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

by Vadim Birstein

  On June 28, 1946 Fritzsche denied all accusations. An intense dispute arose between Fritzsche and Soviet Chief Prosecutor Rudenko, whose questions consisted mostly of general accusations that had nothing to do with establishing Fritzsche’s personal guilt. Fritzsche’s answers revealed the sloppy work of Likhachev and other SMERSH investigators.

  Rudenko stated that Fritzsche’s own testimony given in September 1945 in Moscow demonstrated his guilt. To Rudenko’s embarrassment, Fritzsche responded that he had been forced to sign this statement:

  I signed this report but at the very moment when I signed it in Moscow I stated: ‘You can do what you like with that record. If you publish it, then nobody in Germany will believe it and no intelligent person in other countries either because this is not my language…’

  Not a single one of the answers in that record was given by me in that form and I signed it for reasons which I will explain to you in detail if you want me to…

  Only the signature is true.45

  After squabbling with Rudenko, Fritzsche added: ‘I gave that signature after very severe solitary confinement which had lasted for several months; and…I hoped that in this manner I would at least achieve being sentenced and thus terminate my confinement.’46

  Fritzsche continued: ‘I wished to make 20 or 30 alterations [in the protocol]. Some of them were granted but passages were missing wherein I said in Nuremberg that some of the answers in that protocol contained a certain amount of truth but that none of them actually do represent my own answers.’ In vain Rudenko insisted on Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner’s testimony in Moscow about Fritzsche:

  Fritzsche’s political activity in his function as official radio commentator… was subordinated to the main aim of National Socialism, the unleashing of the war against democratic countries, and the contributing by all possible means to the victory of German arms. Fritzsche’s principal method…consisted of…the deliberate deception of the German people… The main guilt of people such as Fritzsche is that they did know the actual state of things, but despite this…fed people with lies.47

  Obviously, a German marshal would not use such phrases as ‘the unleashing of the war against democratic countries and the contributing by all possible means to the victory of German arms’; this was a typical Soviet propaganda phrase apparently written by SMERSH investigators. Fritzsche answered Rudenko: ‘That is utter nonsense… I have never seen Herr Schörner… I do not know whether Schörner actually made this statement but I think it would be worthwhile to call General Field Marshal Schörner here as a witness, in order to ask him on what he based his judgment.’48

  Rudenko did not succeed in further presenting similar excerpts from the testimonies of Vice Admiral Voss and General Reiner Stahel. Fritzsche’s counsel, Dr. Heinz Fritz, made it absolutely clear that the testimonies sounded suspiciously similar:

  Mr. President, General Rudenko, during his cross examination, submitted three interrogation records… I should like to ask the High Tribunal also to compare these three records… Parts of the answers are repeated…totally, word by word… I wish to make an application that at least one of these persons who were interrogated be brought here in person for the purpose of cross-examination.49

  Fritzsche added: ‘I can only ask to have all three called.’

  Rudenko’s use of Vyshinsky’s technique of prosecution based on generalized accusations did not work in the international court. On October 1, 1946, Fritzsche was acquitted. The Soviet prosecutors were against this decision. Nikitchenko read a long dissenting opinion before the Tribunal with the conclusion: ‘I consider Fritzsche’s responsibility fully proven. His activity had a most basic relation to the preparation and the conduct of aggressive warfare as well as to the other crimes of Hitler’s regime.’50

  Hungarian Countess Ingeborg Kalnoky, who ran a guesthouse in Nuremberg for trial witnesses, well remembered the day of Fritzsche’s acquittal:

  Perhaps correctly the trial was dismissed by many Germans as a political one… Fritzsche, henchman of Goebbels, mouthpiece of the venal Nazi propaganda machine that had for so long suppressed all freedom of thought and speech, feeding the ignorant lies and hysteria, equally [went] free. But the nameless millions of the nation [the acquitted] had helped so industriously to discredit did not go free. Summarily judged, without benefit of trial, they served their misery and death.51

  Four months later, on January 31, 1947, the Bavarian de-Nazification tribunal in Nuremberg sentenced Fritzsche to nine years’ hard labor in a labor camp, confiscation of his main property and the permanent loss of his civil rights. He spent four years in prison until his release in September 1950. On September 27, 1953 Fritzsche, described in his obituary as ‘silken-voiced radio chief in Adolf Hitler’s propaganda ministry,’ died in Cologne.52

  The International Tribunal sentenced Admiral Raeder to life in prison. However, due to poor health, he was released from Spandau Prison on September 26, 1955. Four years later he died in Kiel.

  The Team in Action

  From time to time, members of the Likhachev team interrogated the defendants. A Soviet translator, Svidovskaya-Tabachnikova, later recalled Likhachev’s interrogation of Hans Frank: ‘Likhachev strictly followed a list of questions written on a piece of paper. I was shocked… In short, I could not consider the interrogation by Likhachev to be very professional.’53

  Members of the main Soviet delegation guessed what these three men were doing in Nuremberg. Mark Raginsky, USSR Assistant Prosecutor, strongly opposed the presence of Solovov and Grishaev on the prosecutors’ team, openly claiming that they ‘used the work at the Tribunal only as an “umbrella” and that [they] allegedly had some other special task.’54 Apparently, one of the group’s tasks was to control the documents presented in the court. On November 26, 1945, the Vyshinsky Commission developed instructions for Soviet prosecutors. The list of issues prohibited from discussion at the trial included:

  The USSR’s attitude to the Versailles Treaty.

  The Soviet–German Nonaggression Pact of 1939 and all questions connected with it.

  Molotov’s visit to Berlin and Ribbentrop’s to Moscow [in 1940].

  Questions concerning the social and political governance in the USSR.

  The Soviet Baltic republics [annexed in June 1940].

  The Soviet–German agreement regarding the exchange of the German population of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia with Germany [in 1940].

  The foreign policy of the Soviet Union and, in particular, the [Turkish] Straits questions [discussed by Molotov in Berlin in 1940], and on the alleged territorial claims of the USSR.

  The Balkan question.

  The Soviet–Polish relationship (questions of the [annexed] Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia).55

  These were sensitive issues that highlighted the differences between Stalin and the Western Allies in their approaches to international politics and emphasized Stalin’s long-term goals for Soviet expansion in Europe. Vyshinsky could rely on the Likhachev team that it would do whatever it took to avoid raising these questions in the courtroom. As Grishaev stated in 1989, in Nuremberg he used to walk ‘arm in arm’ with Vyshinsky.56

  Svidovskaya-Tabachnikova recalled that Likhachev was also given the task of bringing to the Nuremberg court Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus, former commander of the 6th German Army that surrendered at Stalingrad in February 1943, and General Erich Buschenhagen, former Commander of the 52nd Army Corpus of Paulus’s army. A special group conveyed the two German generals; it included five GUPVI/NKVD officers and Inver Mamedov, a translator attached to the Likhachev team.57 The head of the group was Major General Il’ya Pavlov, deputy head of the Operational Department of the GUPVI, who, during the war, was deputy head of the SMERSH Directorate of the 2nd Belorussian Front, and thus well acquainted with Likhachev.

  On February 11, 1946, the Soviet prosecutors suddenly produced von Paulus and Buschenhagen in the courtroom as witnesses. Stalin had secretly ordered this surprise for t
he court after Vyshinsky told him that the International Tribunal refused to accept the testimony von Paulus made outside of the courtroom.

  Despite their cooperation with Soviet investigators and prosecutors, von Paulus and Buschenhagen were not released after the trial. While von Paulus’s release was planned for 1950, it ended up being postponed until 1953.58 In June 1950, the MVD Military Tribunal sentenced Buschenhagen to twenty-five years in prison for war crimes. Held in Prison No. 1 in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), he was released in October 1955. He died in 1994.

  On November 20, 1945, three more SMERSH officers from the former UKR of the 1st Belorussian Front, Leonid Kozlovtsev, Krasilnikov, and Khelipsky arrived in Nuremberg.59 Sergei Kartashov personally approved this group, but its duties and function at the trial are unknown. The officers stayed in Nuremberg until October 1, 1946.

  Undercover Confrontation

  Soviet foreign intelligence also reported on events as well as on the Soviet team in Nuremberg. The secret services were convinced that American intelligence had tricked the SMERSH team and even tried to kill Likhachev. On December 8, 1945, Pavel Fitin, head of the 1st NKGB Directorate (foreign intelligence), reported to Beria:

  A copy

  Top Secret

  To: People’s Commissar of the Interior of the USSR

  Comrade BERIA

  Special Report

  An NKGB officer stationed in Nuremberg described conditions of work of Soviet representatives at the International Military Tribunal.

  1. American counterintelligence organized external shadowing of several members of the Soviet team in Nuremberg and is trying to provoke them. At the end of November, Major TARKHOV, who arrived in Nuremberg from the [Office of the] Political Department of the Soviet Military Administration in Berlin, was approached by a man unknown to him. The stranger said he was an illegal agent who had been discharged from Soviet counterintelligence with Romanian documents, and asked [the Major] to connect him with anybody working in Soviet counterintelligence. Major TARKHOV promised to do so.

  When he told SMERSH member Colonel LIKHACHEV about this conversation, [Likhachev] approved a new meeting. He ordered that the stranger be told there was no member of Soviet counterintelligence in Nuremberg. Watching the meeting [with the stranger] from his car, Com. [rade] LIKHACHEV observed the American shadow following Com. [rade] TARKHOV.

  Soon after this, on November 25, 1945, the American officer HINELY [?] sent a note to Com.[rade] TARKHOV through our communication officers, inviting him to a party of American officers that would also be attended by girls. When the Soviet communication officer answered that he could not come, HINELY told him not to tell anybody about the invitation because ‘some girls’ wanted to spend the evening [personally] with him.

  2. It is also necessary to note the careless behavior of many of the Soviet representatives who had recently arrived for the trial. They spent a lot of time outside on the streets, and in restaurants, having friendly drinks with the Americans. Only a small proportion of the Soviet correspondents and writers who are here for the trial actually attend [sessions at] the court systematically.

  Head of the 1st NKGB Directorate—Fitin

  Sent to:

  C.[omrade] Molotov

  C.[omrade] Vyshinsky

  December 8, 1945.60

  The same day there was a strange attempt on Likhachev’s life. Olga Svidovskaya-Tabachnikova recalled:

  We spent many evenings in the restaurant of the Grand Hotel, which had been seriously destroyed by American bombs. There was a lobby with a revolving door and a restaurant in the part that had been somewhat restored and had lighting. Half-starved Germans entertained the Allies to the best of their abilities. The whole scene was extremely pitiful, but there was no place else [in the city] to go.

  One day we—Likhachev, Grishaev, Solovov, and me—wanted to go, as usual, to the Grand Hotel, but something came up, and Likhachev could not go, so I stayed at home too. In Nuremberg, the Likhachev team was furnished with an exceptional limousine—a black and white ‘Horch’ with red leather upholstery. This was a unique car. There were rumors that the ‘Horch’ had come from Hitler’s personal garage. Likhachev regularly sat to the right of the driver…

  [On the evening of December 8, 1945] Grishaev and Solovov got out of the car and entered the hotel. A minute later someone opened the right-side door [of the limousine] and Buben [the driver] was shot at close range. I think Likhachev was the real target, and the shooter had assumed [Likhachev] was sitting in his usual place… The shooter escaped. Before he collapsed, Buben managed to say: ‘An American shot me.’ Boris Solovov claims that the Americans knew very well what, in fact, the ‘Likhachev team’ was about.61

  The Horch that Svidovskaya mentioned was an eight-seat hand-made Horch 951, the dream car of all high-ranking officers of the Soviet Administration in Germany. Lieutenant General Vladimir Kryukov, one of the generals closest to Marshal Zhukov, had four cars, including two Horch 951s, one of which, the Horch 951A, was made for Hitler personally. Likhachev’s Horch was possibly made for one of the defendants on trial, either Goering or Alfred Rosenberg. Apparently, Abakumov later used this Horch in Moscow to commute to the Kremlin.

  Solovov was right in claiming that American intelligence was aware of the SMERSH presence in Nuremberg. A review of American military counterintelligence (CIC) reports from February 1 to June 15, 1945, reveals:

  The activities of the Soviet intelligence group in Nuremberg, their previous professional experience, and their personal qualifications suggest that the members of this group were responsible to the NKGB and/or the GUKR (Counter Intelligence Administration of the Red Army) [i.e., SMERSH], despite the fact that they called themselves NKVD officers and were referred to as such by other Soviet citizens in Nuremberg. The abbreviation NKVD as used in Nuremberg was merely a general intelligence and security designation.62

  But Richard W. Cutler, a former American counterintelligence (X-2 branch of the OSS) officer who was in Nuremberg during the trial, does not mention SMERSH and the NKGB in his memoirs.63 He uses the acronym NKVD to describe all Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence activity. The CIC reports also did not mention the Likhachev team or the assassination attempt on Likhachev. One of the reports stated:

  Colonel Victor Staatland, alias Bendinov, aka Bimaev, appears to have been the executive or administrative officer of the NKVD Group in Nuremberg until his departure on 12 April [1946]…

  Staatland was in constant communication with Moscow by telephone, usually speaking from his hotel room… In court, he sat in the press section. He was always seen in civilian clothes, on which he wore several combat ribbons.

  Questioned about his German name, Staatland admitted that it was a ‘working pseudonym’ and that he is known as Bendinov in Moscow.

  Another report added:

  Staatland…stopped greeting General [Lev] Smirnov, one of the [Soviet] prosecutors, after the latter had talked too openly about Russia’s internal politics…

  Staatland…is almost certainly an NKGB man. His detailed personal knowledge of the White Russians living abroad and his preoccupation with the White Russians in Nuremberg suggest INU [NKGB foreign intelligence] connections.64

  The CIC information about ‘Colonel Staatland’ makes no sense. Obviously, this was Viktor Shtatland, a famous cameraman who shot documentary films at the fronts during the war. In Nuremberg, Rudenko showed a film called Documentary on Atrocities of the German-Fascist Occupiers, which was made with Shtatland’s participation. In the courtroom, Shtatland, as a member of the camera crew of the noted documentary filmmaker Roman Karmen, filmed the trial. After the trial, the crew produced the documentary Sud narodov (The Judgment of Nations). Naturally, Shtatland talked frequently on the phone with a Moscow film studio.

  The CIC report was also wrong about the other Soviet press people: ‘Vsevolod Vitalievich Vishnevsky, Staatland’s assistant, claimed to be a colonel but was always seen in civilian clothes decorated with comba
t ribbons. He has probably been in intelligence work for some time… Vishnevsky was openly a “strong-arm man,” considerably lower in the administrative and social hierarchy than Staatland. He left Nuremberg on March 28… Staatland once admitted that “Vishnevsky” was not necessarily his real name.’65 Even the description of this man, given in this report, ‘stocky build; stiff black hair; narrow Kalmyk eyes; high Mongolian cheekbones; generally tough appearance,’ points to Vsevolod Vishnevsky, a well-known and popular Soviet playwright who also wrote for the newspaper Pravda. He was neither Shtatland’s assistant nor a colonel.

  Prosecutor Lev Sheinin was the third person who attracted the CIC’s attention: ‘General Leon Sheinin, who departed from Nuremberg with Staatland on 12 April, was officially a military jurist, but unlike some of his associates appeared to have intelligence background rather than a background in military and international law. His connections with Staatland were very close.’66 Lev Sheinin was, in fact, a jurist; he served as Vyshinsky’s assistant in the 1930s, then headed the Investigation Department at the USSR Prosecutor’s Office. Also, he published detective fiction stories. In 1942, Sheinin defended two Soviet agents in an Ankara court.67 These agents had provided their Turkish adherent with a bomb in an attempt to assassinate the German Ambassador Franz von Papen, now a defendant in Nuremberg. Sheinin, a member of the team of Soviet prosecutors in Nuremberg, also headed a group of Soviet writers and journalists.68

  The murder of Likhachev’s driver on December 8, 1945 remains a mystery. In Moscow, Pravda published an angry article about the incident.69 No action followed.

  The Mysterious Death of General Zorya

  In a March 11, 1946 letter to Robert Jackson, Rudenko openly described the issues the Soviet delegation did not want to hear in the court.70 For some reason, this letter omitted three of the points mentioned on the above list, about the Versailles Treaty (no. 1) and about the Baltic countries (nos. 5 and 6).