Military counterintelligence SMERSH was created in the Soviet Union in 1943. Only 70 years later, the “top secret” classification was removed from many operations carried out by counterintelligence officers.
The main task of this unit was not only to counter the German Abwehr, but also to introduce Soviet counterintelligence officers into the highest echelons of power in Nazi Germany and intelligence schools, destroy sabotage groups, conduct radio games, and also in the fight against traitors to the Motherland. It should be noted that the name of this special service was given by I. Stalin himself. At first there was a proposal to name the unit SMERNESH (that is, “death to German spies”), to which Stalin said that Soviet territory was full of spies from other states, and it was also necessary to fight them, so it was better to call the new body simply SMERSH. Its official name became the counterintelligence department SMERSH of the NKVD of the USSR. By the time counterintelligence was created, the battle of Stalingrad was left behind, and the initiative in the conduct of military operations began to gradually pass to the Union troops. At this time, territories that had been under occupation began to be liberated; a large number of Soviet soldiers and officers fled from German captivity. Some of them were sent by the Nazis as spies. Special departments of the Red Army and Navy needed reorganization, so they were replaced by SMERSH. And although the unit lasted only three years, people still talk about it to this day.
The work of counterintelligence officers in searching for saboteurs and agents, as well as nationalists and former White Guards, was extremely dangerous and difficult. To systematize the work, special lists, collections and photo albums of those people who needed to be found were compiled. Later, in 1944, a collection of materials concerning German intelligence agencies at the front was published, and a few months later a collection on Finnish military intelligence.
Active assistance to the security officers was provided by identification agents, who in the past had assisted the fascists, but later turned themselves in. With their help, it was possible to identify a large number of saboteurs and spies who operated in the rear of our country.
The search and front-line reconnaissance was carried out by the 4th department of SMERSH, headed first by Major General P. Timofeev, and later by Major General G. Utekhin.
Official information states that during the period from October 1943 to May 1944, 345 Soviet counterintelligence officers were transferred behind enemy lines, of which 50 were recruited from German agents. After completing the tasks, only 102 agents returned. 57 intelligence officers managed to infiltrate enemy intelligence agencies, of which 31 later returned, and 26 remained to carry out the task. In total, during this period of time, 1,103 enemy counterintelligence agents and 620 official employees were identified.
Below are examples of several successful operations carried out by SMERSH.
Junior Lieutenant Bogdanov, who fought on the 1st Baltic Front, was captured in August 1941. He was recruited by German military intelligence officers, after which he completed an internship at the Smolensk sabotage school. When he was transferred to the Soviet rear, he confessed, and already in July 1943 he returned to the enemy as an agent who had successfully completed the task. Bogdanov was appointed platoon commander of the Smolensk school of saboteurs. During his work, he managed to persuade 6 saboteurs to cooperate with Soviet counterintelligence agents. In October of the same 1943, Bogdanov, along with 150 school students, was sent by the Germans to carry out a punitive operation. As a result, the entire personnel of the group went over to the side of the Soviet partisans.
Beginning in the spring of 1941, information began to arrive from Germany from Olga Chekhova, a famous actress who was married to A.P. Chekhov’s nephew. In the 20s he left for Germany for permanent residence. Very soon she gained popularity among Reich officials, becoming Hitler's favorite and making friends with Eva Braun. In addition, her friends were the wives of Himmler, Goebbels and Goering. Everyone admired her wit and beauty. Ministers, Field Marshal Keitel, industrialists, Gauleiters, and designers repeatedly turned to her for help, asking her to put in a word with Hitler. And it doesn’t matter what we were talking about: the construction of missile ranges and underground factories or the development of “retribution.” The woman wrote down all requests in a small notebook with a gilded cover. It turned out that not only Hitler knew about its contents.
The information that Olga Chekhova conveyed was very important, since it came “first hand” - from the Fuhrer’s inner circle, Reich officials. Thus, the actress learned about exactly when the offensive near Kursk would take place, how much military equipment was being produced, and also about the freezing of the nuclear project. It was planned that Chekhova would have to take part in the assassination attempt on Hitler, but at the very last moment Stalin ordered the operation to be interrupted.
German intelligence officers could not understand where the information leak came from. Very soon they found the actress. Himmler volunteered to interrogate her. He came to her home, but the woman, knowing in advance about his visit, invited Hitler to visit.
The woman was arrested by SMERSH officers at the very end of the war, allegedly for harboring Himmler’s adjutant. During the first interrogation, she gave her operational pseudonym - “Actress”. She was summoned to an appointment first with Beria, and then with Stalin. It is clear that her visit to the Soviet Union was kept strictly secret, so she was not even able to see her daughter. After returning to Germany, she was provided with lifelong maintenance. The woman wrote a book, but did not say a word about her activities as an intelligence officer. And only a secret diary, which was discovered after her death, indicated that she actually worked for Soviet counterintelligence.
Another successful operation that caused significant damage to enemy intelligence was Operation Berezino. In 1944, about 2 thousand German soldiers, led by Colonel Scherhorn, were surrounded in the forests of Belarus. With the help of saboteur Otto Skorzeny, Hitler's intelligence decided to turn them into a detachment of saboteurs that would operate in the Soviet rear. However, for quite a long time the detachment could not be detected; three Abwehr groups returned with nothing, and only the fourth established contact with the encircled.
For several nights in a row, German planes dropped the necessary cargo. But practically nothing reached its destination, because instead of Colonel Scherhorn, who was captured, Colonel Maklyarsky, who was similar to him, and State Security Major William Fisher were introduced into the detachment. After a radio session with the “German colonel,” the Abwehr gave the order to the detachment to make its way into German territory, but not a single German soldier managed to return to their homeland.
It must be said that another of the most successful operations of Soviet counterintelligence officers was the prevention of an attempt on Stalin’s life in the summer of 1944. This was not the first attempt, but this time the Nazis prepared more thoroughly. The start of the operation was successful. The saboteurs Tavrin and his wife, a radio operator, landed in the Smolensk area, and, using a motorcycle, headed towards Moscow. The agent was dressed in the military uniform of a Red Army officer with orders and the Star of the Hero of the USSR. In addition, he also had the “ideal” documents of the head of one of the SMERSH departments. To avoid any questions at all, an issue of Pravda was printed especially for the “major” in Germany, which included an article about awarding her the Hero’s Star. But the German intelligence leadership did not know that the Soviet agent had already managed to report the impending operation. The saboteurs were stopped, but the patrolmen immediately did not like the “major’s” behavior. When asked where they were coming from, Tavrin named one of the remote settlements. But it rained all night, and the officer himself and his companion were completely dry.
Tavrin was asked to go to the guardhouse. And when he took off his leather jacket, it became completely clear that he was not a Soviet major, since during the “Interception” plan to capture saboteurs, a special order was issued regarding the procedure for wearing awards. The saboteurs were neutralized, and a radio station, money, explosives and weapons, which none of the Soviet military had ever seen before, were taken from the sidecar of the motorcycle.
It was a Panzerknacke, a miniature grenade launcher that was developed in the laboratory of the German Main Security Administration. It could easily fit into the sleeve of an overcoat. In addition, Tavrin also had a powerful explosive device as a backup option, which was placed in his briefcase. In the event that the assassination attempt had not been carried out the first time, Tavrin planned to leave the briefcase in the meeting room. During interrogations, he confessed to everything, but this did not help him. The saboteur was later shot.
Radio games conducted by Soviet intelligence services on air are also well known. Carrying out such games with the enemy on the radio provided an excellent opportunity to supply German headquarters with disinformation. In total, 183 radio games were held during the war. One of the most famous and successful was the radio game “Aryans”. In May 1944, an enemy plane with 24 German saboteurs on board landed near the Kalmyk settlement of Utta. Fighters were sent to the landing area. As a result, 12 paratroopers and saboteurs were captured. During the subsequent radio game, 42 radiograms containing disinformation were transmitted to Berlin.
SMERSH existed until 1946. After the war, military counterintelligence again became part of various intelligence services: first the MGB, and then the KGB. But even now the work of SMERSHevites during the war evokes delight and admiration.
Photo: website
Thanks to the presence of a certain romantic aura, the Soviet military counterintelligence SMERSH is “in a special place” with Russophobes - both Western and our “home-grown”. They declared it both a “terror squad of the NKVD” and “an analogue of the SS.” What was SMERSH counterintelligence really and what was its contribution to the Great Victory?
On April 19, 2013, the BBC published an article by Anton Krechetnikov, “SMERSH: the fight against strangers and friends,” in which more or less reliable facts were mixed with completely strange unfounded accusations. This material, in turn, referred to an article on the same BBC, but already from 2003 - by Konstantin Rozhnov, “SMERSH: counterintelligence or a weapon of repression.” It is very sad that the data from these materials was then included in the article about SMERSH on Wikipedia, and is now perceived by many as the ultimate truth. There is, in particular, such a strange passage:
"According to the data available to Petrov, military counterintelligence agencies arrested about 700 thousand people from 1941 to 1945, of whom 70 thousand were shot. Some other sources report that millions of people fell into the SMERSH network, about a quarter of whom were shot. Most of those arrested who managed to avoid execution were sent into exile. The standard term is 25 years. Even the amnesty announced after Stalin's death did not apply to many of them. Literally only a few survived to return and died a natural death.".
"...Basically, SMERSH's activities were directed against the so-called "anti-Soviet elements" - those who expressed doubts about the correctness of the Soviet system".
So, these statements are completely absurd. And the saddest thing is that the BBC refers to certain “researchers”.
SMERSH, by definition, could not “mainly” be directed against “anti-Soviet elements,” since it was pure military counterintelligence. And he could not physically shoot either 70 thousand or “a quarter of millions.” Firstly, decisions on executions were made by the courts. Secondly, according to the most extensive statistics in 1943 - 1946, based on materials from all law enforcement agencies (including for ordinary crimes), during the period while SMERSH existed, in the USSR about 14 were issued throughout the country and for all types of crimes. thousands of death sentences! So, even “70 thousand”, even “a quarter of millions” is nothing more than the fruit of someone’s sick fantasies. And with 700 thousand “arrested” it turns out strange. For example, during all this time, in the entire USSR, about 400 thousand people were convicted for “counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous crimes”... Throughout the USSR, during this period, about 10 million people were brought to criminal responsibility, of which almost half were for “disciplinary offenses”, qualified as a disruption of labor mobilization (and having nothing to do with SMERSH). The lion's share of the remaining convicts are criminals. Therefore, tiny on a national scale, SMERSH could not arrest “millions” or even “700 thousand” purely physically...
A real scandal surrounding the history of SMERSH was also provoked in 2013 by the famous Russian liberal, head of the Union of Right Forces, Leonid Gozman, who openly responded in a boorish manner to the release of a film about the activities of counterintelligence agents. In his blog, he compared SMERSH with the SS, saying that they allegedly differed only in that the SS had a more beautiful uniform. He received a harsh and scathing response from Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist Ulyana Skoybeda, who with her material gave birth to the famous Internet meme “on the verge of a foul” - “lampshades.” Actually, Gozman either did not understand the essence of the phenomenon at all (which is less likely), or deliberately lied (which, alas, is more likely). The “SS soldiers” he wrote about (apparently the Waffen SS) were never involved in counterintelligence, but were en masse involved in punitive operations and were simultaneously used as ordinary linear units. The SS was recognized by the Nuremberg Tribunal as a criminal organization, and SMERSH was recognized by a number of authoritative experts as the most effective intelligence service of the Second World War, which made a huge contribution to the defeat of the Nazis...
So, a little history to understand the essence of the phenomenon. Let me note right away that most of the documents regarding the activities of SMERSH to this day, for obvious reasons, have not been declassified and have not been published in the public domain. But even well-known facts are enough to understand the essence of the phenomenon.
SMERSH emerged in 1943. Its predecessors can be considered the 3rd Directorate of NGOs and special departments of the NKVD. In 1942, a number of shortcomings in their work were revealed, and the leadership of the USSR decided to fundamentally reform the military counterintelligence system during the war period.
Therefore, on April 19, 1943, by the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars, three parallel and absolutely independent special services were created. SMERSH, known to us from films and books, is the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence SMERSH, which was part of the People's Commissariat of Defense - a purely army structure, contrary to popular myths, which no longer had anything to do with the NKVD. In parallel, their own SMERSHs were created as part of the Navy and the NKVD. The latter’s employees did not deal with “civil citizens.” Their task was to provide counterintelligence support for the activities of border and internal troops, police and other units of the NKVD.
The “main” SMERSH NGO was headed by Abakumov, who reported only personally to Stalin as People’s Commissar of Defense. SMERSH of the fleet was headed by Gladkov, who was close to Kuznetsov, and SMERSH of the NKVD was headed by Yukhimovich, whose chief was Beria.
SMERSH employees were given ranks corresponding to the ranks in their new departments. Their uniforms were also brought into line with the divisions. Some commanders, however, for some time retained the title of “state security” in the army, but these were rather exceptions.
In addition to former employees of the special departments of the NKVD, army officers, as well as “profile” specialists from the civilian world, in particular lawyers, were en masse called up to SMERSH.
As we said earlier, SMERSH did not create and did not shoot anyone in the back. Its employees were engaged in operational counterintelligence work, with a discount on front-line specifics. Their duties included hunting for enemy spies and saboteurs. Namely, the Nazis placed emphasis on reconnaissance and sabotage activities after the “combined arms” failures of 1942. Enemy agents penetrated the front line, were dropped by parachute, thousands of them penetrated into the rear of the Red Army under the guise of “escaped prisoners” or “former encirclement.”
The main problem was that most of them ethnically belonged to the peoples who inhabited the USSR. These were criminals released by the Nazis, prisoners of war of the Red Army who collaborated with the Germans, Ukrainian and Baltic nationalists, and people from emigrant circles. Russian was the native language for most of them, they knew the subtleties of behavior in society, unknown to any foreigners, so identifying and detaining them was the highest art. Having undergone training in special reconnaissance and sabotage schools, they became real killing machines. In some cases, tasks on the territory of the USSR were also solved by Germans - employees of the elite special forces of the Abwehr and SS.
Textbook examples of counterintelligence work include such techniques as rapid replacement of paperwork and rules for wearing uniforms. The story with paper clips is widely known - due to the difference in material, Soviet paper clips on documents oxidized and left a rusty mark, while German stainless steel paper clips did not. Such a trifle cost many spies their careers, and maybe even their lives. It is also known how counterintelligence agents exposed a German agent who was preparing an assassination attempt on Stalin. Their attention was attracted by a “pseudo-smershevite” riding a clean, dry motorcycle, while it was raining heavily in the area from which he allegedly came. And the incorrectly placed awards on the jacket (the order of wearing them had been changed shortly before) finally proved that the “officer” is not who he claims to be...
Service in SMERSH was even more dangerous than on the front line. On average, an operative managed to serve only 3 months, after which he dropped out due to death or injury...
Breakfast from a spy
In the summer of 1944, it was extremely important to hide the preparations for an attack on Chisinau from the enemy. Through front-line agents and other channels, information was received about a dangerous Abwehr agent operating in the 49th Guards Rifle Division. His last name, first name, patronymic and the fact that before the war he worked as a cook in Moscow at the Metropol restaurant became known. The counterintelligence department of the division responded to the encrypted telegram 5 days later: there is no such thing in the 49th.
On the instructions of the head of the army department, I went to the division to a small bridgehead on the right bank of the Dniester, which was heavily and continuously shelled. The crossing was especially hard on us. With great difficulty we managed to cross and get to the Smersh 49th ROC, whose chief was Lieutenant Colonel Vasilyev. He gave the command to collect lists of all military personnel, as well as those killed, wounded, and those who went on business trips. I checked. There was no agent in them. There was nothing to do, so I decided to return at dawn.
Before leaving, we sat down to breakfast in the dugout. I noticed the amazing quality of food for combat conditions. I asked: who cooked? Vasiliev answered: he appeared in the security platoon of the Smersh ROC of the division of soldiers, who worked as a cook before the war. I instantly had a question: “Did we check the list of your security platoon?”
Vasiliev was literally petrified. Then he said: “The one we are looking for is him, the soldier cook who serves us breakfast!”
I said: “Calm down, no emotions, we’ll finish eating as usual.”
After breakfast, according to the platoon list, they were convinced that the soldier-cook was the same spy. But how to deliver him from a small bridgehead across the Dniester under German fire, so as not to frighten him away and to exclude an escape attempt?
I call the chef and say, “You cook great.” And at army headquarters there is a general with a stomach problem who needs a diet. Maybe you can work for him?
He agreed. And when they arrived at the army department, they immediately “split.” They caught the spy on time. He was preparing to go to the Germans with information about the preparations for an attack on Chisinau, intending at the last moment to also steal operational documents from the counterintelligence department.
How did a spy end up in the Smersh ROC security platoon of the division? Just. The platoon, like everyone else, suffered combat losses. They were replenished. The troops moved forward. In settlements liberated from the enemy, field military registration and enlistment offices mobilized men of military age. An Abwehr agent wormed his way among them and infiltrated the security platoon. After all, in combat conditions there was neither the opportunity nor the time to carefully check the conscripts. Despite these objective circumstances, Lieutenant Colonel Vasiliev, although he was a very experienced leader, was soon removed from his post as head of the department.
Counterintelligence actively worked not only in the troops, but also in the front line to create a regime that would complicate the actions of enemy agents and would be favorable for their identification and detention. For this purpose, barrier detachments, military field commandant's offices, road service, cable and pole companies (signalmen), rear services and others were actively used. In crowded places and on busy roads, operational search groups with identification agents who knew many spies by sight from intelligence school operated. These measures brought great success.
The fact is that the Germans gave many agents tasks not to penetrate the troops, but to act in their surroundings. Thus, of the 126 spies exposed in the 5th Shock Army from 1942 to March 1943, only 24 were in the troops. Therefore, in the front line, measures were taken to clear out enemy agents and other hostile elements with the involvement of troops and military counterintelligence officers. They produced significant results. Only from September 1 to September 6, 1944, during the clearing of the 3rd Belorussian Front, 20 spies, 116 bandits, and 163 armed deserters were captured. During the battle of Moscow, 200 German agents and 50 reconnaissance and sabotage groups were detained.
The operatives of the special departments knew the orientation of the wanted agents. There were special search books for Abwehr agents with testimonies of arrested spies and information from our intelligence officers operating behind enemy lines. According to this book, a certain Petrov, a radio operator of a German intelligence agency who had previously operated in Kherson, was identified in the troops of the 5th Shock Army. They sent a photo there. Petrov was identified by the owner of the house in which he lived. But Petrov claimed that during the occupation he was in Belarus, and not in Ukraine. It turns out he couldn’t have been in the enemy’s intelligence agency? It is dangerous to release, it is impossible to arrest. What to do?
I decided to interrogate him. During the conversation, he unexpectedly asked a question: did he have a second surname? I see he was confused and hesitated. Confessed: street nickname Bobok.
We checked the directions. Bobok in Belarus fled from a partisan detachment to the Germans, gave them partisan bases, became a policeman, took part in the executions of our fellow citizens, and rose to the rank of deputy. chief of the district police. Before the advance of the Soviet troops, he fled with the Germans near Koenigsberg.
I call him again and ask: “Why, brother, were you in a partisan detachment in Belarus, and aren’t you telling me?” He responded: “Well, you’re not asking about that.” He admitted to betrayal and that he was preparing to go behind the front line. It was possible to prevent serious consequences for our troops that could have resulted from the transfer of spy information to the enemy.
Smersh officers were the first representatives of state security agencies in the territory liberated from the enemy; they arrested Gestapo agents and fascist collaborators. During offensive operations
counterintelligence officers, knowing the direction of attacks, created task forces in advance to seize documents from intelligence schools, police agencies, and identify enemy agents based on fresh traces. The work of the task forces, as a rule, gave good results.
The Art of the Game
“Smersh” actively operated behind enemy lines, only in 1943 it introduced 52 of our intelligence officers into the fascist intelligence schools and intelligence agencies. Counterintelligence officers attached great importance to radio games with the enemy. They were conducted strictly centrally, texts were developed only in the Center together with the General Staff, and especially important ones - with the permission of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. For example, in May-June
1943 10 intelligence radio stations transmitted disinformation to the enemy in order to hide the preparation of an offensive operation on the Kursk Bulge.
In the summer of 1944, during a radio game at our call, the enemy dropped 40 bales of weapons, explosives and 27 agents in the Bryansk region. They were immediately neutralized.
Counterintelligence did a lot of work aimed at keeping the preparation of military operations secret. So, in 1941, during the defense of Odessa, at the beginning of October an order came to leave the city. But how to carry out an evacuation in secret?
At that time, a boy of 15-16 years old came to us and confessed. Sniffling, he said that he crossed the front line on instructions from the Germans to collect information about our defense. If he doesn’t fulfill it and doesn’t come back, the Nazis will shoot his parents.
We talked to him kindly, calmed him down, fed him and instructed him, when he returned, to inform the Germans that reinforcements were coming to the Russians, they were digging trenches and anti-tank ditches, and building barricades in the city. The boy readily agreed. With the same task, two women were sent to the Germans, who by the beginning of the fighting accidentally ended up in Odessa, and their relatives ended up in the occupied territory.
On our recommendation, during the day the command sent lorries along the dusty road to the front, mainly in the defense area of the famous 25th Chapaev Division. They raised clouds of dust, giving the enemy the illusion of active troop activity. Warships of the Black Sea Fleet additionally approached Odessa. Their artillery hit the enemy through the city. As a result, the Nazis did not realize our plans. Even after our troops left the city, they were afraid to enter it for another day, expecting a trick.
In all major military operations, military counterintelligence officers did their best to help our troops survive and defeat the enemy, keep the command’s plans secret, mislead the enemy and achieve surprise.
Frontline anti-terrorism
To kill our major military leaders, the Nazis sent in terrorists, such as a certain Tavrin. He was carefully prepared, equipped with the uniform of a Red Army major with the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of the Red Banner and Alexander Nevsky, and armed with a silent pistol with poisoned bullets. The task is a terrorist attack against the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Tavrin was detained immediately after landing in our rear.
Few people know that the legendary intelligence officer Hero of the Soviet Union N.I. Kuznetsov, whose exploits behind enemy lines are widely known, was the first to inform the Center about the preparation of an assassination attempt on the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill in Tehran in
1943 Kuznetsov learned about this from the Gestapo. He owed our intelligence officer a large sum and promised to repay the debt with an expensive fur coat, saying that he would buy it in Tehran when performing a particularly important task during a meeting of the Big Three. It became clear what we were talking about.
Unfortunately, the fascist collaborators, Ukrainian nationalists, managed to kill Nikolai Kuznetsov and mortally wound the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Army General N.F. Vatutina. In general, Ukrainian nationalists diligently served the fascists, caused great harm to our army, committed sabotage, broke communication lines, and killed our soldiers and civilians. I had the opportunity to come under their fire more than once in front-line Chernivtsi in June 1941. There, on one of the first days of the war, we were informed that an active member of the organization of Ukrainian nationalists, associated with the Abwehr, was spending the night on the outskirts of the city. I was assigned to lead a task force of three people.
At dawn we approached the house. I sent two officers behind him, and I tried to open the door and heard their voices: “Stop! We will shoot!” I ran out behind the house and saw a man running. He opened fire with a pistol, wounded our comrade Ustimenko in the arm and rushed towards the forest. Officer Mnevets threw a grenade. The bandit fell and continued to shoot. I gave my comrades the command to lie down. Our two shots finished off the enemy.
In the barn where he ran out, we saw a young man. Who is he and what does he do? Answer: student at Chernivtsi University, here preparing for exams. But the “textbooks” were unusual - weapons, ammunition and a walkie-talkie. They found out that the murdered man was a German intelligence agent, and the detainee was his contact.
During the war, “Smersh” actively opposed the terror of the fascists and their accomplices against our soldiers and civilians.
The battle for minds and hearts
In order to enslave our people, the fascists sought to kill their mind and soul, turn them into a herd, into trembling, insignificant creatures. They carried out a merciless psychological war, propaganda work to disintegrate our troops, praised life in Germany, persuaded our soldiers to switch to their side, desertion, and disobey command. Enemy agents spread false rumors, panic and defeatism.
At the beginning of the war, Hitler's propaganda was crude, primitive, and vulgar. In 1941, the enemy rained leaflets on the defenders of Odessa from airplanes: “Hit the commissar with a brick!” Or: “Give up! In three days, Antonescu will ride into Odessa on a white horse.” Over time, the Germans acted more and more sophisticatedly. The tone changed, the rudeness disappeared. Leaflets calling for surrender were issued in the form of passes to the enemy, sometimes similar to our party cards, so that a potential defector could keep it without arousing suspicion. On the enemy side, defectors through loudspeakers called on our fighters on the front line to go over to the fascists, promising good food, vodka, and the services of prostitutes.
The enemy also provoked desertion. Among other things, it was dangerous because deserters created armed gangs, attacked civilians, robbed, and killed. “Smersh” prevented and suppressed crimes, together with the command and political workers fought against Hitler’s propaganda, panic and defeatist sentiments, treason and desertion, to strengthen discipline and morale, and the combat effectiveness of units. This was a battle for the minds and hearts of our people, for our Motherland, for our Victory.
Nowadays, in the lies about the war, slander against the soldiers of the Great Victory, front-line counterintelligence soldiers, signs of the psychological war that fascism waged against us are discerned. Theses, arguments, and methods of distorting facts overlap. In 1941, the enemy called to “hit with a brick” those who led fighters into battle for the Motherland, and now they are trying to kill truth and memory, to equate the exploits of our people, millions of their heroes - liberators of the world from the fascist plague and the atrocities of the Nazis and their henchmen.
Traitors to the Motherland
It is striking and indignant that the “innocent victims of Stalin’s terror” now include fascist collaborators, spies and saboteurs, terrorists and policemen, punitive executioners who committed the most serious crimes against their people. It came down to articles in defense of the traitor, the creator of the so-called ROA - the army of traitors to the Motherland, General Vlasov.
What were these traitors really like?
During the war, we constantly encountered traces of their atrocities. The traitors, currying favor with the fascists, tried to surpass them in bloodthirstiness and atrocities of massacres of our compatriots and civilians.
Let me remind the “lawyers” of Vlasov and other traitors to the Motherland: throughout the world, betrayal has always been and will be the gravest crime against one’s people and one’s native country, for which there has never been and cannot be mercy. I declare to them: gentlemen, you are defending criminals, rapists and murderers, executioners-fanatics who have committed the most serious atrocities!
I will give typical examples.
Having liberated Kerch, at the beginning of 1942, in the central square we saw seven hanged residents, and in the ditch near Bagerovo, 8 km from the city, 7,000 Soviet people, mostly Jews, were shot. Together with other counterintelligence officers, I searched for the criminals who committed these atrocities.
In August 1942, in the Don steppes, in the city of Zimovniki, we encountered a motorcyclist in a fascist uniform. Detained. It turned out that the Russian, a native of Zimovniki, was serving the enemy. I thought that our troops had left and looked at my relatives. They found scary photos in his possession. In one he shoots our compatriots, in another, holding a baby by the leg, he swings his arms to crush his head on a pole.
He ordered the soldiers to take him under guard. After some time, they come and embarrassedly say: they saw those photos and could not restrain themselves, they killed the monster. I understood the fighters. The Nazis killed many of their relatives. But still there was lynching, and as required by the Law, he reported it to the army prosecutor. He figured it out, but it didn’t lead to a criminal case.
The traitors fled to the enemy out of cowardice, so as not to risk their lives at the front, or out of hostile motives. Currying favor, the defectors revealed everything they knew and actually became spies. The Nazis sent them to intelligence schools and then to our rear, to the police, punitive detachments that burned villages and killed civilians.
We encountered terrible evidence of enemy atrocities in all liberated cities and many villages. Military counterintelligence officers searched for participants in these atrocities and fought against traitors to the Motherland.
Our compatriots who survived the fascist hell demanded retribution for the atrocities of the criminal executioners. The response to their atrocities in 1943 was a decree signed by the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR M.I. Kalinin, who ordered the public hanging of the most active traitors, fascist collaborators, whose hands were in the blood of the Soviet people. "Smersh" was involved in the implementation of this decree. After the liberation of Voroshilovgrad, 7 active traitors, on whose conscience they had ruined lives, were publicly hanged there. They did the same in Odessa. There were other cases. But they did not punish indiscriminately; everyone was carefully dealt with according to the law, and guilt was proven.
Unfortunately, there were many cases of betrayal of the Motherland during the war, especially at the beginning, when we were retreating. Not only individuals, but also groups went to the Germans. There were cases when traitors killed the commander and went over to the enemy in entire units, defected from combat outposts and during the dispatch of reconnaissance groups behind the front line. Group treason was most often committed by fellow countrymen from the same village or region, whose wives and children remained in the occupied territory. Therefore, counterintelligence officers, having discovered compatriot groups, dispersed them through the command into different units, preventing treason, in essence, saving fighters from the temptation of a serious crime and retribution for it.
In view of the special danger of treason, the order was given to open fire on the defectors, because by betraying our plans to the enemy, they could cause the death of thousands of soldiers and the failure of military operations. It is no coincidence that the commander of the 5th Shock Army, Colonel General N.E. Berzarin, in preparation for the offensive in the Warsaw-Berlin direction, set me the task of not allowing a single betrayal.
In December 1944 and the first half of January 1945, I organized this work at the forefront. As a result, there was not a single traitor or defector in the army sector; the offensive became unexpected for the enemy. To thank me for this work and the exposure of a number of fascist agents, Colonel General Berzarin arrived at our department, presented me with the Order of the Red Banner of Battle and kissed me. By the way, in just one year of the war he awarded me four military orders.
Let me note: before the war, a talented commander and a wonderful person, Berzarin was unreasonably arrested by the NKVD and spent some time in prison, but despite this, he was extremely friendly towards military counterintelligence officers and very highly valued their contribution to the fight against the enemy.
In a fascist lair
Before the storming of Berlin, powerful military counterintelligence task forces were created to detect and arrest the main Nazi war criminals, employees of the enemy’s central intelligence and counterintelligence agencies, seize important documents, valuables, etc. It was a very responsible and intense job. We discovered and secured German archives, treasure warehouses and much more. In my hands were several Hitler’s jackets with gold fascist badges, the boots of the lame Goebbels, gold pens and other personal belongings of the fascist leaders.
Let me especially emphasize: none of the counterintelligence officers set their sights on them. The only thing we used from Hitler's personal supplies were three boxes of vitamins that looked like sugar cubes. The whole squad ate them for six months.
I was lucky enough, at the invitation of Army Commander Berzarin, to participate in the reception of the surrender of the German troops of the Berlin garrison on May 2, 1945. On the same day, I signed the Reichstag.
My last combat mission during the Great Patriotic War was participation in the counterintelligence task force “Smersh” of the 1st Belorussian Front to ensure the security of the signing of the Act of Unconditional Surrender of Germany. We met representatives of the Allied forces and the Keitel group at the Berlin Tempelhof airfield, guarded them during the move and during the signing of the Act in Karlshorst. There were enough difficulties. Berlin was broken, there were no normal roads. But we managed.
In Karlshorst I was responsible for the external security of the building in which the Act was signed. I was lucky enough to be in the hall when Keitel, Friedenburg and Stumpf entered. I noticed that they quickly glanced at each other. It turned out that the carpet on the floor was from Hitler's office. The Germans recognized him immediately.
After the signing of the Act of Surrender there was a magnificent banquet. Everything was brought from Moscow - vodka, cognac, sturgeon, caviar, salmon and much more. The question arose before him: should the German delegation be fed, and if so, how? We turned to G.K. Zhukov. The marshal responded in this spirit: give the Germans everything we have. Let them know Russians not only during the war, but also after it.
Allied representatives sat at the table until the morning. As the banquet participants told me, the head of the French delegation, de Tassigny, apparently got tipsy from joy and fell asleep at the table. Members of other delegations joked good-naturedly: they say that the French slept through the entire war, and the Victory too.
Unknown heroes
The whole country knew many front-line heroes during the war by sight and name. They were everyone's favorites, the personification of a national feat, the banner of our fighting and victorious people. Posters, press and newsreels told about their exploits. But in them you will not find mention of the many outstanding exploits of front-line counterintelligence soldiers.
The importance of counterintelligence, as well as intelligence, for the destinies of peoples and states, big politics, national security and defense is so great that in all countries their activities have always been and will be among the highest state secrets. The secrecy periods of some of them are measured in centuries.
In the 60 years after the Victory, our society has learned only a small fraction of the glorious military deeds and exploits of military counterintelligence officers during the Great Patriotic War. And, probably, it will not be long before the highest interests of the country will allow us to present to the public the complete history of the secret counterintelligence front of the Great Patriotic War and the exploits of military counterintelligence officers.
These unknown heroes fought on the front line and strengthened the fighting capacity of the warring army in every possible way, defeated the fascist aces of espionage, terror and sabotage, and protected the secrets of the Soviet command so that our blows would be sudden and crushing. In the enemy camp, counterintelligence officers obtained extremely important information about the strategic plans of the Nazis. Only on the Kursk Bulge three of our sources promptly reported on the Germans’ preparations for an offensive. This was the case in many strategic operations.
The total combat score of Smersh during the war years was tens of thousands of neutralized spies, saboteurs and terrorists. Divide these figures by the number of days of the Great Patriotic War and make sure that counterintelligence officers at the fronts neutralized enemy agents, saboteurs and terrorists not just every day, but almost every hour(!). It is difficult to imagine what enormous damage they could cause to the active army and the rear. Military counterintelligence prevented it and made a truly invaluable contribution to our Victory.
Smersh veterans occupy a worthy place in the unified ranks of victorious front-line soldiers. They passed on to the current generation of military counterintelligence officers the rich experience of the Great Patriotic War, the tradition of courage and professionalism, faithful and selfless service to the Fatherland.
5 340
There are a lot of rumors around the legendary structure - the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence SMERSH, which operated during the Great Patriotic War and was part of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR. Partly due to the fact that until now the details of some of the operations carried out have not been made public. Even in the beloved movie “In August 1944...” the name “SMERSH” is never mentioned.
Welcome from Skorzeny
The motorcycle was stopped early in September 1944 at the entrance to Moscow - a routine check of documents at a checkpoint. It would seem, given the rank and position of Pyotr Tavrin - major, deputy head of the SMERSH department of the 39th Army - a pure formality. Later, he wondered why the senior lieutenant was hooked, barely glancing at the documents: the officer asked him and his companion, a junior lieutenant, to go to the duty room.
What's the matter? After all, everything is thought out to the smallest detail: impeccably prepared documents, a telegram from the leadership of SMERSH with a call to Moscow, a star of the Hero of the Soviet Union on the chest, and in the tablet there is also a specially printed newspaper “Pravda” with a decree conferring this high rank on Major Tavrin. But it was during the awards that the German agent, prepared to assassinate Joseph Stalin, made a mistake: he had the Order of the Red Star on the left side of his jacket, and not on the right, as it should be...
However, a message about a possible sabotage of this scale to the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence (GUKR) SMERSH came back at the beginning of summer. Information was received from Riga agents that someone had ordered a leather raincoat from the studio, similar to a military one, but with a feature: the right sleeve was asked to be made wider than the left. Hiding weapons in the Soviet rear?
The Arado Ar-232 aircraft from the special detachment for the transfer of saboteurs was also reported on the day of its arrival at the German front-line airfield. Moreover, the approximate time of departure and the area where the saboteurs were unloaded were known. The counterintelligence officers were not prevented even by the fact that the plane shot down by our anti-aircraft gunners made an emergency landing away from the intended site. The pilots helped two passengers roll out an army motorcycle, and in it - a miniature Panzerknakke grenade launcher (the same one that is attached to the sleeve of a raincoat), a mine, ammunition, and various documents.
Then, not only was an assassination attempt on the head of state thwarted by carefully trained agents (Saboteur No. 1 of the Third Reich Otto Skorzeny met with Tavrin three times and approved his candidacy), but also a radio game was successfully carried out. During it, the converted radio operator Shilova, until April 1945, transmitted messages to the German intelligence center about the work done and that the main task was about to be completed. In other words, there is no need to send another group to Moscow.
This operation, codenamed “Fog,” is one of many carried out by SMERSH counterintelligence officers.
To combat intelligence
Where did the name “Death to Spies!” come from? (SMERSH)? It was invented personally by Stalin. At first they offered him another name - “SMERNESH”, that is, “Death to German spies!” To this, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief replied that it is necessary to fight the intelligence of not only Germany, but also other countries - there is no need to focus on one. It was impossible not to agree with this: the secret services of Japan, Finland, Romania, and Italy were actively acting against the Soviet Union.
Why was GUKR SMERSH created not from the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, but only on April 19, 1943? The explanation is simple: having suffered defeat at Stalingrad, Germany and its allies noticeably intensified reconnaissance and sabotage activities on the Eastern Front. In the zone of the German Army Group North alone, 14 reconnaissance schools operated plus agents trained by the central apparatus of the Abwehr (military intelligence and counterintelligence agency). In response to this, it was also necessary to strengthen the work: to increase the effectiveness of the fight against spies, saboteurs, deserters and traitors. And the very fact of the disbandment of GUKR SMERSH a year after the end of the Great Patriotic War speaks of the same thing - this structure completed its task.
Although in general the tasks were much broader. There is the fight against agents in our rear, their identification and neutralization behind the front line, work with prisoners of war - spies were also sent through this channel, investigations, etc. Each direction was led by its own department in the central office.
Double check and confusion
The main merit of SMERSH was that, by neutralizing enemy agents and supplying them with disinformation, they managed to deprive the Germans of reliable data about the operations planned by the Soviet command. That is, the main efforts were aimed at neutralizing the actions of the enemy intelligence agencies: the Abwehr, the field gendarmerie, and the main department of imperial security. During the war years, German intelligence did not receive a single important offensive plan for the Soviet troops and was unable to implement large-scale sabotage. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel (the same one who signed the act of surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945) was forced to admit: “We have never received data that would have had a significant impact on the development of military events.”
Every operation successfully carried out by military counterintelligence officers means thousands of lives of Soviet soldiers saved. For example, on the Leningrad Front, during the preparation of the operation to completely liberate the city on the Neva from the enemy blockade, the enemy was misinformed about the main attack. Although only from July to September 1943, 16 reconnaissance groups with walkie-talkies were sent to various parts of our front line. SMERSH employees stopped all their activities, and recruited several agents. In particular, one of them - Mokiy Karashchenko - himself came to counterintelligence, declaring that he deliberately agreed to cooperate with the Abwehr, seeing this only as a way to end up on Soviet territory and fight against the enemy.
With his help, as well as other activities, it was possible to deceive German intelligence - to give false information about the concentration of the main forces. By the way, an experienced agent, a teacher at the Kaunas intelligence school, Boris Solomakhin, was brought in to check the information received from Karashchenko. But after his arrest, he immediately expressed a desire to work for SMERSH: returning to the Germans, Solomakhin confirmed Karashchenko’s information. He was even awarded the Abwehr Medal of Merit.
Killed in action
Contrary to the prevailing stereotype about the actions of Smershevites mainly in the rear, the largest detachment of military counterintelligence officers are officers who served directly in the troops, on the front line. Among them are the greatest losses: by March 1, 1944, 3,725 people died at the fronts. During the defense of Leningrad and the battles during the lifting of the blockade alone, 1,267 officers were killed.
There are known cases when military counterintelligence officers took command of units, replacing killed officers. Thus, the intelligence officer, Lieutenant Grigory Kravtsov, in August 1944 achieved a assignment to the front, where he initially supervised the penal company of the 69th Army. And he didn’t just know each penalty box by sight - he went with scouts behind the front line, took a valuable language, and was awarded an order. Later, while serving in the SMERSH department of the 134th Infantry Division, on January 14, 1945, Kravtsov replaced the killed company commander in a battle near the Polish town of Kokha Nuwa. Wounded, he continued to command and died from shell fragments when the task was already completed. He and three other SMERSH officers were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union during the war. Posthumously…
It was only in November 1943 that the leadership of GUKR SMERSH first submitted to Stalin a draft decree on awarding military counterintelligence officers - previously only some of them had been nominated for orders and medals by military commanders. Then 1,656 operational employees received awards.
Just three months
The accusation of SMERSH in issuing sentences of execution or imprisonment is untrue. This was the prerogative of military tribunals. Moreover: even for an arrest it was necessary to obtain the sanction of the command. Thus, the go-ahead for the arrest of junior officers (up to and including the captain) was given by the military council of the army or front, senior and senior officers - by the People's Commissar of Defense or the People's Commissar of the USSR Navy. GUKR SMERSH has nothing to do with repressions against the civilian population of the liberated territories. If only because it was part of the direct functions of another department - the NKVD. Joint operations were carried out only against the Nazi henchmen who actively resisted with weapons in their hands: Bandera’s followers in Western Ukraine, the “forest brothers” in the Baltic states, etc.
Nothing more than a myth and an opinion about the special position of Smershevites in comparison with other officers. Counterintelligence officers received standard food and manufactured goods cards, experienced the hardships of the front and were exposed to no less danger. On average, a SMERSH operative served for only three months, and then was out of action - either killed or wounded on the front line or during a special operation. Even from the end of April 1943, the ranks of military counterintelligence officers became not “Chekist”, but army.
...There is no point in discussing with those who question the important role of GUKR SMERSH during the Great Patriotic War. There is a fact that even our opponents admit: our military counterintelligence agents have completely outplayed their opponents from Germany, Japan and other countries. During the war years, more than 6 thousand terrorists and about 3.5 thousand saboteurs were neutralized, over 30 thousand spies were neutralized. More than 3 thousand agents were sent to enemy lines. These numbers speak for themselves - SMERSH completed the task assigned to it and made a significant contribution to the approach of victory over fascism.
Good day, Soldiers! The activities of such an organization as the NKVD during the Second World War are fairly well covered in various publications on this topic. Much less has been said about the activities of SMERSH or military counterintelligence.
This, over time, led to the emergence of many different rumors and myths regarding this organization, as well as a “double” attitude towards it. This lack of information is primarily due to the specific nature of the organization itself, the archives of which are still closed to the general public.
And, basically, all publications dedicated to this organization are for the most part not of a research nature, but a description of various operations carried out by it, which are written on the basis of declassified documents of this organization.
The main opponent of SMERSH was the ABWERH, the intelligence and counterintelligence service, as well as the field gendarmerie and the RSHA, or translated from German, the Main Directorate of Imperial Security. SMERSH was also responsible for work in occupied Soviet territory.
Nowadays, many people do not know and have no idea what German Intelligence is, but the scale and ferocity of the war that it waged is unparalleled in history! So, for example, in the early spring of 1942, through her efforts, the Zeppelin organization was created, which was exclusively engaged in the transfer of its agents behind the front line, to the rear of the Soviet Union. A little later, about six months later, a network of special schools, simply enormous in scale, was created that trained exclusively saboteurs and terrorists. These institutions were capable of training more than ten thousand agents of this kind in just one year, and all of them, of course, “worked” against the Soviet Union!
So the young intelligence service had enough work.
And the fact that the Abwehr did not live up to the hopes placed on it, just like other “secret organizations, such as Zeppelin and others, is the merit of SMERSH, and not someone else.
All SMERSH operations behind the front line included infiltration of the German intelligence services, as well as the police and administrative apparatus. Their task also included the disintegration of the created anti-Soviet associations, which were created from among the traitors and prisoners of war driven into them on pain of death. Employees of the SMERSH Operations Department were also sent to all large partisan detachments for the purpose of carrying out coordination activities with other detachments and with the center, as well as with the proactive goal of preventing the introduction of German agents into the partisan detachments.
But one should not think that SMERSH immediately, from the first days of the war, began to carry out these tasks. The beginning of the war was very difficult for the Soviet Union, and the Red Army had practically no materials about German intelligence agencies, its special schools, forms and methods of preparing and carrying out subversive activities. The operatives themselves had absolutely no not only practical experience in conducting behind-the-front counterintelligence activities, not only training experience, but even the very idea of the essence of such work. A system for selecting personnel for the operational department was not developed, the formed counterintelligence brigades were not sufficiently qualified, the methods of “getting in touch” were extremely poorly developed, there was a clear underestimation of the re-recruitment of enemy agents, the “cover legends” themselves were extremely weak and unconvincing. About such things as, for example, the “double legend”, when an allegedly split operative presented it, the second fictitious one; or such special methods as simulating fainting during interrogations of a failed SMERSH operative have never been heard of.
Therefore, in the first year and a half of the war, counterintelligence was mainly engaged in more intelligence activities than operational ones. She rather gained experience than actively worked, and they were carried out mainly in the interests of the command.
We all know what the beginning of the war was like: heavy defensive battles, a rapidly changing front line. In such conditions SMERSH worked more on the transfer of groups and individual agents behind the front line with the assigned task of reconnaissance of the front line and carrying out individual acts in the manner of sabotage.
The maximum that was done then was to carry out raids on the enemy’s front-line garrisons in order to destroy them or, if there was such a task, to capture prisoners or important documents, and sometimes both: before carrying out such special tasks, the operational department was additionally reinforced by Red Army soldiers or NKVD fighters.
The “birthday” of this organization can be considered April 1943, when the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence (GUKR) SMERSH was formed. In general, the organization was subordinate to Stalin, to whom, by the way, it owes its name, which is still “heard” by intelligence services around the world. Officially, she reported to Viktor Abakumov, a former NKVD employee, who in just ten years went from an ordinary employee to the head of the largest and most influential structure, which still commands respect, despite the “negative pages” of its history. 
The fourth department, responsible for conducting front-line counterintelligence activities, numbering twenty-five people, consisted of two departments: one was responsible for training agents and coordinating their actions. The responsibilities of the second department included processing materials about the activities of enemy intelligence agencies and schools.
The counterintelligence work itself behind enemy lines was carried out by the second departments of SMERSH: activities such as the re-recruitment of agents or the performance of particularly important tasks in the rear were sanctioned by the Center, but not on the “local” level.
Information about the enemy and the methods of work of the German intelligence services came mainly from interrogations of “identified” enemy agents and intelligence officers, as well as from information from people who escaped from captivity and were related to the enemy’s intelligence services.
Time passed and much-needed experience was gained: the quality of training of agents deployed to the rear improved, as did the quality of cover legends and the line of behavior of agents in extreme conditions. Errors and shortcomings were taken into account, which resulted in the fact that agents were no longer given tasks unrelated to their immediate responsibilities. The developed methods for coordinating the activities of intelligence officers working behind enemy lines began to produce positive results, which was reflected in the increased number of agents infiltrated in “key places”, and most of these agents, having managed to successfully complete tasks, returned back.
The infiltrated SMERSH agents provided almost complete information on 359 official employees of German military intelligence and on 978 military spies and saboteurs who were being prepared for transfer to the ranks of the Red Army. Subsequently, 176 enemy intelligence officers were arrested by SMERSH people, 85 German agents turned themselves in, and five recruited German intelligence officers remained to work in their own intelligence units on instructions from Soviet counterintelligence. It was also possible to introduce several people into the ranks of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA), which was under the leadership of General Vlasov, in order to disintegrate it. The result of this work was that in ten months more than one thousand two hundred people crossed over to the Soviet side.
After the second half of 1943, SMERSH began to actively implement the deployment of Soviet intelligence groups behind the Germans, who were tasked with collecting specific information such as information about training methods and tasks of the SS or carrying out captures of personnel agents. Such groups, in terms of the number of people included in them, were small: three, maximum, six people, united by a common task, but, nevertheless, “tailored” to their own, individual task: directly, a person SMERSH, several experienced agents, with mandatory knowledge of the area where they were to work, as well as a radio operator.
From the beginning of 1943 to the middle of it, seven such intelligence groups were deployed with a total of forty-four people. The losses during the entire time of their stay there amounted to only four employees. From September 1943 to October 1944, there were already several times more such groups operating on enemy territory: fourteen radio operators, thirty-three agents and thirty-one SMERSH operational officers were very active, as a result of which one hundred and forty-two people went over to the side of the Union, six of our agents were able to infiltrate German intelligence and fifteen agents of Nazi Germany were identified.
These operations are still classics of operational art and are still studied in the corresponding “courses” in our intelligence service. For example, thanks only to an agent codenamed “Marta,” the SMERSH counterintelligence department was able to detain German agents in August 1943 and seize two radio stations from them, which they did not have time to destroy. These radio stations were then used in radio wars to disorient the enemy.
In general, SMERSH joined the “radio games” and began to actively operate in the second half of 1943. The purpose of these “radio wars” was to transmit false information on behalf of the sent German agents. They were given enormous importance: after all, based on such information, German intelligence gave incorrect information to the higher “General Staff”, and there, accordingly, they made the same, incorrect decisions. Therefore, the number of such “games” with the enemy grew rapidly: by the end of 1943 alone, Smersh conducted 83 radio games. In total, from 1943 until the end of the war, a total of about two hundred “radio games” were held. Thanks to them, it was possible to lure over 400 personnel and Nazi agents to our territory and seize tens of tons of cargo.
The experience accumulated by the special departments gave the Smersh organs an excellent opportunity to move from defense to attack, which consisted in disrupting the operations of the German intelligence services and disintegrating their mechanism “from the inside.” The main emphasis was placed on the penetration of intelligence officers into the Abwehr apparatus and the schools subordinate to it, as a result of which an excellent opportunity arose to find out all the plans in advance and act “proactively.”
One of the most striking examples of such highly professional work of front-line agents is the “development” of the intelligence school of Hitler’s agents, called “Saturn”. It is this operation of the security officers that serves as a model for all intelligence services in the world and formed the basis for the films “The Path to Saturn”, “Saturn is Almost Invisible” and “The End of Saturn”. The plot of these films was based on the following real events:
On June 22, 1943, in the Tula region near the village of Vysokoye, someone who identified himself as Captain Raevsky was detained. After his arrest, he asked to be urgently taken to the nearest counterintelligence department.
Once there, Captain Raevsky immediately announced that he was a courier agent for German intelligence, and he was sent to the Moscow region on a mission. Having come here, he asked for a confession to be issued.
It was found out that his real name was Kozlov Alexander Ivanovich, twenty-three years old. He is a former lieutenant of the Red Army and took an active part as a battalion commander in the most difficult battles near Vyazma. When the division, along with other formations, fell on the Western Front and fell into the enemy pocket, Kozlov, together with a group of soldiers and commanders, made several attempts to break out of the encirclement. When it became clear that this could not be done, he decided to get to Dorogobuzh, a small town in the Smolensk region, occupied by the Germans, with the aim of starting a partisan fight. Next, he was ambushed, captured and placed in a concentration camp.
About a month after he got there, he was summoned to the camp administration, where he was interrogated by a German officer, a representative of the Abwehr team-1B. After the conversation, Kozlov was sent to work in a German unit located nearby, where he stayed for a very short time: two days later he was called to the commandant’s office with an offer to become a German agent, having undergone preliminary training.
The school where Kozlov was sent specialized in training radio operators and intelligence agents. Here he, who received the pseudonym “Menshikov,” learned the radio business, the nuances of collecting the necessary information, and also attended courses on the organizational structure of the Soviet Army.
On June 20, 1943, he was dressed in the uniform of a Red Army captain, given cover documents in the name of Captain Raevsky and a task: to get to the village of Malakhovka near Moscow, contact the German agent “Aromatov”, give him food for the radio station, money and document forms.
A day later, on a bomber, Kozlov crossed the front line and was parachuted into the Tula region. When he was taken to SMERSH, he without hesitation agreed to the offer to return to the German side on a “reciprocal” mission.
The new agent, who received the pseudonym “Pathfinder”, for the third time in a short time, was given the following task: to infiltrate the Borisov intelligence school and collect information about Abwehr Team 103, which was in charge of the school, about its entire teaching staff, as well as students. It was also necessary to identify persons who were already German agents and who had already been abandoned behind Soviet lines.
On the seventeenth day of July, the Pathfinder successfully crossed the front line in the combat zone. As soon as Kozlov was “on the spot,” he called the agreed signal “Headquarters-Smolensk” and was immediately sent to Abwehr Team 103.
On the German side that day there was joy: they did not hide their joy at the successful return of “Menshikov”: a feast was even organized, which was attended by all the leaders of Abwehr Team 103 and the school teachers. At some point, Kozlov felt that they were trying to get him drunk in order to “untie” his tongue, but his body, trained for alcohol, turned out to be more resilient than the Germans expected, and Kozlov was able to control himself at that moment and not “say too much.”
In 1943, “Pathfinder” arrived in Borisov, where he was appointed as a teacher at the central school of human intelligence. After some time, he took the oath of allegiance to Hitler and received the rank of ROA captain.
After contact with the Soviet side through a courier was practically lost (due to the defeat of the Nazi troops in the Oryol-Kursk direction, the school moved to East Prussia), Alexander Ivanovich decided to persuade trained enemy agents to cooperate with Soviet counterintelligence.
As soon as the next batch of potential agents arrived at the school for training, Kozlov, as the person in charge of the educational process, personally met each one, immediately mentally dividing them into three categories: fanatics of fascism, neutrals and those opposed to them. He compromised and expelled those most devoted to the ideas of fascism from school, and attracted people from the first group to cooperate. There were also already trained professionals. For example, he managed to win over to the side of the Soviets a well-trained agent-radio operator under the pseudonym “Berezovsky”, a man, in Kozlov’s opinion, very cunning and intelligent. He managed to persuade him to confess, for which “Berezovsky” was even given a conditional password “Baikal-61”, which he had to tell any agent from SMERSH of any military unit.
By the way, in the history of SMERSH there is not a single case where it was “the other way around”: never once did German intelligence try to introduce “their” person into the organs of SMERSH, apparently considering this impracticable.
Professionalism and combat training of agents SMERSH was increasing all the time. If we take as an example only the Battle of Kursk, then during its course the Smershevites “figured out” and were able to neutralize more than one and a half thousand German agents and, most importantly, saboteurs. SMERSH counterintelligence of the Central Front neutralized 15 enemy enemy groups. By the way, these saboteurs included a group whose goal was to eliminate the front commander, General Rokossovsky.
During the Battle of the Dnieper, the SMERSH department of the 1st Ukrainian Front destroyed 200 Wehrmacht agents and 21 reconnaissance groups. A year later, an attempt was made to assassinate Stalin. During the Vistula-Oder operation (early 1945), with the participation of Smershevites of the 1st Belorussian Front, 68 enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups were eliminated. During the Koenigsberg operation (April 1945), Smershev men of the 3rd Belorussian Front stopped the activities of 21 sabotage and reconnaissance groups.
Smershevites of the 3rd Shock Army of the 1st Belorussian Front took part in the “cleansing” of the Reichstag and the Reich Chancellery, they also took an active part in the search and detention of Nazi leaders, as well as in identifying the corpses of Hitler and Goebbels.
Moreover, all these operations were very well coordinated: sometimes up to many thousands of people were involved in such events!
Towards the end of the war, the re-recruitment of cadets and employees to the side of the Soviet Union became significantly easier. People, feeling that Germany was being defeated, made contact more willingly and easily, trying by any means to make amends for their Motherland.
After the Red Army entered the territory of Eastern European states, SMERSH began to curtail its front-line work. This was due to the very rapid advance of Soviet troops, which means that the front line changed every day, constantly shifting towards the West. Work in such conditions became ineffective. In addition, most of the intelligence agencies had already been destroyed, and those that remained were disbanded, and their personnel joined the ranks of the Wehrmacht defenders.
SMERSH itself existed until 1947, when the governing authorities reprofiled the organization “in accordance with the post-war period”: now the work of searching for Nazi criminals, occupiers and remaining enemy agents came to the fore. In addition, she had to deal with internal political affairs of a purely ideological nature: deportations, internment, and the fight against dissent.
In our time, a largely negative attitude has now formed towards this organization, and this is primarily due to the work that it was engaged in immediately after the war. But, be that as it may, SMERSH was never the underworld, and its agents were demons. Firstly, this is a state organization and it carried out the orders of its superiors, and to whom it was subordinate has already been said. Secondly, now they somehow forget that the time was post-war, and therefore military counterintelligence continued to operate “according to the laws of war.” Her actions, of course, were also cruel, for example, execution at the scene of a crime, but it was these actions that deterred various looters and other dregs of society, who were just waiting for an opportunity to profit from the grief of others. We have all seen news footage of the war in Iraq. Didn’t looting immediately appear there, both among the local population and on the American side? And who plundered the museum when many valuable exhibits disappeared? What about robberies? What about bullying of the population? SMERSH also dealt with such things. The same film “Liquidation” was not shot from scratch, but has a real historical basis.
Well, if we generally summarize the work of SMERSH agents, then we can say that in fact, her work was not limited to forceful arrests with “swinging the pendulum” and shooting with both hands “Macedonian style.” For the most part, it was an analytical job of collecting and analyzing information, but, nevertheless, it was the most effective organization created in wartime. A job that bore little resemblance to the way it is shown in the films, but its effectiveness did not suffer from this. If the reader wants to get some idea about such work, then I recommend reading the series of books “Vow of Silence” by the author Ilyin, especially the first two. It is precisely in them that they describe the work of such a conspiratorial person and his jewelry methods and specific training, how he achieved his goals not by working with his fists, but by skillfully planned actions, which for an outsider are perceived as life’s accidents.
