In the summer of 1944, Soviet troops cleared most of our enemy-occupied territory from the Nazis and fought in the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe. In the areas liberated from German troops, a significant number of small groups remained, created from defeated enemy units and formations, which continued to provide armed resistance. They hid in the forests, attacked units of the Soviet Army and individual servicemen, raided settlements, robbed, killed and terrorized local residents.
The war was drawing to a close, but the enemy continued to offer fierce resistance, threw spies and terrorists into the front line, sent saboteurs to the main railways and highways with the task of disrupting military traffic, hindering the actions of Soviet troops.
Fearing retribution for the crimes committed, traitors who served in punitive organs and various nationalist gangs tried to flee to the West. Some of them, on the instructions of German intelligence, continued to operate in the territory liberated from the occupiers.
In such a situation, the protection of the rear of the advancing fronts acquired great importance. By the beginning of the operations of the Soviet Army for the liberation of European countries, the NKVD troops for the protection of the rear had a harmonious organizational structure, the necessary weapons, and accumulated considerable experience in fighting various kinds of gangs, spies and saboteurs. The command of the troops was carried out by the Main Directorate of the NKVD Forces for the Protection of the Rear Services of the Field Army through its own front directorates, which were subordinate to the regiments (usually one regiment for each army of the first echelon) and separate mobile groups.
In close cooperation with units of the active army, the NKVD troops for the protection of the rear (WOT) in the period under review successfully solved the following tasks: protecting front and army communications, ensuring order in the front line; fight against enemy agents, sabotage and reconnaissance and bandit detachments; protection of the local population from enemy gangs; carrying the checkpoint and barrage service. Often, VOTs were involved in active hostilities together with units and subdivisions of the Soviet Army.
During the period of the Jassy-Kishinev operation, the situation in the rear of the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts was rather complicated. The local pro-fascist authorities in the northern regions of Romania, liberated from the Germans by the Soviet Army, have left their posts. In settlements, the local criminal element created gangs that were engaged in robberies and pogroms, the activities of sabotage and terrorist groups left by the enemy intensified. The work of the organizations was significantly hampered, since the anti-Soviet forces in Romania at that time were still very strong. All this impeded the normal activities of our troops, forcing the Soviet command to take the necessary security measures.
The rear guard troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front included the 10th, 24th, 37th, 128th frontier regiments and the 107th separate mobile group. The VOT of the 3rd Ukrainian Front consisted of the 17th, 25th, 91st, 134th, 336th border regiments and the 109th separate maneuvering group. These units repeatedly had to engage in battles with scattered units of regular troops and sabotage and reconnaissance enemy groups. Some of them were extremely fierce, especially near the front line. So, in August-October 1944, 142 military clashes with enemy forces had to be part of the NKVD troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. During this period, only the 37th frontier regiment (commanded by Lieutenant Colonel V. P. Yaroslavsky), guarding the rear of the 52nd Army, destroyed more than 1,700 and captured 720 enemy soldiers and officers. This episode is interesting. Once a group of frontier guards of the regiment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Goncharov, given the unrest that had begun in the Romanian army, in the area with. Palanca went to the location of the Romanian artillery regiment and persuaded its commander to surrender. Within a matter of hours, the regiment was completely disarmed.
On August 31, the 2nd Battalion of the 10th Border Regiment (commanded by Lieutenant Colonel I. I. Kashkadamov), under the command of Captain Alekseev, defeated the remnants of German troops near the city of Vaslui, in particular the combined officer battalion of the enemy, which was trying to break through the front line. In a fierce battle, 230 German officers were killed and 112 captured.
The 24th frontier regiment, which guarded the rear of the 27th army, successfully completed the search and liquidation of a large sabotage and reconnaissance detachment of the enemy, consisting of officers and non-commissioned officers, which carried out attacks on hospitals and automobile convoys of the Soviet Army. As a result of the fighting, the regiment destroyed 155 and captured 145 enemy officers. In just three months, from August to October 1944, the regiment fought 87 battles, in which it destroyed and captured almost 1,100 German soldiers and officers. Regimental sappers cleared 13 enemy minefields, defusing more than 4,200 antipersonnel and anti-tank mines.
During the liberation of Bulgaria, parts of the VOT of the 3rd Ukrainian Front destroyed the remnants of the defeated enemy troops, its sabotage and reconnaissance detachments, carried the protection of crossings across the Danube, helped the People's Liberation Rebel Army to maintain order on the roads and in settlements. The 134th frontier regiment of the NKVD troops under the command of Major N. A. Egorov, guarding the rear of the 46th Army. At first, this unit participated, together with the formations of the Soviet Army, in the operation to liberate the city of Ruschuk, and then successfully eliminated individual enemy groups on the banks of the Danube, reliably protecting the approaches to the military crossings. For active participation in the operation of liberating the city of Ruschuk from the fascist troops, the 134th frontier regiment was named Ruschuksky on September 27, 1944.
The withdrawal of Romania and Bulgaria from the war on the German side created favorable circumstances for the liberation of Yugoslavia and Hungary. The 91st and 134th border regiments, which were responsible for protecting the rear of the 57th and 46th armies of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, distinguished themselves in the battles on Yugoslav soil. So, the 2nd battalion (commander Major Blokhin) of the 91st border regiment, following the combat formations of the first echelon of the 57th Army, entered the battle on the eastern outskirts of Belgrade on October 16. In three days of continuous fighting, the battalion, having broken the stubborn resistance of the enemy and repelling numerous counterattacks, managed to advance more than 2 kilometers and reach the area of the railway junction, a sugar factory and an automobile bridge over the Sava River. A particularly fierce battle broke out in the area of the bridge, where the German infantry, supported by six tanks, 15 self-propelled guns and two batteries of six-barreled mortars, made several counterattacks. In the early morning of October 20, a mobile group of the regiment and the 6th brigade of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia arrived in the battalion's combat zone. With a combined blow, they took possession of the railway junction and the bridge over the Sava River. In the battles for Belgrade, the 2nd battalion of the 91st border regiment destroyed about 450 enemy soldiers and officers.
Units of the NKVD conducted active hostilities to protect the rear during the liberation of Hungary. They often had to engage in armed struggle with German sabotage and reconnaissance detachments, as well as enemy units of regular troops. For three months in 1944, the VOT of the 2nd Ukrainian Front liquidated three large sabotage bands of the enemy on the territory of Hungary, the backbone of which were members of the fascist organization "Nilash Kerestesh" and officers of the SS troops.
At the end of December 1944, the 10th border regiment, with the assistance of Hungarian patriots, discovered and defeated a large sabotage and terrorist base of the enemy, capturing 204 rifles, 10 machine guns, 6 light machine guns, 23,000 rounds of various calibers, 80 anti-tank grenades, 120 kg of tol, 446,000 rubles.
For two days in December 1944, units of the 128th border regiment detained six enemy intelligence agents 20 km from the city of Budapest, deployed across the front line with the task of mining and blowing up bridges, setting fire to fuel and ammunition depots on the outskirts of the Hungarian capital. On December 22, a detachment from the 91st frontier regiment near Lake Balaton arrested three German intelligence agents from the SS Zuid-Ost fighter unit. In the area of the city of Miskolc on January 7, 1945, the 10th border regiment neutralized two groups of saboteurs-scouts.
The units for the protection of the rear often entered into active hostilities with the remnants of the enemy troops defeated by the Soviet Army. Particularly intensely fought the parts of the VOT rear of the 3rd Ukrainian Front during the liquidation of the encircled German group in the city of Budapest and during the repulsion of the German counteroffensive at Lake Balaton. In these battles, the 134th, 336th (commanded by Lieutenant Colonel S. A. Martynov) frontier regiments, and the 109th separate mobile group, commanded by Captain V. G. Gankovsky. This maneuvering group of the NKVD destroyed more than 950 enemy soldiers and officers, and also captured more than 4,000 people, disabled 29 enemy firing points, a mortar battery, 10 vehicles with ammunition and two observation posts.
The 1st Battalion of the 134th Border Regiment (commander Captain Zhukov) also distinguished itself in the battles for the Hungarian capital. On February 12, the battalion liquidated a large enemy group in Buda, which was trying to break out of the encirclement. A significant part of it was taken prisoner. Among the prisoners was the commander of the Budapest garrison, Colonel-General P. Wildenbruch.
The 336th frontier regiment also took an active part in eliminating individual enemy groups in Budapest. Only the 1st battalion of the regiment in three days of hostilities (February 11-13) destroyed more than 970 and captured about 1400 enemy soldiers and officers, and in total in Budapest the regiment destroyed 1911, captured 4143 people.
In the battles on the territory of Austria, the 91st border regiment proved to be excellent. Some of his outposts, using the mountainous terrain, carried out deep raids into the enemy's rear. The 9th outpost was the most successful. During a 12-day raid, she defeated the German garrison in the city of Mencheld, captured a ridge of heights in the Fischbach area and successfully defended them for 5 days before the approach of the Soviet Army formations, after which, together with the rifle regiment of the 68th Guards Division, held the mountain pass until they approached the main forces of the 4th Guards Army. During the battles for Vecha, the 336th frontier regiment eliminated 14 sabotage and reconnaissance detachments and groups and captured more than 700 enemy personnel.
In extremely difficult conditions, the active army had to act here during the liberation of Poland. As part of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian, 1st Ukrainian, there were 13 border regiments and three separate maneuver groups. Such a strong grouping of units to protect the rear was due to the complexity of the military-political situation in Poland, as well as the importance of the Berlin strategic direction, on which the enemy concentrated the bulk of his troops and various types of operational and reconnaissance formations. Do not forget that during the difficult years of the fascist occupation, the anti-Soviet part of the Polish elite did not stop its policy against our country. In England, a Polish émigré government was formed, whose activities were aimed not only at organizing the struggle against the Germans, but also at preventing pro-Soviet sentiments. This became especially noticeable since 1944, when a supreme representative body, the Craiova Rada Narodova, was created deep underground at the suggestion of the Polish Workers' Party, which united all anti-fascist forces. Under the conditions of the German occupation of Craiova, the Rada Narodova created an armed force that received the name - Army of Ludov.
The increased activity of Polish anti-fascists caused discontent in England, as part of the forces was out of British control. The émigré government began a struggle against the increasingly popular Polish Workers' Party. This policy slowed down the armed struggle of the Home Army, over which the British managed to establish control by influencing the command staff. When the Soviet Army, together with the 1st Army of the Polish Army and the rest of the patriotic forces of Poland, expelled the Nazis from the Polish land, part of the Home Army participants voluntarily entered the Polish Army, the rest were asked to lay down their arms. But a fairly large group of officers refused to obey, and began to create armed gangs in the rear of our troops, carry out acts of sabotage, disrupt communications, blow up enterprises, bridges, shoot at Polish soldiers and commanders of the Soviet Army, terrorize the population. In addition, for more than five years of occupation, the enemy created an extensive network of agents on Polish territory and continued to throw spies and saboteurs.
Given the difficult situation in the Polish liberated territory, to ensure the fight against sabotage and reconnaissance groups and bandit formations, a consolidated division was formed to protect the rear of Soviet units in Poland, consisting of 5 regiments.
The situation demanded constant vigilance and full tension from the personnel of the WTO in order to carry out complex and multifaceted tasks. So, during the period of the Belorussian operation in July - August 1944, units of the VOT of the 2nd Belorussian Front (13, 172, 332nd border regiments and 103rd separate mobile group) fought 43 battles. During the Vistula-Oder operation, the VOT of the 1st Belorussian Front liquidated 102 sabotage groups and defeated 14 enemy groupings up to a battalion in size.
The NKVD troops effectively carried out their tasks to protect the rear in the Berlin operation, during the period of the completion of the defeat and surrender of Nazi Germany. From mid-April to May 2, 1945, 118 terrorist groups were liquidated, 18 small garrisons were defeated, more than 12,400 fascists were destroyed and captured by the units of the 1st Belorussian Front. And the 105th frontier regiment, together with the units of the 150th rifle division, stormed the Reichstag in a general manner.
The personnel of the VOT of the active army detained on the territory of Germany a significant number of agents of enemy intelligence, among them many experienced ones who had a solid experience of espionage. Thus, the rear guard troops reliably ensured proper order in the frontline zone, in necessary cases helped the local authorities to clear the territory of bandit detachments, and contributed to the early defeat of the enemy.
