Matwei Davydowitsch Berman

Matwei Berman (center) together with Frenkel (right) and other OGPU commissioners during construction work on the White Sea-Baltic Canal (July 1932)

Matwei Dawydowitsch Berman ( Russian Матве́й Давы́дович Бе́рман ; born April 10, 1889 in Andiranowka, Ujesd Chita ; †  March 7, 1939 near Kommunarka , Moscow Oblast ) was a Soviet secret service employee and head of the Soviet prison camp system from 1932 to 1937.

Life

Matwei Dawydowitsch Berman was the son of a Jewish merchant who owned a brick factory. He entered the Russian army and was accepted into the Irkutsk Cadet School . He was then discharged from the army as an ensign of the 25th Reserve Infantry Regiment.

Berman joined the Bolsheviks in June 1917 . In 1918 he joined the Red Army and was initially stationed near Tomsk . From June he worked in a propaganda unit. In August 1918 he moved to the Cheka and became head of state security in the city of Glazov . From 1923 to 1924 he was People's Commissar for State Security in the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR . Then he was the OGPU agent for Central Asia until 1927. From February 1927 to October 1927 he was the chairman of the OGPU of the Uzbek SSR . In November 1929 he moved to the Gulag, which was still under construction, became deputy head in 1930 and almost two years later head of the prison camp administration. After Genrich Jagoda's dismissal , Berman rose further in the hierarchy of the NKVD and became deputy head of the Soviet State Security after Nikolai Yezhov .

However, in August 1937, Berman's decline began during the so-called Great Terror . On August 17, 1937, he lost his high-ranking post and became People's Commissar for the Post and Telecommunications (Narkompotschtel for short, Russian Наркомпочтель ). After Yezhov's dismissal at the beginning of December 1938, the NKVD terror was directed against his former followers, including Berman. On December 23, 1938, at the instigation of Georgi Malenkov, he was expelled from the CPSU and arrested one day later. He was found guilty by the Military College of the Supreme Court of the USSR of leading a "right-wing terrorist and sabotage organization" and was shot dead on March 7, 1939 near Kommunarka.

On October 17, 1957, Berman was legally rehabilitated.

Historical meaning

In addition to Genrich Jagoda and Naftali Frenkel , Berman was one of the people who were instrumental in setting up the Gulag prison camp system in the USSR. Berman is thus partly responsible for the suffering and death of countless political prisoners in the USSR during the 1930s. An outstanding example of his “activity” was the construction work on the White Sea-Baltic Canal from 1931 to 1933. Together with Jagoda, Berman also designed a comprehensive deportation campaign in 1933 against “socially harmful and declassified elements” - as the Soviet authorities used the language. This led, among other things, to the Nasino tragedy .

literature

• Oleg Vitalievich Chlevnyuk : The history of the Gulag. From collectivization to the great terror. Yale University Press, New Haven [et al. a.] 2004, ISBN 0-300-09284-9 .
• К.А. Залесский (KA Zalessky): Империя Сталина. Биографический энциклопедический словарь (Stalin's Empire, biographical encyclopedic dictionary), Wetsche-Verlag Moscow 2000, ISBN 5-7838-0716-8
• Н. В. Петров, К. В. Скоркин (NW Petrow, KW Skorkin): Кто руководил НКВД, 1934–1941 - Справочник (who directed the NKVD, 1934 to 1941 - directory), Swenja-Verlag 1999, ISBN 5-7870-0032-3 memo.ru

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Memorial : Who directed the NKVD (excerpt from the book Кто руководил НКВД, 1934–1941 by NW Petrow and KW Skorkin, Russian), accessed on April 1, 2019.
2. ↑ bibliotekar.ru , accessed May 2, 2010