The unprecedented measures to punish punishers, spies and traitors, introduced since April 1943 by a special decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, provided for two types of punishment - hanging or hard labor.
Whom to hang up or exile
By 1943, the Soviet government already had enough facts testifying to the atrocities of the Nazis and their accomplices in the occupied territories of the USSR, therefore, the appearance of Stalin's decree No. 39 of 1943-19-04 was nothing special. Rather, he was a trend, a requirement of the time.
The decree provided for two types and two categories of responsibility for atrocities on Soviet territory - foreign invaders (Germans, Italians, Romanians, Hungarians, Finns who killed and tortured civilians of the USSR and prisoners of the Red Army, together with spies and traitors to the Motherland from among Soviet citizens were ordered to hang after the sentences of the military courts.
Polizayev and other Nazi accomplices who mocked the above categories of Soviet people were sent to hard labor for up to 20 years. In essence, it was the same death penalty, only deferred - under the harshest conditions of imprisonment, few would have lived to half their term.
Never before had the Soviet system of punishment known such sentences - they were hanged and sent to hard labor only under the tsar. This Stalinist decree was not published in the press.
Promotional video:
How was tried
The judgments were passed by divisional court martial, and they were immediately carried out, moreover, in public - they lined up military units, gathered the population. The corpses had to hang for several days, so that people knew who was being pulled up and for what. Hanging was allowed to be replaced by shooting. In 1944, the Baltic nationalists and Bandera supporters fell under the decree. As a rule, the court procedure did not provide for the presence of a defense lawyer, only the prosecutor spoke. However, sometimes protection was still present in such processes. But more often than not, this did not affect the outcome of the case - the defendants were still hanged.
The most famous personalities who fell under the decree in the "first category" are the Cossack atamans-collaborationists Krasnov, Semenov, Shkuro, Klych, Domanov. They were all hanged. From among the "bigwigs" -Germans hanged SS Gruppenführer Pannwitz.
In 1947, the death penalty was abolished in the Soviet Union and the maximum punishment was “a quarter” - 25 years in the camps.
Where and how they served hard labor
For those sentenced to hard labor, 11 special camps were designated on the territory of Russia and Ukraine. The convicts wore special robes, were required to work 10 hours a day, and mainly in hard work. In the first year they were not paid anything for their work and were forbidden to correspond with the will.
Who else was punished for atrocities
In addition to the representatives of the nationalities designated in Stalin's decree No. 39, Austrians, Belgians, Danes, Poles and Japanese were hanged and shot. Atamans Krasnov, Shkuro and Semenov, executed after the war in Moscow, by the way, were generally stateless. Of the more than 80 thousand people who fell under the decree from 1943 to 1952, over 25 thousand were foreigners.
… Soviet citizens punished by Stalin's decree were amnestied only after September 1955, in accordance with the decree issued by the USSR Supreme Soviet. This amnesty did not concern the punishers. By this time, the reparations of German prisoners of war who were in Soviet camps had also ended.
Nikolay Syromyatnikov