Katyn mass murder question?

[ihoyos]

Still remain doubts about the authors? or it is official, were the soviets?

[David Thompson]

As I recall, the Russians admitted responsibility for the act a few years ago, and formally apologized to the Polish government and people. A google search will give you a substantial number of "hits," which should include news articles about the Russian acknowledgement.

[Marcus Wendel]

As I recall Moscow admitted responsibility back in 1990.

/Marcus

[Marcus Wendel]

I just found the below:

On April 13, 1990, the Soviet authorities at last admitted responsibility for the massacres at Katyn and elsewhere, although the figure cited in the relevant statement—"around 15,000"—fell short of the real total by more than 6,000. The admission came in a statement by the Tass news agency, with the personal authority of then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The statement referred to only three of the prison camps involved: Smolensk, Voroshilovgrad, and Kalinin. It claimed that the authorities had knowledge of the killings through "recently discovered documents." "Direct responsibility for the crime" was ascribed to Beria. The statement ended "The Soviet side, expressing profound regret over the Katyn tragedy, declares that this was one of the gravest crimes of Stalinism."
At a meeting in Moscow that day, Gorbachev presented Polish president General Wojciech Jaruzelski with copies of the NKVD's lists of names of Polish internees in the three camps mentioned. The Polish government issued a statement declaring that the question of responsibility for the massacre had "weighed particularly painfully" on Polish-Soviet relations and that the "long-awaited" Soviet admission made possible a relationship based on "partnership and true friendship." The statement went on: "Reconciliation can only be built on truth." It is surely fair to add that the Tass statement—although useful for relations between the ailing Soviet Union and its Polish satellite—was true but not the whole truth. Only three of the localities involved were named, and the total given fell short of the true figure.

http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publicat ... ozier.html

In 1989 Soviet scholars revealed that Joseph Stalin had indeed ordered the massacre, and in 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that the Narodny Kommisariat Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD) had executed the Poles, confirmed two other burial sites similar to the site at Katyn - Mednoe and Pyatikhatki. In 1992, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian officials released top-secret documents from the sealed package no. 1. Among them was Lavrenty Beria's March 1940 proposal to shoot 25,700 Poles from Kozel'skij, Ostashkovskij and Starobel'skij camps, and from certain prisons of Western Ukraine and Belorussia with the signature of Stalin (among others); excerpt from the Politburo shooting order of 5 March 1940; and Aleksandr Shelepin's 3 March 1959 note to Nikita Khrushchev, with information about the execution of 21,857 Poles and with the proposal to destroy their personal files.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

/Marcus

[ihoyos]

thanks for the info.

[Sergey Romanov]

> Still remain doubts about the authors?

Reasonable doubts? No. There are "revisionists", of course.

> or it is official, were the soviets?

It is not "official", it's history.

David Thompson:

> As I recall, the Russians admitted responsibility for the act a few years ago

Gorbachev admitted it in 1990, so it were Soviets, not Russians.

[Caldric]

Didn't the bullets get traced back to German sales to the USSR during their "friendship" period? I think I read that but was not sure.

[Jeremy Chan]

Still remain doubts about the authors? or it is official, were the soviets?

Offical? Of course it was officially sanctioned. It was just as well they admitted, it was a criminal an evil act designed to nail shut the coffin of Polish indenpendence. Yet another warcrime on the stained record of the NKVD.

[Sergey Romanov]

> Didn't the bullets get traced back to German sales to the USSR during their "friendship" period? I think I read that but was not s

I asked for documentary evidence for this on this forum, but got no relevant responses. The thread was moved somewhere in the documentary section.

[bonzen]

"Goebbels himself, perturbed by the news( German ammunition found), had written: "Unfortunately German munitions were found in the graves of Katyn. The question of how they got there needs clarification. If it were to come to the knowledge of the enemy, the whole Katyn affair would have to be dropped."

When the ammunition was identified and could be explained as having been sold before the outbreak of hostilities, Goebbels ran with the story, going so far as to bring downed US airmen to the site to witness the investigation

[Caldric]

> Didn't the bullets get traced back to German sales to the USSR during their "friendship" period? I think I read that but was not s

I asked for documentary evidence for this on this forum, but got no relevant responses. The thread was moved somewhere in the documentary section.

I remember it on the Ez-board forum but I do not remember the source I will try to find it again.

[David Thompson]

Sergey's post went here:

viewtopic.php?t=41962