Soviet Hero General Loses Another Statue

[wm]

The statue today:

Nearby Soviet cemetary in Braniewo a year ago:

Brothers Slavs, you are heartily welcome:

sources: 1, 2, 3.

[4thskorpion]

Actually the number is 31 percent of people willing to consider a possibility of conspiracy (in comparison, for the US truthers it was 42% in 2006), 8% is convinced it was an assassination.

A nations borders are always defined as a result of conflict. Even Poland's borders during the
interbellum were defined by war with the Bolsheviks ending with the treaty of Riga in 1921.

It's not quite true. The European countries, and the USSR renounced the use of war to resolve disputes in 1928 by signing the Kellogg–Briand Pact and then, the General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes. In practice both treaties made all borders in Europe permanent.

Until along came Hitler and Stalin who remapped national borders through military invasions....ie. conflict, and there they remained until new borders were again redrawn by the Red Army and the western allies.

So the USSR, and the UK (by supporting the Soviet annexations of the Baltic States and parts of Poland, Finland, Czechoslovakia , Rumania) renegaded on their treaty obligations they solemnly swore to uphold fifteen years earlier.
It should be mention Germans were hanged for exactly the same crime - the so called crime against peace.

Unfortunately Churchill was elected as PM and not Halifax - otherwise Britain would have signed a peace treaty with Germany in May 1940 and the war would have over for Britain and the Commonwealth nations. As further aside, one wonders why the Labour Party voted for the Conservative Winston Churchill, and for war, because without Labour support Halifax would have been PM and European peace secured with Germany.

By signing the Anglo-Polish Agreement in 1939 Germany considered Poland had renaged on its German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934...so maybe any "crime against peace" lies closer to home?

[gebhk]

Signing as defensive treaty makes one a 'criminal against peace'? Seriously?

[4thskorpion]

Signing as defensive treaty makes one a 'criminal against peace'? Seriously?

Of course not seriously any more than the comment it was directed at below should be taken seriously:

So the USSR, and the UK (by supporting the Soviet annexations of the Baltic States and parts of Poland, Finland, Czechoslovakia , Rumania) renegaded on their treaty obligations they solemnly swore to uphold fifteen years earlier.
It should be mention Germans were hanged for exactly the same crime - the so called crime against peace.

[wm]

Until along came Hitler and Stalin who remapped national borders through military invasions....ie. conflict, and there they remained until new borders were again redrawn by the Red Army and the western allies.

And this is why even today laws, treaties, agreements are only for the little countries. The great powers redefine them for the greater good, i.e. their own good as they see it fit.

By signing the Anglo-Polish Agreement in 1939 Germany considered Poland had renaged on its German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934...so maybe any "crime against peace" lies closer to home?

Which article of the agreement?

[4thskorpion]

Until along came Hitler and Stalin who remapped national borders through military invasions....ie. conflict, and there they remained until new borders were again redrawn by the Red Army and the western allies.

And this is why even today laws, treaties, agreements are only for the little countries. The great powers redefine them for the greater good, i.e. their own good as they see it fit.

Indeed, something I can agree on with you.

By signing the Anglo-Polish Agreement in 1939 Germany considered Poland had renaged on its German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934...so maybe any "crime against peace" lies closer to home?

Which article of the agreement?

I don't think any one specific Polish breach of articles in the agreement was used by the German's as their pretext for invading Poland. I believe the issue was that Germany saw the Poles agreement with Britain as in breach of the existing German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact. ie, signing the Anglo-Polish Agreement in 1939 was deemed an act of aggression - almost a declaration of war.

[gebhk]

Let's be honest, AH was determined to have his war and some pretext would be found whatever Poland did or didn't do. Stalin was also keen for AH to have his war provided it was with the West and facilitating this event was part of his foreign policy. If he could carry out a few land-grabs while that was happening, so much the better. There was therefore zero chance of maintaining the peace and the blandishments of some apologists of these two leaders and their totalitarian regimes, that it was this little, economically weak, developing new country called Poland that forced the peace loving superpowers into a war are disingenous and frankly bizarre if not surreal.

However this seems to be getting us very far from Gen Chernyakhovsky and his statue!

Skorpion, you ask "if 30% of Poles believe in a Russian conspiracy over the Smolensk crash what hope is there?". The answer in part lies in another question: Why do 30% of Poles believe etc..." The answer to that question, of course, lies in the over 200 years of offical falsehood that Poles were fed on and the consequent immediate suspicion of anything that comes from 'official sources'. The murder of thousands of Poles - for convenience let's call it the Katyn murders - is a point in question. Apart from a short period under Yeltsin, it was and remains the subject of denial and self denial by the Soviet Union and subsequently the Russian Federation. This is all the more ironic given that Yeltsin allowed the cat to be well and truly let out of the bag, so that no vestige of credible deniability remains. Handing over the remaining documentation on these murders to Poland would be a step towards rapprochement. Alas now that the relatives of those murdered have themselves in the main gone to the grave, this is not going to make nearly as much positive impact as it could have done 20 years ago. Nevertheless it would be a big step in the right direction.

[4thskorpion]

Stalin was also keen for AH to have his war provided it was with the West and facilitating this event was part of his foreign policy.

Any sources to support this assertion?

Skorpion, you ask "if 30% of Poles believe in a Russian conspiracy over the Smolensk crash what hope is there?". The answer in part lies in another question: Why do 30% of Poles believe etc..."

See Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History by David Aaronovitchfor an explanation as to why some need to see a "conspiracy" in histroical events. “Voodoo Histories”: When smart people believe dumb things.

Handing over the remaining documentation on these murders to Poland would be a step towards rapprochement.

What remaining Katyn documents?

Russian Files Show Stalin Ordered Massacre of 20,000 Poles in 1940

Mr. Pikhoya also said the package of materials given to President Walesa contained not only the Politburo resolution, but also a report by Lavrenti P. Beria, head of the N.K.V.D., on the numbers and categories of Polish officers kept in camps and prisons. The documents also list the Politburo members' vote on the execution order.

Mr. Walesa praised Mr. Yeltsin for delivering the documents, long sought by the Polish Government, and said their delivery "indicates new correct relations between our countries."

Dr. Eugenia Maresch also uncovered many new "western" documents for her book in 2010.

However this seems to be getting us very far from Gen Chernyakhovsky and his statue!

I agree it is mildly tangential.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Over a third of Poland’s post-war territory was in Germany before the Second World War.

Actually 32,24 percent, which - frankly speaking - is less than a third (a third being 33,3333... percent, as we all know).

If we include the Free City Danzig (which was not in Germany before WW2), then 32,87 percent. Still less than a third.

newly acquired territories, euphemistically called "Recovered Territories or Ziemie Odzyskane"

Had the Greeks recaptured Istanbul from Turkey, or Taranto from Italy, they would have also called those places "Regained Lands". So I'm not sure what is so euphemistic in this. The "Jewish Promised Land" seems like a slightly more euphemistic name for Palestine.

Check also my response here: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 3#p1975543

As we know, the Germans were forcibly expelled from their homeland after the war and Poles were resettled on these territories.

Indeed, but the majority of Germans escaped or were evacuated already before the war came to an end, between January and May 1945.

I have written about this in June this year and as far as I can see, nobody has tried to call into question the figures that I posted:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 0#p1950509

Expulsion took place, but the scale and brutality of that expulsion has been grossly exaggerated by German propaganda.

The majority of those Germans escaped on their own (or were evacuated by the Nazi authorities) during, not after, WW2. It was a mass migration and a mass flight triggered by the approaching Red Army and by fear of retaliation. Those later expelled or deported, were only the leftovers of German population who had no escaped before. Moreover, so called "wild expulsions" (the only real violent expulsion) lasted just for a relatively short time, after the area was captured, but before the Polish administration took over the area from the Soviet administration. Later there were no expulsions, but organized deportations - though indeed the conditions during those deportations were bad.

Read:

Prof. Piotr Eberhardt, "Political migrations in Poland 1939-1948", 2006 (72 pages):

http://www.igipz.pan.pl/en/zpz/Political_migrations.pdf

Prof. P. Eberhardt, "Political migrations on Polish territories 1939-1950", 2011 (228 pages):

http://rcin.org.pl/Content/15652/WA51_1 ... grafie.pdf

From the 2006 (shorter) publication:








The estimated number of refugees and evacuated persons (i.e. those who had left the area and escaped westward already during the war) amounted to around 7,5 million people according to the updated 2011 publication:




As for these figures:

The number of victims ("democide") in Poland was exaggerated a dozen or so times, because:

1) It includes wartime casualties suffered during the flight and chaotic evacuation (read above).

2) It counted as "dead people" those former German citizens who were not expelled, but stayed in Poland.

The census of 1950 counted in total 1,164,706 pre-1939 former German citizens living in areas annexed from Germany. This number does not include those of pre-1939 German citizens who moved eastward to other areas of Poland (for example migrants from Oppeln to Warsaw, etc.). Here is the breakdown of those people (who were inhabitants of Germany as of 31.08.1939) by region ("autochthons"):

(...)

AFAIK, all of those people were counted by Germany as "dead, victims of expulsion", even though they still lived in Poland in 1950.

I have posted detailed figures on the number of autochthons here (my nick there is Domen):

http://www.historycy.org/index.php?show ... &p=1490551

Here another link to this data: http://www.speedyshare.com/pjjge/Numerical-data.xls

[gebhk]

Stalin was also keen for AH to have his war provided it was with the West and facilitating this event was part of his foreign policy.

Any sources to support this assertion?

Stalin's own words but I would have to do a bit of serching in my files.

"What remaining Katyn documents?"
The complete RF investigation of the crime and those documents reviewed as part of the investigation which remain classified. The 'Belarussian Katyn List". For starters.

[4thskorpion]

Stalin was also keen for AH to have his war provided it was with the West and facilitating this event was part of his foreign policy.

Any sources to support this assertion?

Stalin's own words but I would have to do a bit of serching in my files.

Thank you, I know Chamberlain believed the Soviets were agitating for war between Britain and Germany to serve their own political ends in Europe but ChamberLain does not give any intelligence specifics to support this belief, so I will be very interested to read these words from Stalin.

"What remaining Katyn documents?"
The complete RF investigation of the crime and those documents reviewed as part of the investigation which remain classified. The 'Belarussian Katyn List". For starters.

Which specific documents remain classified? Or is this part of the "Katyn-Smolensk conspiracy" narrative?

As for the socalled 'Belarussian Katyn List".

From Warsaw Voice 2012:

The problem with the Belarusian Katyn list is far-fetched. This list does not exist, the director of the department for archives and records management of the Justice Ministry of Belarus Vladimir Adamushko told reporters.

Adamushko said that Ukrainian and Russian Katyn lists do exist because Polish officers were executed on the territories of these countries. The Belarusian list does not and cannot exist,” he said. The officers, whose names were immortalized in Katyn, were transported through Belarus. They had short stops in Baranovichi, Orsha. “Poland knows about it. We shared our data on the matter with Polish archivists,” Adamushko added.

Obviously some people will choose to believe Adamushko and some will not.

[4thskorpion]

Over a third of Poland’s post-war territory was in Germany before the Second World War.

Actually 32,24 percent, which - frankly speaking - is less than a third (a third being 33,3333... percent, as we all know).

If we include the Free City Danzig (which was not in Germany before WW2), then 32,87 percent. Still less than a third.

I stand corrected, 32.24% not 33.33% of post-war Poland was German territory before WWII

So by way of correction:-

in the 32.24% of former German territories that were incorporated into post-war Poland from which the German population was forcibly expelled there was little anti-communist resistance from the Poles that moved into the newly acquired Polish lands or so called "Recovered Territories". Territories "recovered" not by Poland but for Poland thanks principally by the Red Army (with support of Polish 1 AWP under Soviet command).

I agree the numbers of "expellees" and territorial rights (or counter-claims) are the subject of propagandists from all sides... 'twas ever thus.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

territorial rights (or counter-claims) are the subject of propagandists from all sides

Before the 20th century, Germans generally had no problems with acknowledging the Polish past of Silesia. For example:

Johann Gottlieb Schummel (1748-1813), in his "Schummels Reise durch Schlesien im Julius und August 1791" (published in 1792), wrote: "Let's not start a court trial for Silesia with the Poles. We will lose it in the Tribunal of History, both in the first instance and in higher instance."

[gebhk]

Which specific documents remain classified? Or is this part of the "Katyn-Smolensk conspiracy" narrative?

If they are classified then its difficult to know! However, unless something has changed in the last two years or so and passed by very quietly, 35 documents attached to the RF investigation remain classified, including the reasons for the termination of the investigation. Hardly a conspiracy theory given that this is in the public domain and has been the subject of at least two Court of Human Rights cases.

Happily my grandfather narrowly escaped the fate of so many of his contemporaries because he was in the second wave of Polish officers, those who had been interned in Lithuania etc in 1939 and who only found themselves prisoners of the Soviets when their countries of internment were annexed by the USSR. The Germans invaded before his time came. Thus the matter of Katyn is not something I need to follow closely and would be very pleased to stand corrected if the above has changed recently.

[gebhk]

Clearly Adamushko is in a minority, not surprisingly given that, as I understand it, the documents in 'Package No 1' revealed in 1990, identify individuals in Belorussian SSR prisons slated for murder and others confirming that they were indeed killed there.