two-man team or as large as a full 300-man company, depending on the mission. The units operated in the enemy’s rear or in the German rear if the troops were in retreat. From the autumn of 1939 onwards, a special group of Brandenburgers watched the Ploesti oil fields in Romania. In 1940, groups of Brandenburgers dressed in the uniforms of the enemy played an important role in the conquest of Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Later they were also active in Afghanistan, Iran, the Middle East, and Africa.

  In the Soviet structure the 4th NKVD Directorate headed by the infamous Pavel Sudoplatov was similar to Abteilung II.16 Originally, this directorate was formed on July 5, 1941 as the Special Group (terrorist and diversionary acts in the enemy’s rear) subordinated directly to Commissar Beria. On October 3, 1941 the group was transformed into the 2nd NKVD Department (with the same functions), which on January 18, 1942 became the 4th NKVD Directorate. On April 14, 1943, it was transferred to the NKGB as its 4th Directorate.

  The 4th NKVD/NKGB Directorate was almost an independent service with its own intelligence at the enemy’s rear and abroad, and its own terrorist troops. The operational troops consisted of 5,000 men, up to 2,000 of whom were foreign Communists who lived in the Soviet Union. The activities of Abwehr’s Abteilung II and 4th NKVD/NKGB Directorate were similar to those of the British Special Operations Executive or SOE.17

  Abwehr’s Abteilung III, that is comparable with SMERSH’s HQ, consisted of eleven groups, most of which were composed of sections called ‘referats’. Colonel Franz Eccard von Bentivegni, known as ‘Benti’ to insiders, headed it until April 1944. Karl Abshagen, Canaris’s biographer, wrote: ‘Despite his Italian name, [Bentivegni] came from a Prussian family… He was a typical old-fashioned Prussian officer, most careful about his appearance and never to be seen without an eyeglass in his eye… Bentivegni’s personal relations with Canaris did not become as close as those with Piekenbrock.’18 In May 1944 von Bent
ivegni left the Abwehr for the army, and in March 1945 he was taken prisoner by SMERSH.

  In general, the Abwehr leaders tried not to follow the orders that would involve Abwehr in military atrocities. In April 1942, Colonel Piekenbrock told Canaris: ‘Herr Keitel [OKW Chief ] should be told once and for all to inform Herr Hitler that we of the Abwehr are not an organization of assassins like the SD or the SS.’19 With this attitude, Canaris and many other high-level Abwehr officers later joined the anti-Hitler military Resistance.

  There was a serious reason why Piekenbrock mentioned the SD: in the spring of 1942, the Abwehr began to lose its positions to the SD, part of the RSHA. Created in September 1939, the RSHA consisted of the SD or Amt VI (foreign intelligence), Gestapo (investigation of political opposition), Kripo (criminal police), interior intelligence and the department for investigation of ideological loyalty.20 This German organization and the NKVD had a similar function, security of the ruling party. Even the name SS and the NKVD’s motto were similar: the SS meant the ‘Shield Squadron’ of the Nazi Party, while the NKVD was ‘the sword and the shield’ of the Soviet Communist Party. The title of RSHA head Reinhard Heydrich (and from January 1943 onwards, Ernst Kaltenbrunner), was ‘Chief of the Sicherheits-polizei and SD’. Walter Schellenberg headed the SD from autumn 1941 until the end of the war.21 He had the rank of colonel, and from June 1944 onwards, of brigadier general.

  By March 1942, the SD took under its control almost all Abwehr’s counterintelligence work. Admiral Canaris signed the following agreement with Heydrich: ‘Counterintelligence shall in future be an additional function of the Security Police and SD.’22

  Abwehr’s Branch for Russia ‘Stab Walli’

  Before the end of 1939, Abwehr had almost no information about the Red Army.23 After the German and Soviet occupation of Poland in September 1939 and the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States in the summer of 1940, the situation changed. During this period, many thousands of refugees were suddenly on the move. The Abwehr used refugee crowds as an opportunity to send German, Ukrainian, and Polish agents onto the newly occupied Soviet territory. Also, from January 1940 to June 22, 1941, 327 Red Army men, from private to colonel ranks, escaped to the Germans.24 They brought a lot of documents and maps with them.