[W01f]

MOSCOW (AFP) - Secret plans to blow up the Bolshoi Theatre and other Moscow landmarks if the Nazis occupied the city in 1941 went on display this week in an eye-opening exhibit on Soviet military counter-intelligence.
ADVERTISEMENT

Hitler's jacket, a gun hidden inside a cane and Stalin's order that founded SMERSH -- a wartime counter-intelligence service that appeared in the James Bond films -- are also featured at Moscow's Central Armed Forces Museum.

Elderly veterans decked out in medals and officers of the FSB, the successor to the Soviet KGB, were on hand at Thursday's opening of "90 Years of Military Counter-Intelligence."

The exhibit's highlights included once-secret documents on the "Moscow Plan" from 1941, when German forces came within 30 kilometres (19 miles) of the Soviet capital.

"There was a genuine risk that German forces could have taken Moscow. So in the autumn of 1941, the so-called Moscow Plan was developed," said Vasily Khristoforov, chief archivist at FSB headquarters in Moscow.

Hundreds of agents were told to stay behind in Moscow with orders to attack German officers and destroy key buildings and infrastructure sites to prevent them from falling into Nazi hands.

More than 1,100 targets in and around Moscow were rigged with explosives, said Khistoforov. "Thank God the Germans never took Moscow and it was not necessary to blow up the sites," he added.

The Bolshoi Theatre and the iconic St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square were among the buildings to be blown up, according to a document at the exhibit.

Another document, from October 1941, orders a group called Detachment 3R to stay in occupied Moscow and "carry out terrorist attacks against high-ranking German commanders, occupying authorities and traitors to the motherland."

The plan reflected the panic that gripped Soviet leaders as the invading forces approached, and little was known about it until the 1990s.

More triumphant memories are also featured in the exhibit, which includes a military jacket worn by Hitler that Soviet forces took from his bunker after capturing Berlin in 1945.

A veteran of that operation, 90-year-old Leonid Ivanov, recalled on Thursday how he received a note from a fellow officer that said: "Send a car. We have found Goebbels' body," referring to the Nazi propaganda minister.

But Ivanov, a retired KGB general, was tight-lipped when a journalist asked him what happened to Hitler's body.

He said that Soviet forces had burned it and sprinkled the ashes in an undisclosed location, then added mysteriously: "The location is known to me. I have been there."

The exhibit marked the 90th anniversary of the founding of Soviet military counter-intelligence in 1918 and showed some early items, such as a French-made gun hidden in a cane used by tsarist agents before the Bolshevik Revolution.

"All the European secret services used them," said Sergei Kozhin, a curator of the exhibit.

Little of the exhibit was devoted to the Cold War, although Ivanov recalled how Soviet spies began to confront their US and British counterparts while the countries were still allies against Nazi Germany.

"When we entered Germany the task was to find high-ranking Nazis and former Wehrmacht officers, but we were already switching over to work against the English and the Americans," he said.

"They began to recruit our soldiers. So we had to reorient ourselves against the British, the Americans, the French."

Ivanov and others touted the success of the Soviet Union's wartime military counter-intelligence service, SMERSH, which derives its name from the Russian words for "Death to Spies."

"Even our enemies, the heads of German intelligence, say that Soviet counter-intelligence outplayed them," said Khristoforov, the FSB archivist.

"Almost all the agents they sent were either uncovered or worked under our control. Only a handful escaped SMERSH."

Created in 1943, SMERSH only lasted three years until it was absorbed into other agencies, but it lived on in fiction as the nemesis of British superspy James Bond in Ian Fleming's novels.

In most of the Bond films however it was renamed SPECTRE, an international criminal group with an agenda of making money rather than promoting Communism.

Asked about the fictional SMERSH, Khristoforov was dismissive.

"This is pop culture material that has practically nothing in common with reality," he said.

Source

Interesting. I knew they employed a scorched Earth policy, but I had never heard of this before. What a tragedy it would have been had all those bombs been detonated.

[Oxymoron]

Yeah unlike the French the Russians would never surrender until the Germans were utterly defeated and thrown out fo the Motherland.

[Thunderhawk]

Interesting. I knew they employed a scorched Earth policy, but I had never heard of this before. What a tragedy it would have been had all those bombs been detonated.

Tried and true methodolgy..



P.S.
Canada had a similar plan to scortch halifax, our then largest city on the Atlantic and a major port for convoys to Europe.

[peter_co]

Yeah unlike the French the Russians would never surrender until the Germans were utterly defeated and thrown out fo the Motherland.

That's not really true. Stalin did send someone to negotiate with the Germans, but they found the price the Germans asked (everything to the West of the Volga) to be unacceptable. Besides, it's not as though France voluntarily ceased fighting, its forces had been thoroughly overrun. Russia was only saved by a similar fate by its much greater land area.

[Potemkin]

Tried and true methodolgy..

It was used in Kiev. Just after the Nazis caputured it, the entire city centre blew up. Now we know why.

[W01f]

Besides, it's not as though France voluntarily ceased fighting, its forces had been thoroughly overrun.

They did voluntarily cease fighting. They were overrun, yes, but they sure didn't fight to the last man. 1.5 million French soldiers were captured when they surrendered. Only 300 thousand were killed. Basically by the time Paris was taken with such ease, they realized that they stood no chance and that while they could keep fighting, surrender was the only real option.

Russia was only saved by a similar fate by its much greater land area.

And population size, and industrial strength, and the weather, and a leader who valued nothing more than the survival of the motherland (even more so than the lives of those living in it).

I don't think they would have surrendered if the Germans had reached Moscow.

[Oxymoron]

I don't think they would have surrendered if the Germans had reached Moscow.

I suspect the siege of Moscow would make Stalingrad look like a paintball skirmage.

[peter_co]

I don't think they would have surrendered if the Germans had reached Moscow.

I agree. In fact by late '41 they were basing their plans on the contingency that Moscow would be taken. The Germans would have had to chase them for quite some time, at least without Japanese help (and that probably would never have materialized).

[Ombrageux]

Yeah unlike the French the Russians would never surrender until the Germans were utterly defeated and thrown out fo the Motherland.

Well, Hitler was not bent on annihilation and enslavement of the 'Gallic race', and he never wrote about finding Lebensraum in the West. (And France is a lot smaller geographically, and French winters are exactly lethal and..)

[pikachu]

Russia was only saved by a similar fate by its much greater land area.

The French had their empire to rely on. They could, with British help, evacuate to Algeria and fight from there. That's what Churchill promised to do if Britain was to fall. But why do that when it's may be wiser to sign a peace treaty, then rebuild and hope for better times? That's what nations used to do for centuries. Talking about hasty surrenders - in World War 1, Germany managed to surrender when not an inch of its territory was under enemy control - in fact it was Germany which was still holding vast tracks of enemy territory (especially in the east).

[peter_co]

The French had their empire to rely on. They could, with British help, evacuate to Algeria and fight from there. That's what Churchill promised to do if Britain was to fall. But why do that when it's may be wiser to sign a peace treaty, then rebuild and hope for better times?

Well the French government never surrendered, it fled to the UK. It was Petain who rose up and accepted France's surrender, whereas the few French soldiers who escaped at Dunkirk continued to fight on. But the problem was that whereas the Russians could move eastwards, slow down the Germans and regroup and then have a chance to go on fighting, this was simply not true in France. France's entire strategy had been based on holding the Maginot line, and when the Germans crosses the Meuse and enveloped French positions to the east (as well as West, sweeping around Amiens), the French forces became utterly disorganized and simply had no chance of doing anything. At that point the war was simply over, regardless of the bravery of the French (who in many cases continued to fight on through the resistance), the scattered units could do nothing against the massed German formations. For the Germans it just became a matter of clearing pockets of resistance.

alking about hasty surrenders - in World War 1, Germany managed to surrender when not an inch of its territory was under enemy control - in fact it was Germany which was still holding vast tracks of enemy territory (especially in the east).

Again, the war had been over by that point, and Ludendorf knew it. The entire German campaign in the last years had been set up on the assumption that the Germans had to deliver the fatal blow before the arrival of the Americans. They almost did that in the Spring Offensive but were stopped, and the Germans realized that they simply did not have a chance in light of the new balance of power, especially in terms of industrial power. They themselves were running short on various raw materials and even food (the British blockade was highly effective). And in addition to this, they faced new technology such as tanks that achieved unprecedented breakthroughs that they could not effectively cope with. In other words, they knew it was just a matter of time, and there was nothing they could hope for to save them.

[Oxymoron]

Well the French government never surrendered, it fled to the UK. It was Petain who rose up and accepted France's surrender, whereas the few French soldiers who escaped at Dunkirk continued to fight on. But the problem was that whereas the Russians could move eastwards, slow down the Germans and regroup and then have a chance to go on fighting, this was simply not true in France. France's entire strategy had been based on holding the Maginot line, and when the Germans crosses the Meuse and enveloped French positions to the east (as well as West, sweeping around Amiens), the French forces became utterly disorganized and simply had no chance of doing anything. At that point the war was simply over, regardless of the bravery of the French (who in many cases continued to fight on through the resistance), the scattered units could do nothing against the massed German formations. For the Germans it just became a matter of clearing pockets of resistance.

Not only did the French surrender but they actively workd with the Nazis. The resistance was slow to develop and reall became efective late in the game, compare that to the Polish never cooperating and making the German occupation pay dearly for every inch of territory. The French are not fighters, better drink wine under the Germans then try any sort of real resistance.

[Potemkin]

Why don't you just come out and say it, Oxy? Four words: cheese eating surrender monkeys!

[pikachu]

Well the French government never surrendered, it fled to the UK.

No, peter, re-read your history. The government head Paul Reynaud resigned under pressure from the parliament and his own ministers to sign surrender. The parliament then appointed a new government headed by Petain (with approval of President Lebrun), made him sign the armistice, and gave him dictatorial powers. A few generals and politicians, among them De Gaulle, fled France during those months and settled in Britain, thereby committing high treason. The number of these "fighting frenchmen" increased as the war dragged on and the official French government in Vichy was becoming increasingly unpopular.
United States granted diplomatic recognition to the Vichy government all the way until it was driven out of France by 23 October 1944.

Point is: the legitimate French government signed surrender. It was not Reynaud who put his signature on the document, but that doesn't matter.

Ludendorf knew it.

And so did Petain in 1940. If I was the head of France back then, I'd probably sign surrender too. My point was that having "extra territory" doesn't really matter. Both USSR and France had plenty of extra territory to rely on, it was hardly the primary issue in their decisions to surrender of fight.

[peter_co]

My point was that having "extra territory" doesn't really matter. Both USSR and France had plenty of extra territory to rely on, it was hardly the primary issue in their decisions to surrender of fight.

You can't seriously compare the two situations. The Russians could withdraw to the east, entrench, and reorganize. Consequently, even though the Soviets took horrific losses in the first months of the war, the bulk of their forces was not destroyed and a new front line eventually developed to the east. On the other hand, the Germans had penetrated deep into French territory. Virtually France's entire army was surrounded, including all armored units (which were scattered among the forward forces). In other words, no matter what the French did, they simply could not go on fighting. Or to be more precise, isolated pockets could possibly have endured for a few more weeks at most, but France simply had no chance to defeat the Germans at that point and everyone knew it.

The reason I mentioned the fact that the Russians were basically saved by Russia's vastness, was because the Russian forces were actually greatly inferior to the French in terms of technology and organization, and the Germans had a much easier time in the early days in the USSR than they had in France. However, whereas in France the small area of the country allowed the Germans to sweep through the center of the country and basically scatter all opposition forces into disparate pockets, they could not do the same in Russia merely due to the sheer distances they had to cover.

In other words, while I obviously agree that the size of their respective countries was not explicitly taken into account by the Russians or the French in their decision on whether to surrender or not, my point is that indirectly the the disparity in size can explain why the Germans succeeded in defeating France within a few weeks, while being unable to do the same in Russia.

[Michaeluj]

Ah, those good old Russions, always blowing stuff up, especially if it's their own stuff. Remarkable.

[R_G]

Well, the Russians burned Moscow when Napoleon took over so....

This is far from new.

Russians are not like the French, they don't care about their architecture as much....at least I don't think so.

Win at all costs.

[Batko]

Russians are not like the French, they don't care about their architecture as much....at least I don't think so.

Don't take me wrong, Russian Guy, I have a great respect for the sacrifice of the Russians in WWII. For me there's no doubt they are the victors of the second world war, period.

Though, on my side I don't forget the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact and that in 1940, after the flight of the Brits in Dunkirk, the French were left alone to face the German blitzkrieg in the north and the Italian attack in the Alps.
Also, I don't forget what it cost to the Germans to invade France and that it was not the end of the war, anyway.
I'm not an anglo-american so I can remember Leclerc, Juin, De Lattre, Koenig – Bir-Hakeim, Tunisia, Elba, Italy, the landing in Provence (2/3 of French troops, 230,000 soldiers), the liberation of Corsica, the Riviera, the Vosges, the crossing of the Rhine under SS firing, the taking of Ulm, Stuttgart.
The First French Army was in Berlin in 1945, Russian Guy, and not because it received an invitation card.

On a side note, I'll recall you that, two decades earlier, France sacrificed 10% of her young men in order to defend her territory and to win WWI. A sacrifice that no other country on earth ever did, not a single one in all History.

Without giving you any lesson, Russian Guy, I think that, as a Russian, you shouldn't be too much influenced by the anglo-american biased vision of History and respect the French, as I, personally, respect the Russians.