In addition, 30,740 servicemen were sent to the ‘labor battalions’ to work in the military industry. Although they were not formally convicted, they were treated as prisoners and forced to work in these battalions for a few months to as long as two years. By May 1945, the number of men in the filtration camps had jumped to 160,969 servicemen. They were used as forced labor workers by 23 industrial commissariats while still under investigation.
Aleksandr Pechersky, the famous leader of the 1943 escape from the Sobibor Nazi extermination camp, was among the rare survivors of the assault battalions.24 After his escape, Pechersky fought in a partisan detachment. Then the detachment joined the Red Army, and Pechersky was vetted and sent to the 15th Separate Assault Rifle Battalion.25 After he was wounded in battle, Pechersky was released from the assault battalion to continue his service in the regular troops.
Here is an example of a typed certificate for the survivor Luka Petrusev (the formatting of the Russian original is preserved, including the typical two-line levels of signatures following the military hierarchical positions of signatories):
Not everyone survived long enough to be vetted because many had perished earlier at the hands of the osobisty. The former secretary of a military tribunal describes a typical scenario: ‘The head of the NKVD’s OO of the corps was a tall, heavy man. He used to come to the cell that held the servicemen destined for vetting… He would pick a weak or shy serviceman and take him away. Then he would beat him up with his enormous fists until the man confessed to being a spy. After this came a painful investigation and a tribunal meeting, followed by an execution.’27
Penal Detachments
By June 1942, the OOs had arrested 23,000 servicemen for spying and treason as well as for ‘treacherous intentions’ since the beginning of the war.28 An OO deputy head’s report to Abakumov illustrates the scale of arrests made by the OOs at the Stalingrad Front:
On the whole, from October 1, 1942, to February 1, 1943, according to incomplete data, special organs of the Front [the OOs] arrested 203 cowards and panic-mongers who escaped from the battlefield. Of them:
49 men were sentenced [by military tribunals] to death, and shot in front of the troops;
139 men were sentenced to various terms in labor camps and sent to punishment battalions and companies.
Additionally, 120 cowards and panic-mongers were shot in front of the troops on decisions of special organs.29
Now, in mid-1942, Stalin decided not to waste the sentenced men with mass executions, but to use most of them in penal detachments. On July 28, 1942 in his infamous Order No. 227 ‘No Step Back!’ Stalin ordered the creation of penal battalions (shtrafnye batal’ony) for officers (not to be confused with shturmovye batal’ony, where officers were sent after vetting) and penal companies (shtrafnye roty) for privates.30 Tribunals could order the suspension of any sentence, even the death penalty, and send the convicted serviceman to a penal detachment instead. Interestingly, in the order Stalin mentioned similar punishment units in the German army as his reason for creating their Russian counterparts. Information about penal detachments in the Red Army has become available only recently.
Commanders from the brigade level up also had the right to send an officer, with no investigation or trial, to a penal battalion for one to three months. For instance, in April 1944 Georgii Zhukov, the first deputy defense Commissar, sent F. A. Yachmenov, commander of the 342nd Guard Rifle Corps, to a penal battalion for two months for not following orders and for behaving, in Zhukov’s opinion, in a cowardly fashion.31 And from August 1942, commanders at the corps and division level had the authority to send privates and junior officers to penal companies for crimes such as desertion or failure to follow orders.32 Therefore, it was easy for commanders to dispose of any serviceman they disliked. Criminals released from labor camps (750,000 in 1941 and 157,000 in 1942) were also enlisted in penal companies, although political prisoners were not released.33
A penal battalion consisted of 800 former officers called ‘penal privates’ or ‘exchangeable fighters’, while a penal company comprised 150–200 privates. One to three penal battalions were formed at each front, and each army had between five and ten penal companies. By 1944, overall the Red Army had 15 penal battalions and 301 penal companies. The commanders and zampolity assigned to penal units were trusted, experienced officers. A representative (operupolnomochennyi) of the OO directorate of the front was also attached to each penal battalion.
The commander of the penal battalion and his zampolit had the right to shoot a penal private instantly if he refused to follow orders. For these officers, a month of service in a penal unit was equivalent to six months in the regular troops. A radio operator attached to a penal battalion in 1944 recalled of the punished officers: ‘Most of them were decent men… of high performance of duty and high military morale… Foul language (maternaya bran’) was considered inappropriate among them [although it was a common language of Red Army officers]… They did not take prisoners. They also did not take German trophies… [including] bottles of schnapps and pure alcohol.’34
Chances of survival in a penal unit, as in an assault battalion, were very slim, because these troops were used for forced reconnaissance or attacks through minefields. ‘Shtrafbat [penal battalions] and death were synonymous’, according to one military tribunal member.35 In 1944, monthly losses in the regular military troops totaled 3,685 men, while in the penal units, the figure was 10,506.36 At least 1.5 million servicemen served in the penal units from 1942 to 1945. It is unknown how many survived. If a serviceman completed his term or was wounded in battle, he was promoted to his former rank and sent back to a regular unit, and he had his military awards returned to him.
German POWs
During the first year of war with Germany, Soviet troops took very few German prisoners. By 1942, only 9,174 captured German and Romanian soldiers were being held in NKVD POW camps.37 According to OO reports to Abakumov, some German soldiers surrendered voluntarily.
Most German and other foreign prisoners, as well as wounded enemy soldiers, were simply shot on sight or killed after being tortured.38 Stalin himself issued a direct instruction to General Georgii Zhukov: ‘You should not believe in prisoners of war. You should interrogate a prisoner under torture and then shoot him to death.’39
After interrogating prisoners, the OO would send only a few of them to the NKVD camps for POWs in the rear. Most were shot. Here is a report on the interrogation of a captured German pilot who refused to answer the questions of the OO officer (the formatting of the Russian original, which has the typical structure found in NKVD/SMERSH documents, is retained):