Soviet military historians tried not to mention the existence of these units; their fighters are not shown in feature films, modern detractors of the "talentless Stalin" prudently keep quiet about them.
Perhaps they owed such ignorance to the fact that they did not quite fit into the popular image of the Soviet "liberator soldier"?
Indeed, in our view, the Red Army soldiers of the Great Patriotic War stand up as figures of emaciated people in dirty overcoats, running in a crowd to attack after the tank. Or tired old men smoking cigarettes on the parapet of a trench. After all, it was precisely such shots that war newsreels tried to capture.
Probably, their task was to show a simple fighter of the worker-peasant army, cut off from the plow and machine, preferably unsightly. Like, there he is, almost a meter with a cap - and Hitler wins! Such an image perfectly matches the muzzled, exhausting victim of the Stalinist regime. Which, since the late 1980s, post-Soviet historians and filmmakers have put on a cart, given a “three-ruler” without cartridges and sent towards the armored hordes of the Nazis - under the vigilant supervision of detachments.
In reality, of course, the Germans themselves entered the USSR on 300 thousand carts, and as for weapons, fascist Europe was 4 times inferior to us in the number of machine guns produced, and 10 times in self-loading rifles. 
V Lately Of course, the view of the Great Patriotic War became different, society got tired of exaggerating the topic of “senseless victims”, and border guards-terminators, scouts-ninjas, daring crews of armored trains and other characters appeared on the screens - now already exaggerated. As they say, from one extreme to another. Though
it should be noted that the real border guards and scouts (as well as paratroopers and marines) were really distinguished by good physical shape and training. In a country where sport was massively obligatory, there were much more "jocks" than now.
And only one type of troops was never noticed by the screenwriters, although it deserves the most attention. Because of all the parts special purpose(special forces) of the Second World War, the most numerous and strongest were the Soviet assault engineer-sapper brigades (ShISBr) of the reserve of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
During the course of the war, most of the belligerents realized that classic infantry could not perform many specific tasks. Therefore, Britain began to create battalions of "commandos", the United States - detachments of army rangers, Germany reformed part of its motorized infantry into "panzergrenadiers". The Red Army, having started in 1943 its great
offensive, faced the problem of heavy losses during the capture of German fortified areas and during street fighting. 
In terms of building fortifications, the Germans were big docks. Pillboxes, often made of concrete or steel, covered each other, and behind them were batteries of anti-tank guns or self-propelled guns. All approaches were heavily mined and entangled with barbed wire. In cities, every basement or sewer hatch turned into a pillbox, even ruins became impregnable forts.
It was possible to send fines to storm them - senselessly putting thousands of soldiers and officers to the delight of future accusers of "Stalinism". You could throw yourself at the embrasure with your chest - heroically, but, frankly, pointless. Therefore, the Headquarters, realizing that it was time to stop fighting with the help of a bayonet and “cheers”, went the other way.
The very idea was taken from the Germans, more precisely, from the Kaiser's army. Back in 1916, in the battle for Verdun, the German army used special sapper-assault groups with special weapons (light machine guns and knapsack flamethrowers) and passed a specific training course. The Germans themselves forgot about their experience, apparently counting on a "blitzkrieg" - and then they trampled for a long time near Sevastopol and in Stalingrad. But it was adopted by the Red Army.
In the spring of 1943, the formation of the first 15 assault brigades began. The engineering and sapper units of the Red Army served as the basis for them, since the new special forces required, first of all, technically competent specialists. After all, the range of their tasks was quite wide and complex.
To begin with, the engineering reconnaissance company examined the enemy fortifications for their firepower and "architectural strength". Drawing up a detailed plan where pillboxes and other firing points are located, what they are (earth, concrete or otherwise) and what they are armed with, what kind of cover they have, where minefields and obstacles are located. Based on these data, an assault plan was developed. 
Further, assault battalions (up to five per brigade) entered the battle. Their fighters were selected especially carefully. Weeded out all candidates over 40 years old, as well as physically weak and slow-witted. 
Such requirements were explained simply: firstly, an attack fighter carried a load several times larger than a simple infantryman. He was wearing a steel breastplate, which protected him from small fragments and pistol (machine gun) bullets, and a heavy bag with an “explosive kit” often hung over his shoulders. The pouches contained an increased ammunition load of grenades, and
also bottles with a "Molotov cocktail", which were thrown into embrasures or window openings. And from the end of 1943, they received knapsack flamethrowers at their disposal.
In addition to traditional assault rifles (PPSh and PPS), assault units were armed to the eyeballs light machine guns and anti-tank rifles - the latter were used as large-caliber rifles to suppress firing points. 
In order to teach the personnel to run nimbly with all this load on their shoulders, as well as to reduce their possible losses, he was given tough training. In addition to the fact that the fighters were driven in full gear on the obstacle course, live ammunition was also poured over their heads from the heart - so that the rule of “keep your head down” was fixed in their instinct even before the first battle. The other half of the day was occupied by training firing and explosions, demining. Plus, hand-to-hand combat, throwing knives, axes and sapper shovels. 
It was much more difficult than training, say, scouts. After all, the scout went on a mission light, and for him it was important not to find himself. And the attack fighter did not have the opportunity to hide in the bushes, he could not quietly “flee away”. And his goal was not single drunken "tongues", but the most powerful fortifications of the Eastern Front.
The battle began suddenly, sometimes even without artillery preparation and without any cries of "Hurrah!". Through pre-made passages in the minefields, detachments of machine gunners and submachine gunners quietly passed, which cut off the German pillboxes from infantry support. The enemy bunker itself was dealt with by explosives or flamethrowers.
Even the most powerful fortifications were put out of action with the help of a charge embedded in the vent. Where the path was blocked by a grate, they acted witty and angrily: they poured several cans of kerosene inside and threw a match.
In urban conditions, the fighters of the ShISBr were distinguished by their ability to appear suddenly from the most unexpected side for the Germans. Everything is very simple: they literally passed through the walls, making their way with TNT. For example, the Germans turned the basement of a house into a pillbox. Our fighters came in from behind or from the side, blew up the basement wall (or the floor of the first floor) and immediately
fired flamethrowers into it.
A good service in replenishing the arsenal of the ShISBr was provided by ... the Germans themselves. From the summer of 1943, faustpatrons ("Panzerfaust") began to enter service with the Nazi army, which the retreating Germans threw in huge quantities. The fighters of the ShISBr immediately found a use for them: after all, the faustpatron pierced not only armor, but also walls. Interestingly, our
the fighters came up with a special portable rack for salvo firing from 6-10 faustpatrons at the same time. 
Ingenious portable frames were also used to launch heavy domestic 300-mm M-31 rockets. They were brought to the position, laid down - and hit with direct fire. So, in the battle on Lindenstrasse (Berlin), three such shells were fired at a fortified house. No one survived inside the building's smoking ruins.
In 1944, companies of flamethrower tanks and all kinds of floating transporters came to support the assault battalions. The power and effectiveness of the ShISBr, whose number had already reached 20, increased dramatically.
However, at first, the successes of the assault engineer-sapper brigades made the army command dizzy. There was an erroneous opinion that the ShISBr could do anything - and brigades began to be sent to all sectors of the front, and without the support of other branches of the military. It was a fatal mistake.
If the German positions were actively covered by artillery fire, which was not previously suppressed, the ShISBr was almost powerless. After all, no matter how prepared the fighters were, for German shells they were just as vulnerable targets as recruits in overcoats. Even worse, when the Germans recaptured their positions with a tank counterattack, then the special forces suffered heavy losses. Only in December 1943, the Headquarters established strict regulations for the use of ShISBr: now the brigades were necessarily supported by artillery, tanks and auxiliary infantry.
The rearguard of the ShISBr were demining companies, including one company of mine-detecting dogs for each brigade. They followed the assault battalions and cleared the main passages for the advancing army (the rear sapper units were engaged in the final demining of the area). Miners also often used steel bibs - as you know, sappers sometimes make mistakes, and two millimeters of steel could protect them from the explosion of small anti-personnel mines. In any case, it was at least some kind of cover for the chest and abdomen. 
The golden pages in the history of the ShISBr were the battles for Koenigsberg and Berlin, as well as the capture of the fortifications of the Kwantung Army. Military analysts confidently believe that without the engineering assault special forces, these battles would have dragged on, and the losses of the Red Army would have been many times greater.
But, alas, already in 1946, the entire main structure of the ShISBr was demobilized, and then, one by one, the brigades were disbanded. At first, this was facilitated by the confidence of the next "Tukhachevsky" that the Third World War would be won by a lightning strike of the Soviet tank armies. With the advent nuclear weapons in the Soviet General Staff began to believe that with
cope well with the enemy atomic bomb. The old marshals, apparently, did not even think that if anything survived a nuclear cataclysm, it would be bunkers and underground forts. "Open" which could, perhaps, only ShISBr.
The unique Soviet special forces were simply forgotten - so that the next generations did not even know about its existence. So one of the most interesting and glorious pages of the Great Patriotic War was simply wiped out.
In 1923, the state of the USSR appeared, although its creation was officially announced at the end of December 1922. It replaced the Soviet Russia that existed during the years of the revolution and became a new project of V. Lenin as a temporary peaceful state.
All pre-war activities of the intelligence and state security agencies in the Secular Union are rather interwar, since it developed just between two global cataclysms: the First World War, which escalated into the Civil War in Russia, and the Second World War, which in the USSR was called the Great Patriotic War.
Almost immediately, the creation of special forces military units began in the country. In the 1930s, this process reached its peak: in Soviet army powerful airborne troops and professional sabotage units were created. But it must also be said that the process of the formation of the Soviet special forces took place in difficult conditions. His units were often disbanded - not only because they were ineffective, but very often at the whim of the command. Thus, before the start of the Second World War, the Soviet special forces were going through hard times - the units that had been disbanded before had to be recreated, while losing a large number of material and human resources. Moreover, after the end of the war, most of these special forces were again disbanded. That is why the process of creating modern special forces, which began in the second half of the last century, had to be started almost from scratch.
Before talking about the special forces of Soviet intelligence, it is necessary to debunk the myth about special forces, which has developed thanks to the media. So, at the word special forces, almost every person imagines a group of beefy guys with exotic face paint in camouflage uniforms. But this is not its defining feature.
The special forces of the Main Intelligence Directorate are regular army units that have received special training to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage operations in the enemy rear.
Officially, the GRU special forces began in 1951, when the first sabotage and reconnaissance formations appeared in the Soviet army. But in fact, the process of formation began much earlier, at the beginning of the emergence of Soviet power. Therefore, the predecessors of special forces should include such units as partisan detachments Red Army, which operated on enemy territory in the years civil war, special formations of the Western Front during the years of the Soviet-Polish war (illegal military organization), insurgent groups that carried out intelligence in Eastern Europe in the 1920s, partisan special detachments that were created in the 1930s in the event of the outbreak of hostilities on Soviet territory , special forces in the Spanish Republican army in 1936-1938 (they were created at the initiative of Soviet advisers), as well as reconnaissance, partisan and sabotage units that operated during the Second World War.
The partisan detachments of the Red Army were, in fact, the prototype of modern special forces. Note that both the Reds and the Whites had such formations, but they largely differed from each other. So, if the Whites used mainly regular units that carried out raids on the flanks or the near rear of the RCA, then the Reds mainly used those partisans who were already behind enemy lines. These groups of partisans were subordinate to a special unit created as part of the Operod.
To carry out the assigned tasks, the partisans were supplied with explosives, ammunition, experienced personnel and money. It should also be noted that by a special decree of V. Lenin, a special school of demolitionists was created. A. Kovrigin became its leader, who very quickly established the effective work of the school.
Partisans were specially selected for training in the school of demolition. The course of study highlighted special, military and political training. The theory was taught at the school established in the Operod building, and for practice they went out of town. For practical exercises, students could use pistols, rifles, special equipment, field guns.
The work of this intelligence department was controlled by V. Lenin himself.
The losses suffered by the enemy as a result of the activities of the partisan detachments were enormous.
Until the beginning of 1920, the most powerful enemy Soviet Union became Poland. The Polish army until that time occupied most Belarusian territory. To carry out sabotage behind enemy lines, an illegal military organization was formed at the end of 1919, initiated by Iosif Unshkhtit (recall, he oversaw intelligence).
We also note that the role of this person in the activities of the Soviet special services is practically unknown to anyone. He was eclipsed by Dzerzhinsky, whose deputy was Unshkhtit at one time. Despite this, it was he who was to lead Poland in the event of the victory of the Soviet Army. And it was he who, until 1930, oversaw the activities of Soviet intelligence abroad, and also led the illegal apparatus of the Comintern.
Creation of illegal military organization was the result of agreements reached between the command of the Western Front and the Belarusian Social Revolutionaries. In December 1919, a meeting was held in Smolensk, during which the parties signed an agreement on joint actions against Poland. At that time, the Belarusian Revolutionary Socialist Party had about 20 thousand members. In addition, the party kept under control the trade unions of telegraph employees, railway workers and teachers. There were also partisan detachments. The Communist Party on Belarusian territory had only 2 thousand people, and most of them were not indigenous. However, in fairness, it should be noted that already in 1920 another pro-Soviet organization was formed in Belarus, which was called the “Belarusian Communist Organization”.
The unification of all these forces made it possible in a short time to form the People's Military Self-Defense, which in its essence was a rebel army operating behind enemy lines. Later, it was she who became the basis for the creation of the Illegal Military Organization.
The main purpose of the organization was to carry out terrorist acts, sabotage in the rear of the Polish army. But the organization itself and its activities were kept secret to such an extent that the front commander did not even know about it. The NVO served several divisions of the Western Front - the 8th, 56th and 17th. 4 HBO participants were sent to each of them, each of which had one assistant and 20 couriers.
At the end of its activity, the organization included 10 thousand partisans.
Since the spring of 1920, graduates of the Kraskoms acted as leaders of partisan detachments. The detachments were tasked with directing their activities to damage the telegraph and telephone communications, railways and derailment of trains, explosions of bridges, roads and warehouses. In addition, they were supposed to be engaged in undercover activities.
The leaders of the NVO were the same people who controlled the intelligence of the front - B. Bortnovsky, A. Stashevsky, S. Firin. The responsible leader of the organization was A. Stashevsky, who three years later, under the surname Stepanov, organized a similar structure on German territory, in which there were about 300 groups of partisans.
In general, the activities of the Illegal Military Organization were so effective that even after the end of the Soviet-Polish war, it did not cease to exist, but became the basis for the creation of active intelligence.
After the conclusion of a peace treaty with Poland in 1921, the Intelligence Directorate began organizing and transferring detachments of specially trained soldiers to Western Ukraine and Western Belarus to resist the Polish authorities. All this was done so that a nationwide partisan movement broke out in these territories, which would subsequently lead to the reunification of these lands with the USSR. This activity is called "active intelligence". And, just like the HBO, its activities were kept in the strictest secrecy.
In Belarus, a partisan, or rather, sabotage movement, arose in the summer of 1921. In 1922-1923 alone, two such detachments carried out a number of operations, among which one can distinguish the defeat of a police station in the area Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the capture and burning of the estates "Good Tree" and "Struga", the destruction of three landowners' estates, the burning of the palace of Prince Drutsko-Lubetsky, the blowing up of two steam locomotives, a railway bridge and a railway track on the Lida-Vilna line.
In 1924, partisan detachments carried out more than 80 operations, among which the most famous is the operation in the city of Stolbtsy. During its implementation, more than 50 partisans defeated the garrison, the starostvo, the railway station, the police station and the police department, as well as seized the prison and released S. Skulsky (the head of the military organization of the Communist Party of Poland) and P. Korchik (the head of the Communist Party of Western Belarus).
In the activities of "active intelligence" there were mistakes. So, in November 1924, 25 partisans made an attempt to seize a train on the Brest-Baranovichi line, killing one policeman in the process. They were chased by 2,000 people. As a result, 16 partisans were arrested, 4 were shot, and another 4 were sentenced to life imprisonment.
As a result of the activities of partisan detachments, the situation on the Polish border became very tense. However, despite all the successful operations, their activities were curtailed in 1925, and the detachments themselves were disbanded.
After the disbandment of the partisan detachments, the leadership of the Intelligence Directorate did not leave the thought of having specially trained saboteurs who could operate behind enemy lines in the event of war. The Soviet command thought about this back in the late 1920s. Therefore, it is not surprising that in 1928-1929 preparations began in the western military districts for a guerrilla war in the event of an attack on the Soviet Union. The same commanders who acted in active intelligence were involved in it.
On the territory of Belarus, 6 detachments of 500 people each were trained. In addition, special sabotage groups were preparing at the railway junctions. On Ukrainian territory, at least 3,000 partisan specialists and commanders were trained. There were also large stocks of weapons and ammunition. A special school for the training of partisans was created in Kharkov, two schools in Kiev, and special courses in Odessa.
Partisan detachments took part both in combined arms exercises and in special ones. Thus, in 1933, everything was ready to carry out a surprise operation in the event of an attack on the USSR and paralyze all communications in the western regions of Ukraine, Belarus and Bessarabia.
But, despite such preparations, in 1938-1939 all partisan detachments were disbanded. To a large extent, the reason for this was the new military doctrine, which provided that all fighting in case of war will be conducted in enemy territory. Repression caused great damage to the defense former partisans.
When the war broke out in Spain in 1936, only the USSR came to the aid of the rebels. In the same year, the first volunteers arrived in the country, followed by Soviet advisers who arrived in Spain to help the IRA in the fight against the Nazis. At the end of 1936, the first special forces detachment was created in the country, the instructor of which was an experienced demolition worker I. Starinov. The Spanish government was very skeptical about the possibility of guerrilla war. Therefore, at first there were only five elderly Spaniards in the detachment, unsuitable for military service. But soon another 12 fighters were sent to the detachment, this time young and experienced. In the suburbs of Valencia, a house was allocated for the detachment, where a school was organized for training fighters.
The detachment carried out its first operation in December 1936, blowing up communication lines and a railway bridge in the Teruel region. After several more successful operations, the size of the detachment increased to 100 people. Soon he was sent to the Southern Front.
The most successful operation of the partisan detachment was the destruction in 1937 of the train in which the headquarters of the Italian air division was located. The train was derailed from a height of 15 meters using a powerful mine. After this operation, the detachment was renamed the Special Forces Battalion.
Later, other equally successful acts of sabotage were carried out, for example, undermining an ammunition train, which picked up a mine and exploded in a tunnel. Such successful activity very soon turned the battalion into a brigade, and then, in 1938, into the 14th partisan corps, which numbered more than 5 thousand people. A special school operated in the corps, in which the fighters were taught the intricacies of reconnaissance, sniper business, and mining. Since the soldiers of the corps had to operate in extreme conditions, they were given double rations and the same salary.
It should be noted that during the entire period of its activity, the corps lost only 14 people.
When the Republicans were defeated, part of the corps fighters seized the ship and crossed first to Algeria, and then to the Soviet Union, another part crossed the Franco-Spanish border and was interned. When the French authorities decided to hand them over to the Falangists, they all fled to the mountains.
With the outbreak of World War II, partisan and reconnaissance and sabotage units again became relevant. So, only in June-August 1941, more than 180 sabotage groups were thrown into enemy territory. The activities of such units were very successful, as evidenced, for example, by the raid of the I. Shirinkin sabotage group, which in September-November 1941 traveled more than 700 kilometers through the territories of the Vitebsk, Smolensk, Novgorod and Pskov regions, conducting reconnaissance and sabotage. For the successful completion of the assigned tasks, the commander and commissar were awarded the Order of Lenin.
In the same 1941, Western front military unit 9903 was created to carry out sabotage activities, which, during the battle for Moscow, threw N. Galochkin, Z. Kosmodemyanskaya, P. Kiryanov behind enemy lines. In general, by the end of the year, 71 sabotage groups were thrown into the enemy rear, which included about 1,200 people.
The activities of the partisan detachments were not entirely successful. So, for example, out of 231 detachments with a total number of 12 thousand people, abandoned on Belarusian territory in 1941, only 43 detachments with 2 thousand fighters remained by the end of the year. The situation was even worse in Ukraine. In December 1941, 35 thousand partisans were transferred there, of which only 4 thousand remained by the summer of 1942. The result of this state of affairs was the mass repressions of the late 30s, when the best personnel and partisan bases were destroyed.
In 1942 the situation improved slightly. After the reorganization of the Intelligence Directorate, a reconnaissance and sabotage department appeared in the GRU. In the same year, special battalions of miners were organized on each front, which carried out sabotage on important communication routes and objects.
In 1943, another reorganization of the intelligence agencies was carried out. As a result, the leadership of sabotage activities was transferred to the Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff. This form of leadership continued until the end of the war.
In the post-war period, the main attention of Soviet intelligence was directed to identifying the possible preparation of the enemy for nuclear war. Moreover, it was necessary to prevent even the slightest possibility of using nuclear weapons, as well as to prevent work behind enemy lines.
To this end, in 1951, the first sabotage and reconnaissance units were created as part of the armed forces of the Soviet Union. In the shortest possible time, 40 special forces companies were created, the number of each of which was 120 people.
Temporary reconnaissance detachments of special forces were formed from the composition of regular units. The special forces were armed with such types of weapons as machine guns, pistols, grenade launchers, anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, grenades, knives, parachutes, containers for landing radio stations, as well as landing backpacks.
At the beginning of 1950, the Ministry of Defense, G. Zhukov, proposed the creation of a special-purpose corps, but met with a decisive refusal from the leadership of the state. After that, the marshal was removed from his post.
Nevertheless, separate sabotage detachments were united first into battalions, and later into brigades. This is how the GRU brigades appeared.
In 1957, separate special battalions were created, and in 1962, special forces brigades.
In total, during the heyday of the USSR, 13 brigades of naval and army special forces operated on its territory. Its total number was approximately 15-20 thousand people.
Since the beginning afghan war for the GRU special forces, a new stage began, which became a serious test of strength. The "Muslim battalion", which later stormed Amin's palace, included mainly representatives of eastern nationalities - Uzbeks, Tajiks, who knew the local language well. The Slavs were present only in the crews of the ZSU-23-4 Shilka.
It is worth noting that this battalion was not the only one. At the end of December, the 1st detachment of special forces was introduced into the territory of Afghanistan, the number of which was 539 people. And in January 1980, the head of the GRU, Ivashutin, announced the need to create two more detachments of 677 people each.
In March 1985, with the aggravation of the situation in Afghanistan, it was decided to introduce additional special forces units to Afghan territory, on the basis of which two brigades of 4 battalions of 3 thousand people each would be created.
The activities of the special forces alternated victories and defeats. So, for example, in 1986, special forces seized 14 tons of opium, which was transported from Pakistan, for which local drug dealers sentenced the brigade commander Gerasimov to death. In October 1987, one of the groups, performing an operation to intercept weapons, was surrounded and suffered heavy losses, then 14 out of 26 people died.
Combat swimmers became another type of GRU special forces units. Their appearance was the result of the successful activities of Italian underwater reconnaissance saboteurs during the Second World War.
Until 1952, such detachments appeared in almost all NATO member countries, in the USSR they thought about the need to create a special detachment of swimmers only in 1956, after combat swimmer L. Krabs died in England during an examination of the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze.
Nevertheless, consideration of the need to create such a detachment was delayed. Only in 1967 was a decree signed on the creation of a "Training detachment of light divers." During the exercise, combat swimmers not only reconnoitered the coastal waters, but also went ashore and undermined the communications and warehouses of the imaginary enemy. The results so impressed the officers that this detachment became the first unit to combat underwater sabotage means and forces.
Combat swimmers almost never left without work. In 1967-1991 they worked in Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Cuba, Korea, Nicaragua.
Marine animals were often used for military operations. The first, of course, were the Americans, who during the years of the Vietnam War, with the help of dolphins, destroyed more than 50 saboteur swimmers. In the USSR, the first special unit for working with animals appeared in 1967 in Sevastopol. The experiments involved 70 dolphins, who were taught to detect underwater and surface objects, guard them and give signals if strangers approached.
Animals were also used as live torpedoes, which were aimed at submarines, aircraft carriers and destroyers. Dolphins were at sea with mines attached to them for weeks, and when the enemy approached, they attacked him.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the situation changed for the worse. There was no money for the maintenance of the dolphinarium, so the management went into business. As a result, only 6 trained dolphins remained.
Today in Russia there are only 4 special-purpose brigades, and 2 of them were transferred to the Airborne Forces back in 1994.
Special Forces military intelligence always stood guard over the protection of the interests of the state. The commandos were always the first to enter the battle and the last to leave it. Therefore, modern fighters have something to be proud of and something to strive for.
Special Forces. Direction "A"
Direction "A" - this is how the authorities of the Soviet military intelligence in the twenties of the last century called the organization of reconnaissance and sabotage activities on the territory of a possible enemy. In fact, in 1919, the GRU leadership made prototypes of the special detachments of the Fourth Directorate (reconnaissance and sabotage behind enemy lines) of the NKVD-NKGB of the USSR (headed by Pavel Sudoplatov), which operated during the years of the Great Patriotic War; special forces divisions (formed in the mid-fifties of the last century) and the Vympel special forces of the KGB. The GRU made a base and trained personnel for the upcoming special forces of the NKVD and the First Directorate (foreign intelligence) of the KGB. Truth given fact carefully kept silent. The film will tell for the first time about the birth of the GRU special forces, about its military affairs in the twenties and forties of the last century.
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I often communicate with veterans of the Great Patriotic War. I often hear bewilderment in their words - they say, modern cinema, literature, the media often show our former German opponents as narrow-minded, inflexible warriors. But after all, by belittling the art of the enemy, we belittle the glory of the Red Army, which brought him to his knees. Today we will talk about the misses and defeats of the best sabotage unit of the Wehrmacht, which was the Brandenburg-800 special forces regiment. The fact is that his first failures and tangible losses began precisely on Belarusian soil, in 1941 ... Misfires of the "green devils", as the British called the Brandenburg-800 fighters, happened in the Zelva and Polotsk regions of Belarus.
First in the world. Mother!
SERGEY VOYTSEVICH, a 34-year-old software engineer from Polotsk, visits his hometown as he works in Moscow. He became interested in military history, and in particular special forces, as a child. For ten years now, Sergei's attention has been riveted to the Brandenburg-800. The study of the regiment's combat operations in our country (and he fought here in the summer of 1941, then his fighters were transferred to Ukraine) is an exciting thing for Sergei. “After all, not a single book about the Great Patriotic War contains specifics about German specialists. Everywhere - abstract words about saboteurs or paratroopers, abandoned in our rear, and nothing more. But the first army special forces in the world operated in Belarus!” - draws attention to the interlocutor.
What kind of unit was it - "Brandenburg-800"? It was created in 1940: “birth” is already shrouded in mystery - it immediately received a fictitious name “ 800th construction and training battalion". Six months later, this "construction battalion" will throw out such tricks that its opponents - the British, French and Dutch - will be frightened. According to the name of the location of one of the companies (the city of Brandenburg an der Havel), soon the entire secret unit became known as "Brandenburg-800".
Assassins of the 20th century
Theodor von Hippel
– FOUNDING FATHER of this regiment, Hauptmann Theodor von Hippel, innovatively combined in the concept of the development of his team the principles of the partisans of German East Africa against the British (First World War), where he fought in his youth, and assassins-assassins of the Middle Ages. The result was an explosive mixture! Let me remind you that the Assassins are an organization of professional killers who lived in the Middle East in their own small country, consisting of a system of mountain fortress cities with a capital in Alamut. There, Hasan ibn Sabbah created an "academy" of killers: in the course of a three-year training, only a few survived out of hundreds, but what pros they were! Orders to eliminate objectionable people came to Alamut from many countries - from England to China! - says Sergey Voytsevich.
This example was taken up by von Hippel. With German pedantry, he developed nightmarish cruelty requirements for recruits, taking away the “salt of the German land” for himself. Athletes-intellectuals who knew very well foreign languages, hand-to-hand combat, topography, explosives, camouflage on the ground, combat tactics alone and in small groups, skills in making false documents, own and captured weapons ... Will Brandenburg-800 operate in the mountains? And now, groups of Tyroleans and Bavarians with excellent mountain-alpine training appear in its composition. In the snow? Von Hippel brought skiers and riders to... dog sledding. In the tropics? He arrives in the regiment at the expense of a team of saboteurs - natives of Arabia and Africa.
"Everything is allowed. Even the murder of a mother!
– SPECIAL the detail that makes the Brandenburg-800 the most dangerous unit of World War II is the brutality of its military personnel. The Germans abandoned any restrictions in the old laws of warfare. The use of any type of weapon (even poisons on knife blades!), torture during the interrogation of prisoners, hostage-taking, the killing of women and children - a complete rejection of the Geneva Convention. Therefore, the Brandenburg-800 soldiers were rarely taken prisoner: since 1941, the soldiers of the unit were even given poison capsules. “Anything that leads to a result is possible. Even the murder of the mother! - this is how von Hippel instructed his wards.
Our allies in World War II quickly felt the grip of these "dogs of war." So, in Holland, the “Brandenburgers” depicted either a procession of monks with an unexpected snatching of machine guns from under their cassocks, or massively dressed up in the uniform of Dutch soldiers escorting German “prisoners” in order to suddenly attack the taken aback guards of an important bridge (Belgium).
And, importantly, the Germans are everywhere - from Norway to North Africa- defeated the enemy, incurring miserable losses. The war with the USSR was an exception.
"Nachtigaal" wings clipped
AGAINST In the Red Army, the leadership of "Brandenburg-800" prepared as it should: the whole battalion of the regiment consisted of two-thirds of ethnic Russians, Ukrainians - children of white émigrés and nationalists. The battalion bore the name "Nachtigaal" - translated as "nightingale", since its soldiers were also distinguished by the marvelous singing of Slavic folk songs.
The beginning was seemingly not bad for the Germans: the soldiers who crossed the border on June 21, 1941 cut telephone wires, rearranged road signs, disabled railway arrows and semaphores ... But in the same victorious summer for Germany, von Hippel had to make sure that for the first time not everything goes so smoothly.
Already in the first days of the war, our soldiers accomplished a feat - they won a small, but still significant victory over the Brandenburg-800. And did it - do not believe (!) - an ordinary sapper company of Lieutenant Titkov with one year of service experience! Somewhere on June 28, 1941, after a tiring forced march from Grodno to the village of Svinyashki (now Zvezdnaya) in the Zelvensky district, the Titkovites defeated a group of 40 "Brandenburgers" who had previously captured the vital bridge and held it until the approach German tanks. Titkov was helped by our tankers, who happened to be nearby. From the outside, the battle looked amazing: people who called to each other in Russian, with stars on caps, were shooting at each other, ”says Voytsevich, holding photocopies of documents from the Central state archive Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. - Leaving 20 dead, the "Brandenburgers" retreated (the first case in the history of the regiment), leaving the prisoners (also an unprecedented thing!). The interrogated spoke pure Russian, striking with their amazing knowledge of even the jargon (!) of that time. “Yes, this is not France,” said the commander of the Brandenburg-800, von Hippel, after learning about the losses in the first months of the war in the USSR.
Lieutenant Grass did not go on air...
SECOND a major misfire at the "Brandenburg-800" was in the homeland of our interlocutor-researcher - near Polotsk. It is recognized in his memoirs even by the German General Hermann Geyer, in whose corps offensive zone a group of "Brandenburgers" operated. Boarding the train under the guise of Soviet policemen at the Farinovo station, ten soldiers from Nachtigaal went to Dretun to kill the railroad workers there and save the composition for their troops advancing from the west. But the stoker boy heard an inadvertently dropped foreign phrase - Lieutenant Adolf Grass was an ethnic German - and told his father the driver. He took the initiative, derailing the train at a dead end. The enemies riding "on horseback" on the locomotive crashed - a walkie-talkie from the Telefunken company was found in the belongings of the "policemen".
However, we must admit: where the “Brandenburgers” managed to achieve the effect of surprise, they took their toll, - says Sergey. - So, on June 25, 1941, a platoon of the Brandenburg regiment, numbering 34 people, under the command of Lieutenant Lex, was parachuted near the Bogdanovo station in order to capture the railway bridges across the Berezina River. Entering the battle, the "Brandenburgers", dressed in Soviet uniforms, occupied the bridges and held them. True, they lost five people killed ... Repulsing the attacks of tanks and infantry, the saboteurs controlled the bridges until the evening of June 26, when German motorcyclists made their way to them. But, even performing a combat mission, the Germans suffered such losses on Belarusian soil, in comparison with which the problems in Holland, Belgium, and France looked ridiculous.
Fatal pickups
OF ALL countermeasures against Soviet partisans - and this list included the sending of traitors, and mass combing, and the execution of hostages - only the Brandenburg-800 raids brought some effect. Thanks to the massive use of camouflage suits (such as the modern "goblin"), pistols and machine guns with silencers, machine guns that pierce tree trunks, von Hippel's special forces inflicted serious damage on the people's avengers: they "opened" food supply routes, caught messengers from ambush. And most importantly, large SS and police forces were directed at the partisan detachments. A worthy adversary, to be sure...
There is no exact data on the actions of the "Brandenburgers" against the Belarusian partisans - the German special forces were so classified that they simply did not have an archive, everything written was destroyed after use. But the memoirs of former partisans confirm that the encirclement of Kovpak's detachments was organized thanks to the enemy's well-equipped reconnaissance, read - "Brandenburg-800".
In the memoirs "Fiery Frontiers" of the former underground fighter and partisan Dmitry Melnikov, one of the rare cases is described when our people's avengers captured the "Brandenburger". Moreover, in the summer of 1943, when the saboteurs managed to "re-profile" to fight the partisans:
“... News came to our Red October detachment that the Germans, preparing to comb the area, were gathering around the village of Mikulino (Smolensk region - Auth.). In the vicinity of Matushovo (already Mogilev region - Auth.), which is a few dozen from the first, we set up an ambush, deciding that the catchers definitely did not expect snares for themselves. Early in the morning, enemy intelligence fell into the "trap" - 45 people. 26 Nazis in camouflage were put on the spot, and one was taken prisoner. During interrogation, it turned out that the prisoner belonged to the 9th company of the 800th Special Purpose Training Regiment "Brandenburg", which was specially preparing for military operations on the territory of the USSR.
The main part of the military personnel of the 3rd battalion of this regiment were immigrants from Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic states, who spoke Russian well. A company of 300 people acted as part of a special detachment of saboteurs under the command of Captain Mulenhauer.
I remember that the commissar of the detachment was barely restrained - he wanted to shoot the traitor on the spot. Two days later, the prisoner was sent by plane to " big land", so that he would be dealt with in counterintelligence "Smersh".
End of Brandenburg
...AFTER general turning point during the Great Patriotic War, in 1943, the skill of the German special forces began to noticeably fall. The level of training was declining, the flow of traitors from among the prisoners of war dried up. It became very difficult to make up for the ever-increasing losses. At the turn of 1943-1944, there was no longer any talk of any brilliant sabotage operations. In 1944, politics intervened in the fate of Brandenburg: in April, General Pfulstein was removed from his post by a denunciation to the Gestapo. The special forces were "dismembered" and reassigned to a number of departments. In autumn Brandenburg-800 becomes an ordinary motorized division, joining the Grossdeutschland tank corps, which was defeated in Berlin in 1945.
War after war
Almost all the Brandenburg fighters, who escaped death in battle or imprisonment for war crimes, preferred service in various special units to civilian life. For a long time, the authorities of various countries of the world concealed the fact that the German "volunteers" in the ranks of their armies belonged to the famous "Brandenburg". However, years passed, and the biographies of the ex-"Brandenburgers" supplemented the pages military history. It turned out that after the Second World War, the "Brandenburgers" were part of the SAS of Great Britain, the French Foreign Legion, and special units of the United States. For example, in the battle of Dien Bien Phu (spring 1954), where the French were opposed by numerous detachments of Vietnamese nationalists, the basis of the units of the French Foreign Legion were former SS troops and Brandenburgers. Later, many ex-Brandenburgers moved to Africa, Asia and Latin America, becoming well-paid mercenaries, military instructors and advisers there. So, during the reign of Sukarno, the Indonesian security service was headed by a former Brandenburg fighter. The former "Brandenburgers" were military advisers to Mao Zedong and Moise Tshombe (Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo). In the mid-1950s, members of Nazi Germany's best special forces were invited by the Egyptian government as military advisers to organize the fight against Israel. Brandenburg professionals again bowed over the maps of hostilities ...
Spetsnaz - special forces units. The specificity of the combat use of special forces consists in organizing and conducting active reconnaissance, conducting special events behind enemy lines, identifying and destroying saboteurs and bandit formations in their rear, deploying and using formations in the territory occupied by the enemy in the interests of the partisan (insurgent) movement, combating terrorism .
Holiday information
There was no single day uniting all special forces units in Russia. The beginning of the celebration of the Special Forces Day is considered to be the meeting of the fighters of special units with the leadership of the country on August 29, 1996. Heads of all ministries and departments of federal bodies Russian Federation supported the idea of the holiday and in 1999 signed an appeal to the President of Russia on giving it state status.
Decree of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin dated May 31, 2006 established 7 professional holidays and 14 memorable days to revive military traditions and increase prestige military service, as well as in recognition of the merits of military specialists in ensuring the defense and security of the state. Among them is the Day of Special Forces, which is celebrated on October 24.
History of Spetsnaz
In 1918, special-purpose units (CHON) were created. From this date it is considered to be the beginning of the history of special forces.
In the future, special-purpose units were mainly located in the Cheka (NKVD - MGB - KGB). On October 24, 1950, the Minister of War of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilevsky issued a directive ordering the formation of 46 special-purpose companies with a staff of 120 people by May 1, 1951. Over time, the structure and quantitative composition of the army special forces changed more than once, but the essence of its mission, in principle, always remained the same.
By the time of the collapse of the USSR, the ground forces, the main intelligence directorate, the airborne troops, the navy, air Force. In 1970-1980. There were 13 special forces brigades in the army. It was during this period that their active combat work began, which took place in Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Vietnam. Then the war broke out in Afghanistan. As part of the Soviet contingent, eight special forces detachments operated there, organizationally consolidated into two brigades.
Over the years of existence, the methodology for training fighters has been systematized and debugged. During the Chechen campaign, the special forces performed their immediate duties, conducting search and ambush and sabotage and reconnaissance activities.
For today Special Forces- the most combat-ready and combat-ready military units with a rich history - paramilitary formations of the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Ministry of Justice and other federal government bodies (detachments, groups, reinforced groups), which have their own code names. They are intended for counter-terrorism actions, actions to search for and detain especially dangerous and armed criminals, liquidate criminal groups, free hostages and carry out other special operations.
Main feature special forces units is their relatively small composition, excellent preparation, audacity, surprise, initiative, speed, coordination of actions; skillful use of shock and maneuver capabilities of weapons, military equipment, as well as the protective properties of the terrain, time of day and weather conditions.
Each of special forces units federal bodies of Russia has its own date of creation and its own history. So, the special forces of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces were created on 10/24/1950. The special forces of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were formed by order of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR on 12/31/1977. At first it was a special-purpose training company.
In 1989 - a training battalion, in 1991 - a special-purpose detachment "Vityaz". In 2000, the Vityaz detachment and the 1st operational regiment were merged into the Special Purpose Regiment. On August 1, 1994, a special unit "Rus" was formed in the same internal troops. At the time, units were created in the Ministry of Internal Affairs: OMON - 10/23/1988, OMSN - 11/9/1978, SOBR - 04/1/1993. The FSB created: "Alpha" - 07/29/1974, "Vympel" - 08/19/1981 On 10/08/1998, the Special Purpose Center was established. On May 18, 1995, a special unit "Sigma" appeared in the Federal Border Service. Special forces have federal Service protection, Ministry of Emergency Situations, State Customs Committee.
Special forces during the Great Patriotic War
The immensity of Russian expanses, huge woodlands contributed to the widespread use of partisan methods of action in the course of past wars. In the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, army reconnaissance units acted in the interests of tactical formations. Basically, they obtained information about the enemy at a small distance from the front line. The partisans, on the contrary, being in the operational depth, concentrated their main efforts on inflicting fire damage on the enemy troops.
The centralized control of forces operating behind enemy lines, organized by 1943, yielded significant results. This is clearly seen in the example of the "Rail War" operation, which began on the night of August 3, 1943. The results of the first strike and further sabotage during August had a significant impact on the work of the railways. In total, from July 20 to September 16, 1943, according to the operational department of the Central Headquarters partisan movement, during the operation, 214,705 pieces of rails were disabled, which accounted for 4.3% of all rails on the operated sections of the railways. In the course of the next operation on the railway communications "Concert", which lasted from September 20 to November 30, 1943, the partisans' sabotage actions were mostly aimed at disabling the enemy's rolling stock. At the same time, during September - November 1943, a special operation "Desert" was carried out to destroy the water supply system on railway communications.
Thus, on August 3, 1943, for the first time in the world practice of military art, a strategic partisan (special) operation began and was successfully carried out.
The tactics of reconnaissance and sabotage formations during the Great Patriotic War were very diverse. Ambushes, raids, sabotage and raids by sabotage formations were used.
Special forces in the post-war period
Special forces units in the post-war period
In order to train personnel for operations behind enemy lines in war time in accordance with the directive of the Minister of War, the formation of 46 special-purpose companies began in the combined arms and mechanized armies, as well as in some military districts. This day is considered to be the birthday special forces Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
In 1951, in special-purpose companies, on the basis of full-time platoons and departments, special formations were created to perform a specific combat mission, which were called "special-purpose reconnaissance groups." Appearance in foreign armies in 1950 - 1960 tactical and operational-tactical missile systems with nuclear and chemical warheads, aircraft carrying nuclear weapons, atomic artillery, nuclear weapons supply systems necessitated a search effective means their detection and immediate destruction. In order to increase the combat capabilities of operational-strategic and operational formations for the detection and subsequent destruction (disabling) of nuclear attack weapons and other important enemy targets, separate detachments were created in 1957, and in 1962 - separate special-purpose brigades. Special-purpose formations and military units were assigned both reconnaissance tasks to open objects of enemy groupings, and a number of special tasks, including the destruction (disabling) of important objects behind enemy lines. In 1953, a decision was made to form seven separate naval reconnaissance divisions.
Combat practice has shown the high efficiency of the use of special forces and military units in the fight against irregular armed formations. And it is no coincidence that in almost all the events that took place in last years armed conflicts Special Forces The Armed Forces took the most direct part. There are many heroic deeds behind the shoulders of the special forces. Among them are special operations on the territory of Afghanistan, participation in establishing and maintaining peace in the Transcaucasus, Central Asia, performing combat missions in the North Caucasus. And everywhere they honorably solved and solve the assigned tasks.
Special Forces in Afghanistan
The war in Afghanistan showed the possibility of independent combat use of military units and subdivisions of special purpose. It became clear that the actions of special intelligence agencies in the conduct of armed struggle against illegal (irregular) armed formations and in the performance of other special tasks go beyond the scope of intelligence support for an operation (combat operations). Combat use formations and military units of special purpose becomes independent integral part actions of groups of the Armed Forces.
In the course of the war in Afghanistan, counterguerrilla warfare became the most important component of the fighting. The Mujahideen used special tactics of guerrilla warfare, avoiding open clashes with the Soviets. military units and divisions. Having made a surprise attack on a column from an ambush or a raid on a stationary object, inflicting maximum losses in the minimum possible time in manpower and equipment, they immediately left the combat area in an unfavorable situation for them.
The Soviet troops also used various methods of conducting active special operations. Ambushes became widespread and became the most effective way combating caravans and detachments of the Mujahideen during their movement. It was the threat of an ambush that deprived them of their freedom of movement even in the areas they controlled, and often forced them to refuse to use one route or another.
Russian special forces units (special forces)- this is courage and steadfastness, unparalleled self-sacrifice, readiness to instantly come to the aid of a comrade, determination. Maroon berets are a symbol of special forces, they are supposed to be worn only by those military personnel who are worthy of this right in terms of their professional, physical and moral qualities.
"Brandenburgers" were members of a special unit of the German special forces in the 2nd World War and took part in covert operations throughout Eastern Europe, in South Africa, Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Caucasus. They, as a rule, consisted of collaborators or ethnic Germans, citizens of foreign countries where these commandos were used. At first they served as a construction battalion of the Abwehr, at the end of the war they became a separate division.
"Friends of Germany" from Brandenburg
The idea to create a special unit "Brandenburgers", which will participate in covert operations on the territory of foreign states, belonged to Hauptmann Theodor von Hippel. This was long before the start of the Wehrmacht's wars of conquest - in 1935. With this proposal, he turned to the relevant department of the Reichswehr and was refused. A few years later, he came to an appointment with the head of the military intelligence and counterintelligence service in Nazi Germany, Wilhelm Canaris, who at first was also against this initiative.
Working ahead of the curve
As you know, by 1939, that is, even before the start of the war with Poland, the German intelligence Abwehr consisted of three sections. "First" was responsible for espionage and intelligence gathering, "Second" - for sabotage and special units, and "Third" - for counterintelligence and competed with the SS security service (SD), which was headed by Reinhard Heydrich, known for his cruelty.
In Abwehr II, von Hippel headed the department of special operations, so he had an interest in what was happening in Abwehr I, Abwehr III, and even in the SD. He studied the writings on the use of commandos in the African colonies of Germany in the 1st World War. Success accompanied, it turns out, those commanders who used local residents when performing special tasks, as well as themselves engaged in intelligence and counterintelligence. At least in order not to blindly rely on the relevant intelligence services.
By this point, von Hippel had already recruited small groups of ethnic Germans from the border areas of the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and Silesia of Poland. These people not only perfectly knew the languages and traditions of their countries of residence, but also possessed the qualities of special operations fighters. Hippel took only volunteers to his team, because he relied on their high spirit and fearlessness. Soon, a secret "Construction Training Company No. 1" was formed from the German Poles.
First success
A few days before the Wehrmacht's invasion of Poland, a group of 80 people from the "Construction Training Company No. 1" infiltrated the area of special importance of the Katowice Railway Junction. They pretended to be Polish railway workers so as not to attract the attention of Polish soldiers who were preparing to repel the German army. When the Germans entered the territory of a neighboring state, the “Hippel people” seized a strategic object by deceit and even convinced the defenders of the Katowice Crossroads to get on the train and leave.
Then the operation went flawlessly, and German troops began to use the railway junction in their own interests, especially since all of its rolling stock was in perfect working order. However, other divisions of the Construction Training Company No. 1 were less fortunate: they failed to prevent the destruction of bridges across the Vistula River at Dirschau and Graudenz. The capture of the Yablunka tunnel also failed.
Abwehr gave the go-ahead
Despite these failures, the German high command was very impressed with the results of the operations carried out and agreed to expand and develop von Hippel's concept. His immediate superior, Helmut Groskurt, took up the matter, who, having convinced Canaris, on September 27, 1939, ordered the creation of a special unit of saboteurs within the Abwehr II. At first, it was called "friends (comrades) of Germany" - Deutsche Kompagnie, but this team was given the name "Brandenburgers" after the name of the land where they were based. In the list of the Wehrmacht, this unit was listed as the usual training construction battalion No. 800.
To the west
The Germans could not afford to get bogged down in bloody battles in Holland and set the goal of her speedy surrender. Otherwise, the plan to defeat France could not bring results. The Brandenburgers, who on the night of May 9, 1940, crossed the border of Holland, were ideally suited to fulfill this mission. main goal there was a railway bridge at Gennap in the path of the 9th Panzer Division, the only armored formation taking part in the invasion of the Netherlands.
A group of seven "German prisoners" - in fact the Brandenburgers - accompanied by two supposedly Dutch guards, arrived at the bridge 10 minutes before the planned attack. After the signal, they attacked the front strongest guard post. Behind, where there was a post with a remote undermining of the bridge, it was also captured by the "Dutch" who allegedly approached the defenders to help. Hippel's commandos also prevented the Newport lock from opening. During the 1st World War, we recall, the Belgians flooded the Iser plain, which stopped the German offensive.
The Brandenburgers were a huge success with Western companies and in the summer of 1940 they were poised to make a significant contribution to the upcoming invasion of the United Kingdom. When this operation did not take place, they moved to Kenzee, where they began preparations for the Barbarossa plan.
Many Brandenburgers entered our territory on June 21, 1941, literally a day before the start of Operation Barbarossa. They wore clothes customary for these places. Despite the fact that each detachment was led by a commando who spoke fluent Russian, they did not know the Soviet passwords. Because of this, some of the saboteurs were captured by the Soviet border guards, but a significant part still penetrated their positions.
For example, on June 27, 1941, they managed to capture an important bridge in the Pripyat swamps. The Brandenburgers, dressed in the uniform of the Red Army, pretending to flee from the pursuing Germans, were able to drive onto the bridge in two trucks and capture the post where the building was blown up. In many ways, this happened because the guards, in a Christian way, in the spirit of generally accepted mutual assistance, took pity on the "exhausted and wounded soldiers of the Red Army."
The commander of the Brandenburgers in the form of a senior officer of the NKVD with threats "to rot the chief of security and his family in Siberia, they say, it is absolutely impossible to blow up the bridge, since the Red Army is moving towards the enemy," cut the wires of the detonator, but was shot dead by a Soviet officer. However, the most important overpass, sandwiched between forests and swamps, was captured by the Wehrmacht. And it was a typical operation that allowed the German troops to move quickly into the interior of a huge country.
Brandenburgers against partisans
In October 1942, the number of Brandenburgers reached the division, and their main task was to fight the Soviet partisans, who successfully fought against the invaders. The people's avengers constantly attacked the Wehrmacht's supply lines, using ambush tactics and hiding in forests and swamps. But it was an obvious mistake to use the Brandenburgers as ordinary partisans who were supposedly looking for "their" comrades.
These commandos were trained on offensive operations against an inexperienced adversary. By this time, both the Red Army and the partisans easily figured out the Brandenburgers even by appearance. And although their skills allowed them to achieve some success on this invisible front, the morale of the special forces fell. Having suffered heavy losses, many of the Brandenburgers were transferred to the special forces detachment by SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny, where they were finally killed.
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