SMERSH Identification card

[Bill D.]

A friend asked me to post this photo of a "SMERSH" identification card that he has, for comments by members.

[seb16trs]

hello gentlemen, I often saw here some curious OGPU/NKVD/KGB/smerch/MGB/MVD docs....and in my opinion these are gorgious fakes. To give arguments to my opinion, here the link to a big thread in Art Bates' soviet awards forum. Shawn Caza, very experimented in KGB stuf wrote an impressive synthesis about fake ID, and listed all stamps and methods to track all fakes. So 95% of the stuff proposed in the USA and Europe is fake (saw two of theses this WE in Paris...

http://www.soviet-awards.com/forum/showthread.php?t=362

I can't read the stamps on your doc bill but I'm very cautious with smerch, I avoid all "smerch" systematically. I remember of 2 docs here, in my opinion there're not good...
sebastien

[seb16trs]

I see a s/n with "BD" (latin letters), smerch,( a genuine photo is always findable) and a brand new cover...
don't buy it! you'll feed a workshop in Ukraine!

[NavyFCO]

The doc looks nice but I'm seeing a trend here with the brown "blotchy" paper like the other docs we looked at. Interestingly, the document has gotten darker with age instead of fading. Looking through the documents that I have (not Smersh, but others of the same period) all of mine are lighter - not darker - with age. I can't say for sure on this one as I don't know about these, but I'd be cautious.

Incidentally, this exact document was discussed on the other forum and it was decided that it was a fake. My apologies to your friend for the bad news.

--Dave

[JoeW]

Bill, thanks much for the help in posting the photo of the Smersh ID. I appreciate everyone's comments as food for thought. Dave, to what other forum were you refering that discussed this ID? I fell in love with the ID at first sight, which is the undoing of most collectors. But averaging out thirty years of collecting, I am still on the plus side, though no one likes to be stung. Even for an education.

I would like to pose some questions about these IDs and collecting. Should all IDs be considered alike in determining the problems of age:fading, dirt, etc.? Should any thought be given that this is a closed ID book, rather than an open single face card. I have some III Reich German police ID material, and most of it is single face. The Kripo Ausweis shows fading from constant exposure to UV degradation.But would a booklet form such as this suffer the same exposure if only opened when necessary? Late war German paper ID were of poor quality and suffered natural degradation of the paper, along with ink fading. Yet some of the earlier Dienstpasses of a better quality did not suffer the same fate. Did Soviet IDs vary in the same quality.

I am not trying to salvage the authenticity of this ID. But I think these are legitimate questions. This ID book purported to be that of a senior colonel. I had the document translated and found nothing untoward, though I did not notice the letters instead of numbers? To me, the wear was consistant with the ownership and what I knew of Smersh history. The ID was issued late war to a senior colonel. Carrying his ID in his breast pocket or other secure place would protect the surface. Opening on occasion would produce wear and damage to interior surface. The document would not suffer UV fading because of being closed and I would assume this organization would have used a higher quality paper product for IDs.

As I understand the history, Smersh had a relatively brief life-span from the early 40s into the 1950s? I don't think it survived into the 1960? This document purports to show use in the mid 1940s. What happened to such ID documents? Were the retained by the owner or returned to be archived by the sercurity organization? The storage would affect the wear of any ID document.

I will try and take some shots of the ink stamps and forward to Bill for posting.
Thanks again.

[NavyFCO]

Joe-

To answer some of your questions...

This exact document was discussed (briefly) on the Soviet Awards Forum. You can follow the link on Sebastien's post to the thread. This document is located on the third page.

Even not having seen that (as I didn't when I did the first part of my post) I still am suspicious of it. The reasons are several:

-The brown "tinting" on the inside of the document pages. This coloration has plagued other fake documents discussed on both forums. Realistically, I'm not sure how a document would have the pages turn this shade of brown without some application of some sort of agent that would turn it that color. I've owned probably 500 wartime Soviet IDs and other document books since starting collecting Soviet militaria in 1992, and can't think of any that I've owned that has had the inside paper turn this color.

-The solid black ink. In those same documents that I've owned, I can only remember a handful with still-solid colored black ink. And that ink was almost a "paint" consistency applied with a metal nibbed pen (leaving squared edges). This ink was applied with a pen - a different type of application. Also note that, even though the paper shows wear and discoloration, the ink is still very black with no fading or damage equal to the amount of the paper.

A note on the quality of Soviet documents: Yes, there was a variance of quality between some organizations in the Soviet system. Documents to a member of the Supreme Soviet are of very high quality, whereas documents for a field NKVD officer often depended upon the quality of materials available to the local command making the document (which included captured materials at times!) However, most documents were of similar quality, and since this document appears to have been issued by a front command, I wouldn't expect it to be of equivelant quality to that of a Supreme Soviet document, but at the same time, I think Smersh was pretty well funded AND their documents were a VERY important part of their job (often their only means of identification when in plain clothes) which would point in the direction that their documents were of above-average quality.

-The letters for numbers. I'm not saying that this is a "show stopper", but it says "No" and then is immediately followed by cyrillic "BD". I don't know if perhaps there was supposed to be a stamped serial number following the BD, but that's a little odd, especially if it's missing when there's a plethora of stamps and other writing in the document.

-Another thing that's not a show stopper but is kind of curious is the uniform on the colonel. This picture was supposedly taken in December 1944. At that point in time, very few people had their "defense" medals awarded to them, which calls into question his six ribbon bar rack. I can see a Red Banner for the top award, followed by a Red Star, then probably followed by a For Military Merit ribbon (and that's assuming that he got ALL his long-service awards at one time and assuming that he was a Civil War veteran with continuous service) his second row of three would have his XX Years ribbon and then... What other two? Potentially he COULD have gotten either of the ones for Moscow, Stalingrad or the Caucuses, but having them all by December 1944 would have been impressive (not impossible, but impressive). What I'm hinting here is that my hunch is that the picture probably dates from the immediate post-war period - a bit newer than the document's dates. However, this is just a hunch - there is a possibility that he very well could have had legitimately six ribbons by December 44, but that would be impressive. ALSO, another item to note... My listing of awards for him is assuming that he's a long serving officer. A good number of Smersh officers were brought in as "direct assessions" from the civilian world. I had a very nice award group to a civilian political functionary that was brought directly into Smersh as a Lieutenant Colonel straight from civilian life.

-I'd like to see the stamps up close as well. Once again, it's not impossible, but I've seen very few documents with excessive stamps, which this one has. For some reason, the Soviets were fond of only stamping what was needed - thus calling into question two stamps on the photo. Why would they need that?

My only real concerns regarding it's originality are the top couple reasons - the tinted paper and the black ink. The others are conjectures of things that are a bit out of place for most Soviet documents from the same time period.

Regarding the disposition of the documents after Smersh closed down, or after the person left Smersh... As I recall, Smersh was pretty much assessed into the KGB. Thus, the "retired" documents suffered the same fate as most KGB documents - taken after the person left the service and put into the departmental archive. These documents held a LOT of weight in the USSR, and they were very careful about how many were out "floating around". I've owned a half-dozen Smersh award groups, and despite how much extra paper that was included with the group, I never got any of the ID booklets. (Perhaps all my contacts were selling them on the side!) Now, where did the booklets on the market come from? After the fall of the USSR, a number of archives were opened and their contents released to the collecting world, thus making them available on the market in the former USSR for a short time back in the 90's before they dried up and virtually dissapeared.

As far as the wear on the document because of the owner, I'd say that would be a fairly small factor. This document would have been carried on a regular basis, so I'd expect some wear to it. Also, the insides normally fade no matter who the owner was - just look at the older general officer ID documents - they tend to show realistic fading and wear even though most of them date from the 1960's.

I read the initial description for this document from eBay. As an editorial aside, Smersh was actually a small unit that acted in more of an "internal affairs" role rather than what was indicated in the description. In the example of my civilian-turned-Smersh guy, he was the senior Smersh officer with a staff of less than a dozen attached to an entire Corps! Hardly the guys that would be tasked with shooting retreating troops! None of the gentlemen (and one lady) whose groups I owned changed their names or did anything out of the ordinary from their veteran peers. In fact, that's one other suggestion... Smersh documentation was Army (or Navy or Air Force) property, and Smersh officer's service records (and citations) are kept in the Russian Ministry of Defense archives. You might try your luck at researching this guy by name and seeing if you can find a service history on him (which often have photos in the case of the more senior officers). Just a thought...

Anyway, hope that answers your questions!

--Dave

[JoeW]

Dave, thank you again for the most illuminating discussion on this ID. I followed the link to the Soviet forum and discovered the ID posted and dismissed based on prior discussion. It is interesting that the photo and description posted last fall was taken from the dealer web site listing the ID. I had bought it the summer of the year before. The site has not been updated for a few years. And, it was purchased for less than half of the indicated sale price as I had negotiated a package deal with the dealer that included a promotion document to a senior SIPO administrator. So the burn is not as severe as indicated on the Soviet forum.

Your suggestion to investigate this officer's history is interesting. Are the Soviet archives more accessible than those of other countries?

[DougD]

boards

Dave,

As a 'cloth' guy i have refrained from giving my opinion of this SMERSh ID ( I do not like it), but you made me look harder....copy the image, and blow it up...look real close at the M1943 Tunic...I agree with your thoughts on the ribbon set being most likely postwar, but also look at the boards...they look like they are 6 sided, issued in 1947+ for army units...if he is wearing NKVD this would not be an issue ( they used the 6 sided boards), but combine these boards with the ribbons and it looks alot like an army colonel photo from after the war.

DougD
PS- GREAT new SMERSh book out, in Russian, with pics of real IDs.

[Sturmpnr]

This looks very nearly identical to those I have seen (fake ones) coming out of Estonia, Latvia and the Ukraine. Be careful...

Thomas

[dannybou]

Your suggestion to investigate this officer's history is interesting. Are the Soviet archives more accessible than those of other countries?

There are a few researchers that conduct the research for us collectors in Russia for a fee. At this time, only military awards can be researched. If you want, PM me and I'll send you the email address of the contact who does research for Soviet awards. Regards

[NavyFCO]

Joe-

With regard to your question about archive accessability, yes, the Russian archives tend to be more open than other foreign archives. (The US archives are open, but the completeness of files tends to leave a lot to be desired!) I've written up a website about researching Soviet awards, etc., and it can be found here:

Research_FAQs

There is only one person that has the contacts with research over in Russia at the moment, and he'll do his best to get the information for you. I've researched names only (with no award numbers) before, but it's pretty difficult (though not impossible), especially if you don't have a place or date of birth. This particular researcher has started researching civil awards to a limited extent, but that's still a service that's in its infancy. If you have any questions about research, please don't hesistate to ask. Research is, IMHO, the best part about collecting Soviet militaria.

--Dave

[JoeW]

I thank you for the suggestions about research, but giving the idea some thought, it would seem the matter is moot. The ID is considered not authentic, manufactured with someone's photo and a created name? So there is no real chance for the person named in the ID to be identified in the archives. It would be a waste of time.

I had sent some close-up photos of the officer and the stamps to Bill for posting. I also wondered if this SMERSH ID was a fantasy piece or was it an accurate reproduction of a SMERSH ID?

[Bill D.]

Some more photos..............

[Bill D.]

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[Bill D.]

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