The front and army SMERSH units were responsible for holding German POWs for interrogation by the RU investigators. The RU officers also interrogated SMERSH prisoners in Moscow. In turn, the RU was obliged to provide SMERSH with intelligence information about agents who were being prepared, by the Germans, to infiltrate the Red Army. In order to collect intelligence, between May 1943 and May 1945 the RU sent 1,236 groups of agents and terrorists to the enemy’s rear.44 Just after the war, in June 1945, the RU and GRU were united, and General Kuznetsov became head of this enlarged GRU of the General Staff.
In addition to two military intelligence agencies, in April 1943 a small group headed by Colonel General Filipp Golikov and subordinated directly to Stalin also began analyzing intelligence information. This group did not include a representative of SMERSH. The whole system of intelligence and counterintelligence became exceedingly complicated, but all their branches were controlled by Stalin as Supreme Commander in Chief, Defense Commissar, or GKO Chairman.
The 5th GUKR SMERSH Department headed by Colonel Dmitrii Zenichev—and, from July 1944, by Colonel Andrei Frolov—was in charge of supervising the UKRs of fronts. It also maintained military field courts. These courts were introduced by a secret decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued on April 19, 1943; that is, at the same time as SMERSH’s creation. As with the other documents in the SMERSH package, Stalin approved the text of this decree after several editorial changes.45 The decree had a long and awkward title: ‘On Measures of Punishment of the German-Fascist Villains Guilty of Killing and Torturing Civilians and Captured Red Army Soldiers, of Spies and Soviet Traitors to the Motherland, and of Their Accomplices’, and its text was declassified only in 1997.46 The possible punishments included death by hanging at a public meeting or being sentenced to ten years of especially hard labor. Separate special hard labor (katorzhnye) sections were created in the Vorkuta, Norilsk, and Dal’stroi labor camps for a total 30,000 convicts sentenced by these field courts.47
Each court consisted of the chairman of the Military Tribunal, heads of SMERSH and political departments of the unit, and a military prosecutor. The decision of the court had to be approved by the unit commander. The existence of military field courts was kept secret.
The field courts considered cases immediately after taking over territories previously occupied by the enemy. Because the decree was secret, defendants did not know the exact reason for their conviction. The most active military field courts were within the 1st Ukrainian Front. From May 1943 to May 1945, these courts tried 221 cases against 348 defendants, of whom 270 were sentenced to death and hanged.48 From September 1943, military tribunals could also use the April 19, 1943 decree, and it continued to be used to sentence traitors and German collaborators after World War II. The total number of executed is unknown, but the number of collaborators sentenced to especially hard labor (katorga) in 1943–45 was approximately 29,000, of whom 10,000 could not work physically.
Nicola Sinevirsky had an acquaintance who occasionally participated in the field courts:
Despite the excellent food we were given, Mefodi had lost weight. His lean, pale face made him look years older than when I had first met him…
‘My conscience is no longer clear, Nicola,’ Mefodi said abruptly. ‘Frequently, I have to act as the third judge in a military tribunal and I condemn people to death. You can never understand how disgusting the whole business is. The prosecutor reads his charges, then demands capital punishment. Our triumvirate always confirms that sentence and the prisoner is taken out and shot… Under such conditions, anyone would look sick. It would be an easy thing for me to commit suicide…’
The pupils of his eyes were enlarged and there was a near-insane look in them. It was a ghastly thing to see.49
The 6th Department or Investigation Unit existed only in the GUKR SMERSH in Moscow. Its investigators commonly worked in coordination with investigators of the 2nd Department. Later, its head and deputy head, Aleksandr Leonov and Mikhail Likhachev, respectively, played important roles in interrogations of the highest level German POWs, and Likhachev headed a group of SMERSH officers sent to the Military International Trial in Nuremberg.
Cases prepared by the 6th Department were tried by the Military Collegium or the OSO of the NKVD. As already mentioned, in May 1943, Abakumov and Merkulov joined the OSO board.50 They or their representatives presented cases investigated by SMERSH or the NKGB, respectively.
The 7th GUKR SMERSH Department was in charge of statistics and archival data. It was also responsible for surveillance of high-level military personnel in the Central Committee and the Defense and the Navy Commissariats, as well as those involved in secret work who were sent abroad. Colonel Aleksandr Sidorov, who previously worked at a similar 1st NKVD Special Department, was appointed head of this department. After the war he continued heading the 7th Department (statistics and archival data) of military counterintelligence.
The 8th Department was responsible for ciphering. Later, after 1946, its head Colonel Mikhail Sharikov continued the same work in the MGB.
The 9th Department was in charge of operational equipment. Earlier, in the UOO, its head, Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandr Kochetkov, had overseen the 11th Department that was in charge of surveillance of the engineering, chemical, and signals troops. After the war, in 1946–49, Kochetkov headed the MGB’s Department ‘B’, which was in charge of the use of technical equipment, including the surveillance of phone calls. The 10th Department carried out arrests, searches and surveillance.
Little is known about the activity of the 11th GUKR Department ‘S’, i.e. Special Operations, headed by Colonel Ivan Chertov. According to the recollection of a member of this department, it was responsible for sending intelligence and terrorist groups, similar to those created by Sudoplatov’s 4th NKGB Directorate (terrorism), to the rear of the German troops.51 Sudoplatov used groups of 15–20 trained saboteurs, many of whom were foreign Communists who had participated in the Spanish Civil War and knew the German language well. Members of the groups formed by the 11th Department were selected from among physically strong men, usually former sportsmen who knew martial arts and were able to use various types of firearms. These intelligence and terrorist groups were sent to the enemy’s rear during the massive Red Army offensive actions. In other words, this was SMERSH’s version of the Abwehr’s Brandenburger saboteurs.
Finally, there was a Political Department in Moscow consisting of only two people: its head, Colonel Nikifor Siden’kov, and a typist.52 Later, in the MGB, Abakumov promoted Siden’kov to an important position as deputy head of the Main Directorate for the MGB Interior Troops (former NKVD/MVD Interior Troops).
Of course, SMERSH also had purely administrative personnel, and administration and finance Departments. Ivan Vradii, one of Abakumov’s deputies, headed the Personnel Department. The Administration and Finance Department was headed at first by Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Polovnev, then, from August 1943, by Lieutenant Colonel Maksim Kochegarov, former head of the 1st Moscow GUKR SMERSH School. After the war, Kochegarov was a deputy, and then, from November 1947 till mid-1951, head of the MGB Administration Department.