Shtrafbats (Russian: штрафбат, штрафной батальон) were Soviet penal battalions that fought on the Eastern Front in World War II.
[1] In his order, Stalin also mentioned Hitler's successful use of penal battalions (known as Strafbataillon) as a means to ensure obedience among regular Wehrmacht units.
The first penal battalion deployed under the new policy was sent to the Stalingrad Front on August 22, 1942, shortly before German troops reached the Volga river.
Convicts sentenced to infantry units were eligible for commutation of sentence and assignment to a Red Army line unit if they either suffered a combat injury (the crime was considered to be "cleansed in blood") or had accomplished extremely heroic deeds in combat.
[7] They could also theoretically receive military decorations for outstanding service and if released were considered fully rehabilitated, though those suspected of political disloyalties remained marked men and often continued to be persecuted after the war's end.
[3] Pilots or gunners serving in air force penal squadrons (at one point known as корректировочная авиационная эскадрилья (Corrective Aviation Squadrons)[8]) were at a marked disadvantage in obtaining the remission of sentence via a combat injury since the nature of air combat usually meant that any injury was fatal.
While prisoners assigned as gunners could theoretically clear their sentences after surviving ten missions, like the infantry they were frequently transferred to penal mine-clearing units before reaching this total.
227, any attempt to retreat without orders, or even a failure to advance was punished by barrier troops ('zagraditel'nye otriady') or "anti-retreat" detachments of the Soviet counterintelligence organization known as SMERSH (Smert shpionam), Russian for "Death to spies".
[1][2] Blocking detachments positioned at the rear would use heavy-handed discouragement towards retreat, but the most likely way that a soldier or officer would interact with a barrier troop was not through being cut down by a Maxim, but through arrest and drumhead court martial.
[1][10] As a result, with nowhere else to go, the penal battalions usually advanced in a frenzy, running forwards until they were killed by enemy minefields, artillery, or heavy machine-gun fire.
Staff and guards were highly paid and got special pension benefits for their unpleasant and sometimes dangerous work.
Consequently, until the end of the war, the task of preventing unauthorized withdrawal of penal unit personnel from the battlefield was handled by the anti-retreat SMERSH detachments of the Soviet Red Army.