SMERSH - Methods

Methods

In its counter-espionage and counter-intelligence roles, SMERSH appears to have been extremely successful throughout World War II. SMERSH actions resulted in numerous captures, desertions, and defections of German intelligence officers and agents, some of whom SMERSH turned into double agents. Indeed, the Germans began to consider missions where their losses were less than ninety percent “satisfactory.” According to German sources, the Soviets rendered approximately 39,500 German agents useless by the end of the war.

SMERSH utilized a number of different counterintelligence tactics: informants, security troops, radio games, and the passing of disinformation, ensuring both the reliability of the military and the civilian population. SMERSH set up a system of informants by sending a SMERSH officer to each battalion composed of between 1,000 and 1,500 men. Each SMERSH officer would enlist a number of “residents” who recruited their own “reserve resident” and between six and eight informants. Informants reported those sympathetic to the Germans, desertion, unpatriotic attitudes, and low morale and were authorized to take “immediate corrective action” if the need arose. SMERSH recruited between 1,540,000 and 3,400,000 informants, or about twelve percent of the entire Red Army. However, SMERSH coerced up to half of all of its informants to work for them.

In order to secure the Red Army’s rear, SMERSH evacuated civilians and set up checkpoints so as to assert physical control. Next, agents sought and arrested “suspicious persons” who might be German agents. Finally, SMERSH interrogated those arrested.

To confuse German intelligence with disinformation, SMERSH utilized radio playbacks and played over 183 radio games over the course of the war. Operation “Opyt’” serves as a good example of the effectiveness of these radio games. Between May and June 1943, SMERSH used three German agents to spread disinformation about the Kursk counteroffensive by suggesting the Red Army had begun to dig in rather than prepare for an attack, thus contributing to the success of the Red Army’s surprise attack. Before Operation Bagration, the largest Allied operation of the Second World War, SMERSH caught and “doubled” a number of German agents who tricked the German military into underestimating the number of Soviet troops by 1.2 million men.

SMERSH played a major role in creating and controlling partisan operations behind German lines. After capturing German-held territory and reuniting with the Red Army, SMERSH interviewed partisans in order to determine the partisans’ loyalty to the regime.