SMERSH

Smersh (short for Smert' Shpionam (Смерть Шпионам), or "Death to Spies") was a counterintelligence department in the Soviet Union formed during the Great Patriotic War, to secure the rear of the active Red Army, on the front to arrest "traitors, deserters, spies, and criminal elements". This name for the counterintelligence division of the Red Army was introduced on April 19, 1943. The full name of the entity was управление контрразведки СМЕРШ НКВД СССР, or USSR NKVD counterintelligence department "SMERSH". It was headed by Viktor Abakumov.

Its main opponent was Abwehr.

Smersh activities also included "filtering" the soldiers recovered from captivity. It was also used extensively to "filter" population of the gained territories, including Eastern Europe.

Smersh was also used to punish those with in the NKVD itself; it was allowed to investigate whom ever it wished within the NKVD structure, department and directorate heads were not immune from it, and if it found even the slight bit of evidence that they were somehow involved in whatever plot it was that week, they would be arrested, and tortured by Smersh, forced to sign fake confessions, put on a show trial, and either sent to the camps or shot. Smersh would also often be sent out to find and kill defectors, double agents, etc.

Smersh was also used to maintain military discipline in the Red Army by means of zagradotryads(заградотряды), or barrier forces, that were supposed to shoot down the Soviet troops in the cases of retreat.

Smersh was also used by INO (the NKVD's later KGB FCD, First Chief Directorate, responsible for foreign intelligence operations outside of the USSR) to hunt down "enemies of the people" outside of Soviet territory.

As the war concluded, Smersh was given the assignment of finding Adolf Hitler and, if possible, capturing him alive or recovering his body. Smersh agents found Hitler's corpse in the Führerbunker after his suicide and conducted an investigation to confirm the events of Hitler's death and that the corpse was actually that of Hitler's. His remains (and those of Eva Braun) as well as key witnesses were brought to Moscow.

Smersh as a separate entity was discontinued in 1946. Although it acted only three years, works of fiction "extend" its existence beyond the actual times. The most notable example is Ian Fleming's SMERSH, a nemesis of James Bond. However, in the film adaptations, the independent criminal organization, SPECTRE, was substituted to avoid the connotation of formenting hate for the Soviet Union and contributing to a dangerous destablization of relations with that nation.