In many films about the war, the image of the special officer causes anger, contempt and even hatred. After watching them, many people formed the opinion that special officers are people who can shoot an innocent person with little or no trial. That these people do not know the concepts of mercy and compassion, justice and honesty.
So who are they - special officers? Are they fanatics who sought to imprison any person, or people on whose shoulders a heavy burden fell during the Great Patriotic War? Let's find out.
Special Department
It was created at the end of 1918 and belonged to the counterintelligence unit, which was part of the Soviet army. His most important task was to protect national security and combat espionage.
In April 1943, special departments began to have a different name - SMERSH bodies (stands for "death to spies"). They created their own network of agents and filed cases against all soldiers and officers.
Specialists during the war
We know from films that if a special officer came to a military unit, people could not expect anything good. A natural question arises: how was it really?
At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, a huge number of military personnelhad no credentials. A huge number of people without documents constantly moved across the front line. German spies could carry out their activities without much difficulty. Therefore, the increased interest of special officers in people who got in and out of the encirclement was quite natural. In difficult conditions, they had to identify people and be able to identify German agents.
For a long time in the Soviet Union it was believed that the forces of special forces created special detachments that were supposed to shoot retreating military units. In fact, everything was different.
Specialists are people who risked their lives no less than the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army. Together with everyone, they participated in the offensive and retreated, and if the commander died, then they had to take command and raise the soldiers to attack. They showed miracles of selflessness and heroism at the front. At the same time, they had to deal with alarmists and cowards, as well as identify enemy infiltrators and spies.
Interesting facts
- Specialists could not shoot military personnel without trial and investigation. In one case, they could use weapons: when someone tried to go over to the side of the enemy. But then each such situation was carefully investigated. In other cases, they only transmitted information about the violations found to the military prosecutor's office.
- At the beginning of the war, a large number of experienced, specially trained and legally trained employees of special departments died. In their placewere forced to take people without training and the necessary knowledge, who often broke the law.
- By the beginning of World War II, there were a total of about four hundred employees in special departments.
Thus, special officers are, first of all, people who honestly tried to fulfill their mission of protecting the state.
