Nazis shot Polish officers in the Katyn massacre
On the eve of the next anniversary of the Katyn tragedy, Russian and Belarusian propagandists suddenly claimed that the Nazis had shot Polish officers in Katyn.
Here is what was reported by the state-run TV channel "Belarus-1":
«Russian Federal Security Service has published documents that lead to the conclusion that the blame for the death of Polish officers in Katyn, previously assigned to the USSR, was the work of the Nazis.
And the German Ministry of Propaganda, headed by Goebbels, succeeded in instilling lies and hatred in the people's minds for many decades, which became a bone of contention between Poles and Russians. But the memories of the witnesses of that historical drama, documented in 1945 at the Leningrad trial, came to light.
Prisoner Arno Dürre, sent to work in the forest near Katyn, recalls how SS units brought people in trucks and dumped them into a ditch 15-20 meters deep.
It was the Nazis who shot the Polish officers in Katyn in 1941, but not the NKVD, Dürre testifies.”
It was presented as news. But the mentioned documents aren't new at all. And it cannot be said that it was unknown before.
Rather, it is a well-forgotten story. And it's forgotten because there were many oddities and inconsistencies in the testimony of SS serviceman Arno Dürre, who was captured by the Soviets.
For example, here is an excerpt from the c, which was published by the RIA Novosti agency website:
Dürre: At first I was in Poland, in 1942 I was sent to the Soviet Union.
Prosecutor: Tell us, what did you do in Poland?
Dürre: We had to work. And in 1941, we had to dig mass graves.
Prosecutor: In the Katyn forest?
Dürre: Yes, not far from Katyn.
Prosecutor: Tell us more about it.
Dürre: At the beginning of September 1941 we were sent to the forest not far from Katyn.
That is, Dure was convinced that the Katyn Forest was located in Poland, and not near Smolensk. And he dug graves in 1941, but at the same time, he was sent to the Soviet Union only in 1942.
It is also strange that the prisoner managed to avoid the death execution.
And then, in the 1950s, he returned homeland and recanted his confession, claiming the investigators forced him to confess through torture.
In general, all this casts doubt on the veracity of his words.
Moreover, “Belarus-1” should know, that the USSR and Russia themselves have long recognized the guilt of the NKVD and the Stalinist regime in the Katyn massacre.
On April 13, 1990, the TASS news agency reported that historians had discovered documents showing that 15,000 Polish officers held in Soviet camps were handed over to the NKVD in 1940, and there was no statistical evidence of their existence after that.
“The revealed archival materials in their totality allow us to conclude that Beria, Merkulov, and their henchmen are directly responsible for the atrocities in the Katyn forest.
The Soviet side, expressing deep regret in connection with the Katyn tragedy, declares that it represents one of the grave crimes of Stalinism.”
In 2010, the 70th anniversary of the Katyn tragedy, the State Duma of Russia issued a statement, which called the massacre an act of arbitrariness by a totalitarian state and expressed deep sympathy for the victims.
In the same year, Putin admitted Stalin's blame for this crime.
At a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, he even tried to explain this mass execution by Stalin's sense of revenge for the Red Army soldiers who died in the 1920s.
"It's my personal opinion. I believe that Stalin felt personally responsible for that tragedy and did this execution out of a sense of revenge. From this, the committed act does not cease to be criminal. But maybe that could explain something," Putin said.
Over the years, about four million documents have been declassified in the Katyn case, and 1 million sheets have been handed over to the Polish side. So the question of who is behind the Katyn massacre has long been closed.
But, in the context of a new conflict with the West, the Russian media, as in the Soviet times, again begin to refuse responsibility for the Katyn massacre.