SMERSH
Encyclopedia
SMERSH was the counter-intelligence
agency in the Red Army
formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially founded on April 14, 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin
. The pretext for its creation was to subvert the attempts by German forces to infiltrate the Red Army, especially after the Third Battle of Kharkov
, which inflicted staggering losses on the Russians during World War II
. SMERSH was less concerned about the counter-intelligence (covered by NKGB "Special Services"), than about the loyalty of the Red Army's own servicemen and Commanders. Stalin, obsessed with conspiracies and espionage
, needed an additional watchdog to deal with the strategic crises, and SMERSH filled that role. The organization was officially in existence until March or April 1946, when its duties were transferred back to NKGB. The head of the agency throughout its existence was Viktor Abakumov
, who rose to become Minister of State Security in the postwar years.
(responsible for Military counterintelligence of the Soviet Army) became part of the Army and Navy (RKKA and RKKF, respectively). The GUGB was separated from the NKVD and renamed the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB), with the Counter-Intelligence (CI) sections assigned to it. Following the outbreak of World War II
, the NKVD and NKGF were reunited on July 20, 1941 and CI was returned to the NKVD in January 1942.
On 14 April 1943, the State Defense Committee (Gosudarstvenny Komitet Oborony [GKO]) ordered the split of The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB/NKVD) into three organizations: The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) which ran the secret police responsible for political repression; the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB) which acted as a secret police, intelligence, and counter-intelligence force throughout World War II; and the GUKR-NKO, also called SMERSH. The CI was again transferred to the People's Commissariats of Defence (NKO) and the Navy (NKF), becoming SMERSH within NKO. The full name of the head entity was Главное управление контрразведки СМЕРШ Народного комиссариата обороны СССР, or USSR People's Commissariat of Defence Chief Counterintelligence Directorate "SMERSH". The organization was headed by Viktor Abakumov
, who was a subordinate of Lavrenty Beria. Therefore, SMERSH belonged to the state security apparatus rather than to the Red Army.
There are many possible reasons for this division. As the requirements of the war expanded and the Soviet armies began their conquest of previously occupied German territory, the complexities of counter-espionage, counter-insurgency, and occupation were sufficiently large to encourage Stalin
to consolidate all of SMERSH under his direct control. Not only did the breakup streamline the Soviet Union’s internal and external intelligence operations, but it allowed the GKO and Joseph Stalin greater control over each of these organizations. Intelligence officers became responsible for their effectiveness as they could not blame their failure on the regular military officers in the GUGB/NKVD’s chain of command. Further, Stalin was able to check the growing ambition of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, the head of the GUGB/NKVD. The GKO utilized this sudden name change in order to create confusion within the Abwehr
, the German military intelligence organization.
The GUKR-NKO received the nickname SMERSH in a Special Department meeting with Stalin in which Stalin rejected the nickname “Death to German Spies” or “Smert’ nemetskim shpionam” retorting: “Why . . . should we only be speaking of German spies? Aren’t other intelligence services working against our country? Let’s call it ‘Smert’ Shpionam’ (Death to Spies).”
by ensuring the good quality of Red Army facilities, improving discipline, eliminating poor leaders, and preventing desertion, self-inflicted wounds, panic, sabotage and poor discipline. Other SMERSH activities included: exposing collaborators in areas recently captured by the Red Army; exposing and punishing economic crimes such as black market activity; protecting secret material and headquarters from enemy agents and saboteurs; and determining the “patriotism” of those captured, encircled, and those who had returned from foreign countries. SMERSH operatives also controlled partisan operations behind German lines and evaluated the partisans’ loyalty to the Soviet Union. SMERSH would then arrest and neutralise anti-Soviet partisans, saboteurs, spies, conspirators, mutineers, deserters
, and people designated as traitors
and criminal elements at the combat front.
As the requirements of the war expanded and the Soviet armies began their conquest of previously occupied German territory, the complexities of counter-espionage, counter-insurgency, and occupation were sufficiently large to encourage Stalin
to consolidate all of SMERSH under his direct control.
The strategic directorate focused on counter-espionage
wet operations and counter-insurgency
pacification
operations that answered directly to Stalin. In March 1946 SMERSH Chief Directorate was resubordinated to the People's Commissariat of Military Forces (Наркомат Вооруженных Сил, NKVS). The NKVS was later reorganized into the Ministry of Military Forces (МVS) soon thereafter, and SMERSH was officially discontinued in May, 1946.
SMERSH was also actively involved in the capture of Soviet citizens who had been active in anti-communist armed groups fighting on the side of Nazi Germany such as the Russian Liberation Army
, the Cossack Corps of Pyotr Krasnov
, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
(see also forced repatriation
).
As the war concluded, SMERSH was given the assignment of finding Adolf Hitler
and, if possible, capturing him alive or recovering his body. Red Army officers and SMERSH agents found Hitler's partially burned corpse near the Führerbunker
after his suicide
and conducted an investigation to confirm the events of his death and identify the remains which (along with those of Eva Braun
) were reportedly secretly buried at SMERSH headquarters in Magdeburg
until April 1970, when they were exhumed, completely cremated, and dumped in the Elbe
river.
Below is the organization of SMERSH based on German Intelligence:
Counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence or counter-intelligence refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intelligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting intelligence against them. National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of...
agency in the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially founded on April 14, 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. The pretext for its creation was to subvert the attempts by German forces to infiltrate the Red Army, especially after the Third Battle of Kharkov
Third Battle of Kharkov
The Third Battle of Kharkov was a series of offensive operations on the Eastern Front of World War II, undertaken by the German Army Group South against the Red Army, around the city of Kharkov , between 19 February and 15 March 1943...
, which inflicted staggering losses on the Russians during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. SMERSH was less concerned about the counter-intelligence (covered by NKGB "Special Services"), than about the loyalty of the Red Army's own servicemen and Commanders. Stalin, obsessed with conspiracies and espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
, needed an additional watchdog to deal with the strategic crises, and SMERSH filled that role. The organization was officially in existence until March or April 1946, when its duties were transferred back to NKGB. The head of the agency throughout its existence was Viktor Abakumov
Viktor Abakumov
Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov , was a high level Soviet security organs official, from 1943 to 1946 the head of SMERSH in the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense, and from 1946 to 1951 Minister of State Security or MGB . Abakumov was a notoriously brutal official who was known to torture prisoners...
, who rose to become Minister of State Security in the postwar years.
Creation of GUKR-NKO or ‘SMERSH’
On February 3, 1941, the Special Sections (osoby otdel) of the NKVDNKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
(responsible for Military counterintelligence of the Soviet Army) became part of the Army and Navy (RKKA and RKKF, respectively). The GUGB was separated from the NKVD and renamed the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB), with the Counter-Intelligence (CI) sections assigned to it. Following the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the NKVD and NKGF were reunited on July 20, 1941 and CI was returned to the NKVD in January 1942.
On 14 April 1943, the State Defense Committee (Gosudarstvenny Komitet Oborony [GKO]) ordered the split of The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB/NKVD) into three organizations: The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) which ran the secret police responsible for political repression; the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB) which acted as a secret police, intelligence, and counter-intelligence force throughout World War II; and the GUKR-NKO, also called SMERSH. The CI was again transferred to the People's Commissariats of Defence (NKO) and the Navy (NKF), becoming SMERSH within NKO. The full name of the head entity was Главное управление контрразведки СМЕРШ Народного комиссариата обороны СССР, or USSR People's Commissariat of Defence Chief Counterintelligence Directorate "SMERSH". The organization was headed by Viktor Abakumov
Viktor Abakumov
Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov , was a high level Soviet security organs official, from 1943 to 1946 the head of SMERSH in the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense, and from 1946 to 1951 Minister of State Security or MGB . Abakumov was a notoriously brutal official who was known to torture prisoners...
, who was a subordinate of Lavrenty Beria. Therefore, SMERSH belonged to the state security apparatus rather than to the Red Army.
There are many possible reasons for this division. As the requirements of the war expanded and the Soviet armies began their conquest of previously occupied German territory, the complexities of counter-espionage, counter-insurgency, and occupation were sufficiently large to encourage Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
to consolidate all of SMERSH under his direct control. Not only did the breakup streamline the Soviet Union’s internal and external intelligence operations, but it allowed the GKO and Joseph Stalin greater control over each of these organizations. Intelligence officers became responsible for their effectiveness as they could not blame their failure on the regular military officers in the GUGB/NKVD’s chain of command. Further, Stalin was able to check the growing ambition of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, the head of the GUGB/NKVD. The GKO utilized this sudden name change in order to create confusion within the Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
, the German military intelligence organization.
The GUKR-NKO received the nickname SMERSH in a Special Department meeting with Stalin in which Stalin rejected the nickname “Death to German Spies” or “Smert’ nemetskim shpionam” retorting: “Why . . . should we only be speaking of German spies? Aren’t other intelligence services working against our country? Let’s call it ‘Smert’ Shpionam’ (Death to Spies).”
Duties
The GKO officially created SMERSH to ensure the Soviet Union’s security from internal political threats and foreign espionage, although it carried out a wide variety of other tasks between 1943 and 1946 as well. SMERSH’s counterintelligence operations included seeking and destroying counter revolutionaries, finding and interrogating enemy agents, hunting Soviet agents who had not returned by the appointed date, and evaluating the usefulness of captured enemy documents. SMERSH also took an active role in the affairs of the Red ArmyRed Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
by ensuring the good quality of Red Army facilities, improving discipline, eliminating poor leaders, and preventing desertion, self-inflicted wounds, panic, sabotage and poor discipline. Other SMERSH activities included: exposing collaborators in areas recently captured by the Red Army; exposing and punishing economic crimes such as black market activity; protecting secret material and headquarters from enemy agents and saboteurs; and determining the “patriotism” of those captured, encircled, and those who had returned from foreign countries. SMERSH operatives also controlled partisan operations behind German lines and evaluated the partisans’ loyalty to the Soviet Union. SMERSH would then arrest and neutralise anti-Soviet partisans, saboteurs, spies, conspirators, mutineers, deserters
Desertion
In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
, and people designated as traitors
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
and criminal elements at the combat front.
As the requirements of the war expanded and the Soviet armies began their conquest of previously occupied German territory, the complexities of counter-espionage, counter-insurgency, and occupation were sufficiently large to encourage Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
to consolidate all of SMERSH under his direct control.
The strategic directorate focused on counter-espionage
Counter-Espionage
-Cast:* Warren William as Michael Lanyard* Eric Blore as Jamison* Hillary Brooke as Pamela Hart* Thurston Hall as Insp. Crane* Fred Kelsey as Detective Wesley Dickens* Forrest Tucker as Anton Schugg* Matthew Boulton as Inspector J...
wet operations and counter-insurgency
Counter-insurgency
A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency involves actions taken by the recognized government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it...
pacification
Peace
Peace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent conflict. Commonly understood as the absence of hostility, peace also suggests the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the...
operations that answered directly to Stalin. In March 1946 SMERSH Chief Directorate was resubordinated to the People's Commissariat of Military Forces (Наркомат Вооруженных Сил, NKVS). The NKVS was later reorganized into the Ministry of Military Forces (МVS) soon thereafter, and SMERSH was officially discontinued in May, 1946.
Other activities
SMERSH activities included "filtering" the soldiers and forced labourers recovered from captivity.SMERSH was also actively involved in the capture of Soviet citizens who had been active in anti-communist armed groups fighting on the side of Nazi Germany such as the Russian Liberation Army
Russian Liberation Army
Russian Liberation Army was a group of predominantly Russian forces subordinated to the Nazi German high command during World War II....
, the Cossack Corps of Pyotr Krasnov
Pyotr Krasnov
Pyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov , 1869 – January 17, 1947), sometimes referred to in English as Peter Krasnov, was Lieutenant General of the Russian army when the revolution broke out in 1917, and one of the leaders of the counterrevolutionary White movement afterward.- Russian Army :Pyotr Krasnov...
, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...
(see also forced repatriation
Operation Keelhaul
Operation Keelhaul was carried out in Northern Italy by British and American forces to repatriate Soviet Armed Forces POWs of the Nazis to the Soviet Union between August 14, 1946 and May 9, 1947...
).
As the war concluded, SMERSH was given the assignment of finding Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and, if possible, capturing him alive or recovering his body. Red Army officers and SMERSH agents found Hitler's partially burned corpse near the Führerbunker
Führerbunker
The Führerbunker was located beneath Hitler's New Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. It was part of a subterranean bunker complex which was constructed in two major phases, one part in 1936 and the other in 1943...
after his suicide
Death of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot on Monday, 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. His wife Eva , committed suicide with him by ingesting cyanide...
and conducted an investigation to confirm the events of his death and identify the remains which (along with those of Eva Braun
Eva Braun
Eva Anna Paula Hitler was the longtime companion of Adolf Hitler and, for less than 40 hours, his wife. Braun met Hitler in Munich, when she was 17 years old, while working as an assistant and model for his personal photographer and began seeing him often about two years later...
) were reportedly secretly buried at SMERSH headquarters in Magdeburg
Magdeburg
Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....
until April 1970, when they were exhumed, completely cremated, and dumped in the Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
river.
Organization
At the end of the Second World War, American forces examining captured German intelligence sources determined that SMERSH was composed of six directorates, six departments, and three other branches. Directorates conducted operations involving agents on the “frontline” of the intelligence war whereas departments received and interpreted the information coming in from agents and enemy intercepts. SMERSH also ran three other groups; the Komendatura, which guarded and managed SMERSH installations and prisoners; the Troika, which acted as a military court and could administer punishment without defense from the accused; and the Administrative Bureau and Secretariat, which acted as the personal staff of the SMERSH commander.Below is the organization of SMERSH based on German Intelligence:
Stephan, Stalin’s Secret War, 212.
This Chart shows another way SMERSH may have been organized:
Org.References - Lubianka 2. Iz istorii otiecziestwiennoj kontrrazwiedki, W.A. Sobolewa Moskwa 1999
Methods
In its counter-espionage and counter-intelligence roles, SMERSH appears to have been extremely successful throughout World War II. SMERSH actions resulted in numerous captures, desertions, and defections of German intelligence officers and agents, some of whom SMERSH turned into double agents. Indeed, the Germans began to consider missions where their losses were less than ninety percent “satisfactory.” According to German sources, the Soviets rendered approximately 39,500 German agents useless by the end of the war.SMERSH utilized a number of different counterintelligence tactics: informants, security troops, radio games, and the passing of disinformation, ensuring both the reliability of the military and the civilian population. SMERSH set up a system of informants by sending a SMERSH officer to each battalion composed of between 1,000 and 1,500 men. Each SMERSH officer would enlist a number of “residents” who recruited their own “reserve resident” and between six and eight informants. Informants reported those sympathetic to the Germans, desertion, unpatriotic attitudes, and low morale and were authorized to take “immediate corrective action” if the need arose. SMERSH recruited between 1,540,000 and 3,400,000 informants, or about twelve percent of the entire Red Army. However, SMERSH coerced up to half of all of its informants to work for them.
In order to secure the Red Army’s rear, SMERSH evacuated civilians and set up checkpoints so as to assert physical control. Next, agents sought and arrested “suspicious persons” who might be German agents. Finally, SMERSH interrogated those arrested.
To confuse German intelligence with disinformation, SMERSH utilized radio playbacks and played over 183 radio games over the course of the war. Operation “Opyt’” serves as a good example of the effectiveness of these radio games. Between May and June 1943, SMERSH used three German agents to spread disinformation about the Kursk counteroffensive by suggesting the Red Army had begun to dig in rather than prepare for an attack, thus contributing to the success of the Red Army’s surprise attack. Before Operation Bagration, the largest Allied operation of the Second World War, SMERSH caught and “doubled” a number of German agents who tricked the German military into underestimating the number of Soviet troops by 1.2 million men.
SMERSH played a major role in creating and controlling partisan operations behind German lines. SMERSH agents infiltrated German-held territories, blowing up German rest facilities and assassinating commanders, knowing that the civilian population would suffer German reprisals. The civilian population would then become motivated to support and joined partisan groups, often run by SMERSH. After capturing German-held territory and reuniting with the Red Army, SMERSH interviewed partisans in order to determine the partisans’ loyalty to the regime.
In popular culture
- SMERSH appears as the opposition service in some of the earlier James BondJames BondJames Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
novels by the author Ian FlemingIan FlemingIan Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
. - It also appeared in the video game Death to SpiesDeath to SpiesReleased in 2007, Death to Spies is a stealth action PC game set in World War II and produced by 1C Company and Haggard Games. The game was released on Valve's digital distribution system, Steam, on March 12, 2008.-Game overview:...
and its sequel, Death to Spies: Moment of TruthDeath to Spies: Moment of TruthDeath To Spies: Moment Of Truth is a third-person stealth action PC game set during World War II. Produced by 1C Company along with Haggard Games, Moment of Truth is a sequel to the stealth action title Death to Spies.- Game Overview :...
.
Works Cited
Jordan, Jonathan. "Operation Bagration: Soviet Offensive of 1944." HistoryNet.com. www.historynet.com/operation-bagration-soviet-offensive-of-1944.htm (accessed May 14, 2011).Michael Parrish. The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939-1953. Westport: Praeger, 1996.
Stephan, Robert. "Smersh: Soviet Military Counter-Intelligence During the Second World War." Journal of Contemporary History 22, no. 4 (1987): 585-613.
Stephan, Robert. Stalin's Secret War: Soviet Counterintelligence Against the Nazis, 1941-1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
External links
- Russia unveils Stalin's spy service BBC report on an exhibition in Moscow marking the 60th anniversary of SMERSH's founding.
- Track down Soviet war criminals, Ukrainian group urges, By Nathan Wilson