I came across an interesting document that mentions the Smolensk region.
In many posts, German intelligence and counterintelligence agencies are mentioned.
I propose in this thread to purposefully lay out interesting facts about them.

TOP SECRET
TO THE MINISTERS OF STATE SECURITY OF THE UNION AND AUTONOMOUS REPUBLICS
HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS OF THE MGB OF REGIONS AND REGIONS
HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS AND DEPARTMENTS OF COUNTER-INJECTION OF THE MGB OF MILITARY DISTRICTS, GROUPS OF TROOPS, FLEETS AND FLOATS
HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS AND SECURITY DEPARTMENTS OF THE MGB ON RAILWAY AND WATER TRANSPORT
At the same time, the "Collection of reference materials about the bodies of German intelligence that acted against the USSR during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."
The collection includes verified data on the structure and activities of the central apparatus of the Abwehr and the Main Directorate of Imperial Security of Germany - RSHA, their bodies operating against the USSR from the territory of neighboring countries, on the East German front and on the territory of the Soviet Union temporarily occupied by the Germans.
... Use the materials of the collection in the development of agents suspected of belonging to the agents of German intelligence, and in exposing arrested German spies during the investigation.
Minister of State Security of the USSR
S. IGNATIEV
October 25, 1952 mountains. Moscow
(From directive)
Preparing an adventure unprecedented in its size, Hitlerite Germany attached particular importance to the organization of a powerful intelligence service.
Soon after the seizure of power in Germany, the Nazis created a secret state police - the Gestapo, which, along with the terrorist suppression of opponents of the Nazi regime in the country, organized political intelligence abroad. The leadership of the Gestapo was carried out by Heinrich Himmler, the imperial leader of the guard units (SS) of the fascist party.
The scale of espionage and provocative activities inside the country and abroad increased by the intelligence of the fascist party - the so-called. the security service (SD) of the security detachments, which henceforth became the main intelligence organization in Germany.
The German military intelligence and counterintelligence "Abwehr" significantly intensified their work, for the leadership of which the Abwehr-Abroad Directorate of the General Staff of the German Army was created in 1938.
In 1939, the Gestapo and the SD were merged into the Main Directorate of Imperial Security (RSHA), which in 1944 also included the Abwehr military intelligence and counterintelligence.
The Gestapo, SD and Abwehr, as well as the foreign department of the fascist party and the German Foreign Ministry launched active subversive and espionage activities against the countries targeted by Nazi Germany, and primarily against the Soviet Union.
German intelligence played a significant role in the capture of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Belgium, France, Yugoslavia, Greece and the fascization of Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Relying on its agents and accomplices from the ruling bourgeois circles, using bribery, blackmail and political murder, German intelligence helped to paralyze the resistance of the peoples of these countries to German aggression.
In 1941, having begun an aggressive war against the Soviet Union, the leaders of Nazi Germany set the German intelligence service the task of deploying espionage and sabotage and terrorist activities at the front and in the Soviet rear, as well as ruthlessly suppressing the resistance of the Soviet people to the fascist invaders in the temporarily occupied territory.
For these purposes, together with the troops of the German fascist army, a significant number of specially created German intelligence, sabotage and counterintelligence agencies were sent to Soviet territory - operational groups and special teams of the SD, as well as the Abwehr.
CENTRAL UNIT "ABVERA"
The German military intelligence and counterintelligence agency "Abwehr" (translated as "Otpor", "Protection", "Defense") was organized in 1919 as a department of the German War Ministry and was officially listed as the counterintelligence body of the Reichswehr. In reality, from the very beginning, the "Abwehr" conducted active intelligence work against the Soviet Union, France, England, Poland, Czechoslovakia and other countries. This work was carried out through the Abwerstelle - links of the "Abwehr" - at the headquarters of the border military districts in the cities of Konigsberg, Breslavl, Poznan, Stettin, Munich, Stuttgart and others, official German diplomatic missions and trade firms abroad. The Abverstelle of the internal military districts carried out only counterintelligence work.
The Abwehr was headed by: Major General Temp (from 1919 to 1927), Colonel Schwantes (1928-1929), Colonel Bredov (1929-1932), Vice-Admiral Patzig (1932-1934), Admiral Canaris (1935-1943) and from January to July 1944 Colonel Hansen.
In connection with the transition of fascist Germany to open preparation for an aggressive war in 1938, the Abwehr was reorganized, on the basis of which the Abwehr-Abroad Directorate was created at the headquarters of the German Armed Forces High Command (OKW). This department was tasked with organizing extensive intelligence and subversive work against the countries that Nazi Germany was preparing to attack, especially against the Soviet Union.
In accordance with these tasks, the following departments were created in the Abwehr-Abroad Administration:
"Abwehr 1" - reconnaissance;
"Abwehr 2" - sabotage, sabotage, terror, uprisings, corruption of the enemy;
"Abwehr 3" - counterintelligence;
Ausland - foreign department;
"CA" is the central department.
_______ WALLY HQ _______
In June 1941, to organize reconnaissance, sabotage and counterintelligence activities against the Soviet Union and to manage this activity, a special Directorate “Abwehr-Abroad” was created on the Soviet-German front, conventionally called the “Valley” headquarters, field mail N57219.
According to the structure central office"Abwehr-Abroad" headquarters "Valley" consisted of the following units:
Valley 1 Division - leadership of military and economic intelligence on the Soviet-German front. Chief - Major, later Lieutenant Colonel, Baun (surrendered to the Americans, is used by them to organize intelligence activities against the USSR).
The department consisted of abstracts:
1 X - ground forces reconnaissance;
1 L - air force reconnaissance;
1 Vi - economic intelligence;
1 Г - production of fictitious documents;
1 I - providing radio equipment, ciphers, codes
Personnel department.
Secretariat.
Valley 1 was subordinate to reconnaissance teams and groups attached to the headquarters of army groups and armies to conduct reconnaissance work in the relevant sectors of the front, as well as teams and economic intelligence groups that collected intelligence in prisoner of war camps.
To provide agents transferred to the rear of the Soviet troops with fictitious documents at Valley 1, there was a special team 1 G. It consisted of 4-5 German engravers and graphic artists and several prisoners of war recruited by the Germans who knew office work in the Soviet Army and Soviet institutions.
Team 1 G was engaged in the collection, study and manufacture of various Soviet documents, awards, stamps and seals of Soviet military units, institutions and enterprises. Forms of difficult documents (passports, party cards) and orders were received by the team from Berlin.
The 1 G team supplied the prepared documents to the Abwehr teams, which also had their own 1 G groups, and instructed them on changes in the procedure for issuing and processing documents on the territory of the Soviet Union.
To provide the transferred agents with military uniforms, equipment and civilian clothes, "Valley 1" had warehouses of captured Soviet uniforms and equipment, a tailor's and shoemakers' workshops.
Since 1942, under the direct subordination of "Valley 1" was a special body "Zon Der Shtab Russia", which carried out intelligence work to identify partisan detachments, anti-fascist organizations and groups in the rear of the German armies.
Valley 1 was always located in the immediate vicinity of the Foreign Armies section of the headquarters of the High Command of the German Army on the Eastern Front.
The "Valley 2" department led the Abwehr teams and Abwehr groups for conducting sabotage and terrorist activities in units and in the rear of the Soviet Army.
The head of the department was at first Major Seliger, later Oberleutenant Müller, then Captain Becker.
From June 1941 to the end of July 1944, the Valley 2 department was stationed in localities. Sulejuvek, from where, with the offensive of Soviet troops, he left in the depths of Germany.
At the disposal of "Valley 2" in places. Sulejuvek were depots of weapons, explosives and various sabotage materials to supply Abwehr command.
The Valley 3 department directed all the counterintelligence activities of the Abwehr command and the Abwehrgroups subordinated to it in the fight against Soviet intelligence officers, the partisan movement and the anti-fascist underground in the occupied Soviet territory in the zone of the front, army, corps and divisional rear services.
Even on the eve of the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union, in the spring of 1941, all the army groupings of the German army were assigned one reconnaissance, sabotage and counterintelligence command "Abwehr", and the armies - subordinate to these commands Abwehr groups.
The Abwehrkommandos and Abwehrgroups with their subordinate schools were the main bodies of German military intelligence and counterintelligence operating on the Soviet-German front.
In addition to the Abwehrkommandos, the Valli headquarters were directly subordinate to: the Warsaw school for the training of scouts and radio operators, then transferred to East Prussia, in localities. Neugoff; intelligence school in places. Niedersee (East Prussia) with a branch in the mountains. Arise, organized in 1943 to train scouts and radio operators, left behind in the rear of the advancing Soviet troops.
In some periods, a special aviation detachment of Major Gartenfeld was attached to the Valli headquarters, which had from 4 to 6 planes for dropping agents into the Soviet rear.
ABVERKOMAND 103
Abwehrkommando 103 (until July 1943 it was called Abwehrkommando 1B) was assigned to the German army group "Mitte". Field mail N 09358 B, the call sign of the radio station is "Saturn".
The head of the Abwehrkommando 103 until May 1944 was Lieutenant Colonel Görlitz Felix, then Captain Beverbruck or Bernbruch, and from March 1945 until the disbandment was Lieutenant Bormann.
In August 1941, the team was stationed in Minsk on Lenin Street, in a three-story building; in late September - early October 1941 - in tents on the banks of the river. Berezina, 7 km from Borisov; then relocated to localities. Krasny Bor (6-7 km from Smolensk) and is located in the former. dachas of the Smolensk Regional Executive Committee. In Smolensk on the street. Krepostnaya, no. 14 was the headquarters (chancellery), the head of which was Captain Sieg.
In September 1943, in connection with the retreat of German troops, the team moved to the area of ​​the village. Dubrovka (near Orsha), and in early October - to Minsk, where she was until the end of June 1944, located on Kommunisticheskaya Street, opposite the building of the Academy of Sciences.
In August 1944, the team was in places. Lekmanen 3 km from the mountains. Ortelsburg (East Prussia), having crossing points in the townships of Gross Szymanen (9 km south of Ortelsburg), Seedranken and Budne Soventa (2O km north-west of Ostro-Lenka, Poland); in the first half of January 1945, the team was deployed to localities. Bazin (6 km from the city of Vormditt), at the end of January - beginning of February 1945 - in places. Garnekopf (30 km east of Berlin). In February 1945 in the mountains. Pasewalke on Markstrasse, building 25, was a collection point for agents.
In March 1945, the team was in the mountains. Zerpste (Germany), from where she moved to Schwerin, and then through a number of cities at the end of April 1945 arrived in places. Lenggries, where on May 5, 1945, the entire official train dispersed in different directions.
The Abwehr command conducted active reconnaissance work against the Western, Kalinin, Bryansk, Central, Baltic and Belorussian fronts; carried out reconnaissance of the deep rear of the Soviet Union, sending agents to Moscow and Saratov.
In the first period of its activity, the Abwehr team recruited agents from among the Russian White emigrants
and members of Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalist organizations. From the autumn of 1941, agents were recruited mainly in prisoner-of-war camps in Borisov, Smolensk, Minsk, Frankfurt am Main. Since 1944, the recruitment of agents was carried out mainly from the police and personnel of the "Cossack units" formed by the Germans and other traitors and traitors to the Motherland who fled with the Germans.
The agents were recruited by recruiters known under the nicknames "Roganov Nikolay", "Potemkin Grigory" and a number of others, the official employees of the team - Zharkov, he is Stefan, Dmitrienko.
In the fall of 1941, the Borisov intelligence school was created under the Abwehr command, in which most of the recruited agents were trained. From the school, the agents were sent to the transfer and transfer points, known as the C-camp and the state bureau, where they received additional instructions on the essence of the task received, equipped according to legend, supplied with documents, weapons, and then transferred to the subordinate bodies of the Abwehr command.
ABVERKOMAND NBO
The naval reconnaissance Abwehr command, conditionally named "Nachrichtenbeobachter" (abbreviated as NBO), was formed in late 1941 - early 1942 in Berlin, then sent to Simferopol, where it was until October 1943 on the street. Sevastopolskaya, d. 6. Operationally, it was directly subordinate to the Abwehr-Abroad Directorate and was attached to the headquarters of Admiral Schuster, who commanded the German naval forces of the southeastern basin. Until the end of 1943, the team and its units had a general field mail N 47585, from January 1944 -19330. The call sign of the radio station is "Tatar".
Until July 1942, the head of the team was the captain of the naval service Bode, and from July 1942 - the corvette-captain Rickhoff.
The team collected intelligence data on the Soviet Navy in the Black and Azov Seas and on the river flotillas of the Black Sea basin. At the same time, the team carried out reconnaissance and sabotage work against the North Caucasian and 3rd Ukrainian fronts, and during its stay in the Crimea - the fight against partisans.
The team collected intelligence data through agents thrown into the rear of the Soviet Army, as well as by interviewing prisoners of war, mainly former servicemen of the Soviet navy and local residents who had anything to do with the navy and merchant fleets.
The agents from among the traitors to the Motherland underwent preliminary training in special camps in localities. Tavel, Simeise and places. Go crazy. Part of the agents were sent to the Warsaw Intelligence School for more in-depth training.
The transfer of agents to the rear of the Soviet Army was carried out by airplanes, motor boats and boats. The scouts were left as part of residencies in settlements liberated by Soviet troops. The agents, as a rule, were deployed in groups of 2-3 people. The group was assigned a radio operator. Radio stations in Kerch, Simferopol and Anapa kept in touch with agents.
Later, the agents of the NBO, who were in the special camps, were transferred to the so-called. "Legion of the Black Sea" and other armed detachments for punitive operations against the partisans of the Crimea and carrying out garrison and guard duty.
At the end of October 1943, the NBO team relocated to Kherson, then to Nikolaev, from there in November 1943 to Odessa - the village. Big Fountains.
In April 1944, the team moved to the mountains. Brailov (Romania), in August 1944 - in the vicinity of Vienna.
Reconnaissance operations in the areas of the front line were carried out by the following Einsatz commands and forward detachments of the NBO:
"Marine Abwehr Einsatzkomando" (naval front-line reconnaissance team) of Lieutenant-Lieutenant Neumann began operations in May 1942 and operated on the Kerch sector of the front, then near Sevastopol (July 1942), in Kerch (August), Temryuk (August-September), Taman and Anapa (September-October), Krasnodar, where it was located on Komsomolskaya st., 44 and st. Sedina, 8 (from October 1942 to mid-January 1943), in the village of Slavyanskaya and mountains. Temryuk (February 1943).
Moving forward with the advanced units of the German army, Neumann's team collected documents from surviving and sunken ships, in the institutions of the Soviet fleet and interrogated prisoners of war, obtained intelligence data through agents thrown into the Soviet rear.
At the end of February 1943, the Einsatzkommando, leaving in the mountains. Temryuk, the head post, moved to Kerch and settled down on 1st Mitridatskaya street. In mid-March 1943, another post was created in Anapa, headed at first by Feldwebel Schmalz, later by Sonderführer Harnack, and from August to September 1943 by Sonderführer Kellermann.
In October 1943, in connection with the retreat of German troops, the Einsatzkommando and its subordinate posts moved to Kherson.
Marine Abwehr Einsatzkomando (naval frontline reconnaissance team). Until September 1942, it was headed by Lieutenant Baron Girard de Sucanton, later - Ober-Lieutenant Cirque.
In January - February 1942, the team was in Taganrog, then moved to Mariupol and settled in the buildings of the rest house of the Ilyich plant, in the so-called. "White dachas".
During the second half of 1942, the team "processed" prisoners of war in the Bakhchisarai camp "Tolle" (July 1942), in the Mariupol (August 1942) and Rostov (late 1942) camps.
From Mariupol, the team transferred agents to the rear of the Soviet Army units operating on the coast of the Azov Sea and in the Kuban. The training of scouts was carried out in the Tavel and other schools of the NBO. In addition, the team independently prepared agents in safe houses.
Of these apartments in Mariupol identified: st. Artem, 28; st. L. Tolstoy, houses 157 and 161; Donetskaya st., 166; Fontannaya st., 62; 4th Slobodka, 136; Transportnaya st., 166.
Individual agents were instructed to infiltrate the Soviet intelligence agencies and then seek a transfer to the German rear.
In September 1943, the team left Mariupol, proceeded through Osipenko, Melitopol and Kherson, and in October 1943 stopped in the mountains. Nikolaev -Alekseevskaya st., 11,13,16,18 and Odessa st., 2. In November 1943, the team moved to Odessa, st. Schmidt (Arnautskaya), house 125. In March-April 1944, through Odessa - Belgrade left for Galati, where it was located on the Main street, house 18. During this period, the team had in the mountains. Reni on Dunayskaya St., 99, the head post of communications, which threw agents into the rear of the Soviet Army.
During their stay in Galati, the team was known as the Whiteland reconnaissance agency.
DIVERSION-INTELLIGENCE TEAMS AND GROUPS
The sabotage and reconnaissance teams and groups "Abwehr 2" were engaged in the recruitment, preparation and transfer of agents with sabotage and terrorist, insurgent, propaganda and reconnaissance missions.
At the same time, teams and groups created from the traitors to the Motherland special fighter units (yagdkomands), various national formations and hundreds of Cossacks to capture and hold strategically important objects in the rear of the Soviet troops until the main forces of the German army approached. These subunits were sometimes used for reconnaissance of the front line of defense of the Soviet troops, the capture of "tongues", undermining individual fortified points.
During operations, the personnel of the subunits were equipped with the uniform of the servicemen of the Soviet Armies.
When retreating, agents of teams, groups and their subunits were used as torchbearers and demolition men to set fire to settlements, destroy bridges and other structures.
The agents of reconnaissance and sabotage teams and groups were thrown into the rear of the Soviet Army with the aim of decomposing and persuading servicemen to treason. She distributed anti-Soviet leaflets, conducted oral agitation on the front line of the defense with the help of radio installations. When retreating, she left anti-Soviet literature in settlements. Special agents were recruited to disseminate it.
Along with subversive activities in the rear of the Soviet troops, teams and groups at the place of their deployment carried out an active struggle against the partisan movement.
The main contingent of agents was trained in schools or in courses with teams and groups. Individual training of agents by intelligence officers was practiced.
The transfer of sabotage agents to the rear of the Soviet troops was carried out with the help of aircraft and on foot in groups of 2-5 people. (one is a radio operator).
The agents were equipped and supplied with fictitious documents in accordance with the developed legend. Received assignments to organize the blowing up of trains, railway tracks, bridges and other structures on the railways going to the front; destroy defensive structures, military and food warehouses and strategically important objects; commit terrorist acts against officers and generals of the Soviet Army, party and Soviet leaders.
Intelligence missions were also given to agents-saboteurs. The deadline for completing the assignment was from 3 to 5 days or more, after which the agents returned to the side of the Germans using a password. Agents with propaganda missions were deployed without specifying a return date.
The reports of the agents about the acts of sabotage they carried out were checked.
In the last period of the war, the teams began to prepare sabotage and terrorist groups to leave the Soviet troops in the rear.
For this purpose, bases and storage facilities with weapons were laid in advance, explosives, food and clothing, which were to be used by sabotage groups.
On the Soviet-German front, 6 sabotage teams operated. Subordinate to each Abwehr command were from 2 to 6 Abwehrgroups.
INJECTION TEAMS AND GROUPS
Counterintelligence teams and Abwehr 3 groups operating on the Soviet-German front behind the lines of the German army groups and armies to which they were attached carried out active intelligence work to identify Soviet intelligence officers, partisans and underground workers, and also collected and processed captured documents.
Counterintelligence teams and groups recruited some of the detained Soviet intelligence officers, through whom they played radio games in order to misinform the Soviet intelligence agencies. Some of the recruited agents were thrown into the Soviet rear by counterintelligence teams and groups in order to infiltrate the MGB and intelligence departments of the Soviet Army to study the methods of work of these bodies and identify Soviet intelligence officers trained and thrown into the rear of the German troops.
Each counterintelligence team and group carried staff or permanent agents recruited from traitors who had proven themselves in practical work. These agents moved with teams and groups and infiltrated the established German administrative institutions and enterprises.
In addition, at the place of deployment, teams and groups created an agent network of local residents. When the German troops retreated, these agents were transferred to the disposal of the reconnaissance Abwehrgroups or remained in the rear of the Soviet troops with reconnaissance missions.
Provocation was one of the most widespread methods of the German military counterintelligence agency work. So, agents under the guise of Soviet scouts or persons transferred to the rear of the German troops by the command of the Soviet Army with a special assignment, settled with the Soviet patriots, entered into their trust, gave assignments directed against the Germans, organized groups to go over to the side of the Soviet troops. Then all these patriots were arrested.
For the same purpose, pseudo-partisan detachments were created from agents and traitors to the Motherland.
Counterintelligence teams and groups carried out their work in contact with the SD and GUF. They conducted an undercover development of suspicious, from the point of view of the Germans, persons, and the obtained data were transferred to the SD and GUF authorities for implementation.
On the Soviet-German front, there were 5 Abwehr counterintelligence commands. Each subordinate was from 3 to 8 Abwehrgroups, which were attached to the armies, as well as rear commandant's offices and security divisions.
ABVERKOMAID 304
Formed shortly before the German attack on the USSR and attached to the army group "Nord". Until July 1942 it was called "Abwehrkommando 3 C". Field mail N 10805. The call sign of the radio station is "Sperling" or "Sperber".
The leaders of the team were Majors Klamroth (Kla-morte), Gesenregen.
During the invasion of German troops deep into Soviet territory, the team was consistently located in Kaunas and Riga, in September 1941 it moved to the mountains. Pechora of the Pskov region; in June 1942 - to Pskov, on Oktyabrskaya Street, 49, and stayed there until February 1944.
During the offensive of the Soviet troops, the team from Pskov was evacuated to places. White lake, then - in the village. Turaido, near the mountains. Sigulda, Latvian SSR.
From April to August 1944 in Riga there was a branch of the team called "Renate"
In September 1944, the team relocated to Liepaja; in mid-February 1945 - in the mountains. Swi-nemünde (Germany).
During their stay on the territory of the Latvian SSR, the team carried out a lot of work on radio games with the Soviet intelligence agencies through radio stations with the callsigns "Penguin", "Flamingo", "Reiger", "El-ster", "Eizvogel", "Vale", "Bakhshteltse" , "Hauben-Taucher" and "Stint".
Before the war, German military intelligence carried out active intelligence work against the Soviet Union by sending agents trained mainly on an individual basis.
A few months before the outbreak of the war, "Abwerstelle Köninsberg", "Abwerstelle Stettin", "Abverstelle Vienna" and "Abwerstelle Krakow" organized intelligence and sabotage schools for the mass training of agents.
At first, these schools were staffed with personnel recruited from White emigre youth and members of various anti-Soviet nationalist organizations (Ukrainian, Polish, Belarusian, etc.). However, practice has shown that agents from the White emigres were poorly guided by Soviet reality.
With the deployment of hostilities on the Soviet-German front, German intelligence began to expand the network of reconnaissance and sabotage schools to train qualified agents. The agents for training in schools were now recruited mainly from among prisoners of war, an anti-Soviet, treacherous and criminal element who penetrated the ranks of the Soviet Army and sided with the Germans, and to a lesser extent from anti-Soviet citizens who remained in the temporarily occupied territory of the USSR.
The Abwehr authorities believed that agents from prisoners of war could be quickly prepared for reconnaissance work and easier to deploy in the Soviet Army. The profession and personal qualities of the candidate were taken into account, while the priority was given to radio operators, signalmen, sappers and persons who had a sufficient general outlook.
Agents from the civilian population were selected on the recommendation and with the assistance of German counterintelligence and police agencies and the leaders of anti-Soviet organizations.
The base for recruiting agents in schools was also anti-Soviet armed formations: ROA, various created by the Germans from traitors to the so-called. "National legions".
Those who agreed to work for the Germans were isolated and, accompanied by German soldiers or the recruiters themselves, were sent to special test camps or directly to schools.
During recruitment, methods of bribery, provocation and threats were also used. Those arrested for real or alleged misconduct were asked to atone for their guilt by working for the Germans. Usually recruits were pre-tested in practical work as counterintelligence agents, punishers and police officers.
The finalization of recruitment was done at a school or testing camp. After that, a detailed questionnaire was filled out for each agent, a subscription was selected for voluntary agreement to cooperate with German intelligence, the agent was assigned a nickname under which he was listed in the school. In a number of cases, recruited agents were sworn in.
At the same time, 50-300 agents studied in intelligence schools, and 30-100 agents in sabotage and terrorist schools.
The training period for agents, depending on the nature of their future activities, was different: for scouts of the near rear - from two weeks to a month; scouts of the deep rear - from one to six months; saboteurs - from two weeks to two months; radio operators - from two to four months or more.
In the deep rear of the Soviet Union, German agents acted under the guise of sent military personnel and civilians, wounded, discharged from hospitals and exempt from military service, evacuated from areas occupied by the Germans, etc. In the frontal zone, agents acted under the guise of sappers who mine or clear the front line of the defense, signalmen engaged in wiring or repairing communication lines; snipers and scouts of the Soviet Army performing special tasks of the command; the wounded heading to the hospital from the battlefield, etc.
The most common fictitious documents that the Germans supplied their agents with were: identification cards for command personnel; various types of travel orders; payroll and duffel books for command personnel; food certificates; extracts from orders for transfer from one part to another; powers of attorney to receive various types of property from warehouses; certificates of medical examination with the conclusion of the medical commission; certificates of discharge from the hospital and leave permission after injury; Red Army books; sickness exemption certificates; passports with appropriate registration marks; work books; certificates of evacuation from settlements occupied by the Germans; party cards and candidate cards of the VKP (b); Komsomol tickets; award books and temporary certificates of awards.
After completing the assignment, the agents had to return to the body that prepared or transferred them. To cross the front line, they were provided with a special password.
Returnees were carefully vetted through other agents and through repeated verbal and written cross-examination of dates, locations
being on the territory of the Soviet Union, the route to the place of the assignment and return. Exceptional attention was paid to finding out whether the agent was detained by the Soviet authorities. Returning agents isolated themselves from each other. The testimonies and reports of the internal agents were collated and carefully checked.
BORISOVSKAYA INTELLIGENCE SCHOOL
Borisov school was organized in August 1941 by Abwehrkommando 103, at first it was located in the village. Stoves, in the former. a military town (6 km south of Borisov on the road to Minsk); field mail 09358 B. The head of the school was Captain Jung, then Captain Uthoff.
In February 1942, the school was transferred to the village. Katyn (23 km west of Smolensk).
In places. A preparatory department was created for the furnace, where the agents underwent inspection and preliminary training, and then were sent to the localities. Katyn for intelligence training. In April 1943, the school was transferred back to the village. Stoves.
The school trained intelligence agents and radio operators. It trained about 150 people at the same time, including 50-60 radio operators. The term of training for scouts is 1-2 months, for radio operators - 2-4 months.
When enrolling in school, each scout was assigned a nickname. It was strictly forbidden to give his real name and ask others about it.
Trained agents were deployed to the rear of the Soviet Army in 2-3 people. (one - a radio operator) and alone, mainly in the central sectors of the front, as well as in Moscow, Kalinin, Ryazan and Tula regions. Some of the agents were tasked with making their way to Moscow and settling there.
In addition, agents trained at the school were sent to partisan detachments to identify their deployment and the location of bases.
The transfer was carried out by aircraft from the Minsk airfield and on foot from the settlements of Petrikovo, Mogilev, Pinsk, Luninets.
In September 1943, the school was evacuated to the territory of East Prussia in the village. Rosenstein (100 km south of Konigsberg) and was housed there in the barracks of the former camp of French prisoners of war.
In December 1943, the school was relocated to the localities. Malleten near the village. Neindorf (5 km south of the Lykk mountain), where it was until August 1944. Here the school organized its branch in the village. Flisdorf (25 km south of the Lykk mountain).
The agents for the branch were recruited from prisoners of war of Polish nationality and trained for intelligence work in the rear of the Soviet Army.
In August 1944, the school was relocated to the mountains. Meve (65 km south of Danzig), where it was located on the outskirts of the city, on the banks of the Vistula, in a former building. German school of officers, and was encrypted as a newly formed military unit. Together with the school he was transferred to the village. Grossweide (5 km from Mewe) and the Flisdorf branch.
In early 1945, in connection with the advance of the Soviet Army, the school was evacuated to the mountains. Bismarck, where it was disbanded in April 1945. Part of the school personnel went to the mountains. Arenburg (on the Elbe River), and some agents, dressed in civilian clothes, crossed into the territory occupied by the Soviet Army.
OFFICIAL COMPOSITION
Jung is the captain, head of the body. 50-55 years old, medium height, full, gray-haired, bald.
Utgoff Hans - captain, head of the organ since 1943. Born in 1895, medium height, thick, bald.
Bronikovsky Ervin, aka Gerasimovich Tadeusz -captain, deputy head of the body, in November 1943 was transferred to the newly organized school of resident radio operators in localities. Niedersee as Deputy Head of the School.
Picch is a non-commissioned officer, radio instructor. Resident of Estonia. Fluent in Russian. 23-24 years old, tall, thin, light brown-haired, gray eyes.
Matyushin Ivan Ivanovich, nickname "Frolov" - a radio engineering teacher, a former military engineer of the 1st rank, born in 1898, a native of the mountains. Tetyushi of the Tatar ASSR.
Rikhva Yaroslav Mikhailovich - translator and head. clothing warehouse. Born in 1911, native of the mountains. Kamenka Bugskaya Lviv region.
Lonkin Nikolai Pavlovich, nickname "Lebedev" - a teacher of agent intelligence, graduated from an intelligence school in Warsaw. Former soldier of the Soviet border troops. Born in 1911, native of the village of Strakhovo, Ivanovo district, Tula region.
Kozlov Alexander Danilovich, nickname "Menshikov" - intelligence teacher. Born in 1920, a native of the village of Aleksandrovka, Stavropol Territory.
Andreev, aka Mokritsa, aka Antonov Vladimir Mikhailovich, nickname "Worm", nickname "Voldemar" - a radio business teacher. Born in 1924, native of Moscow.
Simavin, nicknamed "Petrov" - an employee of the organ, a former lieutenant of the Soviet Army. 30-35 years old, medium height, thin, dark-haired, long, thin face.
Jacques is the manager of the household. 30-32 years old, average height, scar on the nose.
Shinkarenko Dmitry Zakharovich, nickname "Petrov" - the head of the office, was also engaged in the production of fictitious documents, a former colonel of the Soviet Army. Born in 1910, a native of the Krasnodar Territory.
Panchak Ivan Timofeevich - sergeant major, foreman and translator.
Vlasov Vladimir Alexandrovich - captain, head of the training unit, teacher and recruiter in December 1943.
Berdnikov Vasily Mikhailovich, aka Bobkov Vladimir - foreman and translator. Born in 1918, native of the village. Trumna of the Oryol region.
Donchenko Ignat Evseevich, nickname "Dove" - ​​head. warehouse, born in 1899, native of the village of Rachki, Vinnitsa region.
Pavlogradskiy Ivan Vasilievich, nickname "Kozin" - an intelligence officer in Minsk. Born in 1910, a native of the village of Leningradskaya, Krasnodar Territory.
Kulikov Alexey Grigorievich, nickname "Monakhs" - teacher. Born in 1920, a native of the village of N.-Kryazhin, Kuznetsk district, Kuibyshev region.
Krasnoper Vasily, possibly Fyodor Vasilyevich, aka Anatoly, Alexander Nikolaevich or Ivanovich, nickname "Viktorov" (possibly a surname), nickname "Wheat" - a teacher.
Kravchenko Boris Mikhailovich, nickname "Doronin" - captain, teacher of topography. Born in 1922, a native of Moscow.
Zharkov, onzheSharkov, Stefan, Stefanen, Degrees, Stefan Ivan or Stepan Ivanovich, possibly Semyonovich-lieutenant, teacher until January 1944, then head of the C-camp of Abwehrkommando 103.
Popinako Nikolay Nikiforovich, nickname "Titorenko" - teacher of physical training. Born in 1911, native of the village of Kulnovo, Klintsovsky District, Bryansk Region.
SECRET FIELD POLICE (FPP)
The secret field police - Geheimfeldpolizai (GFP) - was the police executive body of the military counterintelligence in the active army. In peacetime, the bodies of the GUF did not function.
The leadership of the GUF unit received from the Abwehr-Abroad Directorate, which included a special abstract of the FPDV (Field Police of the Armed Forces), headed by Police Colonel Krikhbaum.
The units of the GUF on the Soviet-German front were represented by groups at the headquarters of army groupings, armies and field commandant's offices, as well as in the form of commissariats and commands - at corps, divisions and individual local commandant's offices.
The GUF groups at armies and field commandant's offices were headed by field police commissars, subordinate to the head of the field police of the corresponding army grouping and at the same time to the Abwehr officer of the 1st C division of the army or the field commandant's office. The group consisted of 80 to 100 employees and soldiers. Each group had from 2 to 5 commissariats, or so-called. "Outside teams" (aussencomando) and "outside squads" (aussenstelle), the number of which varied depending on the situation.
The secret field police performed the functions of the Gestapo in the combat zone, as well as in the nearby army and front lines.
Its task was mainly to make arrests at the direction of the military counterintelligence agencies, to investigate cases of high treason, treason, espionage, sabotage, anti-fascist propaganda among the servicemen of the German army, as well as reprisals against partisans and other Soviet patriots who fought against the fascist invaders.
In addition, the current instruction assigned to the GUF divisions:
Organization of counterintelligence measures to protect the headquarters of the serviced formations. Personal protection of the commander of the formation and representatives of the main headquarters.
Observation of the war correspondents, artists, photographers who were at the command instances.
Control over the postal, telegraph and telephone communications of the civilian population.
Promoting censorship in the supervision of field postal communications.
Control and observation of the press, meetings, lectures, reports.
Search for the remaining Soviet Army servicemen in the occupied territory. Obstruction of the withdrawal of civilians from the occupied territory for the front line, especially of draft age.
Interrogation and observation of persons who appeared in the combat zone.
The bodies of the GUF carried out counterintelligence and punitive activities in the occupied areas, close to the front line. To identify Soviet agents, partisans and Soviet patriots associated with them, the secret field police planted agents among the civilian population.
Under the units of the GUF there were groups of full-time agents, as well as small military formations (squadrons, platoons) from traitors to the Motherland for punitive actions against partisans, conducting round-ups in settlements, guarding and escorting arrested persons.
On the Soviet-German front, 23 groups of GUFs were identified.
After the attack on the Soviet Union, the fascist leaders entrusted the organs of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security of Germany with the task of physically exterminating Soviet patriots and ensuring the fascist regime in the occupied areas.
For this purpose, a significant number of units of the security police and special forces were sent to the temporarily occupied Soviet territory.
divisions of the RSHA: mobile task forces and teams operating in the frontline zone, and territorial bodies for the rear areas controlled by the civil administration.
Mobile formations of the security police and SD - operational groups (Einsatzgruppen) for punitive activities on Soviet territory - were created on the eve of the war, in May 1941. In total, four operational groups were created with the main groupings of the German army - A, B, C and D.
The operational groups included subunits - special teams (sonderkommando) for operations in the areas of the forward units of the army and operational teams (einsatzkomando) - for operations in the rear of the army. Task forces and teams were staffed by the most notorious thugs from the Gestapo and the criminal police, as well as SD officers.
A few days before the outbreak of hostilities, Heyd-rich ordered the task forces to take their departure points, from where they were to advance together with German troops into Soviet territory.
By this time, each group with teams and police units numbered up to 600-700 people. commanding and rank-and-file personnel. For greater mobility, all units were supplied with cars, trucks and special vehicles and motorcycles.
The operational and special teams numbered from 120 to 170 people, including 10-15 officers, 40-60 non-commissioned officers and 50-80 privates of the SS.
The task forces, operational teams and special teams of the security police and SD were assigned the following tasks:
In the combat zone and close rear areas, seize and search office buildings and premises of party and Soviet bodies, military headquarters and departments, buildings of the state security agencies of the USSR and all other institutions and organizations where there could be important operational or secret documents, archives, card files, etc. similar materials.
To carry out the search, arrest and physical destruction of the party and Soviet workers, intelligence and counterintelligence officers left behind in the German rear to fight the occupiers, as well as captured commanders and political workers of the Soviet Army.
Identify and repress communists, Komsomol members, leaders of local Soviet bodies, public and collective farm activists, employees and agents of Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence agencies.
Pursue and exterminate the entire Jewish population.
In the rear areas, to fight all anti-fascist manifestations and illegal activities of Germany's opponents, as well as to inform the commanders of the rear areas of the army about the political situation in the area under their jurisdiction.
The operational bodies of the security police and SD planted agents among the civilian population, recruited from a criminal and anti-Soviet element. Village heads, volost foremen, employees of administrative and other institutions created by the Germans, police officers, foresters, owners of canteens, snack bars, restaurants, etc. were used as such agents. Those of them who, before recruiting, held administrative positions (foremen, chiefs), were sometimes transferred to inconspicuous jobs: millers, bookkeepers. The agents were obliged to monitor the appearance in cities and villages of suspicious and unfamiliar persons, partisans, Soviet parachutists, report on communists, Komsomol members, former active social activists. The agents were reduced to residency. Traitors to the Motherland, who had proven themselves before the occupiers, worked as residents, serving in German institutions, city councils, land departments, construction organizations, etc.
With the beginning of the Soviet offensive and the liberation of the temporarily occupied Soviet territories, part of the security police and SD agents were left behind in the Soviet rear with reconnaissance, sabotage, insurgent and terrorist missions. These agents were transferred to the military intelligence agencies for communication.
"SPECIAL TEAM MOSCOW"
Created in early July 1941, it moved with the advanced units of the 4th Panzer Army.
In the early days, the team was headed by the head of the VII department of the RSHA, SS Standartenfuehrer Zix. When the German offensive failed, Siex was recalled to Berlin. The chief was appointed SS Obersturmführer Kerting, who in March 1942 became chief of the security police and SD of the "general district of Stalino".
A special team moved along the route Ros-Lavl - Yukhnov - Medyn to Maloyaroslavets with the task of returning with advanced units to Moscow and seizing the objects of interest to the Germans.
After the defeat of the Germans near Moscow, the team was taken to the mountains. Roslavl, where it was reorganized in 1942 and became known as the Special Team 7 C. In September 1943, the team due to heavy losses in a collision with Soviet units in places Kolotini-chi was disbanded.
SPECIAL TEAM 10 A
A special command 10 a (field mail N 47540 and 35583) operated in conjunction with the 17th German army of Colonel-General Ruof.
The team was led until mid-1942 by SS Oberstur-Mbannführer Seetzen, then SS Sturmbannführer Christmann.
The team is widely known for its atrocities in Krasnodar. From the end of 1941 until the beginning of the German offensive in the Caucasus direction, the team was in Taganrog, and its units operated in the cities of Osipenko, Rostov, Mariupol and Simferopol.
When the Germans advanced to the Caucasus, the team arrived in Krasnodar, and during this period its units operated on the territory of the region in the cities of Novorossiysk, Yeisk, Anapa, Temryuk, the villages of Varenikovskaya and Verkhne-Bakanskaya. At the trial in Krasnodar in June 1943, the facts of the monstrous atrocities of the team's employees were revealed: mockery of the arrested and the burning of prisoners held in the Krasnodar prison; massacres of patients in the city hospital, in the Berezanskiy medical colony and the regional children's hospital on the farm “Tretya Rechka Kochety” in the Ust-Labinsk region; strangulation of many thousands of Soviet people in gas chambers.
The special team at that time consisted of about 200 people. Assistants to the head of Christma's team were employees Rabbe, Boos, Sargo, Salge, Hahn, Erich Meyer, Paschen, Vinz, Hans Münster; German military doctors Hertz and Schuster; translators Jacob Eycks, Sheterland.
When the Germans retreated from the Caucasus, some of the team's officials were assigned to other groups of the Security Police and SD on the Soviet-German front.
________"ZEPPELIN"________
In March 1942, the RSHA created a special reconnaissance and sabotage agency under the code name "Unternemen Zeppelin" (Zeppelin enterprise).
In its activities "Zeppelin" was guided by the so-called. "An action plan for the political disintegration of the Soviet Union." The main tactical tasks of the Zeppelin were determined by this plan as follows:
“... We must strive for tactics of the greatest possible variety. Special action groups should be formed, namely:
1. Reconnaissance groups - to collect and transmit political information from the Soviet Union.
2. Propaganda groups - for the dissemination of national, social and religious propaganda.
3. Insurgent groups - for organizing and conducting uprisings.
4. Sabotage groups for political sabotage and terror.
The plan emphasized that the Zeppelin was charged with political intelligence and sabotage activities in the Soviet rear. The Germans also wanted to create a separatist movement of bourgeois-nationalist elements aimed at tearing away the union republics from the USSR and organizing puppet "states" under the protectorate of Hitlerite Germany.
To this end, in 1941-1942, the RSHA, together with the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Regions, was established in Berlin, a number of so-called. "National committees" (Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijan, Turkestan, North Caucasian, Volga-Tatar and Kalmyk).
The listed "national committees" were chaired by:
Gruzinsky - Kedia Mikhail Mekievich and Gabliani Givi Ignatievich;
Armenian - Abegyan Artashes, Baghdasaryan, he is Si-monyan, he is Sargsyan Tigran and Sargsyan Vartan Mikhailovich;
Azerbaijani - Fatalibekov, he is Fatalibey-li, he is Dudanginsky Abo Alievich and Israfil-Bey Israfailov Magomed Nabi Ogly;
Turkestan - Valli-Kayum-Khan, aka Kayumov Vali, Khaitov Baymirza, aka Haiti Ogly Baymirza and Kanatbaev Kariye Kusaevich
North Caucasian - Magomayev Akhmed Nabi Idrisovich and Kantemirov Alikhan Gadoevich;
Volgo-Tatarsky - Shafeev Abdrakhman Gibadullovich, aka Shafi Almas and Alkaev Shakir Ibragimovich;
Kalmytsky - Balinov Shamba Khachinovich.
At the end of 1942, in Berlin, the propaganda department of the headquarters of the main command of the German army (OKB), together with intelligence, created the so-called. "Russian Committee" headed by the traitor to the Motherland, former Lieutenant General of the Soviet Army Vlasov.
The "Russian Committee", as well as other "national committees", attracted unstable prisoners of war and Soviet citizens taken to work in Germany to an active struggle against the Soviet Union, processed them in a fascist spirit and formed military units of the so-called. "Russian liberation army"(ROA).
In November 1944, on the initiative of Himmler, the so-called. The Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR), headed by the former head of the Russian Committee, Vlasov.
The KONR was tasked with uniting all anti-Soviet organizations and military formations from among the traitors to the Motherland and expanding their subversive activities against the Soviet Union.
In his subversive work against the USSR, "Zeppelin)) acted in contact with the" Abwehr "and the main headquarters of the high command of the German army, as well as with the imperial ministry for the occupied eastern regions.
The Zeppelin headquarters until the spring of 1943 was located in Berlin, in the office building of the VI Administration of the RSHA, in the Grunewald area, Berkaerst-rasse, 32/35, and then in the Wannsee area - Potsdamer Strasse, 29.
At first, the Zeppelin was headed by the SS Sturmbannführer Kurek; he was soon replaced by SS Sturmbannführer Raeder.
At the end of 1942, "Zeppelin" merged with abstracts VI C 1-3 (intelligence against the Soviet Union), and the head of the EI C group, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Dr. Grefe, began to lead it.
In January 1944, after the death of Grefe, the Zeppelin was headed by SS Sturmbannführer Dr. Hengelhaupt, and from the beginning of 1945 until the surrender of Germany - by SS Obersturmbannführer Rapp.
The governing headquarters consisted of the office of the head of the body and three departments with subdivisions.
Department CET 1 was in charge of recruiting and operational management of grassroots agencies, supplying agents with equipment and equipment.
The CET 1 department consisted of five sub-departments:
CET 1 A - leadership and supervision over the activities of grassroots bodies, staffing.
CET 1 B - management of camps and registration of agents.
CET 1 C - protection and transfer of agents. The subdivision had escort teams at its disposal.
CET 1 D - material support for agents.
CET 1 E - car service.
Department of CET 2 - training of agents. The department had four subsections:
CET 2 A - selection and training of agents of Russian nationality.
CET 2 B - selection and training of agents from the Cossacks.
CET 2 C - selection and training of agents from persons of the nationalities of the Caucasus.
CET 2 D - selection and training of agents from the nationalities of Central Asia. The department had 16 employees.
The CET 3 department processed all materials on the activities of special camps of front-line commands and agents transferred to the rear areas of the USSR.
The structure of the department was the same as in department CET 2. The department had 17 employees.
At the beginning of 1945, the Zeppelin headquarters, together with other departments of the VI Directorate of the RSHA, was evacuated to the south of Germany. After the end of the war, most of the leading employees of the Zeppelin central office ended up in the zone of American troops.
TEAMS "ZEPPELINA" ON SOVIET-GERMAISKY FRONT
In the spring of 1942, the Zeppelin sent four special teams (Sonderkommando) to the Soviet-German front. They were attached to the operational groups of the security police and SD at the main army groupings of the German army.
Special Zeppelin teams selected prisoners of war for training agents in training camps, collected intelligence information about the political and military-economic situation of the USSR by interviewing prisoners of war, collected uniforms for equipping agents, various military documents and other materials suitable for use in intelligence work.
All materials, documents and items of equipment were sent to the command headquarters, and the selected prisoners of war were sent to the special Zeppelin camps.
The teams also airlifted prepared agents across the front line on foot and by parachute from aircraft. Sometimes agents were trained on the spot, in small camps.
The transfer of agents by air was carried out from special crossing points "Zeppelin": in the state farm Vysokoe near Smolensk, in Pskov and the resort town of Saki near Evpatoria.
Special teams initially had a small staff: 2 SS officers, 2-3 junior SS commanders, 2-3 translators and several agents.
In the spring of 1943, the special teams were disbanded, and instead of them two main teams were created on the Soviet-German front - Rusland Mitte (later renamed Rusland Nord) and Rusland Süd (otherwise known as Doctor Raeder's Headquarters). In order not to disperse forces along the entire front, these teams focused their actions only on the most important directions: north and south.
The main Zeppelin team with the services that were part of it was a powerful intelligence organ and consisted of several hundred employees and agents.
The team leader was subordinate only to the Zeppelin command headquarters in Berlin, and in practical work he had complete operational independence, organizing the selection, training and transfer of agents on the spot. His actions, he contacted with other intelligence agencies and the military command.
"BATTLE UNION OF RUSSIAN NATIONALISTS" (BSRN)
Created in March 1942 in the Suwalki Prisoner of War Leger. Initially, the BSRN was called the "National Party of the Russian People". Its organizer is Gill (Rodionov). The "Combat Union of Russian Nationalists" had its own program and charter.
Everyone who joined the BSRN filled out a questionnaire, received a membership card and gave a written oath of allegiance to the "principles" of this union. The grassroots organizations of the BSRN were called "fighting squads".
Soon, the leadership of the union from the Suwalki camp was transferred to the Zeppelin preliminary camp, on the territory of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There, in April 1942, the BSRN center was established,
The center was divided into four groups: military, special-purpose (agent training) and two training groups. Each of the groups was led by an official Zeppelin employee. After some time, only one training group of the BSRN remained in Sachsenhausen, and the rest left for other Zeppelin camps.
The second group of training of personnel of BSRN began to be deployed in the region of the mountains. Breslavl, where the leadership of the special camps was trained in the "SS 20 Forest Camp".
A military group led by Gill, in the amount of 100 people. dropped out in the region of the mountains. Parcheva (Poland). There was created a special camp for the formation of "squad No. 1".
The special group dropped out in places. Yablon (Poland) and joined the Zeppelin intelligence school located there.
In January 1943, a conference of organizations of the "Combat Union of Russian Nationalists" was held in Breslavl, which was attended by 35 delegates. In the summer of 1943, part of the BSRN members joined the ROA.
"RUSSIAN PEOPLE'S PARTY OF REFORMISTS" (RNPR)
The "Russian People's Party of Reformists" (RNPR) was created in a prisoner of war camp in the mountains. Weimar in the spring of 1942 by the former Major General of the Soviet Army, traitor to the Motherland Bessonov ("Katulsky").
Initially, the RNPR was called the "People's Russian Party of Socialist Realists."
By the fall of 1942, the leading group of the Russian People's Party of Reformists settled in the special Zeppelin camp, on the territory of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and formed the so-called. "Political Center for the Fight against Bolshevism" (PCB).
The PCB published and distributed anti-Soviet magazines and newspapers among prisoners of war and developed a charter and program of its activities.
Bessonov offered the Zeppelin leadership his services in sending an armed group to the northern regions of the USSR to carry out sabotage and organize uprisings.
To develop a plan for this adventure and prepare an armed military formation of traitors to the Motherland, Bessonov's group was assigned a special camp in the former. Leibus Monastery (near Breslavl). At the beginning of 1943, the camp was transferred to localities. Linsdorf.
The leaders of the PCB visited POW camps to recruit traitors to Bessonov's group.
Subsequently, a punitive detachment was created from the members of the PCB to fight the partisans, which operated on the Soviet-German front in the region of the mountains. Velikie Luki.
MILITARY UNITS ______ "ZEPPELINA" ______
In the "Zeppelin" camps, during the preparation of agents, a significant number of "activists" were eliminated, who for various reasons were not suitable for throwing them into the rear areas of the USSR.
Most of the “activists” of Caucasian and Central Asian nationalities expelled from the camps were transferred to anti-Soviet military formations (“Turkestan legion”, etc.).
From the expelled Russian "activists" "Zeppelin" in the spring of 1942 began to form two punitive detachments, called "squads". The Germans intended to create large, select armed groups to carry out large-scale subversive operations in the Soviet rear.
By June 1942, the first punitive detachment was formed - "squad No. 1", numbering 500 people, under the command of Gill ("Rodionov").
"Druzhina" was stationed in the mountains. Parchev, then moved to a specially created camp in the forest between the mountains. Parchev and Yablon. She was attached to Operational Group B of the Security Police and SD and, on her instructions, served for some time in the protection of communications, and then acted against partisans in Poland, Belarus and the Smolensk region.
A little later, in a special SS camp "Guides", near the mountains. Lublin, was formed "squad No. 2" of 300 people. led by the traitor to the Motherland, the former captain of the Soviet Army, Blazhevich.
At the beginning of 1943, both "squads" were united under the command of Gill into the "first regiment of the Russian people's army." A counterintelligence department was created in the regiment, which was headed by Blazhevich.
"The first regiment of the Russian People's Army" received a special zone on the territory of Belarus, with a center in places. Meadows of the Polotsk region, for independent combat operations against partisans. A special military uniform and insignia were introduced for the regiment.
In August 1943, most of the regiment, led by Guill, went over to the side of the partisans. During the crossing, Blazhevich and the German instructors were shot. Gill was subsequently killed in action.
“Zeppelin” gave the rest of the regiment to the main command “Rusland Nord” and later used it as a punitive detachment and a reserve base for acquiring agents.
In total, more than 130 reconnaissance, sabotage and counterintelligence teams "Abwehr" and SD and about 60 schools that trained spies, saboteurs and terrorists operated on the Soviet-German front.
The publication was prepared by V. BOLTROMEYUK
Consultant V. VINOGRADOV
Magazine "Security Service" No. 3-4 1995

SPECIAL COMMUNICATION on the detention of German intelligence agents TAVRIM and SHILOVA.
September 5 p. in the morning the head of the Karmanovskiy RO of the NKVD - Art. militia lieutenant VETROV in the village. Karmanovo detained agents of German intelligence:
1. TAVRIN Petr Ivanovich
2. SHILOVA Lidia Yakovlevna. The detention was carried out under the following circumstances:
At 1 hour 50 minutes On the night of September 5, the head of the Gzhatsk RO of the NKVD, the captain of state security, comrade IVA-NOVU, was informed by telephone from the VNOS service post that an enemy plane had appeared in the direction of the city of Mozhaisk at an altitude of 2500 meters.
At 3 o'clock in the morning from the air observation post for the second time it was reported by telephone that the enemy plane after the shelling at the station. Kubinka, Mozhaisk - Uvarovka, Moscow region. came back and began to land with the engine on fire in the area of ​​the village. Yakovlev - Zavrazhie, Karmanovsky district, Smolensk region. about this Beginning. The Gzhatsky RO of the NKVD informed the Karmanovskiy RO of the NKVD and sent a task force to the indicated place of the plane crash.
At 4 o'clock in the morning, the commander of the Zaprudkovo order protection group, Comrade ALMAZOV said by phone that the enemy plane had landed between the village. Zavrazhie and Yakovlevo. A man and a woman in the uniform of servicemen left the plane on a German brand motorcycle, who stopped in the village. Yakovlevo, asked for directions to the mountains. Rzhev and were interested in the location of the nearest regional centers. Teacher ALMAZOVA, living in the village. Almazovo, showed them the way to the regional center Karmanovo and they left in the direction of the village. Samuylovo.
On the arrest of 2 servicemen who left the plane, the Head of the Gzhatsky District of the NKVD, in addition to the expelled task force, informed the order protection groups under the councils and informed the Head of the Karmanovsky District of the NKVD.
Having received a message from the Head of the Gzhatsky RO of the NKVD, the head of the Karmanovsky RO - Art. militia lieutenant comrade VETROV with a group of workers of 5 people left to detain the indicated persons.
2 kilometers from the village. Karma-novo in the direction of the village. Samuylovo beginning. RO NKVD Comrade VETROV noticed a motorcycle moving in the village. Karmanovo, and by signs he determined that those who were riding a motorcycle were those who had left the plane that had landed, began to chase them on a bicycle and overtook them in the village. Karmanovo.
Those who rode a motorcycle turned out to be: a man in a leather summer coat, with a major's shoulder straps, had four orders and a gold star of the Hero of the Soviet Union.
A woman in an overcoat with a junior lieutenant's shoulder straps.
Stopping the motorcycle and introducing himself as the head of the NKVD RO, Comrade. VETROV demanded a document from a major riding a motorcycle, who presented an identity card in the name of TAV-RINA Pyotr Ivanovich - Deputy. Beginning ROC "Smersh" 39 army of the 1st Baltic Front.
On the offer comrade. VETROVA to follow in the RO of the NKVD, TAVRIN categorically refused, arguing that he, as arrived on an urgent call from the front, every minute is precious.
Only with the help of the arrived workers of the RO UNKVD TAVRINA was it possible to deliver it to the RO NKVD.
In the District Department of the NKVD, TAVRIN presented a certificate for No. 1284 dated 5/1X-44g. with the stamp of the head of the item. 26224 that he was sent to the mountains. Moscow, the Main Directorate of the NCO "Smersh" and the telegram of the Main Directorate of the KRO "Smersh" NCO of the USSR No. 01024 and the same content of the travel certificate.
After checking the documents through the Head of the Gzhatsky RO of the NKVD comrade. IVANOVA was requested by Moscow and it was established that TAVRIN was not called to the Main Directorate of the Smersh KRO of the NCO and that one does not appear at work in the Smersh KRO of the 39th Army, he was disarmed and confessed that he had been airlifted by German intelligence for sabotage and terror ...
During a personal search and in a motorcycle on which TAVRIN was following, 3 suitcases with various things, 4 order books, 5 orders, 2 medals, a Gold Star of a Hero of the Soviet Union and a Guards badge, a number of documents in the name of TAVRIN were found, money in Soviet signs 428,400 rubles, 116 mastic seals, 7 pistols, 2 central combat hunting rifles, 5 grenades, 1 mine and a lot of ammunition.
Detainees with belongings. evidence delivered to the NKVD of the USSR.
P. p. ZAM NKVD DEPARTMENT HEAD OF SMOLENSK REGION HEAD OF DEPARTMENT BB UNKVD SMOLENSK REGION IS AUTHORIZED.
7 DEP. OBB NKVD USSR

Reconnaissance Battalion - Aufklarungsabtellung

In peacetime, the Wehrmacht infantry divisions did not have reconnaissance battalions, their formation began only during the mobilization of 1939. Reconnaissance battalions were formed on the basis of thirteen cavalry regiments, united as part of the cavalry corps. By the end of the war, all cavalry regiments were divided into battalions, which were attached to divisions for reconnaissance. In addition, from the cavalry regiments, spare reconnaissance units were formed, deployed on the territory of the garrisons of individual divisions. Thus, the cavalry regiments ceased to exist, although a new formation of cavalry regiments began towards the end of the war. The reconnaissance battalions played the role of the "eyes" of the division. The scouts determined the tactical situation and protected the main forces of the division from unnecessary "surprises". Reconnaissance battalions were especially useful in a mobile war, when it was required to neutralize enemy reconnaissance and quickly detect the main enemy forces. In some situations, the reconnaissance battalion covered the open flanks. During the rapid offensive, the scouts, along with sappers and tank destroyers, advanced in the vanguard, forming a mobile group. The task of the mobile group was to quickly seize key objects: bridges, intersections, dominant heights, etc. Reconnaissance units of infantry divisions were formed on the basis of cavalry regiments, so they retained the cavalry names of units. Reconnaissance battalions played a large role in the early years of the war. However, the need to solve a large number of tasks demanded the appropriate competence from the commanders. It was especially difficult to coordinate the actions of the battalion due to the fact that it was partially motorized and its units had different mobility. The infantry divisions, formed later, no longer had cavalry units in their battalions, but received a separate cavalry squadron. Instead of motorcycles and cars, the scouts received armored vehicles.
The reconnaissance battalion consisted of 19 officers, two officials, 90 non-commissioned officers and 512 soldiers - a total of 623 people. The reconnaissance battalion was armed with 25 light machine guns, 3 light grenade launchers, 2 heavy machine guns, 3 anti-tank guns and 3 armored vehicles. In addition, the battalion had 7 carts, 29 vehicles, 20 trucks and 50 motorcycles (28 of them with sidecars). The staffing of the reconnaissance battalion was 260 horses, but in reality the battalion usually had more than 300 horses.
The structure of the battalion was as follows:
Battalion headquarters: commander, adjutant, deputy adjutant, intelligence chief, veterinarian, senior inspector (head of the repair detachment), senior treasurer and several staff members. The headquarters had horses and vehicles. The command vehicle was equipped with a 100-watt radio station.
Courier department (5 cyclists and 5 motorcyclists).
Communications platoon: 1 telephone office (motorized), radio communications (motorized), 2 compartments of portable radio stations type "d" (on horseback), 1 telephone office (on horseback), 1 horse-drawn carriage with the property of signalmen. Total strength: 1 officer, 29 non-commissioned officers and soldiers, 25 horses.
Heavy weapons platoon: headquarters (3 motorcycles with a sidecar), one section of heavy machine guns (two heavy machine guns and 8 motorcycles with a sidecar). The rear services and the bicycle platoon numbered 158 people.
1. Cavalry squadron: 3 cavalry platoons, each with a headquarters and three cavalry squads (each with 2 gunners and one crew of a light machine gun). Each squad has 1 non-commissioned officer and 12 cavalrymen. The armament of each cavalryman consisted of a rifle. In the Polish and French campaigns, the cavalrymen of the reconnaissance battalions wore sabers, but in late 1940 and early 1941 sabers fell out of use. In the 1st and 3rd sections there was an additional pack horse, on which a light machine gun and boxes of cartridges were transported. Each platoon consisted of one officer, 42 soldiers and non-commissioned officers, and 46 horses. However, the combat strength of the platoon was less, since it was necessary to leave the horse breeders who kept the horses.
The wagon train: one field kitchen, 3 horse-drawn carts HF1, 4 horse-drawn carts HF2 (one of them housed a field smithy), 35 horses, 1 motorcycle, 1 motorcycle with a sidecar, 28 non-commissioned officers and soldiers.
2. Squadron of cyclists: 3 bicycle platoons: commander, 3 couriers, 3 squads (12 people and a light machine gun), one light mortar (2 motorcycles with a sidecar). 1 truck with spare parts and a mobile workshop. The equipment of the Wehrmacht's bicycle divisions consisted of an army bicycle of the 1938 model. The bicycle was equipped with a trunk, and a soldier's equipment was suspended from the handlebars. Boxes with machine gun cartridges were attached to the bicycle frame. The soldiers held rifles and machine guns behind their backs.
3. Heavy weapons squadron: 1 cavalry battery (2 75 mm infantry guns, 6 horses), 1 platoon of tank destroyers (3 37 mm anti-tank guns, motorized), 1 platoon of armored vehicles (3 light 4-wheeled armored vehicles (Panzerspaehwagen ), armed with machine guns, one of them is a radio-equipped armored car (Funkwagen)).
Conveyance: a field kitchen (motorized), 1 truck with ammunition, 1 truck with spare parts and a field workshop, 1 fuel truck, 1 motorcycle with a sidecar for transporting weapons and equipment. Non-commissioned officer and armorer's assistant, a food supply train (1 truck), a wagon train with property (1 truck), one motorcycle without a sidecar for the Hauptfeldwebel and the treasurer.
The reconnaissance battalion usually operated 25-30 km ahead of the rest of the division's forces or occupied positions on the flank. During the summer offensive of 1941, the cavalry squadron of the reconnaissance battalion was divided into three platoons and operated to the left and right of the offensive line, controlling a front up to 10 km wide. Cyclists operated in close proximity to the main forces, and armored vehicles covered the side roads. The rest of the battalion's forces, along with all the heavy weapons, were kept ready to repel a possible enemy attack. By 1942, the reconnaissance battalion was increasingly used to reinforce the infantry. But for this task, the battalion was too small and poorly equipped. Despite this, the battalion was used as the last reserve, which was used to plug holes in the positions of the division. After the Wehrmacht went over to the defensive along the entire front in 1943, the reconnaissance battalions were practically not used for their intended purpose. All cavalry units were withdrawn from the battalions and merged into new cavalry regiments. From the remnants of the personnel, the so-called rifle battalions (such as light infantry) were formed, which were used to reinforce the bloodless infantry divisions.

Chronology of sabotage and reconnaissance operations of the Abwehr (selectively, because there are many)
1933 Abwehr began equipping foreign agents with portable shortwave radio stations
Abwehr representatives hold regular meetings with the leadership of the Estonian special services in Tallinn. The Abwehr begins to create strongholds in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, China and Japan to conduct sabotage and reconnaissance activities against the USSR
1936 Wilhelm Canaris visits Estonia for the first time and conducts secret negotiations with the Chief of the General Staff of the Estonian Army and the head of the 2nd Military Counterintelligence Department of the General Staff. An agreement was reached on the exchange of intelligence information on the USSR. The Abwehr begins to create an Estonian intelligence center, the so-called "Group 6513". The future Baron Andrei von Jükskühl is appointed as the liaison officer between the “fifth column” of Estonia and the Abwehr
1935. May. Abwehr receives official permission from the Estonian government to deploy sabotage and reconnaissance bases on Estonian territory along the border with the USSR and equips the Estonian special services with cameras with telescopic lenses and radio intercept equipment to organize covert surveillance of the territory of a potential enemy. Photographic equipment is also installed on the lighthouses of the Gulf of Finland for photographing warships of the Soviet military fleet (RKKF).
December 21: The division of powers and the division of spheres of influence between the Abwehr and the SD was recorded in an agreement signed by representatives of both departments. The so-called "10 principles" assumed: 1. Coordination of the actions of the Abwehr, Gestapo and SD within the Reich and abroad. 2. Military intelligence and counterintelligence is the exclusive prerogative of the Abwehr. 3. Political Intelligence - Diocese of the SD. 4. The entire range of measures aimed at preventing crimes against the state on the territory of the Reich (surveillance, arrest, investigation, etc.) is carried out by the Gestapo.
1937. Pickenbrock and Canaris leave for Estonia to intensify and coordinate intelligence activities against the USSR. To conduct subversive activities against the Soviet Union, the Abwehr used the services of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). The Rovel special-purpose squadron based in Staaken begins reconnaissance flights over the territory of the USSR. Subsequently, the Xe-111 disguised as transport aircraft flew at high altitude to the Crimea and the foothills of the Caucasus.
1938 The retired Oberst Maasing, former head of the 2nd department of the Estonian General Staff (military counterintelligence), arrives in Germany. Under the leadership of the new head of the 2nd department, Oberst Willem Saarsen, the counterintelligence of the Estonian army actually turns into a "foreign branch" of the Abwehr. Canaris and Pickenbrock fly to Estonia to coordinate sabotage and reconnaissance activities against the USSR. Until 1940, the Abwehr, together with the Estonian counterintelligence service, sent sabotage and reconnaissance detachments to the territory of the USSR - among others, the "Gavrilov group" named after the leader. On the territory of the Reich, the Abwehr-2 begins an active recruitment of agents among Ukrainian political emigrants. The camp on Lake Chiemsee near Berlin Tegel and in Kwentzgut near Brandenburg open training centers to prepare saboteurs for actions in Russia and Poland.
January: The Soviet government decides to close the German diplomatic consulates in Leningrad, Kharkov, Tbilisi, Kiev, Odessa, Novosibirsk and Vladivostok.
As part of the Anti-Comintern Pact concluded in 1936 between the governments of Japan and Germany, Japan's military attaché in Berlin Hiroshi Oshima and Wilhelm Canaris signed an agreement at the Berlin Foreign Ministry on the regular exchange of intelligence information about the USSR and the Red Army. The agreement envisaged holding meetings at the level of leaders of friendly counterintelligence organizations at least once a year to coordinate the sabotage and intelligence operations of the Axis member countries.
1939 During a visit to Estonia, Canaris expresses a wish to the Commander-in-Chief of the Estonian Armed Forces, General Laidoner, to direct the country's special services to collect information on the number and types of aircraft of the Soviet Air Force. Baron von Jükskühl, a liaison officer for the Abwehr and the Estonian intelligence services, moved to Germany for permanent residence, but until 1940 he repeatedly went on business trips to the Baltic states.
March 23: Germany annexes Memel (Klaipeda). March - April: The Rovel special squadron based in Budapest, secretly from the Hungarian authorities, makes reconnaissance flights over the territory of the USSR, in the Kiev - Dnepropetrovsk - Zhitomir - Zaporozhye - Kryvyi Rih - Odessa region.
July: Canaris and Pickenbrock went on a business trip to Estonia. The Rovel Squadron Commander gave Canaris aerial photographs of selected regions of Poland, the USSR and Great Britain.
Within six months, 53 Abwehr agents were arrested in only one Torun Voivodeship (Poland).
September 12: The Abwehr leadership takes the first concrete steps to prepare an anti-communist uprising in Ukraine with the help of the OUN militants and its leader Melnik. Abwehr-2 instructors train 250 Ukrainian volunteers at a training camp near Dakhstein.
October: On the new Soviet-German border, until mid-1941, the Abwehr equips radio interception posts and activates intelligence intelligence. Canaris appoints Major Horacek as head of the Warsaw branch of the Abwehr. To intensify counterintelligence operations against the USSR, Abwehr branches were created in Radom, Tsekhanuv, Lublin, Terespol, Krakow and Suwalki.
November: The head of the Abwehr regional office in Warsaw, Major Horacek, places additional surveillance and intelligence services in Biala Podlaska, Wlodava and Terespol, opposite Brest on the other side of the Bug in preparation for Operation Barbarossa. Estonian military counterintelligence sends Hauptmann Lepp to Finland to collect intelligence information about the Red Army. The information received is forwarded to the Abwehr in accordance with the agreement.
The beginning of the Soviet-Finnish war (until March 12, 1940). Together with the Finnish counterintelligence VO "Finland", the Ausland / Abwehr / OKW Directorate are active in sabotage and reconnaissance activities on the front line. The Abwehr manages to obtain especially valuable intelligence information with the help of Finnish long-distance patrols (Kuismanen's group - Kola region, Marttin's group - Kumu region and Paatsalo's group from Lapland).
December. The Abwehr carries out a massive recruitment of agents in Biala Podlaska and Wlodava and sends OUN saboteurs into the USSR border zone, most of whom are neutralized by the USSR NKVD officers.
1940 On the instructions of the foreign department of the Abwehr, the Rovel special squadron increases the number of reconnaissance sorties over the territory of the USSR, using the airstrips of airfields in occupied Czechoslovakia and Poland, and air bases in Finland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. The purpose of aerial reconnaissance is to collect information about the location of Soviet industrial facilities, draw up navigation diagrams of the network of highways and railways (bridges, railway junctions, sea and river ports), obtain information about the deployment of the Soviet armed forces and the construction of airfields, border fortifications and long-term air defense positions , barracks, depots and enterprises of the defense industry. As part of the "Oldenburg" operation, the OKB proposes "to carry out an inventory of the sources of raw materials and their processing centers in the West of the USSR (Ukraine, Belarus), in the Moscow and Leningrad regions, and in the oil production regions of Baku."
To create a “fifth column” in the rear of the Red Army, the Abwehr formed a “Strelitz Special Purpose Regiment” (2,000 men) in Krakow, the “Ukrainian Legion” in Warsaw, and the “Ukrainian Warriors” battalion in Luckenwald. As part of Operation Felix (the occupation of the Strait of Gibraltar area), the Abwehr creates an operational center in Spain to collect information.
February 13: At the headquarters of the OKB Canaris reports to General Jodl on the results of aerial reconnaissance over the territory of the USSR of the special purpose squadron "Rovel".
February 22: Hauptmann of the Abwehr Leverkün with a passport of a Reich diplomat leaves for Tabriz / Iran via Moscow to investigate the possibilities of the operational-strategic deployment of an expeditionary army (army group) in the Asian region with the aim of invading the oil-producing regions of the Soviet Transcaucasia as part of the Barbarossa plan.
March 10: The OUN insurrectionary headquarters dispatches sabotage groups to Lviv and the Volyn region to organize sabotage and civil disobedience.
April 28: From the Bordufoss airfield in Northern Norway, reconnaissance aircraft of the Rovel special-purpose squadron conduct aerial photography of the northern territories of the USSR (Murmansk and Arkhangelsk).
May: Liaison Officer Abwehr II Klee flies to a secret meeting in Estonia.
July: Until May 1941, the NKVD of the Lithuanian SSR neutralized 75 sabotage and reconnaissance groups of the Abwehr.
July 21 - 22: The Operations Department begins to develop plans for a military campaign in Russia. August: OKW commissions Ausland / Abwehr to carry out training within the offensive operation against the USSR.
August 8: At the request of the chief of staff of the German Air Force, experts from the OKW foreign department compose an analytical review of the military-industrial potential of the USSR and the colonial possessions of Great Britain (except for Egypt and Gibraltar).
From December 1940 to March 1941 the NKVD of the USSR liquidated 66 strong points and bases of the Abwehr in the border areas. For 4 months, 1,596 agents-saboteurs were arrested (of which 1,338 were in the Baltic States, Belarus and Western Ukraine). In late 1940 and early 1941, Argentine counterintelligence discovered several warehouses with German weapons.
On the eve of the invasion of the USSR, the foreign department of the Abwehr is carrying out a massive recruitment of agents among the Armenian (Dashnaktsutyun party), Azerbaijani (Mussavat) and Georgian (Shamil) political emigrants.
From Finnish airbases, the Rovel special-purpose squadron conducts active aerial reconnaissance in the industrial regions of the USSR (Kronstadt, Leningrad, Arkhangelsk and Murmansk)
1941 January 31: The German High Command (OKH) signs a plan for the operational-strategic deployment of ground forces as part of Operation Barbarossa.
February 15: Hitler orders the OKB to conduct a large-scale disinformation operation for the Red Army leadership on the German-Soviet border from February 15 to April 16, 1941.
... March: Admiral Canaris issues an order for the Directorate to force reconnaissance operations against the USSR.
March 11: The German Foreign Ministry assures the USSR military attaché in Berlin that "rumors about the redeployment of German troops in the area of ​​the German-Soviet border are a malicious provocation and do not correspond to reality."
March 21: Von Bentivegny reports to the Design Bureau about the conduct of special measures (Abwehr-3) to disguise the advance of the Wehrmacht to its initial positions on the Romanian-Yugoslav and German-Soviet borders.
Major of the Abwehr Schulze-Holtus, aka Dr. Bruno Schulze, under the guise of a tourist leaves for the USSR. The major collects intelligence information about military and industrial facilities, strategic bridges, etc., located along the Moscow - Kharkov - Rostov-on-Don - Grozny - Baku railway line. Back in Moscow, Schulze-Holtus hands over the collected information to the German military attaché.
April-May: The NKVD registers the intensification of German intelligence activities on the territory of the USSR.
April 30: Hitler sets the date for the attack on the USSR - June 22, 1941.
May 7: The German military attaché in the USSR, General Koestring, and his deputy, Oberst Krebs, report to Hitler on the military potential of the Soviet Union.
May 15: Abwehr officers Tilike and Schulze-Holtus, under the alias Zaba, conduct intensive reconnaissance from Iranian territory of the southern border regions of the USSR, using informant agents from among the local residents. Successfully recruited the son of the Tabriz police chief and a staff officer of one of the Iranian divisions stationed in Tabriz.
May 25: The OKB issues "Directive No. 30", according to which the transfer of expeditionary forces to the zone of the British-Iraqi armed conflict (Iraq) is postponed indefinitely in connection with preparations for the campaign in the East. The OKB informs the General Staff of the Finnish Army about the timing of the attack on the USSR.
June: SS Standartenfuehrer Walter Schellenberg is appointed head of the 6th Directorate of the RSHA (Foreign Intelligence Service of the SD).
After training in Finnish intelligence schools, Abwehr-2 sends over 100 Estonian emigrants to the Baltic states (Operation Erna). Two groups of saboteurs in the form of Red Army soldiers land on the island of Hiiumaa. The ship with the third Abwehr group is forced to leave the territorial waters of the USSR after a collision with Soviet border patrol boats in the waters of the Gulf of Finland. A few days later, this sabotage and reconnaissance group parachuted into the coastal areas of Estonia. The commanders of the "front-line reconnaissance" units of Army Group "North" were tasked with collecting intelligence information about strategic targets and fortifications of the Red Army in Estonia (especially in the Narva-Kohtla-Järve-Rakvere-Tallinn region). The Abwehr sends agents from among Ukrainian emigrants to the USSR to compile and clarify the "proscription lists" of Soviet citizens "to be destroyed in the first place" (communists, commissars, Jews ...).
June 10: At a meeting of the top leadership of the Abwehr, Zipo (security police) and SD in Berlin, Admiral Canaris and SS Ober Gruppenfuehrer Heydrich conclude an agreement on the coordination of the actions of the Abwehr groups, security police units and Einsatzgruppen (task forces) SD in the USSR after the occupation. June 11: Subdivision "Abwehr-2" of the Krakow branch of Ausland / Abwehr / OKB throws 6 agents-paratroopers into the territory of Ukraine with the task to blow up sections of the railway line Stolpa novo - Kiev on the night of June 21-22. The operation fails. The OKB issues "Directive No. 32" - 1. "On measures after the operation" Barbarossa ". 2. "On the support of the Arab liberation movement by all military, political and propaganda means with the formation of the" F (elmi) sonderstaff "at the headquarters of the commander-in-chief of the occupation forces in Greece (South-East)". June 14: The OKB sends the last directives before the attack on the USSR to the main headquarters of the invading armies. June 14-19: According to the order of the leadership, Schulze-Holtus sends agents from the territory of Northern Iran to the Kirovabad / Azerbaijan region to collect intelligence information about Soviet civil and military airfields in this region. When crossing the border, the Abwehr group of 6 people encounters a border guard and returns to the base. During a fire contact, all 6 agents receive serious gunshot wounds.
June 18: Germany and Turkey sign the Mutual Cooperation and Non-Aggression Pact. The divisions of the 1st echelon of the Wehrmacht entered the area of ​​operational deployment on the Soviet-German border. The battalion of Ukrainian saboteurs "Nightingale" is advancing to the German-Soviet border in the Pantalovice area. June 19: The Abwehr branch in Bucharest reports to Berlin on the successful recruitment of about 100 Georgian emigrants in Romania. The Georgian diaspora in Iran is being effectively developed. June 21: Directorate Ausland / Abwehr / OKW announces "readiness number 1" to the military counterintelligence departments at the headquarters of the fronts - "headquarters Valley-1, Valley-2 and Valley-3." The commanders of the special forces of the "front-line reconnaissance" of the army groups "North", "Center" and "South" report to the leadership of the Abwehr about the advance to the initial positions at the German-Soviet border. Each of the three Abwehr groups includes from 25 to 30 saboteurs from the local population (Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Cossacks, Finns, Estonians ...) under the command of a German officer. After being dropped into the deep rear (from 50 to 300 km from the front line), commandos of the Red Army soldiers and officers dressed in military uniforms carry out acts of sabotage and sabotage. Lieutenant Katwitz's "Brandenburgers" penetrate 20 km deep into the territory of the USSR, seize the strategic bridge over the Beaver (left tributary of the Berezina) near Lipsk and hold it until the approach of the Wehrmacht reconnaissance company. A company of the Nightingale battalion infiltrates into the Radimno area. June 22: Beginning of Operation Barbarossa - attack on the USSR. At about midnight in the sector of the Wehrmacht 123rd Infantry Division, Brandenburg-800 saboteurs disguised as German customs officers mercilessly shoot a detachment of Soviet border guards, ensuring a breakthrough of the border fortifications. At dawn, sabotage Abwehr groups strike in the area of ​​Augustow - Grodno - Golynka - Rudavka - Suwalki and capture 10 strategic bridges (Veiseyai - Porechye - Sopotskin - Grodno - Lunno - Mosty). The consolidated company of the 1st battalion "Brandenburg-800", reinforced by the company of the battalion "Nightingale", capture the city of Przemysl, force the San and capture the bridgehead near Valava. The Abwehr-3 special forces of the "front-line reconnaissance" prevent the evacuation and destruction of secret documents of Soviet military and civilian institutions (Brest-Litovsk). The Ausland / Abwehr / OKW Office instructs Major Schulze-Holtus, a resident of the Abwehr in Tabriz / Iran, to intensify the collection of intelligence information about the Baku oil-industrial region, communication lines and communications in the Caucasus-Persian Gulf region. June 24: With the help of the German ambassador in Kabul, Lahusen-Vivremont organizes anti-British sabotage actions on the Afghan-Indian border. Directorate Ausland / Abwehr / OKW plans to raise a massive anti-British uprising on the eve of the landing in the region of the Wehrmacht Expeditionary Army. Oberleutenant Roser, authorized by the "armistice commission", at the head of the intelligence unit, returns from Syria to Turkey. The Brandenburg-800 saboteurs make a night landing from an ultra-low altitude (50 m) between Lida and Pervomaiskiy. The Brandenburgers seize and hold for two days the railway bridge on the Lida-Molodechno line until the approach of the German armored division. In the course of fierce fighting, the unit suffers severe losses. The reinforced company of the "Nightingale" battalion is redeployed near Lvov. June 26: Finland declares war on the USSR. The sabotage units of "long-range reconnaissance" penetrate the Soviet rear through gaps in the defense lines. The Finnish intelligence services transmit the received intelligence reports to Berlin for systematization and examination.
WAR.
To be continued.

1941

June 28: Saboteurs of the 8th company "Brandenburg-800" in Red Army uniforms seize and demined the bridge over the Daugava near Daugavpils prepared for an explosion by the retreating Soviet troops. In the course of fierce battles, the company commander, Oberleutenant Knak, was killed, but the company still holds the bridge until the advance units of the Army Group North, which is rushing into Latvia, approach. June 29-30: During the lightning operation, the 1st Battalion "Brandenburg-800" and the reinforced companies of the "Nightingale" battalion occupy Lviv and take control of strategic objects and transport hubs. According to the "proscription lists" drawn up by agents of the Krakow branch of the Abwehr, the Einsatzkommando SD, together with the "Nightingale" battalion, begin mass executions of the Jewish population of Lvov.
As part of Operation Xenophon (redeployment of German and Romanian divisions from the Crimea through the Kerch Strait to the Taman Peninsula), a platoon of the Brandenburgers of Chief Lieutenant Katvits attacks the Red Army's anti-aircraft searchlight stronghold at Cape Peklu.
Von Lahusen-Wyvremont, General Reinecke and SS Obergruppenfuehrer Müller (Gestapo) are holding a meeting in connection with the change in the order of keeping Soviet prisoners of war in accordance with Keitel's "Order on Commissars" and the order "On the implementation of a racial program in Russia." Abwehr-3 begins to conduct police raids and anti-partisan actions of intimidation in the occupied territory of the USSR.
July 1 - 8: During the offensive on Vinnitsa / Ukraine, the Nightingale battalion's punishers carry out mass executions of civilians in Satanov, Yusvin, Solochiv and Ternopil. July 12: Great Britain and the USSR sign a mutual assistance agreement in Moscow. July 15 - 17: Commandos of the "Nightingale" battalion and the 1st battalion "Brandenburg-800" dressed in Red Army uniforms attack the headquarters of one of the Red Army units in the forest near Vinnitsa. The attack on the move bogged down - the saboteurs suffered heavy losses. The remnants of the Nightingale battalion were disbanded.
August: Within 2 weeks, Abwehr agents carried out 7 major railway sabotage (Army Group Center).
Autumn: By agreement with the OKL, a group of Abwehr agents was abandoned in the Leningrad Region to collect intelligence information about the location of strategic military facilities (airfields, arsenals) and the deployment of military units.
September 11: Von Ribbentrop signs an order according to which “the agencies and organizations of the German Foreign Ministry are prohibited from recruiting active agents-executors of the Ausland / Abwehr / OKW Directorate. The ban does not apply to military intelligence and counterintelligence officers who are not directly involved in sabotage operations or are involved in organizing sabotage actions through third parties ... ".
September 16: In Afghanistan, the reconnaissance group of Oberleutenant Vitzel, aka Patan, prepares to be sent to the border region in the south of the USSR.
September 25: Abwehr Major Schenk meets with leaders of the Uzbek emigration in Afghanistan. October: The 9th company of the 3rd battalion "Brandenburg-800" parachutes in the area of ​​the Istra reservoir, which supplies water to Moscow. During the mining of the dam, employees of the NKVD found and neutralized the saboteurs.
End 1941: After the failure of the blitzkrieg plans on the Eastern Front, the Ausland / Abwehr / OKW Directorate pays special attention to the actions of agents in the deep rear of the Red Army (in the Transcaucasian, Volga, Ural and Central Asian regions). The strength of each special unit of the "front-line intelligence" of the Ausland / Abwehr / OKW Directorate on the Soviet-German front has been brought to 55-60 people. In a forest camp near Ravaniemi, the 15th company "Brandenburg-800" completed preparations for conducting special operations on the Eastern Front. The saboteurs were tasked with organizing sabotage on the Murmansk-Leningrad railway line, the main communication artery of the northern group of Soviet troops, and interrupting the supply of food to besieged Leningrad. Valley 3 Headquarters begins to deploy agents to Soviet partisan detachments.

1942 Finnish radio monitoring posts and radio interception services decipher the contents of the radio messages of the Red Army High Command, which allows the Wehrmacht to conduct several successful naval operations to intercept Soviet convoys. By personal order of Hitler, the Ausland / Abwehr / OKW Directorate is equipping the Finnish Army's signal troops with the latest direction finders and radio transmitters. The Finnish army coders, together with the Abwehr experts, are trying to establish the places of permanent (temporary) deployment of the Red Army military units by the numbers of the field mail. Gerhard Buschmann, a former professional sports pilot, is appointed as Sector Leader for the Abwehr branch in Reval. VO "Bulgaria" forms a special anti-partisan unit under the command of Sonderführer Klein-Hampel. The "Baltic company" of the 1st battalion "Brandenburg-800" of Lieutenant Baron von Völkersam is thrown into the deep rear of the Red Army. Commandos dressed in Red Army uniforms attack the divisional headquarters of the Red Army. The Brandenburgers capture a strategic bridge near Pyatigorsk / USSR and hold it until a Wehrmacht tank battalion approaches. Before the assault on Demyansk, 200 Brandenburg-800 saboteurs parachute in the area of ​​the Bologoye transport hub. "Brandenburgers" undermine the sites railway track on the lines Bologoye - Toropets and Bologoye - Staraya Russa. Two days later, the NKVD units manage to partially eliminate the sabotage Abwehr group.
January: Headquarters Val Li-1 begins recruiting Russian agents in POW filtration camps.
January - November: NKVD officers neutralize 170 Abwehr-1 and Abwehr-2 agents operating in the North Caucasus / USSR.
March: Abwehr anti-terrorist units take an active part in suppressing the partisan movement in the occupied territory. The 9th company of the 3rd battalion "Brandenburg-800" starts to "clean up the area" near Dorogobuzh - Smolensk. After completing the combat mission, the 9th company is transferred to Vyazma.
Brandenburg-800 special forces are trying to seize and destroy the strongholds and arsenals of the Red Army near Alakvetti in the Murmansk direction. The commandos meet fierce resistance and suffer heavy losses in battles with units of the Red Army and NKVD units.
23 May: 350 Abwehr-2 commandos in Red Army uniforms are deployed in Operation Gray Head on the Eastern Front (Army Group Center). In the course of protracted battles, subdivisions of the Red Army destroy 2/3 of the personnel of the Abwehr group. The remnants of the special forces with battles break through the front line.
June: Finnish counterintelligence begins to regularly send copies of the intercepted radio reports of the Red Army and the Red Cross Society to Berlin.
End of June: The Branden-Burg-800 Coast Guard Fighter Company was tasked with cutting the supply lines of the Red Army in the Kerch region on the Taman Peninsula / USSR.
July 24 - 25: As a result of lightning-fast landing operation the reinforced company "Brandenburg-800" by Hauptmann Grabert seizes six-kilometer hydraulic structures (railway embankments, earth dams, bridges) between Rostov-on-Don and Bataysk in the Don floodplain.
July 25 - December 1942: Wehrmacht summer offensive in the North Caucasus / USSR. 30 commandos of the 2nd battalion "Brandenburg-800" in Red Army uniforms are parachuted in the region of the North Caucasian Mineralnye Vody. Saboteurs mine and blow up a railway bridge on the Mineralnye Vody - Pyatigorsk branch. 4 Abwehr agents carry out terrorist acts against the commanders of the 46th Infantry and 76th Caucasian Divisions of the Red Army stationed near Kirovograd. August: 8th Brandenburg-800 is ordered to seize the bridges near Bataysk, south of Rostov-on-Don, and hold them until the approach of the Wehrmacht armored divisions. The Abwehrgroup of Lieutenant Baron von Felkersam in the form of NKGB fighters is thrown into the deep rear Soviet army with the aim of seizing oil production areas near Maykop. 25 commandos of the "Brandenburg" Oberleutenant Lange are parachuted in the Grozny region with the task of seizing oil refineries and an oil pipeline. The Red Army guards are shooting the sabotage group while still in the air. Having lost up to 60% of the personnel, the "Brandenburgers" fight their way through the line of the Soviet-German front. The 8th company of the 2nd battalion "Brandenburg-800" captures the bridge over the Belaya river near Maikop and prevents the redeployment of the Red Army units. In the ensuing battle, the company commander, Lieutenant Prokhazka, was killed. The Abwehr command of the 6th company "Brandenburg-800" in the Red Army uniform seizes the road bridge and cuts the main highway Maikop - Tuapse on the Black Sea. In the course of fierce battles, subdivisions of the Red Army almost completely destroy the saboteurs of the Abwehr. Dedicated Brandenburg-800 units, together with the Einsatzkommando SD, take part in anti-partisan raids between Nevelemi Vitebsk / Belarus.
August 20: The Ausland / Abwehr / OKW Directorate transfers the German-Arab Training Unit (GAUP) from Cape Sounion / Greece to Stalino (now Donetsk / Ukraine) to participate in the OKB's sabotage and reconnaissance operations. 28 - 29 August: Brandenburg-800 long-range reconnaissance patrols in Red Army uniforms reach the Murmansk railway and lay mines equipped with push and delay fuses, as well as vibration fuses. Autumn: Personnel scout of the Abwehr Shtarkman is thrown into besieged Leningrad.
NKGB authorities arrest 26 Abwehr paratrooper agents in the Stalingrad region.
October 1942 - September 1943: "Abwehrkommando 104" sends about 150 reconnaissance groups, from 3 to 10 agents in each, into the deep rear of the Red Army. Only two come back across the front line!
November 1: The Brandenburg-800 Special Purpose Training Regiment is reorganized into the Brandenburg-800 Sonder Unit (Special Purpose Brigade). November 2: Soldiers of the 5th company of "Brandenburg" in Red Army uniforms capture the bridge over the Terek near Darg-Kokh. Parts of the NKGB eliminate saboteurs.
End of 1942: the 16th company of "Brandenburgers" was transferred to Leningrad. For three months, the commandos of the "Bergman" ("Highlander") regiment, together with the SD Einsatzkommandos, take part in punitive operations in the North Caucasus / USSR (mass executions of civilians and anti-partisan raids).
40 radio operators of the Abwehr "centers of radio interception and observation" of the VO "Far East" in Beijing and Canton daily decipher about 100 intercepted radio messages of Soviet, British and American military radio stations. End of December 1942 - 1944: Together with the 6th Directorate of the RSHA (Foreign Intelligence Service of the SD - Ausland / SD), Abwehr-1 and Abwehr-2 conduct anti-Soviet and anti-British activities in Iran.

I would not want the members of the forum to have a misconception about "Brandenburg" and about German intelligence in general. Therefore, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the entire Abwehr war log. (this is an excerpt from him Abr quoted). You can do this in the book by Julius Madera "Abwehr: Shield and Sword of the Third Reich" Phoenix 1999 (Rostov-on-Don). from the magazine it follows that the Abwehr did not always act so dashingly, including against the USSR. By the way, the level of work of the Abwehr can be seen from the case with Tavrin. The description is generally funny, to catch up with a motorcycle at a distance of 2 km on a bike, you need to be able to do that. Although, considering WHAT was carrying a motorcycle, it would probably have been possible to catch up with it on foot ... without two hunting rifles with cartridges for the agent, well, nothing. And 7 pistols for two ... that's impressive. Tavrin is apparently 4, and a woman, as a weaker creature, 2. Or maybe they were thrown into our rear to hunt. 5 grenades and only 1 mine. There is no radio station, but a lot of cartridges. money just right, but 116 stamps (a separate suitcase, not otherwise) are also impressive. And not a word about the crew of the plane, although maybe they just did not mention it. They are thrown along with their own motorcycle, and at the same time, the landing area in the very thick of the air defense is selected (or the crew is such that they brought it in the wrong place). In general, the pros and nothing more.
Such a prompt detention of the spies is explained by the fact that the plane on which they arrived was detected by the air defense systems of the Moscow region at about two o'clock in the morning in the Kubinka area. He was fired upon and, having received damage, lay down on the return course. But in the Smolensk region, he made an emergency landing right in a field near the village of Yakovlevo. This did not go unnoticed by the commander of the local public order group Almazov, who organized surveillance and soon informed the NKVD regional department by telephone that a man and a woman in Soviet military uniforms had left the enemy plane on a motorcycle in the direction of Karmanovo. A task force was sent to detain the fascist crew, and the head of the NKVD regional department decided to arrest the suspicious couple personally. He was very lucky: for some reason the spies did not put up the slightest resistance, although seven pistols, two central combat hunting rifles, and five grenades were seized from them. Later, a special device called “Panzerknake” was found in the plane - for firing miniature armor-piercing incendiary shells.

Runaway gambler

The beginning of this story can be attributed to 1932, when the city council inspector Pyotr Shilo was arrested in Saratov. He lost a large sum at cards and paid with state money. Soon the crime was solved, and the unlucky gambler faced a long sentence. But Shilo managed to escape from the bathhouse of the pre-trial detention center, and then, using forged certificates, received a passport in the name of Pyotr Tavrin and even graduated from the courses of junior command personnel before the war. In 1942, the false Tavrin was already a company commander and had good prospects. But special officers sat on his tail. On May 29, 1942, Tavrin was summoned to a conversation by the representative of the special department of the regiment and bluntly asked if he had previously bore the name Shilo? The fugitive gambler, of course, refused, but realized that sooner or later he would be taken out into the open. On the same night Tavrin fled to the Germans.

For several months he was transferred from one concentration camp to another. Once the assistant to General Vlasov, the former secretary of the district committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in Moscow, Georgy Zhilenkov, arrived in the "zone" to recruit prisoners for service in the ROA. Tavrin managed to take a liking to him and soon became a cadet of the Abwehr intelligence school. The connection with Zhilenkov continued here as well. It was this defrocked secretary who gave Tavrin the idea of ​​a terrorist attack against Stalin. She liked the German command very much. In September 1943, Tavrin was assigned to the head of the special reconnaissance and sabotage team "Zeppelin" Otto Kraus, who personally supervised the preparation of the agent for an important special assignment.

The scenario of the terrorist attack assumed the following. Tavrin with the documents of Colonel SMERSH, Hero of the Soviet Union, a disabled war veteran, infiltrates the territory of Moscow, settles there in a private apartment, contacts the leaders of the anti-Soviet organization “Union of Russian Officers”, General Zagladin from the personnel department of the People's Commissariat of Defense and Major Palkin from the headquarters of the reserve officer regiment. Together they are looking for the possibility of Tavrin's penetration to any solemn meeting in the Kremlin, which would be attended by Stalin. There, the agent must shoot the leader with a poisoned bullet. Stalin's death would signal the landing on the outskirts of Moscow of a large landing party, which would capture the “demoralized Kremlin” and put in power the “Russian cabinet” headed by General Vlasov.

In case Tavrin failed to penetrate the Kremlin, he had to ambush the vehicle with Stalin and blow it up with a Panzerknake, capable of penetrating 45 mm thick armor.

In order to ensure the credibility of the legend about the disability of “Colonel SMERSH Tavrin,” he underwent surgery on his stomach and legs, disfiguring them with lacerated scars. A few weeks before the transfer of the agent across the front line, General Vlasov personally instructed him twice and Otto Skorzeny, a three-time famous fascist saboteur.

Female character

From the very beginning, it was assumed that Tavrin should carry out the operation alone. But at the end of 1943, he met Lidia Shilova in Pskov, and this left an unexpected imprint on the further scenario of the operation.

Lydia is a young beautiful woman who worked as an accountant in the housing office before the war. During the occupation, like thousands of others, she worked on the orders of the German commandant. At first she was sent to an officer's laundry, then to a sewing workshop. There was a conflict with one of the officers. He tried to persuade the woman to cohabit, and she could not overcome her disgust. The fascist, in revenge, achieved that Lydia was sent to logging. Fragile and unprepared for work, she was melting before our eyes. And then chance brought her to Tavrin. In private conversations, he denounced the Germans, promised to help free Lydia from hard work. In the end he offered to marry him. At that time, she did not know that Peter was a German spy, and later he confessed this to her and proposed such a plan. She takes courses for radio operators and with him crosses the front line, but on Soviet territory they will get lost and cut off all communication with the Germans. The war is coming to an end, and the fascists will not have time to take revenge on fugitive agents. Lydia agreed. Later, in the course of the investigation, it was established that she did not know at all about the terrorist assignment for Tavrin and was sure that he was not going to work for the Germans on Soviet territory.

Judging by the investigative and judicial materials, this seems to be true. How else can one explain the fact that Tavrin, armed to the teeth, did not put up resistance during the arrest, besides, he left the Panzerknak, a walkie-talkie and many other espionage accessories on the plane? So most likely there was no threat to Stalin's life in September 1944. Of course, it was beneficial for the Chekists to describe the Panzerknake operation, which they had suppressed, in the most ominous colors. This allowed Beria to once again appear before Stalin in the role of the leader's savior.

Pay

After the arrest of Tavrin and Shilova, a radio game was developed under the code name "Fog". Shilova regularly maintained two-way radio communications with the German intelligence center. With these radiograms, the Chekists "fogged up" the brains of the German intelligence officers. Among the multitude of meaningless telegrams was the following: “I met a woman doctor, has acquaintances in the Kremlin hospital. I'm processing ”. There were also telegrams in which it was reported about the failure of the batteries for the radio station and about the impossibility of getting them in Moscow. They asked for help and support. In response, the Germans thanked the agents for their service and offered to unite with another group located in our rear. Naturally, this group was soon neutralized ... The last message sent by Shilova went to the intelligence center on April 9, 1945, but no response was received: the end of the war was approaching. In peacetime, it was assumed that one of the surviving former employees of German intelligence could go to the safe house of Tavrin and Shilova. But no one came.
1943 in the area of ​​Plavsk to carry out subversive actions.