Death Knight: How Boris Smyslovsky, a nobleman, created the Green Army and became an agent of the Abwehr

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

A tsarist officer who fought in the Civil War on the side of the White Army, Boris Smyslovsky felt a fierce hatred of the Bolsheviks. It was this feeling that pushed him to cooperate with the Nazis, turning the emigrant patriot of the Motherland into a traitor-renegade who had ruined more than one life of his former fellow citizens. However, Smyslovsky himself did not take part in military and reconnaissance operations - he was engaged in other activities: the formation and training of units called upon to become a stronghold of the country liberated from the Bolsheviks in the future.

How a Russian hereditary nobleman went from a guards officer to a super agent Abwehr

Boris Alekseevich Smyslovsky was born on November 21 (December 3), 1897 in a wealthy noble family. His father, Alexei Smyslovsky, was in military service with the rank of lieutenant colonel, his mother, Elena Malakhova, was the daughter of General Nikolai Nikolaevich Malakhov, who at one time commanded the Grenadier Cavalry Corps.

By the age of 18, Boris became a graduate of the Moscow Cadet Corps and managed to graduate from the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, receiving the rank of ensign. In November 1915, the young officer went to the front, where he fought in the Life Guards of the third artillery brigade. True, Smyslovsky did not participate in the battles for long, since soon, with the help of his uncle, an artillery inspector, he settled in the headquarters of the Guards Corps.

To make a career as a staff officer, in 1916, Boris began attending courses at the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff. However, due to the February Revolution, the classes were terminated, and the young man again went to the front line, where he remained until the end of November 1917. Returning from the fields of the First World War to Moscow, Smyslovsky was wounded and concussed while participating in an armed confrontation on the Arbat.

After recovering and having time to fight in the Red Army, in 1918 Boris went over to the side of the White Guards and continued to participate in the Civil War, fighting on the territory of Ukraine. According to the recollections of contemporaries of those years, Smyslovsky fought bravely, but allowed himself to violate military discipline, for which he was even arrested along with two colleagues. In 1920, after the defeat of the 3rd Russian Army, where he led the intelligence department, Boris decided to settle in Poland, a country that by that time had tens of thousands of emigrants from the former Russian Empire.

In an effort to provide for a family consisting of a wife and a young daughter, Boris Alekseevich entered the Polytechnic Institute in Dantsing in the mid-1920s. After graduating with a diploma as a specialist in mechanical woodworking, Smyslovsky returned to the Polish capital and began to engage in activities related to woodworking. However, the new job did not suit the former officer: he decided to move to Germany, where, after joining the army, he studied intelligence for five years, attending classes of the Reichswehr Army Directorate.

When the Second World War began, Smyslovsky did not stand aside - he became an active organizer for the formation of units from volunteer emigrants, while simultaneously collecting intelligence on the USSR.

How Smyslovsky managed to create a network of military units from representatives of almost all the peoples of the USSR

If the first volunteer unit, which was created by September 24, 1941, consisted practically of Russian emigrants, then the subsequent groups included up to 85% of Soviet prisoners of war of various nationalities. According to military historians, Smyslovsky managed to organize from 6 to 12 reconnaissance battalions with a total number of over 10 thousand people.

Forming and training groups, the White émigré leadership did not hide the fact that the created formations would become the core of the Russian army, independent of the Wehrmacht. The Germans had to put up with such plans, since the training of intelligence officers, apparently, took place at the highest level.

How the "death knight" Smyslovsky fought with the partisans

To fight the partisan movement, which unexpectedly for the Germans acquired a mass character, the Sonderstab "R" unit was formed. It was led by Boris Smyslovsky, who had reached the rank of major by that time. Before completing the practical task, the entire composition of the group had to undergo training in Warsaw, where Smyslovsky organized specialized intelligence courses.

In addition to obtaining intelligence information, the duties of the members of the unit included the creation of their own partisan detachments. They were formed to discredit the real partisans by robbing and killing the local population, setting fire to houses, stealing livestock, and looting private households.

At the same time, the semantic scouts infiltrated the partisans, handing over the commanders to the Germans and, if possible, exterminating the detachments themselves. The success of Sondershtab "R" was so high that soon Smyslovsky was given an extraordinary rank - he became a colonel in the Wehrmacht. However, at the end of 1943, the newly-made colonel was accused of supporting the Insurgent Army of Ukraine, the Russian nationalist organization People's Labor Union and the Home Army, after which he was immediately arrested.

How the Green Army of Smyslovsky was created and with whom it fought

The investigation lasted six months and ended with a complete acquittal of the accused. Moreover, Boris Alekseevich was honored with an award - he was awarded the Order of Merit of the German Eagle for his faithful and efficient service. A new round of his career took place in the spring of 1944, when Smyslovsky was entrusted first to lead the operational intelligence headquarters in the rear of the Soviet country, and six months later - to create the 1st Russian National Division.

Smyslovsky formed a military unit, using the pseudonym von Regenau, but already in February 1945, the former tsarist officer took another fictitious name - "Arthur Holmston". At the same time, the division was renamed, which became known as the "Green Army of Special Purpose". At the same time, the goals and objectives of the unit remained in their original form: the creation of sabotage groups and detachments of false partisans, as well as the preparation of agents for organizing the insurrectionary movement in the post-war USSR.

In April 1945, the "Green Army" became known as the 1st Russian National Army, retaining the structure and nature of activities aimed at obtaining intelligence information. However, this activity ended within a month: when the retreating "army" found itself on the territory of Liechtenstein, for the surviving 1,234 people, the end of World War II came.

It was here that in the spring of 1945, a white emigrant and the head of the 1st Russian National Army, Smyslovsky, brought half a thousand of his fighters, whom the Liechtenstein government had refused to extradite to the Soviet Union for more than two years. Liechtenstein spent a lot of money on their maintenance and in 1947 fully paid for their flight to Argentina.

After the end of the war, Smyslovsky worked as an adviser to Argentine President Peron, and then as a staff member of the intelligence services of Germany and the United States. The "death knight of the Second World War" died in 1988 in Liechtenstein.

But history also knows the opposite examples, when the citizens of Nazi Germany went over to the side of the USSR in the war. One of these people was renowned pilot Müller.