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

by Vadim Birstein

  115. Quoted in Andrei Blinushov, ‘Takikh lagerei predstoit mnogo…,’ ‘Karta,’ no. 2, 5–6 (in Russian), http://www.hro.org/files/karta/02/p05.jpg, retrieved September 8, 2011. A detailed examination of the torture methods used by the Soviet and Polish investigators in Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, ‘The Dialectics of Pain: The Interrogation Methods of the Communist Secret Police in Poland, 1944–1955,’ Glaukopis, 2/3 (2004–2005). One of the victims described 39 methods of torture that he was subjected to.

  116. Beria’s report to Stalin, dated October 29, 1944. Document No. 10 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 58–59.

  117. Document Nos. 16, 104, and 128 in N. S. Lebedeva, N. A. Petrosova, B. Woszcynski et al., Katyn. Mart 1940 g.—sentyabr 2000 g. Rasstrel. Sud’by zhivykh. Ekho Katyni. Dokumenty, 66, 219–21 and 275–9 (Moscow: Ves’ Mir, 2001) (in Russian).

  118. Cable to Beria, dated September 3, 1944, and Document No. 11 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 59–65.

  119. The same cable to Beria, dated September 3, 1944.

  120. Cable to Beria, dated November 8, 1944. Document No. 12 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 65–71.

  121. N. Ye. Yeliseeva et al., ‘Katalog eshelonov s internirovannymi polyakami, otpravlennymi v glub’ SSSR,’ in Repressii protiv polyakov, 215–25.

  122. Cable to Beria, dated approximately November 13, 1944. Document No. 15 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 77–81.

  123. Yeliseeva et al., ‘Katalog eshelonov.’

  124. O. A. Zaitseva and A. E. Gur’yanov, ‘Dokumenty TsKhIDK ob internirovanii pol’skikh grazhdan v SSSR v 1944–1949 gg.,’ in Repressii protiv polyakov, 226–47.

  125. Beria’s cover letter to Abakumov and Tsanava’s report, dated November 14, 1944. Document No. 16 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 82–83.

  CHAPTER 22

  In the Heart of Europe

  Within a year of its creation, SMERSH was more powerful than the NKGB and NKVD. The growing power of Abakumov and SMERSH made Beria determined to restore his own power over all security services. On May 5, 1944, Beria was promoted to deputy chairman of the GKO, which made him Stalin’s deputy. He was also chairman of the Operational Bureau of the GKO in charge of routine GKO work. Beria thus became responsible for the work of all branches of the defense industry, the NKVD, the NKGB, and the daily work of the GKO. By 1945, he also received partial control over SMERSH.

  Beria Gains Control

  On January 11, 1945, the activities of NKVD, NKGB, and SMERSH were newly coordinated under Beria as a system of NKVD plenipotentiaries (upolnomochennye, meaning representatives) and their staffs at the fronts.1 Seven such plenipotentiaries were appointed ‘to cleanse the rears of Red Army fronts of enemy elements.’ High-level officials from the NKVD, NKGB, and SMERSH were chosen to be the plenipotentiaries (Table 22-1).

  Abakumov became NKVD Plenipotentiary to the 3rd Belorussian Front, Abakumov’s first deputy, Nikolai Selivanovsky, became Plenipotentiary to the 4th Ukrainian Front, and Pavel Meshik was appointed Plenipotentiary to the 1st Ukrainian Front. Heads of UKRs and of the NKVD rear guard troops at the fronts were automatically made deputy plenipotentiaries. This move subordinated Abakumov, two of his deputies, and the heads of UKRs to Beria. Ivan Serov, Beria’s deputy, was appointed Plenipotentiary to the 1st Belorussian Front, and he soon became one of Abakumov’s principal enemies. Through Serov, Beria controlled events in Poland until April 1945, when Selivanovsky was put in charge of the country.

  Table 22-1. NKVD PLENIPOTENTIARIES AND THEIR DEPUTIES, JANUARY 11–JULY 4, 1945¹

  A Special Operational Group was created in Moscow to coordinate and oversee the activities of the NKVD plenipotentiaries.2 Boris Lyudvigov, deputy head of the NKVD Secretariat and a devoted Beria man, was appointed as its head.

  There were reasons for coordinating the three Soviet security services, beyond Beria’s desire to gain control over them. At the beginning of 1945, the activity of groups of German terrorists in the rear of advancing Soviet troops intensified.3 On February 8, 1945, Aleksandr Vadis, head of the UKR of the 1st Belorussian Front, reported to Moscow that ‘of 184 [German] agents discovered by “SMERSH” during January 1945, 124 agents had orders to carry out sabotage and terrorist acts.’4 According to other SMERSH reports, the German intelligence services had tried unsuccessfully to replicate what the Soviet partisan movement did in the rear of the German armies in the Nazi-occupied Soviet territories. Small SMERSH operational groups became prey for the German terrorists. However, Soviet troops were advancing so fast that the German secret services did not have enough time to organize a widespread partisan movement.

  After appointing plenipotentiaries, the NKVD–NKGB–SMERSH joint operations got under way immediately. On January 15, 1945, Abakumov reported to Beria on the organization of special NKVD groups at the 3rd Belorussian Front:

  1. Six operational groups were created for Chekist work [i.e., the arrest and screening of Germans] at the areas of each army of [the 3rd Belorussian] Front.

  The groups consist of a head, two deputy heads (one in charge of the NKVD troops), twenty operatives, and two translators. Each group is supported by an NKVD regiment.

  Additionally, a reserve consisting of operatives [SMERSH officers] and NKVD troops was created for special tasks.

  Detailed instructions were given to every member of the group… They were told to find and immediately arrest spies, saboteurs, and terrorists of the intelligence organs of the enemy; members of the bandit-insurgent groups; members of fascist and other organizations; leaders and operational staff of the police, and other suspicious individuals; and also to confiscate depots of weapons, radio transmitters, and technical equipment left by the enemy for [sabotage] work.

  The operational groups were instructed to pay special attention to these measures in the towns and big villages, train stations, and industrial plants.

  On January 16 of this year, the operational groups, together with the NKVD troops, will be sent to their destination.

  Each group received 10 trucks for the transportation of the arrestees and for operational needs…

  […]

  Additionally, [I] asked Headquarters to intensify the guarding of water reservoirs and wells to prevent enemy agents from poisoning them…

  3. We are preparing a prison to hold the arrestees to be transported from East Prussia.5

  The activity of such NKVD operational groups (their staffs included NKVD, NKGB and SMERSH officers) was also described in the order by Lavrentii Tsanava, Plenipotentiary to the 2nd Belorussian Front:

  January 22, 1945

  Top Secret

  No. 10 s/s

  To: Commanders of all NKVD operational groups

  Heads of all OKR SMERSH of the armies

  Commanders of all regiments of the NKVD Troops Guarding the Rear of the 2nd Belorussian Front

  […] We suggest:

  1. During the movement of Red Army troops an NKVD group should move along with the advancing detachments so, after the troops enter a town or a built-up area, the group would be able to immediately capture [all spies, agents, terrorists, etc., ‘despite their nationality or citizenship’]6, weapons, lists, archives and other documents.

  An operational group should be led by its commander or his deputy, together with a battalion of the NKVD troops.

  2. An operational group that follows the advancing Red Army detachments should be located near SMERSH departments…

  3. For cleansing the towns and their suburbs taken over by the Red Army from the enemy elements, it is necessary to leave operational groups supported by the necessary number of troops and to have constant connection with these groups.

  The experienced operational officers should be commanders of such groups.

  4. Persons arrested by the operation groups and those received from SMERSH organs should be concentrated in specially organized detaining places with reliable military guards which would exclude the opportunity of escape efforts.

  The most important prisoners should be
[immediately] investigated to discover the underground counterrevolutionary organizations and arrest their participants in time.

  5. The most important arrestees—spies, saboteurs, terrorists, leaders of various insurgent or bandit organizations, official members of the intelligence and counterintelligence organizations of the enemy—should be handed over to the Investigation Department of the Counterintelligence Directorate SMERSH of the Front.

  […]

  NKVD Plenipotentiary at the 2nd Belorussian Front,

  Security Commissar of the 3rd Rank L. Tsanava

  Deputy NKVD Plenipotentiary at the 2nd Belorussian Front,

  Lieutenant General [Ya.] Yedunov

  Deputy NKVD Plenipotentiary at the 2nd Belorussian Front,

  Major General [V.] Rogatin.7

  Actually, the activity of these groups almost repeated what the German Abwehrgroups did in Soviet territory in 1941.

  East Prussia

  In February 1945, on Stalin’s order, Abakumov and his operatives inspected the remains of Hitler’s Wolfschanze HQ in Rastenburg in the conquered part of East Prussia.8 SMERSH operational groups from the 3rd Belorussian Front and the 57th Rifle Division of the NKVD Interior Troops participated in this operation. Although not much was left after the bunkers were blown up following Hitler’s departure on November 20, 1944, Abakumov reported to Moscow: ‘I think our specialists would be interested in inspecting Hitler’s headquarters and seeing these well-organized bunkers.’9 A few months later Abakumov and a team of SMERSH investigators returned to Rastenburg with a German prisoner, Major Joachim Kuhn, a participant in the military plot against Hitler. With Kuhn’s guidance, SMERSH investigators found the plotters’ hidden plans to kill Hitler, as well as other documents.

  East Prussia was occupied by the troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front under Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky’s command (which included Abakumov’s SMERSH Directorate). Its capital, Koenigsberg, was besieged and finally taken over on April 6–9. Paul Born, a German veteran, described a Soviet attack in East Prussia:

  [Our] experienced veterans…knew that after the third whistle the Russians would attack. And as proof, a shouting crowd emerged from the forest and ran toward us…

  When there were only 100 meters between us, [our] commander ordered us to open fire…We stood up against the first attack…

  The next time two crowds were already rushing at us from the forest after the third whistle. Even after our heavy machine gun opened fire at them at a distance of 100 meters, we could not stop them…

  Everyone was firing without interruption and aiming at the middle of a slowly approaching crowd of completely drunk, shouting people.10

  During the occupation, numerous Red Army units committed unspeakable atrocities against the civilian German population. Soviet Lieutenant Leonid Rabichev, who later became a writer and artist, recalled a typical scene on the Prussian roads:

  In carts, cars, and on foot, old men, women, and children—entire huge families—slowly moved along all the roads and highways of the country to the west.

  Our tank crews, infantrymen, artillerists, and members of the Signal Corps caught up to them and, to clear the way, threw them into the ditches on the sides… They pushed aside old people and children and, forgetting about honor and dignity and the retreating German troops, assaulted women and girls by the thousands.

  Women, mothers and their daughters, lay to the right and left of the highway, and a crowd of laughing men with half-lowered pants stood in front of each of them.

  Those who were already bleeding and fainting were pulled aside, and the children who rushed to their aid were shot on the spot. Loud laughter, roars, cries, and moaning were heard. Commanders, majors, and colonels, stood along the highway laughing or directing…each of their soldiers to participate [in the rapes]. This was not revenge on the damned invaders, but hellish deadly gang rape, an opportunity to do anything without punishment or personal responsibility…

  The colonel, who at first was just directing, joined the line himself, as the major shot witnesses, children, and old people who were hysterical.11

  This was a common attitude toward the Germans. The head of a political department of the NKVD border guard corps reported to his superiors: ‘The medical doctor of the 1st Rifle Battalion reported that…the servicemen… told her, “It is a pleasure to see a pretty German girl crying in your arms.”’12 Neither Vasilevsky nor Abakumov stopped the atrocities.

  Apparently, Stalin did not care what was going on in East Prussia because it was a territory targeted to become part of Russia after being cleansed of the German population. On April 20, 1945, after the troops of the 1st Belorussian (Zhukov, commander in chief) and the 1st Ukrainian (Konev, commander in chief) fronts entered the territory that would become East Germany, Stalin signed a directive to the military councils of these fronts:

  The Stavka of the Supreme Command orders:

  1. Try to change the attitude [of troops] toward the Germans—toward POWs, as well as civilians. The Germans must be treated better. The cruel treatment of the Germans forces them to fear [the troops], and creates obstinate resistance and a refusal to be taken prisoner. The civilian population is organizing gangs because it fears [Soviet] revenge. This situation is not in our favor. A more humane attitude toward the Germans will facilitate our military actions in their territory and, undoubtedly, will diminish the persistence of the German defense.

  […]

  J. Stalin

  Antonov [head of the General Staff].13

  No such order was issued to the 2nd and 3rd Belorussian fronts that fought in East Prussia and Pomerania—another region of Germany later cleansed of the German population.

  To implement the transition of East Prussia into a Russian territory, a special post of NKVD Plenipotentiary for the Zemland Operational Group (former 1st Baltic Front, disbanded on February 24, 1945 and turned into this group, which was now subordinated to the 3rd Belorussian Front) was created (Table 22-1). After February 1945, the title became NKVD Plenipotentiary for East Prussia, and Abakumov was acting Plenipotentiary in addition to his other duties. The HQ of this Plenipotentiary, called apparat, consisted of 40 Chekists and included six departments (operational, investigation, archival, administrative, transportation, and supplies departments, secretariat, commandant, and translators). Also, there were 17 regional and eight city groups of 8 to 14 men each, which conducted operational work, and four prisons located in old German prisons.

  In East Prussia, SMERSH continued to routinely arrest Soviet field officers. On February 9, 1945, Captain Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn—commander of a battery and later author of The Gulag Archipelago—was arrested.14 The NKGB seized Solzhenitsyn’s letters to his friend, Nikolai Vitkevich, along with Vitkevich’s replies to Solzhenitsyn. Both officers criticized Stalin and discussed the possibility of creating an organization after the war that would restore ‘authentic’ Leninism.

  Since the case involved a serviceman, the NKGB transferred the documents to the GUKR SMERSH, and on February 2, Abakumov’s deputy Babich ordered Solzhenitsyn’s immediate arrest. Solzhenitsyn remembered that ‘the SMERSH officers at the brigade command point tore off…shoulder boards, and took my belt away and shoved me along to their automobile.’15 This was the beginning of a long trip to Moscow along with other prisoners. After a four-month investigation by the 2nd NKGB Directorate (counterintelligence) in Moscow, the OSO sentenced Solzhenitsyn to eight years of imprisonment in the labor camps.

  Among other responsibilities, NKVD plenipotentiaries supervised the so-called mobilization—that is, the arrest and deportation—of the civilian population of Soviet-occupied German territory.16 In 1943–44, the academician Ivan Maisky, Soviet Ambassador to England and Molotov’s deputy, developed the concept of forced work of the mobilized population as war reparation, and it was widely implemented.17 On February 3, 1945, the GKO ordered the total mobilization of ‘all male Germans from 17 to 50 years old capable of working and serving in the army’ on
the territories occupied by the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Belorussian fronts and the 1st Ukrainian Front. The order stated: ‘The Germans who had served in the German army or in the “Volkssturm” troops, should be considered prisoners of war and sent to the NKVD camps for POWs. All of the other Germans should be organized into work battalions of 750–1,200 individuals to be used for work in the Soviet Union, primarily in the Ukrainian and Belorussian SSR.’18

  From February 10, 1945 onwards, plenipotentiaries were obliged to report daily to Moscow on mobilization progress.19 The results of arrests and mobilization of Germans, especially in East Prussia, were impressive. In March, after taking over Koenigsberg and an additional SMERSH/NKVD operation for mopping up German agents and soldiers in the ruined city on April 11–19, Abakumov reported to Beria:

  The operational groups have arrested 22,534 spies, saboteurs, terrorists, and other hostile elements at the territory occupied by the 3rd Belorussian Front [in East Prussia].

  All arrestees were sent by 11 special trains to the Kalinin and Chelyabinsk NKVD camps.

  113 active German terrorists and saboteurs, who tried to kill Red Army commanders and servicemen, were shot on the spot.

  After the arrests and operative checking…35,150 persons were left [in 1939, the East Prussian population was 2.49 million inhabitants], mostly old men and women, children, invalids, and sick people. All of these Germans now live in special settlements, where they are under the surveillance of local [Soviet] military commandants.

  1,500 Germans were mobilized in two battalions and all were sent by special trains to the station Yenakkievo [in the Donbass region in Russia] to be used by Narkomchermet [the Commissariat for Iron Production] and Narkomstroi [the Commissariat for Construction].