There were reasons for coordinating the three Soviet security services, beyond Beria’s desire to gain control over them. At the beginning of 1945, the activity of groups of German terrorists in the rear of advancing Soviet troops intensified.3 On February 8, 1945, Aleksandr Vadis, head of the UKR of the 1st Belorussian Front, reported to Moscow that ‘of 184 [German] agents discovered by “SMERSH” during January 1945, 124 agents had orders to carry out sabotage and terrorist acts.’4 According to other SMERSH reports, the German intelligence services had tried unsuccessfully to replicate what the Soviet partisan movement did in the rear of the German armies in the Nazi-occupied Soviet territories. Small SMERSH operational groups became prey for the German terrorists. However, Soviet troops were advancing so fast that the German secret services did not have enough time to organize a widespread partisan movement.
After appointing plenipotentiaries, the NKVD–NKGB–SMERSH joint operations got under way immediately. On January 15, 1945, Abakumov reported to Beria on the organization of special NKVD groups at the 3rd Belorussian Front:
1. Six operational groups were created for Chekist work [i.e., the arrest and screening of Germans] at the areas of each army of [the 3rd Belorussian] Front.
The groups consist of a head, two deputy heads (one in charge of the NKVD troops), twenty operatives, and two translators. Each group is supported by an NKVD regiment.
Additionally, a reserve consisting of operatives [SMERSH officers] and NKVD troops was created for special tasks.
Detailed instructions were given to every member of the group… They were told to find and immediately arrest spies, saboteurs, and terrorists of the intelligence organs of the enemy; members of the bandit-insurgent groups; members of fascist and other organizations; leaders and operational staff of the police, and other suspicious individuals; and also to confiscate depots of weapons, radio transmitters, and technical equipment left by the enemy for [sabotage] work.
The operational groups were instructed to pay special attention to these measures in the towns and big villages, train stations, and industrial plants.
On January 16 of this year, the operational groups, together with the NKVD troops, will be sent to their destination.
Each group received 10 trucks for the transportation of the arrestees and for operational needs…
[…]
Additionally, [I] asked Headquarters to intensify the guarding of water reservoirs and wells to prevent enemy agents from poisoning them…
3. We are preparing a prison to hold the arrestees to be transported from East Prussia.5
The activity of such NKVD operational groups (their staffs included NKVD, NKGB and SMERSH officers) was also described in the order by Lavrentii Tsanava, Plenipotentiary to the 2nd Belorussian Front:
January 22, 1945
Top Secret
No. 10 s/s
To: Commanders of all NKVD operational groups
Heads of all OKR SMERSH of the armies
Commanders of all regiments of the NKVD Troops Guarding the Rear of the 2nd Belorussian Front
[…] We suggest:
1. During the movement of Red Army troops an NKVD group should move along with the advancing detachments so, after the troops enter a town or a built-up area, the group would be able to immediately capture [all spies, agents, terrorists, etc., ‘despite their nationality or citizenship’]6, weapons, lists, archives and other documents.
An operational group should be led by its commander or his deputy, together with a battalion of the NKVD troops.
2. An operational group that follows the advancing Red Army detachments should be located near SMERSH departments…
3. For cleansing the towns and their suburbs taken over by the Red Army from the enemy elements, it is necessary to leave operational groups supported by the necessary number of troops and to have constant connection with these groups.
The experienced operational officers should be commanders of such groups.
4. Persons arrested by the operation groups and those received from SMERSH organs should be concentrated in specially organized detaining places with reliable military guards which would exclude the opportunity of escape efforts.
The most important prisoners should be [immediately] investigated to discover the underground counterrevolutionary organizations and arrest their participants in time.
5. The most important arrestees—spies, saboteurs, terrorists, leaders of various insurgent or bandit organizations, official members of the intelligence and counterintelligence organizations of the enemy—should be handed over to the Investigation Department of the Counterintelligence Directorate SMERSH of the Front.
[…]
Actually, the activity of these groups almost repeated what the German Abwehrgroups did in Soviet territory in 1941.
East Prussia
In February 1945, on Stalin’s order, Abakumov and his operatives inspected the remains of Hitler’s Wolfschanze HQ in Rastenburg in the conquered part of East Prussia.8 SMERSH operational groups from the 3rd Belorussian Front and the 57th Rifle Division of the NKVD Interior Troops participated in this operation. Although not much was left after the bunkers were blown up following Hitler’s departure on November 20, 1944, Abakumov reported to Moscow: ‘I think our specialists would be interested in inspecting Hitler’s headquarters and seeing these well-organized bunkers.’9 A few months later Abakumov and a team of SMERSH investigators returned to Rastenburg with a German prisoner, Major Joachim Kuhn, a participant in the military plot against Hitler. With Kuhn’s guidance, SMERSH investigators found the plotters’ hidden plans to kill Hitler, as well as other documents.
East Prussia was occupied by the troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front under Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky’s command (which included Abakumov’s SMERSH Directorate). Its capital, Koenigsberg, was besieged and finally taken over on April 6–9. Paul Born, a German veteran, described a Soviet attack in East Prussia:
[Our] experienced veterans… knew that after the third whistle the Russians would attack. And as proof, a shouting crowd emerged from the forest and ran toward us…
When there were only 100 meters between us, [our] commander ordered us to open fire… We stood up against the first attack…
The next time two crowds were already rushing at us from the forest after the third whistle. Even after our heavy machine gun opened fire at them at a distance of 100 meters, we could not stop them…
Everyone was firing without interruption and aiming at the middle of a slowly approaching crowd of completely drunk, shouting people.10
During the occupation, numerous Red Army units committed unspeakable atrocities against the civilian German population. Soviet Lieutenant Leonid Rabichev, who later became a writer and artist, recalled a typical scene on the Prussian roads:
In carts, cars, and on foot, old men, women, and children—entire huge families—slowly moved along all the roads and highways of the country to the west.