Soviet Responsibility at Katyn: pro and con

[Chinaski1917]

"But historians don't have proper qualifications to judge if Katyn was a genocide or not."

Say's who ?

There is a universal and rather strict definition of a genocide nowadays. Anyone can read and let me reassure you those historians have.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Exactly, and Katyn crime fits to this definition of genocide.

While it is doubtful if Katyn can be defined as a war crime (since there was no Polish-Soviet war at that time).

By the way - I'm not sure if you are familiar with the Soviet request to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg from 1946, in which the Soviet Union accused Germany for the crime of GENOCIDE at Katyn.

So the Soviet Union acknowledged that the Katyn crime was a genocide yet in 1946.

[Chinaski1917]

It's sad but true that killing of POW was a common practice during WWII.

Can we speak of genocides in each case ?

Did Soviet Russia kill Poles as a national group ? Or did she kill the Polish officers because they were officers ?

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Killing specifically officers, and in such a professional and systematic way, was a less common practice.

[Chinaski1917]

A stalinist view on genocide in 1946 isnt what we would call a credible understanding of what amounts to a genocide NOWADAYS.

[Chinaski1917]

"Killing specifically officers, and in such a professional and perfected way, was a much less common practice."

Certainly Katyn has its uniqueness (the main being that S.Russia and Poland were not on war at the time) in some way but I repeat killing of POW was practice even the Polish forces had done in the past.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

I think there was no something like "Stalinist view on genocide".

Btw the entire term "genocide" was introduced to international law by a Polish lawyer Rafał Lemkin in 1944 (in his work "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe"). Not much really changed in the understanding of genocide since late 1940s until nowadays. The definition from the Convention from 1948 was co-created by the same Rafał Lemkin.

Nowaydas, Polish public prosecutor's office also considers Katyn as a genocide.

but I repeat killing of POW was practice even the Polish forces had done in the past.

You see there is a huge difference between killing random POWs and targeting entire, specific group.

And there is a huge difference in scale of both crimes as well as methods of commiting them.

The Soviets did not kill all Polish POWs - they were not executing enlisted soldiers.

[Chinaski1917]

"You see there is a huge difference between killing random POWs and targeting entire, specific group."

I don't get what you mean. In the first Soviet-Polish war , Polish target a specific group of soviet POW. They didnt kill random ones.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Polish crimes against Soviet POWs were similar to Soviet against German or German against Soviet POWs from WW2.

They were not similar to Soviet crime on Polish officers at Katyn.

Poles were not conducting organized and planned mass executions of Soviet POWs.

Also high mortality of Soviet POWs in Polish captivity resulted mainly from bad conditions and diseases. Bad treatment also occured, but it was of secondary importance. Bad conditions & infectious diseases were the main killers.

On the other hand, the 100% mortality rate of Polish officers at Katyn resulted from bullets in their occiputs.

Mortality rate among different groups (ranks) of Soviet POWs in Polish captivity was similar.

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Polish officers were not executed because they were Polish but because they were considered an unwavering enemies of the Soviet state.

They were not killed because they were Polish, but they were killed because they were Polish officers.

Do you have any proof that the motive of killing them was considering them as "unwavering enemies"?

In this regard the philosophy utilized in this case by the Soviet government was not all that different from the philosophy utilized by Nazis when they drafted Commissar order, which considered to be a war crime and not an act of genocide.

This took place during the war between these states, while the Katyn crime didn't. But this is not a good comparison. Commissars were killed because of their ideology and because they were members of the Communist Party.

On the other hand, there was no uniform ideology nor uniform political identity among Polish officers.

Note that apart from being Polish officers, they were also the elite of the Polish nation.

On the other hand, Commissars were not the elite of the multinational Soviet Union.

They were not killed because they were Polish, but they were killed because they were Polish officers.

No they were killed because they were officers of the hostile armed forces that cannot be persuaded to be loyal to the Soviet cause, their ethnicity in this case was of the secondary importance, their political views were primary ones. They could have been Escimo officers – as long as they were considered enemies of the Soviet state the result would have been the same. Many officers from the Baltic sates shared the fate of their Polish counterparts, on the other hand, as far as I recall, Czechs that were interned in the USSR, were spared.

Do you have any proof that the motive of killing them was considering them as "unwavering enemies"?

Have you actually read Beria report that proposed the execution? http://katyn.org.au/beria.html There is hardly any doubt in regards how they were viewed by Soviet authorities.

A large number of former officers of the Polish Army, employees of the Polish Police and intelligence services, members of Polish nationalist, counter-revolutionary parties, members of exposed counter-revolutionary resistance groups, escapees and others, all of them sworn enemies of Soviet authority full of hatred for the Soviet system, are currently being held in prisoner-of-war camps of the USSR NKVD and in prisons in the western provinces of Ukraine and Belarus.

This took place during the war between these states, while the Katyn crime didn't. But this is not a good comparison. Commissars were killed because of their ideology and because they were members of the Communist Party.

So in your opinion killing selected group of POW during the war is war crime while doing the same when there are no hostilities is genocide? Polish officers were killed because they were in opposition to Communism; in case of Commissars it was pro-communism that lead to killings and in case of Polish officers because they were contra –in both cases it was the matter of ideology. Do you think that the Poles would be executed if they were ardent communist supporters?

On the other hand, there was no uniform ideology nor uniform political identity among Polish officers.

No, but in mass they said that their loyalties were not with Soviet Union or communism.http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... Katyn+Oleg Feel free to present evidence to the contrary.

Note that apart from being Polish officers, they were also the elite of the Polish nation.

On the other hand, Commissars were not the elite of the multinational Soviet Union.

They were certainly a part of Soviet elite –which why were specifically targeted by Nazis.


PS Not that the entire "we were not at war" line of reasoning seemed very relevant to me, but if my memory is right did not Polish government in exile declared war on USSR at the start of Winter war? If so, when exactly did it "un -declare" it?

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Thoughts on the legal status of Polish POWs. In general it seems to be a murky affair. Soviet Union stated that insofar as it was concerned Polish State was no more; it did not recognized Polish government in Exile as legal successor to the pre-war Polish state. That in turn could (because I am not an expert on subject) mean that they were enemy combatants which is seemingly not the same thing as POW. US still struggles with what exact legal rights should be allotted to Guantanamo detainees, with most extreme position being that they can be held without a trail indefinitely because, they present danger to the US. That is of course a far cry from shooting them wholesale. Without equating Polish officers to whoever is held at Guantanamo, or equating US to USSR or Nazi Germany, in both cases State considered entire group of people potentially dangerous enough to contemplate (and in case of USSR ruthlessly implementing) the most severe measures to ensure its own security.

[Colonel Weeks]

I am interested to know whatever happened to the Finnish member of the Buhtz commission, mr. Saxén. Does anyone of the Finnish members here have any information about him?

After the war Arne Saxén burned his files and stayed few years in Sweden, because of pressure from the Allied Control Commission and Finnish communists. However, he was the professor of pathological anatomy at University of Helsinki until his death in 1952.

Thank you, Seppo, for this info. Do you know if it has ever been written any articles about him?

[murx]

From a professional view it is not easy to imagine how the German investigation could have been made any better. Even the knowledge of the presence of the German manufactured ammunition never was attempted to be supressed. I cannot attach the origial report due to the very restrictive limitation of the size of attachments. Whoever wants to have it by email: just ask me, I'll send it.

Some interesting aspects are found here:

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for- ... i3a08p.pdf

Other reports (or more a complete collection of documents) are found here (the forensic expert from Swizzerland who later was tried to be finished off by accusing him of bribery. That plan failed after it was found that he even privately had paid his travel expenses to Katyn in order not to be subject of such accusation).

http://www.icrc.org/Web/fre/sitefre0.ns ... e/P_FN.pdf

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

and in case of Polish officers because they were contra –in both cases it was the matter of ideology.

There is a difference between being contra and not being pro.

Polish officers weren't contra, they were just not pro.

Moreover, nobody investigated the Polish officers to determine if they were contra or not.

So there are no proofs that all of murdered Polish officers were anti-Communist.

Stalin during his purges persecuted Soviet officers that were contra-Stalinist, but the extent of this persecution (mortality rate, the way of persecuting them, etc.) was not even close to that of Polish officers.

So why "Russian enemies of the people" weren't murdered in the same way as "Polish enemies of the people"?

No they were killed because they were officers of the hostile armed forces that cannot be persuaded to be loyal to the Soviet cause, their ethnicity in this case was of the secondary importance, their political views were primary ones.

Nobody even tried to persuade them to be loyal to the Soviet cause, nor they had such a legal obligation.

So they were killed without previous attempts of persuading them.

Btw - why German, Romanian, Hungarian, Japanese, etc. officers were not killed from the same reason?

Moreover - killing the Polish officers because they - according to the perpetrators - supposedly could not be "persuaded to be loyal", means that the Soviets intended to destroy a part of a national and religious group as such (since being loyal to the Soviet Cause = rejecting their national identity and rejecting any forms of religion). And rejecting their national and religious identity by a part of a group = de facto destruction of this part of a group as such.

This (the Soviet intention to "destroy" a part of a national and religious group - by persuading them to completely change their national & religious identity or by killing them in case if this was not possible) combined with the form of eliminating Polish officers (that is: killing them), fits to the definition of genocide.

So we can distinguish at least two important aspects of the Katyn crime:

a) Intention to "Sovietize" Polish officers and thus to eliminate a part of a separate national group (part of Polish elite) - as well as a part of religious group (Soviets attempted to force them to become Communist atheists).

If this was done successfuly, Polish officers as human beings would continue to exist, but they would be part of a different group (thus the group they previously formed - part of Polish elites -, would cease to exist).

b) Planned and systematic, physical extermination of Polish officers as human beings.

The "by-product" of this extermination, was destruction of the group they formed (as the Soviets intended).

These two aspects combined allow us to refer to the Katyn crime as to a genocide.

There is also at least one more aspect, which can also support the genocidal character of this crime:

c) Soviet elimination of Polish officers resulted in partial destruction of the Polish leading ("managerial") estate of the realm (intelligentsia), and thus decreased the Polish capabilities of resisting the occupants (both German and Soviet) and thus indirectly decreased the capabilities of the Polish nation as a whole to survive and regain independence.

Especially that this part of the leading estate was the militarily educated part, capable of commanding the resistance movement as well as Polish struggles abroad aimed at regaining independence and saving the nation.

Question is if this was deliberate and intended. But undoubtedly this was a blow for the entire Polish nation.

Please also note that ca. 97% of the officers murdered at Katyn were of Polish nationality. While a considerably smaller percent of all officers captured by the Red Army during the Invasion of Poland were of Polish nationality.

Thus not all captured officers of the Polish Army were targeted, but mainly those of Polish nationality.

For example most of officers of Ukrainian or Belarusian nationality were released from captivity.

Thus clearly the Katyn crime had also an anti-national (anti-Polish) character, not only anti-officer.

It seems that the purpose of the Katyn crime was to "chop the head" (eliminate the leaders) of the Polish underground state and the armed forces in exile as well as armed resistance on the occupied territory of the country.

Even if this was not an intended purpose, it certainly was one of the factual results.

Soviet Union stated that insofar as it was concerned Polish State was no more; it did not recognized Polish government in Exile as legal successor to the pre-war Polish state.

In other words, the USSR disregarded the existing international reality.

Because other states recognized governments in exile of occupied countries:

"(...) The common ground, on the basis of which individual governments in emigration were recognized, was their reality. Occupant, because of provisional and temporary character of his rules, can not according to the valid international law act as authorities of the occupied state. Occupied states continue to exist, so long, as long the resistance against the occupant persists. Until the conquest and the stabilization of the new factual situation takes place, the government in emigration has the right to represent the state provided that it carries on activities aimed at regaining the occupied territory. This activity should be expressed by supervising the struggle against the occupant, both within its occupied territory and outside the state. The effective expression of this activity is the possesion of own armed forces or managing the resistance movement on the occupied territory. (...)"

So according to international law the governemt in exile was legal successor of the Polish state until 1945. After that the Communist government became legal successor, and the government in exile lost its status.

Even though, nowadays in Poland Communist Poland is often denied the status of legal successor of pre-war Poland (even the Polish constitution of 1997 refers to the pre-1939 Poland - not the Communist Poland - as to its antecessor). This is of course fiction and it is denied only from political reasons / incentives.

[murx]

The report (370 pages, in German) is here: http://katyn.ru/index.php?go=Pages&file=print&id=831

Pictures out of the report: http://katynbooks.narod.ru/amtliches/bilds274-331.html

It is very interesting to compare it with the Original Russian "report", which contains typical items known from other reports, still being seen as authentic material. It simply indicates the margin of deception.
It is found (German version!) distributed by the German communist (underground) organisation KPD, which in 2010 (!)* is claiming Katyn to be a German Wehrmacht crime. The copy of the Russian Katyn report starts on page 6 of the text. The paper has attached a copy of the "Vienna courier", "published by the American Forces for the population of Vienna",, written in the subtitle. The headline which is on display translates into: " In Katyn 11.000 Poles have been shot by the Germans in 1941"

http://www.kpd-ml.org/doc/partei/katyn.pdf


*the official one is the DKP.
.