3. Details in The Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections from the Dispatches of the Nazi Death Squads’ Campaign against the Jews, July 1941–January 1943, edited by Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel Spector, v-vii (New York: Holocaust Library, 1989).
4. Telford Taylor, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (New York: Knopf, 1992), 510.
5. After Reinhard Heydrich was killed by Czech partisans on May 27, 1942, Ernst Kaltenbrunner was appointed head of the RSHA in January 1943.
6. Ioffe, Abver. Politsiya bezopasnosti i SD, 56–57.
7. Details, for instance, in Rhodes, Masters of Death, 119-150.
8. Details in I. G. Starinov, Zapiski diversanta, Part IV, Chapters 6–8, http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/starinov_ig/31.html, retrieved September 7, 2011.
9. SD report to Berlin, dated October 1941. Document No. 6 in Chuev, Spetssluzhby, II, 42–59. Also, Alexander V. Prusin, ‘A Community of Violence: The SiPo/SD and Its Role in the Nazi Terror System in Generalbezirk Kiev,’ Holocaust and Genoicide Studies, 21, no. 1 (Spring 2007), 1–30.
10. Höhne, Canaris, 464–5.
11. Walter Schellenberg’s testimony in Nuremberg on November 13, 1945, http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/imt/nca/supp-b/ftp.py?imt/nca/supp-b//nca-sb-02-schellenberg.02, retrieved September 7, 2011. Also, Walter Schellenberg, The Labyrinth, translated by Louis Hagen (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956), 263–71.
12. Details in Perry Biddiscombe, ‘Unternehmen Zeppelin: The Development of SS Saboteurs and Spies in the Soviet Union, 1942–1945,’ Europe-Asia Studies, 52, no. 6 (2000), 1115–42.
13. Chuev, Spetssluzhby, II, 192–206.
14. Ibid., 205–6.
15. Kahn, Hitler’s Spies, 360.
16. Höhne and Zolling, The General Was a Spy, 42–44.
17. Details in Kirill Aleksandrov, Russkie soldaty Vermakhta. Geroi ili predateli (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2005), 203, 207–12, 253–6 (in Russian).
18. Chuev, Spetssluzhby, II, 174–6, 231-9.
19. Hitler’s decree concerning the administration of the newly-occupied Eastern territories dated July 17, 1941, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/1997-ps.asp, retrieved September 7, 2011.
20. Chuev, Spetssluzhby, I, 36–44.
21. Ibid., 45–53.
22. L. G. Ivanov, Pravda o ‘Smersh’ (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2009), 29–30 (in Russian).
23. HSSPfs: 1) Riga (Ostland): Hans-Adolf Prützmann, Jan–Nov, 1941; Friedrich Jeckeln, Nov 1941–Jan 1945; Dr. Hermann Behrends, Jan–May 1945; 2) Mogilev, later Minsk (Russland-Mitte): Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, Jan 1941–Jan 1942; Carl Friedrich Count of Pückler-Burghauss, Jan 1942–Mar 1943; Gerrett Korsemann, Mar–Jul 1943; Curt von Gottberg, Jul 1943–Aug 1944; 3) Kiev (Russia-Süd): Friedrich Jecklen, Jun–Nov 1941; Hans-Adolf Prützmann, Nov 1941–Mar 1944; and 4) Nikolaev (Schwartz-Meer): Ludolf von Alvensleben, Oct–Dec 1943; Richard Hildebrandt, Dec 1943–Sep 1944; Arthur Phelps, Sep 1944.
24. The Russland Ostland in Riga had branches in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belorussia; the Russland Mitte in Minsk had branches in four Belorussian and south Russian cities, and the Russland Süd in Kiev had branches in 16 Ukrainian cities, the Caucasus and the Crimea. Details in Chuev, Spetssluzhby, II, 59–82, and Kovalev, Natsistskaya okkupatsiya, 115–38.
25. A total of 168 Russian Orthodox and two Catholic churches were opened at the German-occupied territory of the Leningrad Region; before the war, there were only five Russian Orthodox churches in that area. In N. Lomakin, Neizvestnaya blokada (St. Petersburg: Neva, 2004), 493 (in Russian).
26. Document No. III-43, in Moskva voennaya, 1941–1945: memuary i arkhivnye dokumenty, edited by K. I. Bukov, M. M. Gorinov, and A. N. Ponomarev, 591 (Moscow: Mosgorarkhiv, 1995) (in Russian).
27. GKO Decision No. 1074-ss, dated December 27, 1941. Document No. 207, in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 324.
28. GKO Decree No. 1926-ss, dated June 24, 1942. Document No. 224 in ibid., 350–1.
29. Details, for instance, in B. N. Kovalev, Natsistckaya okkupatsiya i kollaboratsionism v Rossii. 1941–1944 (Moscow: Tranzitkniga, 2004) (in Russian); Aleksandrov, Russkie soldaty Vermakhta.
30. Details in Wilfried Strik–Strikfeld, Against Stalin and Hitler: Memoirs of the Russian Liberation Movement 1941-1945, translated from the German by David Footman (New York: The John Day Co., 1973), 118–20.
31. Ibid., 181–6.
32. See, for instance, Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangnen 1941–1945 (Bonn: Dietz, 1997).
33. On the Lokot’ Republic, see B. V. Sokolov, Okkupatsiya. Pravda i mify (Moscow: AST-Press Kniga, 2002), 654–71 (in Russian).
34. P. N. Paliy-Vashchenko, V nemetskom plenu. Iz zhizni voennoplennogo (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1987), 78 (in Russian).
35. K. M. Aleksandrov, Ofitserskii korpus armii general-leitenanta A. A. Vlasova, 1944–1945 (St Petersburg, 2001), 31 (in Russian).
36. Beria’s report, dated July 27, 1944. Document No. 271 in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 442.
37. Figures from the German documents cited in N. M. Ramanichev, ‘Vlasov i drugie,’ Istoriya, no. 34 (2001), http://his.1september.ru/articlef.php?ID=200103403, retrieved September 7, 2011.
38. Materialy po istorii Russkogo Osvoboditel’nogo Dvizheniya (1941–1945 gg.). Vyp. 2 (Moscow: Arkhiv ROA, 1998), 169 (in Russian).
39. Lev Razgon, Nepridumannoe. Biograficheskaya proza (Moscow: Zakharov. 2007), 477–8 (in Russian).
40. Bochkov’s Order No. 46-ss, dated May 15, 1942.
41. P. G. Grigorenko, V podpol’e mozhno vstretit’ tol’ko krys… (New York: Detinets, 1981), Chapter 23 (in Russian), http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/grigorenko/33.html, retrieved September 7, 2011.
42. S. S. Zamyatin, ‘Vremennye boitsy’ (in Russian), http://www.proza.ru/texts/2008/05/10/375.html, retrieved September 7, 2011.
Part V. The Birth of SMERSH
CHAPTER 16
The Birth of SMERSH
At the beginning of 1943, the situation at the fronts started to change. After the success in Stalingrad, Soviet troops began advancing into the southern part of Russia. With the tide of war now turned in the Soviets’ favor, desertions among their troops decreased considerably. Stalin’s attitude toward the army, especially toward officers, also started to change.
The Turning Point: Spring 1943
To increase patriotism among the troops, in January 1943 Stalin opened a propaganda campaign to remind servicemen of Russia’s past military glory during the imperial period. At first, shoulder boards similar to those used by the czar’s army officers and soldiers were introduced.1 Now the color, insignia, number, and size of the stars on the shoulder boards identified the troop type and rank.