Kirill Stolyarov, a Russian historian, concluded: ‘SMERSH outfoxed the Abwehr… Stalin, who made replacements in the cadres quickly at the slightest indication of incompetence, kept Abakumov in his position during the whole war.’67 However, success was incomplete. Until the end of the war, 389 unidentified German agents continued to send radio messages from the territory liberated by the Red Army.68
Although the details remain unknown, radio games continued long after the war, apparently, with British and American intelligence. On November 15, 1952, MGB Minister Semyon Ignatiev reported to Stalin: ‘A plan of the cancellation of radio games advantageous for us and conducted from the territories of the Baltic Soviet Republics, will be presented to you on November 20.’69
In the Abwehr Schools
From the UOO, SMERSH inherited the practice of sending agents to the enemy’s rear. Some of these military counterintelligence officers successfully joined German intelligence organizations and also schools, where they collected information on the schools, their staffs, and students. On the Eastern Front there were more than 130 intelligence and counterintelligence SD and Abwehr organizations and 60 schools.70 Information gathered by Soviet agents allowed SMERSH operatives to arrest German agents when they entered Soviet territory.
Frequently, SMERSH agents had already attended the Abwehr schools. While many civilians and Soviet POWs volunteered for these schools ostensibly as German agents, they really intended to use the opportunity to return to Soviet territory and join the Red Army. After graduation, when Abwehr centers sent them to Soviet territory to work as German spies, these individuals found SMERSH units and gave them detailed information about the Abwehr schools and the tasks assigned to them by the German intelligence. In Chekist jargon, this was a situation in which a person ‘has admitted his/her guilt and testified about himself/herself’. These people were, of course, highly valuable to SMERSH, and when they were sent back as double agents, their special knowledge yielded much greater success at collecting intelligence than the results attained by other SMERSH agents.
In Moscow, the 4th GUKR Department controlled the sending of agents and double agents to the enemy. In the UKRs at the fronts, the 2nd departments handled these operations. From April 1943 to February 1944, 75 SMERSH officers were introduced into German intelligence organs and schools, and 38 of them managed to return.71 SMERSH agents collected information on 359 Abwehr officers and 978 intelligence school graduates; as a result, SMERSH operatives arrested 176 saboteurs operating in the Red Army’s rear. From September 1943 to October 1944, SMERSH sent ten groups of parachutists (78 officers) into the enemy’s rear at various fronts.72 Of these, six groups managed to join German intelligence as Soviet spies, recruiting 142 Soviet agents and unmasking 15 enemy agents.
On June 24, 1944, Maj. Gen. Pyotr Ivashutin, head of the UKR of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, sent a report to Abakumov describing the UKR’s success:
To: Head of the Main Counterintelligence Directorate
SMERSH, Security Commissar of the 2nd Rank V. Abakumov
June 24, 1944
During this period, the work in the enemy’s rear included the penetration of our agents into the intelligence and counterintelligence organs of the enemy that were acting against our front. Until the end of 1943, Abwehrgroups 103, 203, and 303 were active against us. To penetrate these organs, the following agents were sent to the enemy’s rear [the names are omitted in the published document]. At the time, three of our agents—Rastorguev, Mikhail Aleksandrovich; Turusin, Georgii Dmitrievich; and Robak, Nadezhda Petrovna—had already joined Abwehrgroup-203.
Turusin, after being sent by the enemy to our rear, came to us to acknowledge his guilt and gave detailed testimony about himself and the other agents. Then, following our order, he recruited three agents of Abwehrgroup-203 to work for us. Later, when they were sent to our territory, they voluntarily gave themselves up to us. He helped us to arrest three more saboteurs who were parachuted in with him, and gathered valuable information about the staff and agents of the Abwehrgroup.
Rastorguev, another former agent of the Abwehrgroup-203, came to us to acknowledge his guilt. With Turusin and with GUKR SMERSH’s sanction, in September of last year he was sent to the enemy’s rear with the task of recruiting a member of the German intelligence staff. He fulfilled our task and recruited this officer and three more agents. After he was sent to the enemy for the second time, he personally brought three agent-members of his intelligence team back to us. Based on his information, the SMERSH Directorate of the 2nd Ukrainian Front arrested two agents of Abwehrgroup-204. He also collected full information on fourteen agents and ten staff members of Abwehrgroups 203 and 204.
Robak, Nadezhda Petrovna, an agent of Abwehrgroup-203, along with two other women agents, was parachuted into the rear of our front at the end of July 1943. She voluntarily came to us to acknowledge her guilt and gave detailed information about her connections with the German intelligence and about other agents. In 1943, based on her information, we arrested four women agents of Abwehrgroup-203, who were left in the Donbass [the coal mining area between Russia and Ukraine] to collect intelligence and to penetrate the Red Army. Like Rastorguev, with the sanction of the GUKR SMERSH, on September 22, 1943, she was sent to the enemy’s rear with the task of recruiting a staff member of the German intelligence. She fulfilled the task, and the recruited intelligence officer has already sent agents of Abwehrgroup-203 into the hands of Soviet counterintelligence.
For some reason, Ivashutin’s report did not mention the name of Afanasii Polozov, the German intelligence officer recruited by Nadezhda Robak. As was common among Russian teachers in the Abwehr schools, he worked under the alias of ‘Vladimir Krakov’ or ‘Dontsov’.74 A young Cossack, he served as a veterinarian in the 38th Cavalry Division of the Red Army, and on May 12, 1942, he was taken prisoner by the Germans. After training in German intelligence schools, in April 1943 Krakov was appointed head of the Abwehrgroup-203 school for saboteurs attached to the 1st German Tank Army then stationed in the Ukraine. Soon he started searching for contact with Soviet military counterintelligence and sent some of his agents, including Nadezhda Robak, to find SMERSH officials.
Although it doesn’t mention Polozov by name, Ivashutin’s report presents the recruiting of Polozov and his work for SMERSH as a success. However, Polozov’s work for Ivashutin ended tragically. Later he testified: ‘When it became impossible [i.e., too dangerous] to continue my work [for SMERSH], in March 1944, I crossed the front line near the town of Yampol, and came to the head of counterintelligence of the Soviet Tank Army [of the 2nd Ukrainian Front] Shevchenko, who knew about my work.’75 To Polozov’s complete surprise, Shevchenko said that he had never known Polozov and that Polozov had never worked for Soviet counterintelligence.