Civilian Casualties
In 1941, the OOs were involved in ‘cleansing’ regions near the front lines—that is, clearing out the local Russian population. Stalin ordered the troops to show no consideration for civilians caught up in military actions. In November 1941, he advised the commanders of the Leningrad Front: ‘While moving forward, do not try to take over a particular place… [but instead] raze built-up areas to the ground and burn them down, burying the German staffs and units hiding there. Leave any sentimentality aside and destroy all built-up areas in your path. This is the best course.’1
Four days later the Stavka (Stalin and Shaposhnikov) ordered the destruction of villages in the enemy rear:
1. All built-up areas in the German rear located in a 40–60 kilometer zone from the front line and 20–30 kilometers to the left and right of the roads must be destroyed and burned down.
To destroy the built-up areas in this location, aviation should be sent in immediately; intensive artillery and mortars should also be used…
3. During enforced retreats of our units in various parts [of the front line], the Soviet locals must be taken with the troops, and buildings in all built-up areas must be destroyed, without exception, to prevent the enemy from using them.2
A directive of the Military Council of the Western Front ordered the OOs to take charge of enforcing the eviction of civilians: ‘All citizens who resist eviction must be arrested and transferred to the NKVD organs… This order is to be executed by local officials and Special Departments of the formations and units.’3
Stalin’s cable (paragraphs added) to the leaders of the defense of Leningrad illustrates his callous attitude toward his own countrymen:
To: Zhukov, Zhdanov, Kuznetsov, Merkulov
There are rumors that the German scoundrels, while marching to Leningrad, are sending old men and old women, along with younger women and children, ahead of their troops as civilian delegates from the occupied regions with a request to the Bolsheviks to surrender LENINGRAD. There are also rumors that among the Leningrad Bolsheviks are people who think that arms should not be used against such delegates.
In my opinion, if such people do in fact exist among the Bolsheviks, they should be the first to be destroyed because they are more dangerous than the fascists. My advice is: do not be sentimental, kick the enemy and its supporters, whether they volunteered to be human shields or not, in their teeth. War is implacable, and those who are weak or hesitant are the first to be defeated.
If one among us hesitates, he will be the main person guilty of the downfall of Leningrad. You must destroy the Germans and their delegates, no matter whether they volunteered or not, and kill the enemies. There should be no mercy toward the German scoundrels or their delegates.
I ask you to inform the commanders and commissars of all divisions and corps about this, as well as the Military Council of the Baltic Fleet and commanders and commissars of ships.
Most of the evicted civilians were doomed to die. In July 1942, the German Secret Field Police reported from the occupied territory: ‘Refugees from the areas of military actions… frequently eat peculiar bread consisting of rotten potatoes from the previous season mixed up with moss and garbage… Many times we found the corpses of female refugees who had died of hunger. It is not surprising that under these circumstances refugees join partisans or begin stealing and robbing while moving around alone or in groups.’5
Between 15 and 17 million Soviet civilians died during the Great Patriotic War.6 Apparently, the evicted persons constituted a high percentage of this number.
Teenagers were special OO targets. In December 1941, Nikolai Selivanovsky, OO head of the Southwestern Front, who would later be Abakumov’s first deputy in SMERSH, ordered that ‘all teenagers appearing at the front line and in the rear who do not have parents, or have lost their parents’ were to be detained and questioned.7 These teenagers were suspected of being German agents. Three weeks later the acting chief USSR prosecutor approved the death sentence for treason and espionage for Soviet citizens aged 16 and older.8
Inevitably, the entire population of ethnic Germans living in the Soviet Union became suspects. During 1942, all ethnic German males aged 15 to 55 and females aged 16 to 45 were ‘mobilized’ (in fact, arrested) for work in the ‘labor battalions’ supervised by the NKVD.9 On October 14, 1942, the GKO ordered that the same measures be applied to all nationalities with whom the Soviet Union was in a state of war—Romanians, Hungarians, Italians, and Finns. All such people were considered a potential ‘fifth column’.
Barrage Units
The cruelty of Stalin’s draconian orders could not prevent soldiers from retreating in 1941, and the OOs and the newly created NKVD barrage units (zagraditel’nye otryady or, for short, zagradotryady; literally, ‘fence detachments’), which belonged to the OOs, were tasked with preventing retreats and desertions. These units are remembered with deepest hatred by literally every war veteran who fought at the front line and survived. As during the war with Finland, the barrage units were usually positioned behind the fighting troops, firing on them until they turned around if they started to retreat. In June 1941, OO barrage detachments also scoured the roads and train stations near the front lines for deserters.10 From July 19, 1941, barrage units grew until the divisional and corps OOs had NKVD barrage platoons, an army OO had a company, and an OO directorate of the front had a barrage battalion. On October 31, 1941, Abakumov’s deputy Milshtein reported to Beria:
From the beginning of the war until October 10, 1941, the NKVD Special Departments and the NKVD Barrage Units for Guarding the Rear detained 657,364 servicemen who detached from their units or deserted from the front.
Of them… Special Departments captured 249,969 men, and… NKVD Barrage Units… captured 407,395 servicemen.
Of those, 632,486 men were sent back to the front…
By decisions of Special Departments and military tribunals, 10,201 men were shot; of that number, 3,321 men were shot in front of their formations.11
By October 1942, 193 NKVD barrage units were operating at all fronts. Grigorii Falkovsky, a former infantryman, recalled in 2008 the death of his friend, Naum Shuster, at the beginning of the Battle of Kursk in July 1943: ‘A zagradotryad was stationed behind our backs… A few soldiers scrambled out of the first row of our just-destroyed trenches trying to save themselves from the [German] tanks, and rushed toward us. My friend Naum Shuster was among them. He ran straight toward a lieutenant, a member of the zagradotryad. And when Naum was within three meters of him, the lieutenant shot Naum point-blank with his handgun, firing directly into Naum’s forehead. Naum died instantly. This scoundrel killed my friend!’12
In addition to these OO units, Stalin ordered that each rifle division have a barrage unit, ‘a battalion of reliable soldiers’.13 Soldiers called these units ‘rear outposts’, ‘covering forces’, or even ‘Mekhlis’s men’. A survivor from the Western Front recalled: ‘They shot everybody who did not have a special permit to leave the front line, and sometimes even those who had the permits, but didn’t have time to show them.’14