terror during the war

• Beria replaced Yezhov in 1938 and remained at the head of the NKVD until he was executed after Stalin's death in 1953
• in the early days of the war military intelligence was purged for failing to spot the signs of the Nazi invasion
• • Beria was tasked with executing poorly-performing generals
  • but stalin was so short son military talent that he had to stop killing top officers and even released some who had been tortured and awaiting execution
• politcal prisoners were executed to prevent them form falling into the hands of the Nazis
• some villages and whole ethnic groups were exiled to Serbia to prevent them from welcoming the nazis
• • at the end of the war prisoners of war were rounded up and impriosned in harsh conditions
  • stalin believed they had betrayed the motherland by surrendering to the nazis
  • he feared that the west had planted spies in their ranks and therefore were mistrusted