CASE No. 705

The first decade of May is remarkable with two important events in the history of Azerbaijan. On May 9, the country celebrates the victory over fascism in the Second World War, and on May 10 — the birthday of the national leader of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev. Symbolically, these two days follow each other, as part of Heydar Aliyev’s life was strangely connected with the war and its consequences. The study of some declassified documents from the archives of the State Security Service of Azerbaijan makes it possible to shed some light on some previously unknown pages of the history of the Second World War and the activities of Heydar Aliyev.

According to the official biography of Heydar Aliyev, he has worked twenty-five years in security agencies of Azerbaijan and promoted to the ranks of the deputy director and director of the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of Azerbaijan SSR (1964-1967). At the same time, only few people know what exactly he did during these years as a security officer. Today we have a chance to learn some of the secrets of the Soviet Union through one of the episodes of Heydar Aliyev’s activities.

We can say with high degree of probability that Heydar Aliyev’s transition from the internal affairs agencies to the state security system was largely due to his involvement in a set of operations to counteract one of the intelligence agencies of the Nazi Germany working under Abwehr (military intelligence), Dromedar , also known as the Abwehrgruppe 114. The main purpose of these events was to identify and neutralize the German agents.

Dromedar was created by the Armenian political emigration, particularly the Dashnaks and was staffed exclusively by ethnic Armenians, mainly from the Soviet Union. Most of them were natives of Azerbaijan and Abkhazia, who had relatives in the Caucasus and were mainly engaged in conducting intelligence and sabotage works. The Soviet military command and counterintelligence bodies, including SMERSH, learned about this special unit of the German military intelligence on the Eastern Front in late 1941 - early 1942. The first documents pointing to one of the field points of Dromedar near Kerch were obtained during the failed Kerch-Feodosia landing operation of the Red Army.

Published in 1952 by the USSR Ministry of State Security, the Collection of Reference Materials on German Intelligence Agencies Operating Against the USSR During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 (declassified in 2017) contains the following information about this Nazi military intelligence unit:

"Until April 1943, Abwehrgruppe 114 was subordinated to the Abwehrkommando 101 and was originally called the Sonderkommando Dromedar. The head of the unit was Armenian General Drastamat Martirosovich Kanayan (Dro). In April 1943, Sonderkommando became and independent unit and was given a status of an Abwehrgruppe with a call-sign Irena".

The group organised gathered intelligence data and conducted sabotage operations in the rear of the North Caucasus Front and counterintelligence work in the occupied territory of the North Caucasus. The core of the group’s staff and agents consisted of Armenians. Recruiters of the group were its official employees, natives of Armenia.

A group of the recruited agents was trained as radio operators, while some of the agents were sent to the intelligence training camp in Warsaw. Radio operators were trained by staff members born in Armenia. Up to 20 agents attended the courses simultaneously. The failed students were sent to serve in the military group of Dromedar (40-60 people) and to guard the premises of the group.

All contacts of the group with its agents in the Soviet rear were over the radio. For the reverse transition of the front line, the agents used an oral password Kars 11-01 or 1C Pushkin.

The group had four forward reconnaissance units in the front-line zone in the North Caucasus:

1st unit headed by Tigran Baghdasarian (Tigris) was at the Nikolayev railway station near Pyatigorsk. It was responsible for the deployment and control of agents in Nalchik, Mozdok, Stavropol, Grozny and the passages of the Caucasus Mountains.

The 2^nd unit was in Krasnodar under the command of Harutyunian (Ugrian), who was responsible for the deployment of agents in Tuapse, Sochi and the Black Sea coast. In March 1943, he arrived to Taman and joined the group.

The 3rd unit was in Stavropol and was led by Bogdan Yuzbashev (Smetanov). Main operations included counterintelligence in the occupied territory of the North Caucasus. Yuzbashev implanted his agents among the Armenian population.

The 4th unit was also located in Stavropol and led by Gevorkov (Nikolai Gevorkian), who had previously served in the SS and was a son of the famous Dashnak leader S. Jamalian. The unit was responsible for anti-Soviet propaganda, as well as the creation of local Armenian committees and national formations.

Armenian National Committee (ANC) led propaganda among the Armenians for the creation of the Greater Armenia under the Reich protectorate. During the retreat of the German troops, the functionaries of the committee left their agents with radio transmitters until further instructions.

In July 1944, the Abwehr group was reorganized. Part of its agents headed by T. Bagdasaryan was dispatched to the town of Niedersee in East Prussia, then to Eschenbach near Berlin in November 1944 and to Gmundt, Austria in March 1945.

The rest of the agents retired to Belgrade, where the Einheit Sturm unit was deployed. The unit was also responsible for training and dispatch of Armenian agents to the Soviet rear. In January 1943, the unit departed for the town of Kesselheli (Hungary), when the advanced Soviet units approached, moved to Bergen (Rügen Island, Germany), and in March 1945 to Eger (Czechoslovakia). The last location of the group was the city of Parna near Dresden.

As we can see, the Soviet state security bodies knew in detail about the Armenian Dromedar group, or Abwehrgruppe 114, as it was later called. But this was preceded by many years of systematic and scrupulous work of Soviet counterintelligence to collect, analyse and systematise the scattered and contradictory information about their criminal activities. In fact, the largescale operation began by the instruction of the Second Directorate (counterintelligence) of the USSR Ministry of State Security dated December 31, 1943 No.2/6/31215, On collecting all materials on the German intelligence agency Dromedar under a single case. According to the instruction, the 2nd department of the Ministry of State Security of the Azerbaijan SSR began the works by initiating Case No. 705 (codenamed Accomplices) on January 31, 1944. Thus, the objective was to collect the maximum possible information on all individuals who could somehow be involved in Dromedar, including its leaders and agents. The compiled list of individuals was then regularly supplemented and corrected by the Main Directorate for Counterintelligence (SMERSH) or its front-line branches.

According to Case No. 705, the state security bodies of Soviet Azerbaijan registered 30 individuals who were natives of the republic, the most famous of which was Garegin Nzhdeh listed under No. 11. It is remarkable that his name was listed in the second ten of the most active Nazi accomplices, including Drastamat Kanayan, because in modern Armenia Nzhdeh is glorified, without any real reason, as a national hero, who he has never been indeed. Another interesting point is the reason why he was taken under surveillance: "as an organiser of the Armenian National Socialist Party and a member of the Armenian National Committee". In other words, he was considered the creator of the ideology of Armenian Nazism, and not as a collaborator. We think this fact is enough to explain why the Armenian authorities erected a monument to Nzhdeh in Yerevan, and not to any other of the Dashnaks who were real accomplices of the Nazis during the Second World War. Obviously, the monument to the creator of the Armenian Nazi ideology of Tseghakron was installed to show the world that Armenia has finally turned into a Nazi state.

Interestingly, we found yet another intriguing fact in Case No. 705, which may not please the apologists of Nzhdeh's personality. During the collection of intelligence data, the Chekists identified a certain Barbara Badalovna Aghamalian (listed as No. 24 in the case), who was born in the village of Paraga of the Ordubad District of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and was an active Dashnak in 1920-1921 and lover of Nzhde. She stated that at that time Nzhdeh had lived with her and even made her house his headquarters. He did not hide from the Red Army in the mountains, nor did he destroyed Azerbaijani villages. It turns out that Nzhdeh in fact did nothing to materialise the idea of ​​establishing Armenian statehood in Zangezur in 1920-1921 simply because at that time he was behind two mountain ranges from this region, in the vicinities of Ordubad, living in a high-mountain village of Paraga. However, this is a completely different story, which requires additional study.

In the conclusion of the story about the German intelligence agency Dromedar, it should be noted that ​​the state security bodies of Azerbaijan ceased operations related to the search for Dromedar's agents on August 12, 1955. The case was reclassified as informational and sent to the archive. Of the 30 registered individuals, 18 were either convicted of collaborating with the Nazis or killed during the arrest. The remaining twelve individuals were released under surveillance, since neither during the war, nor a decade after they did not have any contact between each other or the Nazi agents.

Now it is time to answer, perhaps, the main question of the article: what was the role of Heydar Aliyev in this story? In 1944-1955, first as a security officer, then as the head of the department and deputy head of the counterintelligence department of the KGB of the Azerbaijan SSR, Mr. Aliyev was directly involved, and then coordinated the search for German agents in Azerbaijan and adjacent territories. This is confirmed by his signature on the decree to reclassify the Case No. 705 as informational.

Thus, the newly discovered archive document opened a new, hitherto unknown page in the biography of the great man.