page_title: NKVD
section_title: World War II operations
hierarchical_section_title: NKVD / NKVD activities / World War II operations
caption_attribution_description: English: The corpses of victims of Soviet NKVD murdered in last days of June 1941, just after outbreak of German-Soviet War (NKVD prisoner massacres) and escape of Red Army and NKVD troops from the cities. Here: Lwów, citizens of Lwów are looking for their friends and relatives, previously arrested by NKVD and kept in prison.
context_page_description: The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, abbreviated NKVD, was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
  Established in 1917 as NKVD of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the agency was originally tasked with conducting regular police work and overseeing the country's prisons and labor camps. It was disbanded in 1930, with its functions being dispersed among other agencies, only to be reinstated as an all-union ministry in 1934.
  The functions of the OGPU were transferred to the NKVD in 1934, giving it a monopoly over law enforcement activities that lasted until the end of World War II. During this period, the NKVD included both ordinary public order activities, as well as secret police activities. The NKVD is known for its role in political repression and for carrying out the Great Purge under Joseph Stalin. It was led by Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov and Lavrentiy Beria.
  The NKVD undertook mass extrajudicial executions of untold numbers of citizens, and conceived, populated and administered the Gulag system of forced labour camps.
context_section_description: Prior to the German invasion, in order to accomplish its own goals, the NKVD was prepared to cooperate even with such organizations as the German Gestapo. In March 1940 representatives of the NKVD and the Gestapo met for one week in Zakopane, to coordinate the pacification of Poland; see Gestapo–NKVD Conferences. For its part, the Soviet Union delivered hundreds of German and Austrian Communists to the Gestapo, as unwanted foreigners, together with their documents. However, many NKVD units were later to fight the Wehrmacht, for example the 10th Rifle Division NKVD, which fought at the Battle of Stalingrad.
  After the German invasion the NKVD evacuated and killed prisoners.
  During World War II, NKVD Internal Troops units were used for rear area security, including preventing the retreat of Soviet Union army divisions. Though mainly intended for internal security, NKVD divisions were sometimes used at the front to stem the occurrence of desertion through Stalin's Order No. 270 and Order No. 227 decrees in 1941 and 1942, which aimed to raise troop morale via brutality and coercion. At the beginning of the war the NKVD formed 15 rifle divisions, which had expanded by 1945 to 53 divisions and 28 brigades.  A list of identified NKVD Internal Troops divisions can be seen at List of Soviet Union divisions. Though mainly intended for internal security, NKVD divisions were sometimes used in the front-lines, for example during the Battle of Stalingrad and the Crimean Offensive of 1944. Unlike the Waffen-SS, the NKVD did not field any armored or mechanized units.
  In the enemy-held territories, the NKVD carried out numerous missions of sabotage. After fall of Kiev, NKVD agents set fire to the Nazi headquarters and various other targets, eventually burning down much of the city center. Similar actions took place across the occupied Byelorussia and Ukraine.
  The NKVD (later KGB) carried out mass arrests, deportations, and executions. The targets included both collaborators with Germany and non-Communist resistance movements such as the Polish Armia Krajowa and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army aiming to separate from the Soviet Union, among others. The NKVD also executed tens of thousands of Polish political prisoners in 1939–1941, including the Katyń massacre. NKVD units were also used to repress the prolonged partisan war in Ukraine and the Baltics, which lasted until the early 1950s.
caption: The corpses of victims of the NKVD murdered in last days of June 1941, in one of the NKVD prisoner massacres just after outbreak of the German-Soviet War.
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