THE ROLE OF THE SMERSH COUNTERINTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE OF THE NORTH CAUCASIAN FRONT IN THE PREPARATION OF THE KRASNODAR PROCESS IN THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF 1943

Anisimov Dmitry Sergeevich

The scale of the war crimes committed by the German occupation authorities to the civilian population of our country is enormous. The population of the occupied territories was massively destroyed as a result of the implementation by the German authorities and their accomplices from among local volunteers and deserters from the Red Army. The Krasnodar trial, held in the liberated city on July 14-17, 1943, is the first among many trials of criminals against humanity and humanity. However, this formulation will be heard only in 1945-1946, at a more famous court – the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, where the main criminals – the leaders of the Third Reich will be in the dock. Employees of the Soviet counterintelligence SMERSH carried out active activities in the frontline zone – in the newly liberated territories. The paper examines the role of the SMERSH Counterintelligence Directorate of the North Caucasian Front in capturing and establishing the guilt of those responsible for mass executions in Krasnodar and the Krasnodar Territory on the basis of protocols of interrogations of witnesses and accused, acts and conclusions of commissions that determined the scale and nature of crimes as the evidence base of the process. Such events became the basis for conducting investigative activities in this vein in the future.

Keywords:SMERSH, counterintelligence, Krasnodar trial, crimes, interrogations, investigative measures, sentence.