What did the Nazis train Soviet children-saboteurs for?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

During the war, the German intelligence service of the Third Reich (Abwehr) turned hundreds of Soviet children into saboteurs - they turned juvenile prisoners into criminals who hate their country.

In an exclusive interview to the Zvezda TV channel, the military historian, candidate of historical sciences Dmitry Viktorovich Surzhik spoke about the previously unknown details and details of the Bussard operation.

“In the Abwehrgroup-209, among the usual intelligence groups, sabotage training was also held for very young adolescents of 11-14 years of age. From the Slavic children who lost their parents, the Nazi fanatics tried to raise monsters aimed at robbing and killing their compatriots,”says the historian.

The selection of future saboteurs, or "hawkers" as the Germans called them, was carried out harshly. First, a group of the most physically developed children was selected. Then, for example, a stick of sausage was thrown into the center of this group. Hungry children began to fight for a tidbit, the winner and the most active "fighters" were taken to a reconnaissance school. The political views and convictions of Soviet children and adolescents were of little interest to German intelligence officers. The Nazis believed that after certain psychological trainings and physical influences, the young agents would become reliable assistants of the Third Reich, real "buzzards".

Abwehr's methods of work sometimes encountered unforeseen difficulties. Here is what the former assistant to Yu. V. Andropov, Major General of the KGB Nikolai Vladimirovich Governors, told about this in his book SMERSH against Bussard: tie.

They tried to rip off the boy's tie, but he, with the words: "Don't touch it, toad!" he grabbed the hand of one of the guards with his teeth, the rest of the guys rushed to his aid. The boy was asked his name. The daredevil answered with dignity - Viktor Mikhailovich Komaldin. It should be noted that the Nazis did not spare their efforts and resources to reeducate "difficult" teenagers.

“They were lodged in the hunting estate of the head of 'Bussard' Bolz. Instructors from White émigrés and German intelligence officers are engaged in ideological training, encouraging their thirst for adventure and immersing them in an atmosphere of permissiveness and even reward for what previously seemed shameful or humiliating. Children are ruined, making them criminals who hate their country and at the same time extol everything German. To do this, they were regularly taken out on excursions to “exemplary” German cities, factories and farms,”says military historian Dmitry Surzhik.

A prominent figure in the team that turned Soviet children into "hawkers" was the chief lieutenant of the Abwehr Yuri Vladimirovich Rostov-Belomorin, aka Kozlovsky, aka Yevtukhovich. The son of a colonel in the tsarist army ended up in the hands of the NKVD. Here is what he told about himself during one of the interrogations:

“At the end of May 1941, I was sent to the General Directorate of Reich Security, to the SS and SD, where, after a thorough check and medical examination, I was introduced to SS General Standartenfuehrer Six. From him I learned that on Hitler's orders and under the leadership of Himmler, he was forming a special-purpose Sonderkommando "Moscow". She must, together with the advanced troops, break into Moscow, seize the buildings and documents of the highest party and state bodies, and also arrest their leaders who did not have time to escape from the capital. Group A of the Sonderkommando will have to deal with these operations. Group B must blow up the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin. I fit all the requirements and was enrolled in group A."

Operation "Moscow" was not destined to happen, and under the name of Yevtukhovich, a hereditary military man was retrained as an educator of the Soviet homeless and orphans, trying to turn them into "buzzards."

“From an operational point of view, this idea had its strengths: firstly, the abundance of street children - there were up to 1 million street children in the occupied Soviet territory alone. Secondly, the gullibility of adults (Soviet employees and soldiers). Thirdly, - knowledge by children of all the features of the future site of the operation and, fourthly, the use of a child's, unsettled psyche, craving for adventure. Indeed, who would have thought that the guys who wander through the train stations or stations are actually laying mines under the rails or throwing them into coal warehouses and steam locomotive tenders?”Dmitry Surzhik says.

Misha and Petya go to SMERSH

On the night of August 30 to 31, and then on the night of September 1, 1943, twin-engine German planes alternately took off from the Orsha airfield. Each of them housed ten members of Operation Bussard on hard metal seats.

Each "sarych" had a parachute behind his back, and in his duffel bag - three pieces of explosives, a supply of food for a week and 400 rubles of money each. Some sources claim that each young saboteur was also given a bottle of vodka. But there is no documentary evidence of this yet. For the reverse crossing of the front line, the children-saboteurs were supplied with a written password in German: "Special assignment, immediately deliver to 1-C". The password was wrapped in a thin rubber casing and sewn into the floor of his trousers. The parachute drop was made in pairs.

In the early morning of September 1, 1943, two unusual boys approached the "SMERSH" counterintelligence department of the Bryansk front, which was located in the town of Plavsk, Tula region. No, the point was not how they were dressed - dirty shabby tunics, civilian trousers … The point was that they were carrying parachutes in their hands. The boys confidently approached the sentry and ordered to let them in immediately, because they are German saboteurs and came to surrender.

A few hours later, a special message was sent to Moscow, to the State Defense Committee (GKO), with the note “Comrade Stalin”.

Special message. Top secret

“On September 1, 1943, the counterintelligence department“SMERSH”of the Bryansk front was visited by: Mikhail Kruglikov, 15 years old, born in Borisov, BSSR, Russian, 3rd grade education, and Marenkov Peter, 13 years old, native of Smolensk region, Russian, 3rd grade education. In the process of conversations and questioning of adolescents, it was established that there was a sabotage school for adolescents aged 12-16, organized by the German military intelligence Abwehr. For a month, Kruglikov and Marenkov, together with a group of 30 people, studied at this school, which is deployed at a hunting dacha, 35 km from the mountains. Kassel (Southern Germany). Simultaneously with Krutikov and Marenkov, another 27 saboteurs-teenagers were thrown into our rear with a similar task in different areas of railway stations in Moscow, Tula, Smolensk, Kalinin, Kursk and Voronezh regions. This indicates that the Germans are trying to destroy our locomotive fleet with these acts of sabotage and thereby disrupt the supply of the advancing troops of the Western, Bryansk, Kalinin and Central fronts. Head of the SMERSH counterintelligence department of the Bryansk front, Lieutenant-General NI Zheleznikov."

While Stalin was reading this message, Misha Kruglikov and Petya Marenkov, together with the operatives, were looking for the remaining saboteurs in the forest. Stalin's reaction to such unusual news was quite unexpected. Here is what KGB Major General Nikolai Gubernatorov says about it: “So they were arrested! Whom? Children! They need to learn, and not go to jail. If they learn it, the destroyed economy will be restored. Collect them all and send them to the craft school. And report the danger to our communications to the State Defense Committee."

From May 31, 1941, criminal responsibility for committing a crime in the USSR began at the age of 14. Almost every one of the minor saboteurs of the Abwehr could be subjected to capital punishment, and only Stalin's oral order saved these children’s lives.

How SMERSH hunted "hawkers"

On September 1, 1943, having landed near the village council of the Timsky district of the Kursk region, Kolya Guchkov spent the night in the field and in the morning went to surrender to the NKVD. On the same day, another paratrooper, fourteen-year-old Kolya Ryabov, was brought to the Oboyansk district department of the UNKGB, who came to surrender to a military unit that stood near the town of Oboyan. And on September 6, 1943, the third saboteur Gennady Sokolov came to the Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR in the Kursk region, to the city of Kursk. One of the first to surrender to the authorities was Vitya Komaldin, the one who so did not want to part with the pioneer tie in the German intelligence service.

“Despite the constant psychological pressure and the threat of death, the guys did not obey the invaders. All the boys confessed to the internal affairs bodies and helped to identify Hitler's saboteurs,”says military historian Surzhik.

Thus, the SMERSH fighters never had to use weapons. All 29 unsuccessful saboteurs came to confess.

Explosives - "coal"

The explosives confiscated from the arrested did not outwardly differ from ordinary "coal". The new German explosive development has undergone the most rigorous examination. And she gave very interesting results:

“A piece of explosive is an irregular black mass, similar to coal, quite strong and composed of cemented coal powder. This sheath is applied to a net of twine and copper wire. Inside the shell is a doughy mass, in which is placed a pressed white substance, resembling the shape of a cylinder, wrapped in red-yellow parchment paper. A detonator cap is attached to one of the ends of this substance. In the detonator cap is clamped a section of the fuse-cord with the end extending into the black mass. The dough-like substance is a gelled explosive, consisting of 64% RDX, 28% TNT and 8% pyroxylin. Thus, the examination established that this explosive belongs to the class of powerful explosives, known as "hexanite", which are sabotage weapons operating in various types of furnaces. When the shell is ignited from the surface, the explosive does not ignite, since a rather significant layer of the shell (20-30 mm) is a well-insulating layer that protects against ignition. When the shell burns down to the layer in which the fuse-cord is located, the latter ignites and an explosion and deformation of the furnace is produced. " (From the report to the Head of the Main Directorate of counterintelligence "SMERSH" V. Abakumov).

Operation Bussard 1943-1945

Despite the obvious failure of Operation Bussard in the fall of 1943 (not a single case of blowing up a Soviet military echelon by children-saboteurs was recorded), the Abwehr continued his criminal activities.

“In 1944, the reconnaissance and sabotage school moved closer to the front: first to the temporarily occupied territory of Belarus, and then, after the retreat of Nazi troops, to Poland. Now children (of different nationalities: Russians, Belarusians, Gypsies, Jews) were recruited mainly in a children's concentration camp on the outskirts of the city of Lodz. Now they even took teenage girls,”says Dmitry Surzhik, Candidate of Historical Sciences.

But the Soviet military counterintelligence SMERSH by this time already knew everything about Bussard. Love intervened in the insidious plan. At the beginning of 1943, the head of the children's sabotage school, a white émigré, Yu. V. Rostov-Belomorin accidentally met N. V. Mezentseva.

“The Soviet intelligence officer convinced the White emigrant of the senselessness of fighting on the side of the invaders. Mezentseva went to the partisans, bringing with her 120 repentant adult Bussard agents from former Red Army prisoners of war. The experienced intelligence officer A. Skorobogatov (operational pseudonym - "Weaver") sent by SMERSH infiltrates the "Bussard" through Rostov-Belomorin and at the beginning of 1945 brings the entire sabotage school to the location of the advancing Red Army units, including teenage children. They ended up in the SMERSH counterintelligence department of the 1st Belorussian Front,”says a military historian.

Children-saboteurs after the war

The fate of the "saryches" "recruited" by Abwehr was decided by a special meeting at the NKVD of the USSR.

A special meeting at the NKVD of the USSR decided: "Set off the term of preliminary imprisonment as punishment and release from custody." Some of the adolescents were sent to children's forced labor camps (ITL) until they came of age. And only a few - those who really blew up and killed, received sentences ranging from 10 to 25 years.

The fate of some of them was followed by Major General N. V. Governors: “While searching all over the country for the talented storyteller and accordion player Pasha Romanovich, I found his address in Moscow, but, unfortunately, did not find him alive. The gifted Vanya Zamotaev, after the death of his adoptive father, was assigned to the Suvorov School, I found him in Orel, but then due to illness I lost track.

My friend, a journalist from Kursk, Vladimir Prusakov, was more fortunate. He managed to find some of the guys from the first cast - 1943. From his publications, I learned that Volodya Puchkov returned home to Moscow, where he lives with his family. Dmitry Repukhov graduated from the institute after the war and headed a construction trust in Sverdlovsk. And Petya Frolov, having received the specialty of a carpenter in a children's colony, worked at a factory in Smolensk."