What Stalin Knew (27 page)

tribution of German propaganda for an independent Ukraine.

A second report, also on August 16, from agents of the Belostokaia rail-

road emphasized that the movement of German troops to the east con-

tinued. On June 29 and 30 two trains containing artillery units were un-

loaded at the Malkino station. The trains included seventy-four flatcars. On

July 31 twelve more flatcars arrived with three-inch and six-inch guns along

with cases of shells. About forty trains were unloaded at the Sedlets station,

and the troops moved out to positions on the Soviet frontier along the river

Bug. A German locomotive engineer told a GTU agent that Germany’s

locomotives and cars were all tied up with the movement of troops to the

Soviet border. The troops were being brought from the French front under

the pretext of home leave, but they were not being given leave. Both reports

were signed by Captain Benenson and countersigned by Milshtein.4

At this point one sees the first indication that military intelligence was

receiving copies of these agent reports from the GTU networks. On Sep-

tember 17, 1940, Captain Benenson sent a memorandum to Colonel Grig-

ory P. Pugachev, acting chief of the Information Department, RU general

staff. The memorandum transmitted an August 16 GTU report and asked

for an evaluation of its information. It is true that a whole month had

elapsed, but at least there is an indication of interagency coordination.5

As of August 23, agents from the Lvov railroad reported that German

troops in the vicinity of Peremyshl were working intensively to construct

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fortifications along the entire Soviet frontier. Among these were trenches

and large ditches into which concrete was poured to reinforce the walls. At

the bottom were steel plates for the emplacement of large-caliber field

guns. The agents also reported on continuing efforts by the Germans

to enlist Ukrainians under the banner of an independent Ukraine. The

report, signed by Captain Benenson, was sent to Beria and Kobulov, but

this time Vsevolod N. Merkulov, chief, NKVD/GUGB, was included in the

dissemination.

Agents of the Lvov railroad reported in late September 1940 that fif-

teen kilometers west of the Zhuravitsy station the Germans were building

a series of strong points along the Soviet frontier consisting of trenches

with machine-gun nests. This line was camouflaged. The work was carried

out only at night and local residents could enter the area only with special

passes. Concurrently, the Germans were working intensively on concrete

emplacements near Yaroslava and Rzhesheva. Cement, stones, and iron

for these structures were unloaded at the Yaroslava railroad station along

with troops, tanks, mortars, and ammunition. Male residents of the region

fourteen and older were mobilized for this work. The report, like many

others, concluded with information on Ukrainian nationalistic activity

supported by the Germans. There is no indication of this report’s distribu-

tion list.6

Indications of the scope of the eastward movement of German forces

came from agents of the Lvov railroad, who reported the involvement of

numerous troops between August 14 and August 22. At least thirty troop

trains a day passed through Warsaw in an easterly direction. Passenger

traffic was suspended during this period and residents were subjected to a

curfew from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. The remainder of the report dealt with

the actual deployment of troops at various points along the border and the

efforts of the Germans to enlist and control Ukrainians in German units.7

There is no information on the dissemination of this document, either.

Reports from agent nets of the Lvov railroad revealed increased move-

ment of German troops toward the Soviet frontier during September. At

the end of the month, equipment for pontoon bridges began to arrive at

Peremyshl. Among German soldiers and their Ukrainian nationalist allies

there was much talk of war with the USSR ‘‘beginning soon.’’ Mention of

bridging equipment certainly should have alerted Soviet intelligence to the

fact that this buildup was not solely an exercise in improving German

defenses along the Soviet border. Perhaps indicative of the growing impor-

tance of the reporting capabilities of the GTU agent networks was the

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121

replacement of Captain Benenson as chief of the First (Railroad) Depart-

ment of GTU by Major of State Security N. I. Sinegubov. In November the

same agent nets from the Lvov railroad reported the departure of infantry

troops and the arrival of artillery and mechanized units. Distribution was

still made to Beria, Merkulov, and Kobulov but was expanded to include

Pavel Sudoplatov, Fitin’s deputy in the Foreign Intelligence Department of

the NKVD/GUGB.8

In a special report dated December 27, the GTU provided details on the

situation in German-occupied Poland from agents on the Lvov, Belosto-

kaia, and Litovsk railroads. Five airfields had been constructed in wooded

areas in the vicinity of Warsaw in accordance with a standard pattern.

There were no hangars. A central runway with concrete roads provided for

movement of fuel and access to aircraft parking areas hidden beneath the

trees. Fuel tanks with 50,000-liter capacity were buried under thirty cen-

timeters of earth. As for troop movements, the report reflected the continu-

ing buildup. In Warsaw itself, about 410,000 Jews had been herded into a

ghetto where there was a high mortality rate caused by a ration of only 125

grams of bread per person per day. Polish nationals who lived in the new

Soviet border area were being resettled in central Poland and their places

taken by
Volksdeutsche,
who by then had been given German citizenship.

Crop requisitions by the Germans had caused hunger among the Polish

population. Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Russians occupied favored po-

sitions and mixed freely with Germans. The report, signed by Sinegubov

and released by Milshtein, bore a marginal note from Beria to Fitin and one

from Fitin to Zhuravliev, head of the German Section: ‘‘Use in a report to

the Central Committee.’’ The distribution remained Beria, Merkulov, and

Kobulov, but the order to Fitin to use it to prepare a report to the Central

Committee suggests that military intelligence would also see a copy. By this

time, Fitin’s group was charged with reviewing the GTU reports and giving

them standard dissemination, including to military intelligence.9

In January 1941 the GTU NKVD reported to the leadership on the

mobilization readiness of the Soviet railroad system. The various details in

the report are undoubtedly based on ones provided by the many agent

informants maintained throughout the regional railroads. It began with

the statement that the system had a number of ‘‘serious abnormalities.’’

The People’s Commissariat of Transport Routes (NKPS), it went on, had

no mobilization plans. There was still no agreement between the De-

fense Commissariat (NKO) and the NKPS on plans for military transport

in wartime. The NKPS asked the NKO for information on the scope of

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military transport needs, while the NKO wanted to know the capacity of

the railroad systems in the various theaters of operations. In 1940 the NKO

gave the NKPS a rough outline of transport needs for sectors of each

railroad, on the basis of which the NKPS prepared a provisional mobiliza-

tion plan that proved totally unrealistic. There was still no centralized plan

for the transport requirements of the economy for the first month of war.

The commissariats had not yet given the NKPS their freight needs, and the

Military Mobilization Directorate of the NKPS had not insisted. There

followed a detailed listing of problems in each of the railroads in the west-

ern oblasts, as well as special problems. For example, heavy tanks require

flatcars with a sixty-ton capacity, but none were built in 1940. The number

of locomotives actually present in the western oblasts was less than 75

percent of the number called for by the plan, and there were shortages of

many other items that would be needed for restoration of service and

rebuilding of depots and other installations in wartime. Finally, mobiliza-

tion preparations had not even been started in the Baltic region. The report

included the names of various officials within the NKPS whose perfor-

mance in the mobilization area was found to be deficient. It was signed by

Beria and the head of the GTU, Milshtein.10

A special GTU report of February 10, 1941, noted that the regrouping

of German troops along the Soviet frontier continued. Troop trains leaving

occupied Poland via Bohemia-Moravia and Austria were said to be on their

way to Bulgaria, where they would be employed in operations against

Greece. Other troops, leaving the Lithuanian border, were rumored to be

going to the ‘‘Anglo-German front.’’ It is difficult to know whether rumors

of these destinations were correct or simply reflected regroupings intended

to confuse and mislead Soviet intelligence. The report went on, however, to

describe movement of German troops into areas near the Soviet frontier.

Perhaps more significant were the sightings of a Ukrainian volunteer

corps near Lublin, two regiments of which had already conducted maneu-

vers. Another Ukrainian volunteer corps was being formed in Warsaw. As

for construction of military installations, the report noted continued tri-

angulation surveys preliminary to establishing artillery firing points. The

work on new airfields described in earlier reports was proceeding, as was

work on concrete emplacements, which in some areas was under way at

night under floodlights. This activity was supported by special construc-

tion trains consisting of twenty-seven flatcars, eighteen freight cars and

ten passenger coaches. The flatcars carried construction material, and the

coaches engineer troops. In some sectors railroads had been completely

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123

militarized. All civilian employees had been replaced by German military

personnel, the report concluded.

The capacity of some lines was being expanded as new lines were built.

Reports on February 14 and 27 seem to be the last ones issued by the GTU.

They claimed that the Germans were still raising troop levels along the

border and enumerated these increases by area. Several trains had arrived

with French and Belgian tank cars containing gasoline that was emptied

into reservoirs hidden in nearby forests. Lines of artillery firing points

along the Lithuanian SSR border were camouflaged and surrounded by

barbed wire entanglements. Also reported was the use of track rails cov-

ered by concrete to protect bomb shelters. More sectors of railroads in

occupied Poland near the Soviet frontier were being militarized, with civil-

ians discharged and German troops taking over. Blackout curtains were

being installed and practice blackouts undertaken. As for conditions in the

Government General of Poland, certain foods were growing scarcer. Sugar,

tea, and coffee were no longer to be had. As in previous reports, much

attention was paid to the activities of Ukrainian nationalists. All Ukrainian

schools were teaching the geography of the new ‘‘independent Ukraine,’’

and rumor had it that six hundred leading Ukrainian nationalists had been

sent to Berlin for training as future leaders.11

Because we know that at one point Fitin was told to prepare a report

for the Central Committee VKP(b) using material from GTU sources, it is

likely that GTU agent informants continued to collect intelligence under

local NKGB control and had their reports published by Fitin’s First Direc-

torate. An unsigned report dated March 31, 1941, from the NKGB to the

Defense Commissariat on movement of German troops toward the Soviet

border resembles earlier reports of the GTU. The report states only that the

information is from ‘‘agent information available to us.’’ There are more

than twenty-one numbered paragraphs, some of which give specific nu-

merical designations for German troop units, and most contain some ref-

erence to the movement of troop trains at various railroad stations.12

Proof that these GTU agents were taken over by local NKGB compo-

nents can be found in a report of June 12, 1941, by the Lvov Oblast Directo-

rate of the NKGB, all elements of which were provided by agents employed

by or involved in the operation of the railroads. Portentously, the last sen-

tence reads: ‘‘As of June 10, 1941, in Peremyshl and Shuravitsakh all local

railroad men will be fired; transport will be fully operated by [German]

military units.’’13

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C H A P T E R

The Border Troops Knew