At the beginning of World War II, on the basis of a separate motorized rifle brigade of the NKVD, a special unit was created, which included athletes, circus performers, polyglots, psychics, alternative medicine specialists and even theater directors.
The detachment was personally led by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Lavrenty Beria, who hopes to use the abilities of these people to fight the Nazis. He called his charges "fighters with unexplored abilities."
Formation of the brigade
From the beginning of the 30s of the twentieth century in the USSR, operations were actively planned and developed to disrupt communications of the alleged enemy in the deep rear. The raids were supposed to be carried out by small mobile groups of experts in sniper and explosives.
On June 27, 1941, by order of the People's Commissar of Beria, a Training Center for the training of reconnaissance and sabotage units was created. The legendary State Security Commissioner Pavel Sudoplatov was entrusted to coordinate the work of the structure.
Not only military specialists were sent to the center, but also people of peaceful professions. The first candidates - champions in boxing, diving, biathlon, tightrope walkers, acrobats, journalists, engineers - were gathered at the Dynamo stadium in Moscow.
The recruits were given uniforms and sent to the city of Mytishchi for training. A memorial plaque still hangs at the Dynamo stadium, the only reminder of the NKVD special brigade.
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Unconventional salvation
The saboteurs were used in pinpoint operations under conditions that best suited their abilities. In the first months of the war, the fighters showed themselves well. After successful operations, boxers Korolev and Shcherbakov, weightlifter Shatov, runners Znamensky brothers, skiers Rogozhin and Kulakova were awarded.
After the appeal to Beria from the circus director Arnold Barsky and the illusionist Igor Kio, the hypnotists Leonid Sheiman and Pavel Scaglietti were enrolled in the unit, who took part in planning the operations.
The detachment consisted of about a hundred Germans, Bulgarians and Romanians. Later, up to one and a half thousand other foreigners were added, mainly Americans, Spaniards, Poles, Czechs, Chinese and even Vietnamese, who practiced non-traditional medicine.
It was the Vietnamese doctors who in December 1943 managed to save the seriously wounded General Dragunsky, whom the doctors put an end to. By the fall of 1942, the brigade numbered 15 thousand people, and to provide specialists, the front commanders turned personally to Beria.
From the archives it is known that only at the request of Georgy Zhukov, 60 detachments were thrown into the rear of the Germans, which replenished the local partisan formations. In total, during the war, 200 sabotage groups were formed with a total number of more than 7,000 fighters.
In 1943, all the illusionists and polyglots of the brigade were transferred under the direct control of Pavel Sudoplatov. By the end of the war, only professional athletes were left in the squadron, capable of carrying heavy loads. For example, the group of Captain Artamonov covered almost 400 kilometers in 19 days along the rear of the German group Center. At the same time, the fighters moved only at night.
Contribution to victory
It is known that in addition to participating in sabotage and reconnaissance activities, the soldiers were used for special operations. The illusionist Scaglietti and the theater director Barsky developed mining techniques that made it possible to disguise explosives in such a way that it was almost impossible to find them.
For the demonstration, the circus performers mined Beria's office, but the People's Commissar never found the charges. Miners were called, who also failed. Only special equipment helped to find the explosives, while one of the charges was installed right on the desk.
Barsky developed a technique for mining roads, which eliminated the burying of explosives and saved time for laying them. The techniques of hiding and disguising objects invented by circus artists are still used in intelligence today.
Sportsmen-yachtsmen took part in the defense of besieged Leningrad. Two yachts under the command of Ivan Smetanin patrolled the coast, and a detachment of Ivan Matveyev guarded the Neva Bay. Thanks to a special detachment from the NKVD brigade, in the fall of 1943, it was possible to prevent the plans of the Germans to blow up the Dneproges dam. The soldiers neutralized the planted landmines, but during the operation they all died.
Immediately after the end of the war, the brigade was disbanded, and all documents were classified for 50 years. Most of the details of the detachment's activities are still unknown. In 1957, the Soviet leadership on the basis of the KGB assembled new units. In our time, there are such special brigades with each group of troops.
Alexander Brazhnik
