SMERSH

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For James Bond's fictional nemesis based on the real Russian department, see: SMERSH (James Bond).

SMERSH (short for SMERt' SHpionam (СМЕРть Шпионам), or "Death to Spies") was the name of counterintelligence departments in the Soviet Union formed during World War II, to secure the rear of the active Red Army, on the front to arrest "traitors, deserters, spies, and criminal elements".

1 History
2 Activity
3 Organization
4 SMERSH in fiction
5 External links

[edit] History

The organization was created on April 19, 1943 from the Directorate of Special Departments of NKVD. The full name of the head entity was Главное управление контрразведки СМЕРШ Народного комиссариата обороны СССР, or USSR People's Commissariat of Defense Chief Counterintelligence Directorate "SMERSH". It was headed by Viktor Abakumov, who reported directly to Stalin. At the same time SMERSH directorate within the People's Commissariat of Soviet Navy and SMERSH department of NKVD were created.

In March 1946 SMERSH Chief Directorate was resubordinated to People's Commissariat of Military Forces (Наркомат Вооруженных Сил, НКВС; the latter was reorganized into the Ministry of Military Forces (МВС) soon thereafter), and discontinued in May, 1946.

SMERSH had functioned as an organization to mobilize youth in national defence, and some of its promising young members, such as Yuri Modin, were recruited into the KGB.

[edit] Activity

The main opponent of SMERSH in its counterintelligence activity was Abwehr, the German military foreign information and counterintelligence department, active during both World War I and World War II.

SMERSH activities also included "filtering" the soldiers recovered from captivity. It was also used extensively to "filter" the population of the gained territories, including Eastern Europe. The SMERSH was actively involved in the capture, forced repatriation, and execution of Soviet citizens who had been active in anti-communist armed groups fighting on the side of Nazi Germany such as the Russian Liberation Army, the Cossack Corps of Pyotr Krasnov, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. This also included eastern POW's and eastern workers.

SMERSH was also used to punish those within the NKVD itself; it was allowed to investigate whomever it wished in the NKVD structure; department and directorate heads were not immune from it. Smersh would also often be sent out to find and kill defectors, double agents, etc.

SMERSH was also used by INO (the NKVD's later KGB FCD, First Chief Directorate, responsible for foreign intelligence operations outside of the USSR) to hunt down "enemies of the people" outside of Soviet territory.

As the war concluded, SMERSH was given the assignment of finding Adolf Hitler and, if possible, capturing him alive or recovering his body. Red Army officers and SMERSH agents found Hitler's partially burned corpse near the Führerbunker after his suicide and conducted an investigation to confirm the events of his death and identify the remains which (along with those of Eva Braun) were reportedly secretly buried at SMERSH headquarters in Magdeburg until April 1970, when they were exhumed and dispersed.

[edit] Organization

                    People's Commissar of Defense 
                    
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                         Chief and deputies 
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                             Secretariat 
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          Section 1 ----------------------------- Section 5
 Counter-intelligence protection  |        Oversight of SMERSH      
of central Red Army institutions  |         organs in military
                                  |               districts        
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          Section 2 ----------------------------- Section 6       
      Work among pow's            |            Investigations
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          Section 3 ----------------------------- Section 7 
    Counterespionage and          |           Information and
    Conduct radio games           |               statistic 
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          Section 4 ----------------------------- Section 8
Organization of Counter-                          Codes             
  intelligence behind                              and
      front lines                              communications

Org.References - Lubianka 2. Iz istorii otiecziestwiennoj kontrrazwiedki, W.A. Sobolewa Moskwa 1999

[edit] SMERSH in fiction

SMERSH as a separate entity was discontinued in 1946. Although it existed only three years, works of fiction have extended its activities into later decades. The most notable example is Ian Fleming's SMERSH, a nemesis of James Bond. However, in most of the film adaptations the independent criminal organization SPECTRE was substituted to avoid the connotation of fomenting hate for the Soviet Union and contributing to a destablization of relations with that nation. SMERSH is mentioned in the early Bond film From Russia with Love, but doesn't play an active role in the plot. A masquerading reactivation of SMERSH appears in Timothy Dalton's first Bond film, The Living Daylights. It is also briefly mentioned in Nobody Lives For Ever and figures in the 1967 Bond spoof Casino Royale.

SMERSH is mentioned (along with a number of other increasingly obscure intelligence agencies) in DC Comics' Young Justice issue #1.

Possibly the best (and most realistic) picture of the SMERSH in literature is given by Vladimir Bogomolov's novel In August of '44. In this narration the main methods of work of the SMERSH are shown along with the difficult conditions in which they had to act (as a Soviet counter-intelligence organization) to achieve their mission goals: to frustrate the leakage of military information and to capture infiltrated German spies and saboteurs.