CHAPTER VI

Moscow’s Long Arm

The opportunities

With the departure of the Soviet authorities from Odessa and the collapse of military resistance. “Soviet power” vanished from Transnistria. Most stalwart Communists had been evacuated with their agencies, plants, or army units. Institution and symbol of allegiance disappeared; only intangibles remained: memories, hopes, and fears. These, intermingled with new impressions and attitudes, soon gave birth to distortions of memory, upsurges of hope, fits of terror, all fertilized by an abundance of rumors. Some rumors, some reactions were implanted or spread by Soviet agents; but many more were communicated by those who were themselves utterly unaware of doing so. Much of the reversal of opinions and attitudes from the fall 0f 1941 to the spring of 1944 was spontaneous; it came about a natural consequence of personal experiences and the impact of military and political events. But Moscow, in an effort to speed and intensify these processes, sought to play the part of history’s midwife, ready, if need be, to perform drastic surgery to assure the victory of the cause.
For this the Soviet authorities needed active, reliable adherents in Transnistria. Because of the evacuation of many faithful followers, the studied passivity and submergence of others, and the genuine defection of still others, the establishment of trustworthy cadres even for partisan warfare, agent’s work, and intelligence operations in Transnstria was difficult.1* Partisans and agents were of three categories:(1) stay-behind who had been designated in advance of the Soviet retreat; (2) military stragglers and civilians selected by the stay-behinds to augment their own contingent; and (3) men and women sent into Transnistria from the outside.

Unfortunately the evidence on this whole complex problems is highly inadequate. Romanian seconds are not available, and Soviet accounts are notoriously untrustworthy on this subject. Few Soviet memoirs or semi historical works on Transnistrua and the partisan movement there have appeared, perhaps because there was very little (in terms of numbers involved and accomplishment) to write about.

Here and there small partisan groups operations were in progress, primarily purposes and at the behest of the Red Army. On September 28,1941, while the siege of Odessa was in progress, the Romanians uncovered a five-man team in Alexandrovka and captured its head, Grigori Kutsov. The group, trained by lieutenant and politruk (Army “political assistant” ) in Ovidiopol’, had been sent into the Gross-Liebental erea to determine artillery installations and report their location to Red Army units on the east bank of the Suchoi Liman, to make attacks on enemy troops, particularly on German soldiers, to cut telephone wires, and the like-primarily reconnaissance and intelligence tasks, which were to be performed in civilian clothes. All five men probably either belonged to the militia in Ovidiopol’ or had been recruited into the local destruction detachment.2* The German report on Kutsov’s capture states that “it is noteworthy that the population gave no support whatever to the partisan group.”3*

Other had tasks of a more permanent or political character. It is hard to say what was behind such instances as the reported arrest, two days after the Romanians arrived, of a 68-year-old woman was caught just as she ostensibly about to blow up the Odessa public market hall.4* From the first, the Romanians were warned by anti-Soviet elements that the Red Army or NKVD had , before leaving, mined a number of key buildings. Reportedly the opera was mined, but an employee familiar with the wiring had led dedonation specialists to where they could disconnect the mines before they went off-the story recurs several times but without conclusive confirmation.

Both to the residents of Odessa as to the occupying authorities, the first-and, as it turned out, the last-major shock and panic-engendering experience was the explosion of the NKVD. The story is best related by the official report submitted confidentially by the German intelligence branch office in Romania, which dispatched an officer to investigate the occurrence:

Until October 22 (1941) the entire military life of (Romanian-held) Odessa took place on Engels street. The Romanian kommandatura was established there in the building of the NKVD administration. Under the Bolsheviks the neighboring houses were inhabited exclusively by privileged individuals. From the first moment of the city’s occupation, the Romanian intelligence service had informed the command that captured materials warranted warnings that the buildings on Engels Street had been mined. On Tuesday, October 21, the building of the Romania kommandatura was momentarily evacuated on the basis of alarming rumor. About 3”30 p.m. on October 22, two Communists reportedly again appeared with warnings that the building would be blown up within he next half hour. No enough attention was paid to this report. At 5:50 the building actually blew up... Up to the time of my departure 46 corps had been found, including 21 officers; a further number is expected...
There is no doubt that the explosion was set off long-distance by electrical(?) means. In the morning of October 23, a complete telephone installation was found under the bed of a Jew in the immediate vicinity of the blown-up building; the telephone apparently led to NKVD men hiding in the catacombs; its owner stated that the direction of partisans activities came from the catacombs.6*

The explosion was apparently believed due not to booby-traps but to delayed-action “bombs”(i.e., mines)7* That such devices were left behind was confirmed by a later Abwehr report on the discovery, in the port of Odessa, of an explosive charge in a cellar:

Two wires stuck out of the cemented cellar floor, leading to the electric wiring system, which however was not connected. Upon removal of a cement layer about 5 cm. thick, 20 to 25 kg. of toluol (TNT) was found connected with the electric priming device as well as ignition system responding to pressure. The latter would have been set off upon application of 60 to 70 kg. of weight on top of the cement layer, i.e., if accidentally a man had stood on top of it.8*

It appear more likely, however, that the NKVD building explosion was set off by Soviet agents left behind in the city. Such is also the version circulated by Moscow, though in much-embroidered and rather impossible form. Kataev, in his hotel of wartime Odessa, has his hero Druzhinin (patterned after Badaev, a partisan leader described below) set off the explosion from a concealed position miles away, in the Shevchenko Park. Subsequent Soviet accounts contributed the explosion to “partisans” Other official publications add the further fiction that the blast took place during a banquet at which the Germans were turning over the administration of Transnistria to the Romanians; according to this version, six generals, the police prefect, and 57 soldiers were killed.9* Actually, in the number of casualties this was fairly close. Romanian records show that those killed included General Gl. Glogoianu, the original city commandant, 16 officers, 35 soldiers, ad 9 civilian officials. Four German naval officers and two interpreters were among the victims. The building was completely wrecked, and glass was shattered within several blocks of the buiding.10*

It goes without saying that the explosion was the major topic of conversation in Odessa. If it was meant to be a reminder of the continued presence of Soviet eyes and ears, it was indeed successful. This and subsequent acts of sabotage11* caused enough nervousness so that Romanian officers stayed away from the opening performance of the Odessa opera two months later. The same jittering spread to civilians, however, if the blast was meant to rally the people of Odessa to the Soviet cause, it backfired miserably: residents looked on the explosion as pointless and disrupting the modicum of order that was being established; and it provoked a most cruel and indiscriminate retaliation, the mass murder by Romanians of innocent civilians. It was this incident that led to the first wave of public hanging at the first mass extermination of Jews; its consequence was a total of over 20,000 victims! And for the future,200 hostages were to be shot for every officer killed, and 100 for every soldier. Such a result, deliberately provoked, make no sense if the Soviets hoped to enlist the help og civilians or looked forward to an early return (the whole scorched-earth policy suggested that they did not).It made sense only if they sought to promote and intensify an ”inevitable” conflict between the people and their “temporary occupiers.”12*

The Odessa Catacombs

Even as far as the Turkish days, Odessa was build over an intricate network of passageways and underground mines tunneled into the spongy rock that served as building material for the city. At one time pirates, later contraband smugglers, had found shelter at these low corridors. Individual foes of the Soviet regime, as well as persons sought as criminals, were said to have taken refuge there in the thirties. Estimated to be over 299 kilometers in length (though much of not high enough to walk through), the catacombs were known to have over 160 exits-some of them leading into cellars of old patrician houses in the city, others into water well, still others into suburban fields and cemeteries. No precise map of the system existed and few dared to go into the catacombs without a trustworthy guide.

It was natural to leave here, in the very heart of enemy’s area, an active underground with supplies, arms, food, and radio communication with Soviet headquarters-close enough to strike out and gather intelligence, yet relatively secure. This plan was particularly appealing as the terrain of most of Transnistria was in no sense suspicious to partisan warfare, being neither swampy not woody (except in the north and northwest). This the Odessa catacombs became the headquarters of the local partisans or more correctly, stay-behind agents; different groups hid there, sometimes unknown to each other; agents who had to disappear from the ‘surface” found refuge there; and at least sporadic contact was maintained between the catacombs and higher headquarters on the Soviet side of the front.

The explosion and tragedies of the catacomb dwellers are the stuff of which drama is made, and it is not surprising that the only realistic account should have been written by a prominent Soviet author; Valentin Kataev, in the form of a novel, on the basis of research on the spot after the war. Although it adhered to the official ethic, Kataev novel proved to be “realistic” that it attracted the ire of the party authorities and was rewritten to order. The first, unrevised edition provides the best available information on the catacombs -in spite of a good deal of “dramatic effect” exaggeration, and the excessive steadfastness and loyalty of his protagonists. His account, due exceptions made, tallies generally with stories from refugees and with what little there is in German and Romanian wartime sources.13*

The story of the catacomb underground14* starts shortly before the evacuation of the city. The party oblast committee selected a few men, probably those active in the destruction battalions, to represent the obkom on the spot and to direct small underground groups, one for each rayon of the city and its environs. It is likely that the local NKVD participated in the decision-making, and almost certainly each team included at least one representative or agent of the State Security system.15* The nucleus often included one or two women, who functioned as cook, nurse, supply-keeper, and sometimes radio operator, Most of the people in underground groups were members of the party or, if youngsters, brought along as a messengers or for other tasks, of the Komsomol or Pioneers. Though apparently against great odds, in view of the secrecy of their task and the last minute chaos, each group leader was enabled to secure considerable stores of equipments, arms food, and variety of items ranging from candles and batteries, radio tubes and matches, to typewriter ribbons and darning needles. No one, however, expected the underground denizens to stay in the catacombs for more than s few weeks or months; at least, plans did not call for a longer stay.

The human problems of adjustment to underground life are little relevance to the present study. The composition of the groups is of some interest. The model of Kataen’s hero, the group leader of suburban rayon, was A.F. Lazarev, the first secretary; one of the aides was reportedly second secretary of another raikom, ordered by the obkom to stay; a third was old Bolshevik and Party instructor; a fourth, deputy chairman of the rayon soviet. Tne obkom appears as the organizing unit but as having evacuated-an impression which more recent Soviet accounts seek to “correct“ by implying the obkom went underground too.

At first catacomb dwellers were rather idle: they listened to Moscow radio; they reported by wireless to the obkom (at the time located, it would seem, in Sevastopol’) every five days about political events, intelligence gathered, and general morale in Odessa; they sporadically were in contact with operatives “above ground,” who acted as part-time agents or informants of the underground. As time went on, it became clear that not all was well with the underground. Not only were there inevitable shortages-some of them critical; not only the sojourn dragged out far longer that anticipated, but the occupation authorities were making determined attempts to track them down. Many Romanians attempts were unsuccessful, but occasionally they could make a real “catch”. Most interesting in this connection is the report of the German commandant, who was invited to attend a briefing of the Romanian police prefecture at the end of January 1, 1942. After the arrest of members of the underground, the picture pieced together by the police was this:

A senior Russian officer, Kuznetsov (perhaps Lazarev’s cover name), who remained in Odessa and did in the catacombs after the departure of the Red Army, was charged with (the direction of) the terrorist movement in Odessa and environs. K. leads two groups: one, which works above ground in the city with primary task of finding out location, strength, leaders, billets, equipment, etc. of allied (i.e. Axis) units. The other is located underground... Of the surface group 18 men have already been arrested by the Romanian security service, including two women who were in close touch with Kuznetsov.

The underground group had radio contact with Moscow and Sevastopol’ or an unknown point at the frontline of the south front. The underground is estimated at from 30 to 40 men and may possess supplies for up to year, including uniforms of the Soviet, German, and Romanian armies....

The” surface” group was arrested in the night of December 3-4 (1941).

The document proceeds to detail the communication channels between the two groups: the women operatives in the city customarily transmitted and picked up messages trough a narrow tube connecting the underground passages with the outside world; messages were written on narrow strips of paper and inserted into cigarette paper tubes. This particular group was restricted to one section of the catacomb labyrinth, as apparently the Romanians had walled off several sections; in each section, however, units continued to operate. Once the Romanians sought to enter the catacombs, but were met with machine-pistol (i.e., sub-machine gun) fire and suffered several casualties.

The particular value to the Romanians of the catch described above-besides the elimination of some 18 agents-was the seizure of correspondence between Kuznetsov and his “surface men” and also the fact that one of the girl agents, after she had been caught by the Romanian police, continued to dispatch fake messages to Kuznetsov. In his direction Kuznetsov ordered the formation of ten-men teams to carry out terrorist attacks, explosions, and assassinations of German and Romanian officers; other instructions called for distributions of leaflets and other propaganda. Actually, one exchange of letter took place between Kuznetsov and his girl agent in the physical presence of Romanian and German intelligence personnel - on February 5, 1942, when the underground still was not aware of the fraud being perpetrated on them. Here is the text of the 20th and 21st letters sent to the girl Eugenia by Kuznetsov (re-translated from German translation, which has some obvious and sometimes identifiable errors):

(1) Good day, Petr (Eugenia’s cover-name)! Am worried about you and have waited impatiently for five days. What goes on in the city? This is not the first time that there is terror and horror; one should no longer be amazed at it, as these outbursts are quite natural and proper for the fascist beasts and their followers. In don’t understand why they rave and rant like this. Our troops are
applying considerable pressure, especially on the south front under the leadership of Comrade Timoshenko. Accordingly the Germans are retreating. On January 29, for instance, we recaptured Lozovaia station and encircled Kharkov; we are now 25 km. from Kharkov and move in direction of Dnepropetrovsk. See why these musicians (i.e., Romanians) got wild and why they smell funeral incense?

I recommended tat all contagious people (literally Lepers, i.e., probably agents exposed by the Romanians) be identified so that they can be gotten rid to the earlier later on. This does not mean that they should be spared now: they should be promptly killed as long as this is still possible -provided you don’t get caught yourselves. I recommend show all three channel openings (exits?) to all men to prevent any possible confusion. The German have been seizing all men from 15 to 44 years for defense work. The perish from excessive work, cold, and hunger. Here this could also happen. In such situation you should not get caught with your mouths wide open, but should immediately come and join me, if possible as a group.... (February 5,1942)

(2) I am very much depressed about the case of Alexander and worried about K. I have already given the necessary instructions. All those who are under suspicion (of being agents, in the eyes of the Romanian authorities) should immediately come down to me, at the risk of having to kill the guards, should they disturb us. I recommended that Fedor Mo. come down to me, too, since he is being kept (under surveillance).

Kuznetsov himself, however, and his staff were not caught. Apparently he either pretended to believe in , for morale purposes, or read into messages he received the prospect of early Soviet landing near Odessa. The agents arrested in January-February, 1942, claimed to have considered it imminent, and felt that the partisans would constitute an organized force in the enemy’s rear, and would co-ordinate their activities with the airborne landing units. Even the Germans gave some credence to the reports17* though one must consider the existence of such a plan exceedingly unlikely. Only the timing makes sense: this was the moment when the Soviet winter counter-offensive was at its peak, the Red Army had landed bear Feodosia and was in the proceed of cleaning the Crimea. It is likely, however, that some agents had been given this story by Kuznetsov to make them more loyal, and to make the Romanians, if they apprehended the agents, panic more readily.

Actually, of course, no landing took place; after a few months, the Germans and Romanians occupied all Crimea, and in May the last besieged Black Sea port Sevastopol’, fell to the Axis. The Germans apparently captured at Sevastopol’ personnel or records that permitted them to expose further agents in the Odessa area. Just what occurred is not known, but Kataev admitted in his first edition (significantly, the statement was omitted from the revised edition);

The farther the German army advanced to the east, the more difficult it became (for the Odessa partisans) to operate... The enemy’s intelligence began a systematic, relentless struggle with the Soviet partisans. The fall of Savastopol’ inflicted a terrible blow Druzhinin’s organization. In the course of several days three combat groups of fives (five men each) “fell through” and 14 agents were arrested.18*

Yet the remaining men continued underground, some dying in the catacombs from malnutrition, malaria, or other diseases. Because of the relative failure and inactivity of their own organization, it is alleged, the underground leadership, at some in the first half of 1942, made contact with the local underground to establish a form of co-operation and “mutual aid.” from mid-1942 on ,too, tye partisans in the catacombs apparently had sufficient contact with the Golovanevsk forest partisans in the north (in the triangle formed by the Bug and Siniukhina Rivers) to send a few men art a time on “vacation” there, partly to restore their health, partly to give them a breather from the underground existence. Allegedly the German captured a few such vacationers, and this helped them-though nowise crucially -the fight the catacomb dwellers. Curiously, the entire vacation system is not mentioned by Kataev or any other Soviet source, presumably as undignified and detracting from the martyrdom of the underground.19*

Now and then the Romanian would choose a catacomb exit, almost at random, and wall it off; they would, in co-operation with a German technician, use gas-primarily rear gas but a t the end also poison gases-but did not venture down. The work of the “partisans” seems to have shifted more and more to the northwestern suburbs of the city-Krivaia Balka, Usatovo, and Kuialnik-where peasant women lent them some support. Though not very active, and none too successful in demolition and assassination attempts, the group survived.

After April,1942, the underground began to concentrate on leaflet appeals (many of them handwritten) to special categories of targets, e. g., railroad workers, longshoremen, and the like. Contemporary Abwehr information also indicates than an officer sent in from the Central Staff of the Partisan Movement in the Ukraine (the regional sub-command of the over-all partisan “brain”, operating under Khrushchev’s nominal supervision) directed a concentration of efforts (about mid-1942, perhaps a few months later) on the disruption of German transportation and communication as well as a stepping up of propaganda work. Both these lines are believable since they coincide with directives issued at about the same time to partisan forces operating in Belorussia and RSFSR, presumably in accordance with decisions adopted in Moscow.

Efforts to disrupt the railroad lines around Odessa failed; sabotage in the port area consisted in nasty but not fatal jobs such as switching freight cars on wrong sidings, affixing wrong labels to boxes, piercing truck tires, and adding sugar to gasoline. Indeed, the activity of the partisans was so limited that it has been suggested that perhaps there was a Soviet decision to have the Odessa underground lie low in the period between late 1942 and late 1943, so as to avoid annihilation and attracting Axis interest, while continuing clandestine information-gathering and propaganda work. This hypothesis cannot be fully dismissed, though all proof is lacking. In April,1944 the Odessa partisans admitted that “nothing much was done about organized resistance in Odessa until after the tremendous German debacle at Stalingrd.”20* Even then failure market the movement. As an exceptional Soviet account admitted after the war.

Severe blows were inflicted on the Odessa underground. In March 1943, a failure occurred in the work of the underground obkom. A substantial part of oblast and rayon underground leaders and members were arrested.21*

Still, in July,1943, the German consul in Odessa had evidence to confirm that (according to Romanian intelligence) “Major Kutuzov” (sic; Kuznetsov) with some eighty to one hundred men was still in the catacombs. Indeed, they held out to the very end .22*

The Transnistrian Partisans

Transnistria was poor partisan territory: poor geographically, poor in popular support, and poor in partisan organization, supply, and liaison. Even compared with the modest activity of adjacent areas, Transnistria had few and small partisan teams. Mostly these were small groups, formed at the initiative of one or several stalwarts; they operated for only a short time (or remained inactive) in a narrowly circumscribed locale; they often had no contact with other guerrillas or higher headquarters, and were often soon destroyed or apprehended. Although sometimes made up of genuine heroes, the groups were generally quite ineffective. These were martyrs rather than fighters, and there were not many of them. But in a much real sense than the Odessa underground they were partisans: guerrillas rather than agents.

A few such groups existed in the more distant suburbs of Odessa. One was a contingent of sailors who had somehow remained behind; and another consisted of workers from the local electric power station and one of the minor plants. Here and there individual stragglers from the Red Army, after hiding for a while, found their way to these units, though the overwhelming majority of former soldiers preferred to settle legitimately once the initial fury and terror had passed. These partisan units were generally small; some had a radio receiver and typewriter; one or two may have a printing press. Occasionally they might engage in some small-scale “diversionary act,” but they concentrated on word-of- mouth propaganda among the population and periodic dissemination of leaflets and typed bulletins. These groups were active enough to warrant mention by the Romanian press; a series of articles began appearing in Luly,1942, on the work of “Communist terror bands in Transnistria,” claiming that over fifty men had recently been liquidated .23*

Actually, farther north, throughout most of expanse of the province, there was scarcely any partisan warfare. At first (German and Romanian report concur on this) the area was even more quit than the vicinity of Odessa. There was some small-scale activity in the Dubosary area, apparently caused by group of partisans consisting of Soviet railroad workers. The only other significant group, in the Savransk-Golovanevsk area, operated under the name of “Burevestnik” (Storny Petrel); it was apparently left behind by the Pervomaisk party organization, which had withdrawn into the Savransk forests. When it proved to be a total failure, the ex-secretary of the Pervomaisk gorkom, Nikolai Kostiuk, was sent back in from the Soviet side, in the fall of 1942, to try and unite the scattered remnants of partisan and opposition groups in the whole area west of the Bug around Pervomaisk; he became commissar of the “Burevestnik” unit, whose membership never exceeded sixty, until the winter of 1943-1944 when Soviet reinforcements were flown in.24*

The only other group in the north-in absence of more successful or sizeable units, it has become the object of official Soviet hagiography-was “Partisanskaia Iskra” (Partisan Spark). A 36-year -old Ukrainian village school director, Vladimir Morhunenko, organized this group in Krimy, west of Pervomaisk. He had been left behind for this purpose by the party, which he had recently joined. It consisted of some twenty school boys and girls, and had some of the trappings of conspiratorial game(members signed the oath of allegiance in their own blood, and subjected new members to all sorts of queer “tests”). Its work was brief and primitive: posting handwritten leaflets in the village, listening to broadcasts from Moscow on a stolen radio, sinking a few rowboats in the Kodyma River, and dumping gasoline out of metal containers at a near-by MTS. Mothunenko succeeded in establishing, or maintaining, conract with the Pervomaisk group, but what could he do ? The Soviet version claims that one of the boys, a good and active student, who now proved “over-eager” to attack Germans and Romanians, was a “traitor” (and was promptly shot by the partisans) Wheen the partisans decided to try a large-scale operation-the laying mines on the railroad leading to Pervomaisk (this was at the time of Stalingrad, and the assignment was apparently to prevent supplies and reinforcements from moving east)- they were encountered by well-prepared Romanian force and captured. Among the ninety-odd persons arrested were virtually all members of “Partizanskaia Iskra.” Over thirty of them (including Morhunenko), the Soviet version claims, were shot by the Romanians in February,1943, after a “futile” inquiry.25*

In comparison with the major partisan concentrations elsewhere in Russia, all these groups were trifling. This was true even of the one group whose leader had been made Hero of the Soviet Union. This was the unit operating both in and out of Odessa under Captain Vladimir Alxandrovich Molodtsov (known under the cover name Pavel Vladimirovich Badaev). They had men in catacombs as well as in hideouts in the suburbs. Better organized and more enterprising than others, this group dared more-and was more easily infiltrated. In early February, 1942, Badaev spent a night in the apartment of one of his team members, Boiko-Fedorovich, who, it turned out, and has been recruited by Romanian counter-intelligence. Within two days, all sixteen “urban” members of the group had been arrested. The Soviets later claimed-after the award of high decorations to Badaev and one of his young helpers-that twelve of the group (the other four were not tried-conceivably because they worked with the Romanians) stubbornly refused to divulge any information, even under torture. On July 3,1942, the Odessa dailies announced that they had been court-martialed, sentenced to death, and executed.

Kataev, who mentioned Badaev in a postscript of acknowledgements, patterned his hero, Druzhinin, after him. Hence a few further details may be added to his portrait. According to Kataev , he had been a lieutenant, later captain, of State Security, originally assigned to the border troops west Odessa. Subsequent Soviet efforts to attribute to his group various railroad explosions and other demolitions in the city may or may not be correct, for Kataev recognized tat it was a matter of policy to ascribe to Badaev varied and widely scattered acts of sabotage and subversion, so as to raise his prestige, confuse the Romanians, and instill terror.

All evidence about one more partisan group from postwar Soviet accounts. A small unit was formed by S.I.Drozdov, a Communist engineer, in Il’ichvski rayon; it did almost nothing until April,1943,when an escaped Communist prisoner of war, Ovcharenko, took charge of its political work (whether or not he had been sent in from another partisan group or from the Soviet side cannot be determined). He fused the group with other ephemeral units. By the end of the year-so postwar accounts claim-the formation, now the Stalin Brigade, had some 299 members and published a newspaper, Za schast’e rodiny (For the Happiness of the Homeland), on its underground printing press. Supplies and personnel were evidently sent in to it from the Soviet side, and it owed its growth and survival in large measure to aid from the 3td and 4th Ukrainian Fronts.27*

Unfortunately, this is all that can been established.28* Even complete information from both the Soviet and the Romanian sides, though it might add interesting details, probably would not materially alter the general picture of very modest partisan movement in Transnistria.

The Partisans and the People

Still, the city population was aware of the partisans’ existence. This is itself was an accomplishment, for unconsciously many citizens after the tide of battle turned, seemed to adapt their behavior to the expected standards of the Soviet authorities; perhaps some refrained from collaborating simply out of fear of the ever present eye of the partisans. One might add, as a sample, what a fairly knowledgeable refugee knew about partisan and agent work in wartime Odessa-not because he was unique but because he may be assumed to have been typical. He knew, of course, of the explosions in the center of town. He had heard of the catacombs and of Romanian attempts to catch partisans there; for a while, like others in Odessa, he actually believed that the partisans had been exterminated-so quiet were they or so demoralized. But new small raids on city supplies or army stocks convinced him and others of the partisans’ survival. Rumors had it that emissary “from Moscow” had even managed to arrive and join the small underground group-this detail, incidentally, is missing in Kataev’s first edition but is included in the revised version, apparently to inflate the role played by the Soviet high command in the direction of the partisans’ work. The Romanians seem to have announced the capture of the group, including the representative from Moscow-but it was apparently a false report.

The same refugee had one personal encounter with a person he claims was an agent of the NKVD. He later found out that this man, A.M. Ion, had been a seksot (secret informant) of the Odessa section of the NKVD before the war and had purposely “surrendered” to the Romanian army several weeks before the fall of the city, and had given it intelligence, which proved to be correct. When the Romanian army entered Odessa he managed to get a trusted position, and arranged, for instance, for the billeting of a Romanian general; later he worked closely as an informant or investigator for the Siguranta. The refugee’s attention had been drawn to Ion, who lived in the same apartment house as he did, because of his aplomb and authoritative tone which he -after all. a Soviet citizen-treated all around him. After a long time the refugee learned that a Romanian officer quartered in the building was shadowing Ion, whom the Romanians themselves had begun to suspect. A number of anti-Communists were denounced as Soviet agents by Ion and mistreated by him when under arrest or investigation. Finally he sought to trap the Romanians, by enticing them to a partisan unit, which was prepared to give the occupiers battle; but the Romanians brought Ion himself along, and in the ensuing skirmish he was killed.29*

Such an encounter with an agent was apparently quite typical. By and large, the effect of an encounter was a double one: it instilled fear of the Soviet, and it augmented the hate against them. Other factor, however, by 1943 outweighed for many such fear and hate, In an upsurge of genuine patriotism and anti-Romanian feeling, or in anticipation of the Red Army’s return and the consequent need to “whitewash“ oneself, or for such reasons a blackmail or material need, a number of Odessa residents joined the underground in the last year and especially half-year of the occupation. Some of these had been Communists all along but had tried to “:sit it out.” Others, especially university and high school students, were new recruits; the spirit of opposition and resentment among them has been described elsewhere, and each wave of Romanian arrest in their midst-particularly in the fall of 1943-produced a further defection to the “underground.” Several younger faculty members at the university were involved, and the feeling remained that, is spite of arrests, there was an active “cell” inn operation there.30* The actual accomplishment of academic cell was trifling; it consisted generally in spreading propaganda and, rarely, committing some symbolic act such as raising the red flag over a public building before dawn.31* Probably the greatest effect of this activity was the sense of insecurity it produced both in the university faculty and the Romanian authorities. As a partisan leader told a touring American newspaperman soon after the recapture of Odessa, “Perhaps more than anything else, we constituted a psychological threat.“

By 1943, attempts to reinforce the partisan from outside multiplied. These reflect the continuing Soviet preoccupation with the partisan movement, the stabilization and augmentation of Soviet authority, and the anticipated advance of the Red Army, for whom the partisans could constitute a “second front” behind the enemy lines. At the same time, the scope and nature of such attempts in Transnistria, as compared with those farther north-say in the Briansk or Bobruisk areas-strongly suggest that the Central Staff of the Partisan Movement had little faith in the power or ability of the Transnistria partisans. In mid-1943, the German consulate reported from Odessa a bit optimistically that for months there had been no evidence that the local partisans existed; there had been nothing but some minor sabotage on the railroad lines. Around May 1, however, a drop of 150 to 200 men had tried to cross over thee Bug from the German-held Ukraine into Transnistria. Repelled at Pervomaisk, they tried again at Voznesensk, but were beaten off; sixty-four of the men, who proved to be part of a partisan unit, were captured by the Romanians.32* Unfortunately nothing about their affiliation and task has come to light. Perhaps they belonged to the larger group under Vasily Andreev, a partisan officer who, after a stint in the Briansk woods, was ordered to move to Moldavia, as Kovpak was sent into Galicia. Andreev’s efforts were on a smaller scale and accomplished less; most of his surviving men seem to have operated in the northern part of the Moldavian SSR, both on the Bessarabian side of the Dnestr and, to a small extent, in Transnistria. Neither of the two major “roving “ bands of Soviet partisans operating in the Ukraine-under Kovpak and Naumov-reached Transnistria. Subsequent Soviet accounts, however, sought to credit both units with stimulating partisan activity around Odessa. Thus, a Communist organizer, who admittedly had remained inactive since 1941, established contact with the bands passing to the north in the spring of 1943 and formed a small partisan unit “Yuzhnyi”, in the Golovanevsk forests.33*

Activity was stepped up in anticipation of the Red Army’s return. Now the task of partisans and agents was specifically geared to military purposes; their long-range political functions disappeared. Even earlier, small groups of Soviet parachutists had been reported in the Transnstrian countryside. In the summer of 1942, a team which had landed with hand grenades, submachine guns, a radio set, and money was exterminated after a four-hour battle with a Volksdeutsche militia detachment.34* More groups and supplies were flown in from August, 1943, on. In September, 1943,a girl partisan and woman operator were parachuted near Odessa and promptly apprehended. Convicted only of illegal entry into Transnistria they received two-year sentences. Soviet accounts allege that they later escaped and transmitted information about activity in Odessa harbor. Others undoubtedly evaded detection. Especially in the winter of 1943-1944, such landings multiplied. German Abwehr reports claimed that

...according to statements by the Mizin partisan group, the partisan headquarters at Melitopol’ sent seven group of parachutists into the province of Moldavia, Odessa, and Nikolaev, in order to organize the local partisans.35*

The most interesting attempt was of the group headed by V.D. Avdeev (known under the cover -name Chernomorski), and including mine-laying and guerrilla specialists. Dispatched by the fourth Ukrainian Front by order of the Ukrainian Staff of the Partisan Movement (nominally headed by Khruschev, actually run by Communist Party Secretary Demian Korotchenko and Timofei Strokach, a present Minister of the Inyerior of the Ukraine), the group was dropped by air on the outskirts of Osipovka on January 16,1944. Several of the members successfully got into Odessa, contacted Drozdov;s Stalin Brigade there, and made preparations for an armed uprising that was to coincide with the Soviet army’s approach to the city. However, Andreev’s trail was uncovered by a provocateur among the partisans, and the Romanian (and perhaps German) police managed to corner him. Rather than be apprehended, Adreev, on March 2, committed suicide.

Actually the work of his and similar groups may well have borne some fruit In the final weeks of the occupation, the partisans apparently did give the Red Army some military information by radio and other ways helped confuse the Germans in their final defense of Odessa.36* However, the Soviet picture of partisan accomplishments even in this period seems heavily overdrawn.37*

The very paucity of detail, of memoirs, and postwar documents on the Soviet side suggests the absence of any substantial accomplishments -except martyrdom-to exploit models for emulation or (at least overt) study. The volume published in the Odessa oblast committee on the Second World War makes this clear even while seeking to inflate the partisans’ record.38*

Through evidence is sadly lacking, it can be inferred that the people face the partisans little support until at least mid-1943; only where personal contact was established (for instance, between individual partisans in the catacombs and the peasant women near one of the suburban exits) and where human compassion overrode political considerations did they get support. Because there were not the brutalities and forced labor draft of a German occupation, only an infinitesimal number of Transnistria joined the partisans.39* The unfavorable terrain helps explain this. But Romanian policy was decidedly one of the factors accounting for the small scale of partisan activities and successes.
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1* The behavior and treatment of former Communists who remained “on the surface” in transnistria are discussed in Chapters III and V.

2* In addition to Kutsov, the group consisted of Volksdeutscher, Albert Georg Diehl; a Jew, Isaak Likhtengaus; a Russian with pseudonym of Pius, presumably the political officer; and Ukrainian sergeant from Ovidiopol”,Kretsenko.

3* Chef SiPo u SD, “Ereignismeldungen USSR #117,” October 18,1941; ibid., #136, “November 21,1941.

4* Bukarester Tageblatt, October 22,1941.

5* Interview B; Poppenberger, “Das Land am Ostufer des Dnjestrs,” op. cit. See also Luigi Cuecco in Corriere della Sera, October 21,1941.

6* Abwehrstelle Rumanien, “Berich uber Wahrenmungen in Odessa, ”November 4,1941 CRS, DHMR 29222. The catacombs will be discussed below.

7* Paul Leverkuchn, German Military Intelligence, Weidenreld and Nicolson, London,1954,p.62.

8* OKW/Ausland?Abwehr, “Russland-Verminung von Gebauden in Odessa,” April 17,1942, CRS,227ID 21496/4.

9* Kataev, op.cit.,p.217; Borisov, op. cit., p.52; Kononenko, Chernomortsy v boiakh za osvobozhdenie Kryma i Odesy, Voenizdat, Moscow, 1954,p.32.

10* Carp, Transnistria, vol.3, p.199; Abwehrstelle Rumanien, op. cit.; Manuilov,p.40; Ihnen, op. cit.

11* These reportedly included the burning down of a number of buildings in the center of town, such as the famous Cafe Fanconi, the former building of the Credit Lyonnais, the Petrokokino store on Grecheskaia, and others in the area of Deribasovskaia, Lanzheron, and Sadovaia (Manuilov, pp.42-43).

12* Carp, loc. cit.; Abwehrstelle Rumanien, op. cit.; Manuilov, p.42; Ihnen, op. cit.

13* Kataev inspected the Odessa catacombs soon after the recapture, and shortly thereafter published a preliminary, factual account, “Katakomby,” in the Odessa almanac, Geroicheskaia Odessa (1945). Clearly, this experience inspired the subsequent writing of For Soviet Power! The 1945 account (as reprinted in OVOV, vol.2 pp.214-230) shows that some of the passages for which Kataev was harshly attacked a few years later (for instance, the song of partisans in the catacombs) were historical, rather than invented by the author.

14* The following is based on Kataev, op. cit.; OVOV, vol.2, pp. xii, 168-169, 242; Manuilov, p.44 and Abwehrstelle Rumanien, op. cit.

15* In addition, the NKVD left some of its own personnel in Odessa, e.g., the head of its Operative Section, Aizenberg; a Civil War partisan, Vasilii Vorakov, and according to the Germans),a procurator, Belousiv, who had worked in Kiev until the outbreak of war. Supposedly some NKVD personnel received special training before returning to Odessa or else pretended to have been evacuated. Thus ( a German document claimed) the head of the Central Prison in Odessa, Fedor Kuz’mich Fedorov, was sent to Balaklava in July,1941, to attend a special training course (presumably organized by the NKVD) and returned to Odessa in October with the mission of operating a commissioner store when the Germans arrived as a cover for agent’s work. Another, Miaskovski, director of cold storage at the Odessa meat kombinat, was ordered to stay in Odessa under his real name, pretended to be disillusioned with the Oviet regime, and not to deny his former Party membership-while actually sabotaging the meat industry (German records, primarily HGr.Sud, Ic/AO, Bavarian Military Archives, Munich, cited in D.I.Karov, “Sovetskoe podpol’noe i partizanskoe dvizhenie v Odesse i Odesskoi oblasti v voinu 1941-1945 gg.” (MS) Institute for the Study of the USSR, Munich,1955,pp.7, 10-11).

16* Oblt. Derndl, “Besprechung am 31.1.42 auf der kgl. Rum. Polizeiprafectur in Odessa,” and “partisanenkampfung in Odessa, Vorganag am 5.2.1942,” CRS, DHMR, 29221/1.

17* See also Verbindungsstab der Deutschen Werhmacht in Transnistrien, “Auszug aus Merkblatt uber Verhalten in Odessa,” February,1942, CRS, DHMR 29221/1 The discovery of some partisans and agents was publicized (cf.Deutsche Bug-Zeitung,# 3, March 21, 1942.

18* Kataev, op.cit.,p.345.

19* Karov,”Sovetskoe podpol’noe i partizanskoe dvizhenie v Odesse i Odeskoi oblasti v voinu 1941-1945 gg.,” MS Institute for study of the USSR, Munich,1955, pp.24, 32.

20* Ia.Schternshtein, “Nepokorennyi port,” Ogni Chernomoria, Odessa, 1949, reprinted in OVOV, vol.2,p.242.

21* Ibid.

22* Karov, op.cit.,pp.23-27,29, 46; Lauterbach, op. cit., p.86.

23* Borisov, op.cit., p.54; interview D; Der Deutsche in Transnistrien,#2, July 26,1942; Kononenko, op.cit., pp.32-33.

24* From August 1943, on, thanks to the support of the Fourth Ukrainian Front, “Burevestnik” was enlarged and reorganized with I.A. Kukharenko as commander and V.E. Nesterenko as commissar. Both were Ukrainians flown in from the Soviet side. By November,1943, the enlarged formation allegedly had 200 members, and thereafter it grew even more rapidly as the Soviet drew near OVOV, vol.2, pp.173-175.

25* Ihnen, op. cit.; OVOV, vol.2 pp.40-52, 173-180, 194; Senkevich, Sovetskaia Molvia v bor’be protiv fashistskikh zakhvatchikov, OGIZ, Moscow,1944, pp.58-63; Borisov, op. cit.,pp.57-58; A. Prisiazhnuk et al. “Paqrtizanskaia Iskra,” Pravda Ukrainy, Kiev, May 7-8, 1955.

26* Al. Shneider, “Eto bylo v Odesse,” Bol’shevitskoe znamia, Odessa, February 2, 1945; Borisov, op.cit.,pp.55-56; Kataev, op.op. cit., pp.214,227,554; OVOV, vol. pp.21,39-40, 210.

27* OVOV, vol.2 pp.xii,155, 169-171, 245.

28* The issues of an Odessa daily for January, 1945, which contain further details on the above group, are not available.

29* Manuilov, pp 44-54.

30* Interviews C and D; Peterle, op. cit.

31* In July,1943 (Soviet accounts allege) the Romanians shot 22 students, mostly teenagers (some were innocently implicated), for listening to Soviet radio broadcasts. Apparently their execution led to some actual protest to Pantea (“Dvadtsat dva,” Chornomorskaia Komuna, Odessa, December 24,1944, See also OVOV vol/2, p.255.

32* German cosulate, Odessaa, to AA, Berlin, July 31,1943, AA reel 1273, frames 342473-94.

33* OVOV, vol.2,pp.xi, 167-168.

34* E. g., Der Deutsche in Transnistrien, #2,Luly26,1943; OVOV, vol.2, pp.173-175, 188-192,242.

35* Abwehr 320, “Tatigkeitsberich...Februar 1944,” March 1, 1944, CRS, AOK 6,50808/4.

36* In late March,1944, howevr , a major explosion took place in Krivaia Balka catacombs, apparently due to the partisans’ careless preparation for “surfacing” when the Red Army approached,. The German thoroughly investigated the occurrence and, fearful of risking, tried in vain to enter the catacombs with the helpp of poison gas (Abwehr report, cited by Karov, op. cit., pp.12, 49).

37* Borisov, op. cit., pp.63-64; Kononenko, op. cit.,p.33; Lauterbach, op. cit., pp.87-89; OVOV, vol. pp xiii, 41-42, 199-200. See also Armstrong, op. cit., for a discussion of the partisan movement.

38* OVOV, vol.2, pp.160ff.

39* A refugee author asserts, without any proof whatsoever, that Odessa was used by Soviet intelligence service during the war for channeling agents into the Balkans and Western Europe. While this is conceivable, there is nothing to demonstrate it, and the particular paper in question abounds in factual errors (D.I. Karov, op. cit.,pp37-46).
Because of the very nature of the problem, no evidence is available on Allied intelligence activities in Transnistria. The only possible clue refers to Juan Manuel de la Aldea, a Spanish newsman who was press attache at the Spanish embassy in Bucharest. As part of his functions, he visited Odessa during the war and published an article on it(see Bibliography,, below). A German report transmitted through the consul in Basel in December,1942, claimed to know that de la Aldea was actually (though perhaps unwittingly) having his reports transmitted to British agents in Switzerland (Consulate Basel to AA, december 23,1942, AA reel 244, frames 160904-05).