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

by Vadim Birstein

  The ‘Smersh’ organs inform Military Councils and commanders of the corresponding units, troops, and organizations of the Red Army on the matters of their work: on the results of their combat with enemy agents, on the penetration of the army units by anti-Soviet elements, and on the results of combat against traitors of the Motherland, deserters, and self-mutilators. 26

  Compared to its predecessor, the UOO, SMERSH was mostly focused on enemy spies, although Red Army servicemen were still under suspicion. The rules for arrests of servicemen were also detailed in the same GKO Decision:

  a) The arrest of a private or a junior officer should be approved by a prosecutor;

  b) [The arrest] of a mid-level commander should be approved by the commander and prosecutor of the military unit;

  c) [The arrest] of a high-level commander should be approved by the Military Council [of the front] and a prosecutor;

  d) [The arrest] of a commander of the highest level should be authorized by the People’s Commissar of Defense [Stalin].27

  Abakumov kept Stalin updated on all high-ranking commanders, and according to Merkulov, Abakumov reported to Stalin almost every day ‘on the behavior of a number of leading military officers’.28

  In general, the organization of SMERSH repeated the structure of the UOO within the NKVD. The headquarters, GUKR SMERSH, was located on the fourth and sixth floors of the NKVD/NKGB building in the center of Moscow at No. 2 Dzerzhinsky (Lubyanka) Square with the entrance from Kuznetsky Most Street. Abakumov’s huge office was on the fourth floor.

  GUKR SMERSH directed the work of the field directorates assigned to the fronts, which hereinafter will be referred to as UKRs SMERSH to distinguish them from the GUKR SMERSH in Moscow. Whenever both organizations are meant, they will be referred to simply as SMERSH. On the whole, fifteen UKRs were established at the fronts in April 1943 (Table 16-1). All heads of front UKRs remained at their posts until the end of the war or until the front was disbanded.

  In the GUKR, thirteen assistants to Abakumov with their staffs were responsible for the UKRs:

  Name29 Front Responsibility Dates

  A. A. Avseevich Northwestern Apr 29, 1943–Jul 9, 1943

  G. S. Bolotin-Balyasnyi Volkhov/3rd Belorussian Apr 29, 1943–May 22, 1946

  I. P. Konovalov Southern/4th Ukrainian Apr 29, 1943–May 27, 1946

  S. F. Kozhevnikov Leningrad Apr 29, 1943–Jun 4, 1946

  N. G. Kravchenko Bryansk/2nd Baltic May 26, 1943–Jul 1944

  A. P. Misyurev Kalinin/1st Baltic Apr 29, 1943–May 27, 1946

  F. G. Petrov Southwestern/3rd Ukrainian May 26, 1943–Dec 28, 1943

  K. L. Prokhorenko Voronezh/1st Ukrainian Apr 29, 1943–Oct 4, 1944

  V. P. Rogov Western/3rd Belorussian Apr 29, 1943–May 27, 1946

  N. A. Rozanov Northwestern/2nd Belorussian Oct 10, 1943–May 4, 1946

  I. T. Rusak Karelian Apr 29, 1943–May 27, 1946

  V. T. Shirmanov Central/1st Belorussian May 26, 1943–Mar 23, 1944

  P. P. Timofeev Steppe/2nd Ukrainian Sep 23, 1943-May 22, 1946

  They were not only in constant contact with the front UKR staffs, but also personally visited the front UKRs, bringing orders and instructions from the GUKR. Another assistant, Major General Ivan Moskalenko, was responsible for general matters and personnel. One of the assistants, Vyacheslav Rogov, became very close to Abakumov, and after the war Abakumov appointed him head of the 4th MGB Directorate (specializing in searching for suspects).

  Colonel Ivan Chernov, former head of a section in the UOO, was appointed head of the GUKR SMERSH Secretariat, while Yakov Broverman, former head of the UOO Secretariat, became Chernov’s deputy.

  GUKR in Moscow consisted of eleven operational and three nonoperational departments (Figure 16-2), a total of 646 men (for comparison, in 1942 the UOO staff in Moscow consisted of 225 men). Not all departments corresponded to their UOO predecessors. With the new focus on the Germans and other foreign enemies, two departments, the 3rd and 4th, were transferred from the NKVD/NKGB. The 3rd Department was in charge of capturing German spies in the rear and organizing ‘radio games’ with their help, and the 4th Department was in charge of counterintelligence measures behind the front line. Five of the departments, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th, were involved directly in investigation.

  TABLE 16-1. HEADS OF UKR SMERSH DIRECTORATES IN APRIL 1943¹

  Figure 16-2

  THE STRUCTURE OF SMERSH WITHIN THE DEFENCE COMMISSARIAT APRIL 1943 TO MAY 1946

  The UKR SMERSH of a front directed the subordinated SMERSH departments (OKRs) within the armies and units. Three SMERSH officers were attached to each rifle regiment, while the OKR at the division level consisted of 21 men, including a head, his deputy, a ciphering officer, investigators, a commandant, and a platoon of guards.30 The OKR of each army included 57 men, while the size of a front UKR depended on how many armies the front was comprised of. If the front consisted of five armies, its UKR included 130 officers; if there were fewer armies, the UKR had 112 officers.31 The UKRs of military districts, of which the Moscow Military District was the biggest, consisted of 102–193 officers. For operational work, such as guarding prisoners, the Red Army provided SMERSH with field formations made up of regular servicemen. SMERSH front directorates were provided with a battalion, SMERSH army departments, a company, and SMERSH departments at the regiment, division, or brigade level, a platoon.

  The positions and responsibilities of the personnel and departments in the UKR SMERSH and OKR SMERSH were very similar. Here is the typical structure of a UKR SMERSH:

  Position/Unit Duties

  Head Commanding

  Secretariat Secretarial work

  Personnel Department In charge of the cadres

  1st Department Overseeing the staff of the headquarters

  2nd Department Counterintelligence in the rear, catching German agents, interrogation of German POWs, vetting Soviet POWs

  3rd Department Guidance of subordinated units and combating enemy agents, anti-Soviet elements, traitors to the motherland, military criminals

  4th Department Investigation

  Komendatura Guarding prisoners; executions

  Records Section Making and keeping records

  The only difference was the that OKR SMERSH organizations had ‘sections’ instead of ‘departments’ and the responsibilities of the 3rd Department in UKR SMERSH units was divided between the 3rd and 4th sections in OKR SMERSH units with investigations being carried out by a separate Investigative Section.

  The 1st Department of the GUKR SMERSH was in charge of counterintelligence within the Red Army command. Operational officers were assigned to all military units from the battalion level upward.32 The 1st Department coordinated all the information from secret informers and also controlled the political officers within the Red Army. Colonel Ivan Gorgonov, head of the 1st Department, previously headed the 10th UOO Department, which administrated the work of the front OOs.

  The 2nd Department was in charge of working with foreign POWs and of ‘filtering’ Soviet servicemen who had been POWs.33 Its head, Colonel Sergei Kartashov, who had been working in military counterintelligence since 1937, was extremely efficient; he had a phenomenal memory and remembered hundreds of detainees’ names and all the details of their cases. The department was also responsible for collecting intelligence and sending SMERSH agents to areas immediately behind enemy lines.

  To identify important people among prisoners, especially intelligence officers among German POWs, operatives of the 2nd departments depended on German informers. Nicola Sinevirsky wrote that ‘the Germans informed on one another very willingly. In our work with POWs we learned that even by offering them cigarettes and promising them liberty, one in ten would do a job for us’.34 Sinevirsky gives an example: ‘Hans had been a driver in the Abwehr of the Middle Group Army Headquarters. He could identify a number of German spies, which explained why SMERSH had dragged him from one stockade to another… The first day, he recognized and ide
ntified seven spies. By SMERSH standards, he did an excellent job and was rewarded with generous rations of tinned meat, white bread, and chocolate.’

  In January 1945, Abakumov proudly wrote to Beria:

  From September 1, 1943, to January 1, 1945, the SMERSH organs of the fronts and military districts recruited 697 former enemy agents and used them to search for German spies and saboteurs. They helped to arrest 703 German spies and saboteurs.

  At present, the SMERSH organs are using 396 agent-identifiers to find enemy agents… I have already reported to Comrade Stalin on the matter described above.35

  Information about the capture and interrogation of important prisoners was cabled to Moscow. Abakumov or his deputy would review the information and decide whether the prisoner should be sent to the capital. These prisoners were investigated by the 2nd Department’s Investigation Unit, but sometimes the 4th Department became involved too. If the case was significant enough for prosecution, the 6th Department would also become involved. Some prisoners were considered so important that they were kept in Moscow investigation prisons until 1951–52, when they were finally sentenced.

  In the field, the 2nd departments, which were also known as operations departments, worked in cooperation with the units of the NKVD rear guard troops. They also did the work of the NKGB in liberated Soviet territory before the NKGB staff members arrived. In large formations, these detachments were known as the SMERSH Military Police. ‘The first step always taken by the Operations Department of SMERSH was to arrest all the organized enemies of the Soviet Union,’ wrote Sinevirsky, who worked as a translator in the 3rd Section of the 2nd Department of the UKR SMERSH of the 4th Ukrainian Front.36 ‘This included every leading member of any political party opposing communism…SMERSH men had been ordered also to arrest all active elements in any democratic parties.’

  The 3rd Department of GUKR SMERSH was in charge both of identifying German agents working behind the Red Army’s front, and of radio games. In the field, officers or branches of the 3rd Department were assigned to all military units from the corps and higher.37 To find German agents, field officers cooperated with the 2nd departments of UKRs of the fronts and the 4th sections of OKRs of the armies.38 To search for an important German agent, an operational ‘Search File’ was created by the 1st Section of the 3rd GUKR Department in Moscow and sent to field branches.

  Colonel Georgii Utekhin, who before the war headed the Counterintelligence Department in the NKGB Leningrad Branch, ran the 3rd GUKR SMERSH Department until late September 1943, when he was appointed head of the 4th Department. Colonel Vladimir Baryshnikov, former head of the 2nd Section in charge of radio games in the 3rd Department, replaced Utekhin. Dmitrii Tarasov, a member of the radio games team, vividly described Vladimir Baryshnikov in his memoirs:

  Vladimir Yakovlevich [Baryshnikov] was an example of an armchair analyst or scientist. He was short and…solidly built. However…he was a little bit pudgy and always had a round-shouldered posture. While sitting at the desk, his face appeared to be drowning in papers because he was extremely short-sighted but refused to use eyeglasses. He had a soft and complaisant temper, was benevolent and intelligent, had tact, and doubtless was a man of high principle.39

  The 4th Department of GUKR SMERSH was charged with ‘finding the channels of penetration of enemy agents into the units and institutions of the Red Army’40 and sending Soviet agents into German territory to collect counterintelligence on training schools for German agents. It consisted of only twenty-five men, divided into two sections. The first section trained agents to be sent behind the front lines and coordinated their work.41 Its deputy head, Major S. V. Chestneishy, wrote cover stories—‘legends’ in Chekist jargon—for Soviet agents. The second section, headed by Captain Andrei Okunev, collected and analyzed information about Nazi intelligence activity and German schools for intelligence agents. Baryshnikov’s and Okunev’s sections frequently cooperated in conducting radio games.

  Colonel Pyotr Timofeev, former head of the 1st Department (capturing German spies) of the 2nd NKVD Directorate (counterintelligence), headed up the 4th GUKR SMERSH Department until late September 1943. Tarasov described Timofeev: ‘Pyotr Petrovich, called “PP” among his subordinates, was a man of medium height, stocky, with a massive shaved-bare head and big features in a long face. He was cheerful and energetic. He was considered an indisputable authority.’42 In September 1943, Utekhin replaced Timofeev, who became one of Abakumov’s assistants.

  Branches of the 4th Department in the field were responsible for interrogating and investigating newly captured Germans. Their officers, junior and senior investigators, were assigned to all formations from the corps level and above. They also investigated cases of Russian servicemen and repatriated POWs arrested on suspicion of anti-Soviet activity. With the advance of the Soviet army to the West, branches of the 4th Department interrogated more and more German and other foreign prisoners.

  The 3rd and 4th GUKR SMERSH departments also collaborated with the 1st (Foreign Intelligence, headed by Pavel Fitin) and 4th (Terror and Sabotage, headed by Pavel Sudoplatov) Directorates of the NKGB. The GUKR SMERSH, the NKVD, the Navy Commissariat, and partisan detachments were obliged to share military intelligence information they obtained in German-occupied territory, as well as information about enemy agents, with the Intelligence Directorate (RU) of the Red Army’s General Staff. This agency was organized on April 19, 1943, at the same time as SMERSH, and was headed by Lieutenant General Fyodor Kuznetsov.43 The RU did not collect foreign intelligence; this remained a function of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Red Army (headed by Ivan Il’ichev), which received it from such sources as the network of Soviet agents in Switzerland (the Rote Drei group, a part of the Red Orchestra). The other GRU rezidents (heads of spy networks) sent information from England, Turkey, Sweden, USA, and Japan.

  The front and army SMERSH units were responsible for holding German POWs for interrogation by the RU investigators. The RU officers also interrogated SMERSH prisoners in Moscow. In turn, the RU was obliged to provide SMERSH with intelligence information about agents who were being prepared, by the Germans, to infiltrate the Red Army. In order to collect intelligence, between May 1943 and May 1945 the RU sent 1,236 groups of agents and terrorists to the enemy’s rear.44 Just after the war, in June 1945, the RU and GRU were united, and General Kuznetsov became head of this enlarged GRU of the General Staff.

  In addition to two military intelligence agencies, in April 1943 a small group headed by Colonel General Filipp Golikov and subordinated directly to Stalin also began analyzing intelligence information. This group did not include a representative of SMERSH. The whole system of intelligence and counterintelligence became exceedingly complicated, but all their branches were controlled by Stalin as Supreme Commander in Chief, Defense Commissar, or GKO Chairman.

  The 5th GUKR SMERSH Department headed by Colonel Dmitrii Zenichev—and, from July 1944, by Colonel Andrei Frolov—was in charge of supervising the UKRs of fronts. It also maintained military field courts. These courts were introduced by a secret decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued on April 19, 1943; that is, at the same time as SMERSH’s creation. As with the other documents in the SMERSH package, Stalin approved the text of this decree after several editorial changes.45 The decree had a long and awkward title: ‘On Measures of Punishment of the German-Fascist Villains Guilty of Killing and Torturing Civilians and Captured Red Army Soldiers, of Spies and Soviet Traitors to the Motherland, and of Their Accomplices’, and its text was declassified only in 1997.46 The possible punishments included death by hanging at a public meeting or being sentenced to ten years of especially hard labor. Separate special hard labor (katorzhnye) sections were created in the Vorkuta, Norilsk, and Dal’stroi labor camps for a total 30,000 convicts sentenced by these field courts.47

  Each court consisted of the chairman of the Military Tribunal, heads of SMERSH and political departments of the unit, and a military prosecutor. The
decision of the court had to be approved by the unit commander. The existence of military field courts was kept secret.

  The field courts considered cases immediately after taking over territories previously occupied by the enemy. Because the decree was secret, defendants did not know the exact reason for their conviction. The most active military field courts were within the 1st Ukrainian Front. From May 1943 to May 1945, these courts tried 221 cases against 348 defendants, of whom 270 were sentenced to death and hanged.48 From September 1943, military tribunals could also use the April 19, 1943 decree, and it continued to be used to sentence traitors and German collaborators after World War II. The total number of executed is unknown, but the number of collaborators sentenced to especially hard labor (katorga) in 1943–45 was approximately 29,000, of whom 10,000 could not work physically.

  Nicola Sinevirsky had an acquaintance who occasionally participated in the field courts:

  Despite the excellent food we were given, Mefodi had lost weight. His lean, pale face made him look years older than when I had first met him…

  ‘My conscience is no longer clear, Nicola,’ Mefodi said abruptly. ‘Frequently, I have to act as the third judge in a military tribunal and I condemn people to death. You can never understand how disgusting the whole business is. The prosecutor reads his charges, then demands capital punishment. Our triumvirate always confirms that sentence and the prisoner is taken out and shot… Under such conditions, anyone would look sick. It would be an easy thing for me to commit suicide…’

  The pupils of his eyes were enlarged and there was a near-insane look in them. It was a ghastly thing to see.49