SMERSch
SMERSch (from SMER t Sch pionam , scientifically transliterated: SMERŠ; is an acronym from "Smert 'Špionam!" Russian Смер ть ш пионам! For "Death to the spies") was a military intelligence service of the Soviet Union at the time of World War II . It was primarily used for counter-espionage in order to arrest "traitors, deserters, spies and criminal elements", but was not only directed against agents of the German defense . In principle, Soviet soldiers who were prisoners of war who were able to flee to their homeland were regarded as traitors and deserters and were accordingly examined and more often persecuted. Furthermore, representatives of counterintelligence SMERŠ were part of the inspection and filtration commissions that were supposed to inspect prisoners of war and Eastern workers returning to the Soviet Union after the end of the fighting of World War II .
history
The organization was founded on April 19, 1943 by the NKVD . Her full name was Главное управление контрразведки СМЕРШ Народного комиссариата обороны СССР (scientific transliteration. Glavnoe upravlenie kontrrazvedki SMERŠ Narodnogo komissariata Oborony SSSR dt .: General Administration of counterintelligence SMERSH of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR ). There were SMERSh departments in the Soviet army , the fleet and the NKVD itself.
The chairman was Viktor Abakumov , who reported directly to Stalin . In March 1946, SMERSch was placed under the People's Commissariat of the Armed Forces, which later came under the control of the Ministry of Defense and was disbanded in May 1946.
Treatment in James Bond novels
Ian Fleming used SMERSch in his James Bond novels (including Live and Let Die and Casino Royale ) as an opponent of the British secret agent. In the film series based on the novels, SMERSch was exchanged for the fictional criminal organization SPECTER .
literature
- Jan Foitzik, Nikita W. Petrow : The Soviet secret services in the SBZ / GDR from 1945 to 1953 . Walter de Gruyter, 2009, e-book, ISBN 9783110230154 , doi: 10.1515 / 9783110230154 , limited preview in the Google book search
- Robert Stephan: Smersh. Soviet Military Counter-Intelligence during the Second World War. In: Journal of Contemporary History. Vol. 22, No. 4 (1987), pp. 585-613.
- Petrov, Nikita: “ Under suspicion. The State Review of Soviet Repatriants and their Legal Consequences (1944-1954) ”, in: Pohl, Dieter and Tanja Sebta (eds.): Forced Labor in Hitler's Europe. Occupation · Work · Follow , Berlin 2013, pp. 311–326.
Web links
- Russia unveils Stalin spy service , (English), on the 60th anniversary of the SMERSCH establishment, BBC News, April 19, 2003
Individual evidence
- ↑ The term specter (phantom) is in the first sentence of the English translation of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx : A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Communism. ( A ghost looms in Europe - the ghost of communism. )
