Around the NKVD troops a “black myth” arose, portraying them as some kind of ghouls who only knew how to shoot the Red Army in the back and stay as far from the front line as possible. The reality is much more varied.
In the trenches - from June 22
For example, the fact of the defense of the Brest Fortress by the forces of the NKVD is practically unknown. The inscription, known from Soviet school textbooks: “I am dying, but I am not giving up. Goodbye, Motherland! left in the barracks of the 132nd separate battalion of the NKVD troops.
The NKVD troops defended themselves heavily in the summer and autumn of 1941. By that time, they consisted of thirteen divisions and fifteen brigades with a total number of 65, 8 thousand bayonets. The NKVD is in charge of 1805 key railway infrastructure facilities in the western part of the USSR. The NKVD troops are armed with small arms, artillery, tanks, aviation, and armored trains.
The NKVD fighters defended Minsk and Riga, fought rearguard battles during the withdrawal of the 37th Army of the Red Army from Kiev.
On September 10, 1941, the 233rd regiment of the 13th convoy division of the NKVD gave a rebuff to Guderian's armored wedges, which sought to unite with Kleist's grouping. The Chekists held back Nazi tanks for three days not far from the town of Romny and on the southern bank of the Sula River, thereby preventing them from encircling a significant number of units of the Southwestern Front. Approaches to Leningrad were defended by five divisions of the NKVD.
The exploits of the NKVD fighters in the battles for Stalingrad deserve a separate mention. So, the 10th Infantry Division of the NKVD troops defended the city from the Nazis who were trying to occupy it until the approach of the 62nd Army of the Red Army, actually holding the city on the Volga, albeit at the cost of terrible losses: more than seven thousand soldiers of the seven and a half who took the first battle were killed 23 August 1942. The only military unit that took part in the Battle of Stalingrad that received the Order of Lenin was the 10th Infantry Division of the NKVD. Its most famous unit is the 272nd regiment, which later bore the honorary name "Volzhsky". Volgogradskaya street is named after the machine gunner of the 272nd regiment, Aleksey Vashchenko. He accomplished the feat on September 5, 1942, when he closed the embrasure of a German bunker with his body.
In August 1942, three NKVD rifle divisions were formed specifically for the defense of the center of the North Caucasus. The divisions are dominated by mountain peoples, but the composition is quite international … The divisions became the backbone of special defensive areas. The armored trains of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs have become a key factor in protecting the strategically important Rostov-Grozny-Makhachkala railway line.
The NKVD troops could leave the positions only on the personal order of Beria.
The NKVD troops showed themselves excellent in the battles for both capitals, Oryol, Smolensk, on the Kursk Bulge. They also took part in the war with Imperial Japan, from containing the aggressor at the border to the victory over the Kwantung Army.
The NKVD units were equipped according to general army standards, often the field uniform, especially privates and sergeants, did not differ from the army uniform. Is that the abbreviation NKVD was added to the name of the armored trains, but this did not in any way affect the design features or weapons. The food standards were like everyone else on the front line. The issues of subordination and position in the command chain were decided depending on the specific situation.
Completed specific tasks perfectly
Hearing the "rear guard", one can imagine peacefully smoking, or even dozing in the sun, soldiers. But this was not a sinecure. The NKVD troops identified and eliminated saboteurs, scouts and parachutists; trapped in the rear of the advancing Red Army soldiers and equipment of the Wehrmacht.
A special topic is the suppression of the nationalist underground in Ukraine and the Baltic states. Nowadays the “forest brothers” are usually portrayed as patriots who fought against the Bolsheviks. But they killed and robbed not only the party-Soviet elite, but quite civilians, terrorized the townspeople and villagers. And the nationalists were not tough men with Berdanks, they received from Nazi Germany plenty of weapons, including automatic ones, and cartridges. There is information about the use of "forest brothers" of tanks and artillery. So the strength of the troops of the NKVD was opposed by a formidable one. The last centers of resistance were overcome only by the mid-fifties.
The victorious march of the Red Army led to hundreds of thousands of Nazi prisoners who had to be taken to the places of concentration and detention, and then to be guarded. This was done by the NKVD convoy troops. The movement of the prisoners went on foot, which added complexity to the guard. A real special operation was the passage of a column of captured Germans through the streets of Moscow in 1944. The risks were enormous, but the convoy coped with the task, as did those who planned and carried out the operation. Organizational efforts went unnoticed by Muscovites and those who later watched the newsreel footage, but this is for the better.
NKVD troops structurally
By the beginning of the Nazi invasion, the Main Directorate of Border and Internal Troops (GUPVV) was reorganized with the formation of main directorates in the areas of combat activities - from border protection to the protection of railway infrastructure, critical industrial facilities, escort service, military construction, and supply.
There was a reorganization of the structure during the Great Patriotic War, for emerging tasks and in application to the changing situation.
In particular, the Red Army is included in Eastern and Western Europe, and the State Defense Committee on July 29, 1944 orders the creation of military commandant's offices in each administrative center and at railway stations. The commandant's offices are engaged not only in order in the troops, but also in administrative tasks, in particular, in ensuring the life of the civilian population of the liberated lands. The military commandant's offices obeyed the orders of the military councils of the fronts.
As part of the columns marching at the Victory Parade, there were also NKVD fighters.
