In comparison, SMERSH was able to summarize information on German intelligence only eight months later. In February 1944 Abakumov reported to Stalin and the GKO on the publication of the Collection of Materials on the German Intelligence Organs Acting at the Soviet–German Front.59
The FHO also conducted the so-called radio games, Funkspiele, both with Abwehr III and alone, by using Soviet defectors or captured Soviet radio operators to pass false information to Soviet intelligence and military command. The FHO considered the radio game conducted by Ivan Yassinsky, a former Soviet military interpreter captured in August 1943, very successful. Supposedly, Yassinsky managed to receive ‘descriptions of Soviet Intelligence schools at Stavropol and Kuibyshev, where SMERSH trained its senior agents’.60
In fact, there was no SMERSH school in Stavropol. If this information was not a Soviet deception, most probably Yassinsky had discovered a military intelligence school in Stavropol-on-Volga (currently Toliatti), a town located near Kuibyshev. In October 1941, the Red Army Military Institute (College) for Foreign Languages that trained military translators and agents was evacuated there from Moscow. Ivan Kruzhko, an attendee of the intelligence courses at this institute, later recalled: ‘We were taught to become specialists in the German language. There were also special subjects like geography, German political economy, as well as military disciplines: martial arts, shooting skills, long marching in full marching order, orienting, interrogation of prisoners and so forth.’61
Secret Field Police (GFP)
In addition to the Abwehr, there was another counterintelligence organization within the Wehrmacht, the Secret Field Police (Geheime Feldpolizei or GFP). Its task was similar to that of the UOO or the U.S. Army’s Counterintelligence Corps (CIC)—the safety and support of the operations of the field army, which mainly consisted of discovering espionage in the German Armed Forces.62 The GFP was headed by Field Police Chief of the Armed Forces Wilhelm Krichbaum, a close friend of Heydrich, who reported to the OKW Chief Keitel, while Chief of the Army Police Cuno Schmidt was attached to the OKH and reported to Krichbaum.
In reality, the GFP mainly prevented desertion from the German Army, conducted investigation for military tribunals, and fought against partisans. Typically, the GFP worked as a group of approximately 50 men attached to an army and its field operations were coordinated with the Abwehr department 1c.63 Overall, there were 24 such groups at the Eastern Front. Although in the Wehrmacht, GFP personnel were selected from SS, Gestapo and Kripo (criminal police) men and cooperated with the SS-Einsatzgurppen. Also, field Abwehr III detachments frequently used the GFP for executions. In the occupied territories, the GFP established its own network of local agents.
In 1939, the special Reichssicherhetsdienst (RSD) Gruppe was included in the GFP. It was formed in 1933 as Führerschutzkommando (Führer protection command), Hitler’s personal guards in Bavaria. The RSD members were both SS officers and Wehrmacht servicemen. In 1942, the RSD participated in killing the local Jews before Hitler’s arrival in the Wehrwolf bunker near Vinnitsa.64 Oberführer Johann Rattenhuber headed this security force from March 1933 until May 1, 1945, when, fleeing from Hitler’s bunker after Hitler’s suicide, he was captured by SMERSH.
Notes
1. Thomas, ‘German Intelligence,’ 290.
2. Interrogation of Kauder on July 15, 1946, quoted in Robert W. Stephens, Stalin’s Secret War: Soviet Counterintelligence against the Nazis, 1941–1945 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 171.
3. Vladimir Makarov and Andrei Tyurin, SMERSH. Gvardiya Stalina (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2009), 258–9 (in Russian).
4. Kahn, Hitler’s Spies, 314.
5. Reinhard Gehlen, The Service: The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen, translated by David Irving (New York: World Publishing, 1972), 57–58.
6. MVD Report on the interrogation of K. Geisler, dated April 18, 1947. Document No. 28 in Lubyanka, Stalin i MGB SSSR, mart 1946-mart 1953, edited by V. N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov and N. S. Plotnikov, 49-51 (Moscow: Materik, 2007) (in Russian).
7. Ibid.
8. Details in Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev, The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets at the Heart of the KGB Archive (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 187–203.
9. Vladimir Lotta, ‘Sekretnyi front General’nogo shtaba,’ Krasnaya zvezda, November 2, 2002 (in Russian), http://www.redstar.ru/2002/11/02_11/4_01.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.
10. Page 204 in Silver, ‘Memories of Oberursel.’
11. Kahn, Hitler’s Spies, 316–7; Stephan, Stalin’s Secret War, 168–9.
12. Makarov and Tyurin, SMERSH, 260.
13. Kauder’s testimony quoted in Avraham Ziv-Tal, The Maskirovka of Max and Moritz (Sichron-Ya’acov, Israel: Bahur Books, 2007), 222.
14. Kauder’s testimony cited in Ziv-Tal, The Maskirovka, 222–3.
15. Ibid., 223.
16. Doerries, Hitler’s Intelligence Chief, 118–9.
17. West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 199–202.
18. Makarov and Tyurin, SMERSH, 261–81.
19. Ibid., 265–6.
20. Michael Mueller, Canaris: The Life and Death of Hitler’s Spymaster (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007), 213.
21. Makarov and Tyurin, SMERSH, 266.
22. Interrogation of Gerda Filitz on April 30, 1947, in ibid., 267–8.
23. Interogation of Valentina Deutsch on June 25, 1947, in ibid., 264–5.
24. Kauder’s testimony in Ziv-Tal, The Maskirovka, 215–22.
25. Yehuda Bauer, Jews for Sale? Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933–1945 (New Haven, CTL Yale University Press, 1994), 135–40.
26. Ye. V. Popov, ‘Vengerskaya rapsodiya’ GRU (Moscow: Veche, 2010), 95 (in Russian).
27. Dulles’s telegram 1534-38, dated January 2, 1944. Document 2-109 in From Hitler’s Doorsteps: The Wartime Intelligence Reports of Allen Dulles, 1942-1945, edited by Neal H. Petersen, 190–1 (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1996).
28. From Hatz’s Verdict pronounced by the Military Tribunal of the Moscow Military District, dated January 29, 1952, and a decision of the Plenum of the USSR Supreme Court, dated April 8, 1955. Pages 3–4 and 41–42 in Hatz’s Personal File (No. UO-190819, RGVA, Moscow).
29. Hatz’s statement to Commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, dated November 21, 1944. Document No. 31 in Russkii Arkhiv. Velikaya Otechestvennaya 14, No. 3 (2), 328–30 (in Russian).
30. Hatz’s Personal File, 22.
31. Interrogation of Klausnitzer on June 5, 1947, in Makarov and Tyurin, SMERSH, 269.
32. Barry Rubin, Istanbul Intrigues (New York: Pharos Books, 1972), 181–6, 191–7,
33. Zvi-Tal, Maskirovka, 224.
34. Interrogation of Alfred Klausnitzer on July 5, 1947, in Makarov and Tyurin, SMERSH, 273.
35. Klausnitzer’s report to SMERSH investigators, dated August 2, 1945, and quoted in ibid., 273–4.
36. Ziv-Tal, Maskirovka, 226.
37. Page 202 in Silver, ‘Memories of Oberursel.’
38. Cited in West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 198–200.
39. Beria’s report to Stalin, dated April 13, 1944. Document No. 257 in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD-NKGB-GUKR ‘SMERSH.’ 1939–mart 1946, edited by V. N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov, and N. S. Plotnikov, 420–2 (Moscow: Materik, 2006) (in Russian).
40. C. G. McKay, From Information to Intrigue: Studies in Secret Service Based on the Swedish Experience 1939–45 (London: Frank Cass, 1993), 217.
41. Page 205 in Silver, ‘Memories of Oberursel.’
42. Ibid., 204–5. Also, a review of all interrogations in Stephan, Stalin’s Secret War, 166–73.
43. Page 203 in Silver, ‘Memories of Oberursel.’
44. Memoirs by L. V. Serdakovski, ‘U Khorti v Budapeshte,’ Kadetskaya pereklichka, no. 27 (1981) (in Russian), http://www.xxl3.ru/kadeti/serdakovsky.htm, retrieved Setember 6, 2011.
45. Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatoli Sudoplatov, with Jerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter, Special Tasks: The Memoirs
of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 1994), 152–60.
46. V. V. Korovin, ‘Poedinok s Abverom,’ VIZh, 1995, No. 1 (in Russian); Lyudmila Ovchinnikova, ‘Zheleznyi krest i Krasnuyu zvezdu on poluchil za odnu operatsiyu,’ Komsomol’skaya pravda, August 13, 1996 (in Russian).
47. Stephan, Stalin’s Secret War, 154,161–8.
48. The Verdict, pages 3–4 in Hatz’s Personal File.
49. Bauer, Jews for Sale, 140.
50. Page 290 in Thomas, ‘Foreign Armies East.’
51. A review of the interrogations of Gehlen and Albert Schöller (deputy head of Group I) in ‘Notes on the Red Army—Intelligence and Security,’ dated June 24, 1945, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/doc10.pdf, retrieved September 6, 2011.
52. Cookridge, Gehlen, 74.
53. B. V. Sokolov, Okhota na Stalina, okhota na Gitlera (Moscow: Veche, 2003), 133 (in Russian).
54. Report in Cookridge, Gehlen, 75.
55. A detailed discussion in Sokolov, Okhota na Stalina, 125-33.
56. Cookridge, Gehlen, 77.
57. Ibid., 81.
58. Gehlen, The Service, 44.
59. SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 87.
60. Cookridge, Gehlen, 84.
61. Ivan Kruzhko, ‘Cherez vsyu voinu’ (in Russian), http://www.clubistok.ru/kray/2006/krugkostatya06.html, retrieved September 7, 2011.
62. Details in Wilhelm Krichbaum and Antonio Munoz, The Secret Field Police. Wehrmacht Geheime Feldpolizei Forces in World War II, 1939–1945 (Europa Books, Inc., 2008).
63. Paul B. Brown, ‘The senior leadership cadre of the Geheime Feldpolizei, 1939–1945,’ Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 17, no. 2 (Fall 2003), 278–304.
64. Pages 6–7 in Stephen Tyas, ‘Allied Intelligence Agencies and the Holocaust: Information Acquired from German Prisoners of War,’ Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 22, no. 1 (Spring 2008), 1–24.
CHAPTER 15
German Intelligence and Occupation
Unlike Abwehr, the SD was not part of the German army and its representatives followed the troops in the rear within the Einsatzgruppen, the special killing squads, and later became part of the German administration in the occupied territories. In the occupied territories the SD created its own numerous espionage and diversion schools for volunteers from Soviet POWs and the local population.
The SD and Einsatzgruppen
Within the SD, headed by Walter Schellenberg, three referats of its Abteilung (Section) VI C (espionage in the USSR and Japan) were responsible for gathering and analyzing information on the Soviet Union.1 Dr. Heinz Gräfe, a former lawyer, headed Abteilung VI C until September 1944, when he was killed in a car accident, and Dr. Erich Hengelhaupt, former specialist in theology and a journalist, succeeded him. Both men were experts on Russia and White emigrants. After almost three million Soviet servicemen were taken prisoner during the first months of Operation Barbarossa, the SD formed its network of Aussenkommandos—mostly mobile commands that interrogated POWs captured near the front line. Many of these SD officers were Baltic Germans who knew Russian well.
The SD was deeply involved in the organization and activity of the SS Einsatzgruppen. On Hitler’s orders, the SS Einsatzgruppen were created in 1939, just before World War II, with the task of, as SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski put it at the Nuremberg Trials, ‘the annihilation of the Jews, Gypsies, and political commissars’.2
In June 1941, Einsatzgruppen followed the German troops in the rear. Einsatzgruppe A was attached to Army Group North and operated in the Baltic States, while Einsatzgruppe B was attached to the Army Group Center and operated in Belorussia. The latter included a special detachment for Moscow, but Moscow was never taken. Finally, two Einsatzgruppen were attached to the Army Group South, Einsatzgruppe C that operated in the Northern and Central Ukraine, and D, which operated in Moldavia, Southern Ukraine, the Crimea, and, eventually, the Caucasus.3 Their functions partly overlapped with the Abwehr I and III squads because Einsatzgruppen also searched for the Communist Party and NKVD documents.
An Einsatzgruppe consisted of at least 600 men and had headquarters and operational smaller groups, Einsatzkommandos, of 120–170 men, of whom 10–15 were officers. Each Einsatzkommando consisted of two or three smaller units called Sonderkommandos. Einsatzgruppen included members of all SS branches. For example, Einsatzgruppe A under the command of Dr. Franz Walter Stahlecker consisted of:
Members of Number of men4
Waffen SS 340
Gestapo 89
SD 35
Order Police (Orpo) 133
Criminal police (Kripo) 41
Leaders of the Einsatzgruppen, usually highly educated men, received orders from Reinhard Heydrich, head of the RSHA, or from Bruno Streckenbach, Heydrich’s deputy and head of the RSHA Personnel Department.5 Streckenbach had personal experience of heading the Ensatzgruppe I in Poland in the autumn of 1939. After this, in 1939–40, as head of the Gestapo and SD in Krakow, he supervised the arrests and persecution of Polish professors as part of the so-called AB Aktion. Like the Katyn Forest massacre in the Soviet Union in April 1940, this German action aimed to destroy the Polish elite and intelligentsia.
During the first months of the war with the Soviet Union, Einsatzgruppen executed Jews, political commissars, and other high-ranking officers selected from Soviet POWs. In many places Einsatzgruppen were extremely efficient. For instance, the city of Brest was taken over on June 22, 1941, at 9:00 a.m., and by 2:00 p.m. the arrests of the Communist Party and Soviet officials, as well as the Jews, began according to the lists of names prepared by German agents before the war.6
Einsatzgruppen committed outrageous atrocities in the occupied territories. 7 For example, Einsatzgruppe C (commanded by Dr. Otto Rasch) carried out the well-known massacre of Jews in Kiev’s suburb Babi Yar. Kiev was taken by German troops on September 19, 1941. Despite a chaotic Red Army retreat, before leaving big cities like Kiev and Kharkov, the NKVD operatives and engineering troops usually put remote-controlled mines in important buildings.8 These mines were blown up by radio signals after the cities were occupied by the Nazis. Many civilians were killed in the central part of Kiev by such explosions, which went on for more than a week, and fires destroyed what was left of the buildings. The Germans and local Ukrainians blamed the Jews for the explosions. As SS representatives reported to Berlin, in retaliation 33,771 Jews were rounded up and killed on September 29 and 30, 1941, by Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C, two squads of the Order Police known as Orpo, and the local collaborators, the Ukrainian militia (police).9 In fact, the SS decided to exterminate the Jewish population of Kiev on September 16, before the fall of the city and the explosions. By December 1941, the four Einsatzgruppen that followed the German troops had exterminated about 300,000 Jews in the newly-occupied territories.
Einsatzgruppen cooperated with the Abwehr III field groups in vetting Soviet POWs. Abwehr III officers made lists of the Jews, Gypsies, and commissars identified among the POWs. Einsatzgruppen or the GFP used these lists for carrying out executions.10 From July 1941 onwards, the Gestapo and SD operatives were also responsible for screening POWs and carried out executions of the selected POWs. The Orpo had its own Police Battalions that conducted executions and actions against partisans, and its members also participated in Einsatzgruppen.
Operation Zeppelin
In the spring of 1942, Walter Schellenberg, head of the Amt VI, developed the plan for Operation Zeppelin. In 1945, he testified in Nuremberg:
The purpose of…[Zeppelin] was to choose from a selection of Russian prisoners intelligent and suitable men to be deployed on the eastern front behind the Russian lines… The POWs thus selected were turned over to Commandos in the rear, who trained the prisoners…in assignments of the secret messenger service and in wireless communications. In order to furnish these prisoners with a motive for work, they were treated extremely well. They were shown the best possible kind of Germany.11
The SD
Referat VI C/Z was responsible for the whole operation.12 Its staff was located in the Wansee Villa widely known due to the 1942 conference The Final Solution of the Jewish Question that took place there. In November 1944, Schellenberg also moved with his staff to this villa after the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais at Wilhelmstrasse 102, the SS headquarters in Berlin, was bombed out.
At first SS-Sturmbannführer Walter Kurreck headed Referat VI C/Z. After he left Berlin in July 1942 to participate in the Einsatzgruppe D in Southern Russia, SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Oebsger-Röder succeeded him. In the field, special Aussenkommandos of up to 50 men attached to Einsatzgruppen selected Soviet POWs who agreed to work for the SD. Radio contact with the field groups was conducted by ‘the Havel Institute’, a powerful SD radio station (Referat VI F) installed in Wansee near the villa. The Havel Institute also taught radio operators for Operation Zeppelin.
In February 1943, Oebsger-Röder also left Berlin to command the Einsatzkommando Cluj in Hungary, and SS-Standartenführer Heinz Gräfe became head of the Referat VI C/Z. Two main field Hauptkommandos, Russland-Mitte (consisting of four Aussenkommandos, operational area from the Northern Ukraine to the White Sea) and Russland-Süd (from seven to ten Aussenkommandos, operational area from the Northern Ukraine to the Black Sea; later divided into ‘Russland-Nord’ and ‘Ukraine-Süd’) were organized. In the summer of the same year, Dr. Erich Hengelhaupt replaced Gräfe. A year later he divided each part of Operation Zeppelin, including the headquarters staff, into two bureaus: one for compiling information, and another for evaluating the collected information and writing reports to the Referat’s chief and Schellenberg. In the main headquarters, the second bureau was also in control of field agents.
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