I don’t see at what point exactly that person is doing “apologia” for the nazis. I am also not aware of any evidence suggesting that the polish people killed in Katyn were “nazi collaborators” as you are trying to claim and it seems like what you’re trying to do is thoughtless apologia for a real atrocity commited by the USSR on polish people. Yes, killing 20k people is nowhere near as bad as the nazi atrocities - that doesn’t suddenly make it justifiable.
Up until the cold war era, it was accepted that it was the Nazis who did it. You can even find old articles online from the NYT of all places claiming that the whole thing was a lie perpetrated by Goebbels:
During the cold war, they did a 180° and the Nazi narrative was then accepted without question. In the 90s, Gorbachev “admitted” to it, but couldnt produce any proof or point to any perpetrators, plus he’s Gorbachev. The people repeating this version of the story now are all the usual suspects: NATO, bourgeois journalists and Polish nationalists. It’s definitely part of anti-communist and Polish nationalist mythology now.
Goebbels himself didnt actually know who did it when the mass graves were found in 1943, but a supposed entry on his diary reveals that he was worried about the fact that the ammo casings found on the location were all German-made. Nevertheless, he blamed the soviets for propaganda purposes.
Were the soviets using german ammunition, for whatever reason? Is the diary a forgery? The liberals will usually claim one of those options. The 2010s investigations done by russia were not well received, and they were also inconclusive.
I do think a lot of people here are too quick to scream “they were nazi collaborators!” when the soviets themselves claimed they didnt do it, and when the evidence is sparse and almost always politically charged. I also think this is caused by counterjerking too hard without looking at the facts.
I can’t really respond to the NYT article you posted, it requires a subscription to view
When it comes to the Goebbels diaries, it appears that Goebbels himself knew (or at the very least believed) that Katyn was done by the Bolsheviks. Although the massacre was very useful to him for propaganda purposes. At least that is the impression I get by skimming through his 1943 diary (published sometime in the 90s)
On April 14, 1943 he wrote
We are now using the discovery of 12,000 Polish officers, murdered by the GPU, for anti-Bolshevik propaganda on a grand scale.
Evidence of Soviet guilt was provided in the 90s - Beria’s letter to Stalin comes to mind. Recent investigations into the mass graves done by polish archeologists showed that the victims didn’t have anything made after 1940 on them.
The people repeating this version of the story now are all the usual suspects: NATO, bourgeois journalists and Polish nationalists.
No, the “people repeating this version of the story” are not just a handful of western propagandists and nationalists. This story is accepted by everyone except for a few MLs.
No, the “people repeating this version of the story” are not just a handful of western propagandists and nationalists. This story is accepted by everyone except for a few MLs.
It’s accepted by anyone with a bone to pick with the soviet union or AES states in general. If you look for information online on this it almost always comes from liberal sources. It’s also “generally accepted” that China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs, and it’s mostly MLs who believe otherwise. It doesn’t stop it from being bunk.
On April 14, 1943 he wrote "We are now using the discovery of 12,000 Polish officers, murdered by the GPU, for anti-Bolshevik propaganda on a grand scale.
And on 8 May 1943, he wrote:
“Unfortunately, German ammunition has been found in the graves at Katyn It is essential that this incident remains top secret. If it were to come to the knowledge of the enemy the whole Katyn affair would have to be dropped.”
Evidence of Soviet guilt was provided in the 90s - Beria’s letter to Stalin comes to mind.
A letter which is of dubious authenticity. Why didn’t Khrushchev use such a letter in his smear campaign against Stalin, if it was genuine? Why keep it a secret for so long after the Soviet State became hostile to the figure of Stalin? Viktor Iliukhin also produced evidence for the drafts of the forgery in 2010, and the contents contradict what we do know about the site anyway. You could also argue that he made a forgery out of his own forgery documents, and we would be arguing over who forged which documents endlessly. But we know that Khrushchev lied about Stalin repeatedly, Gorbachev wouldn’t be beneath it either.
Recent investigations into the mass graves done by polish archeologists showed that the victims didn’t have anything made after 1940 on them.
“Recent investigations” until about 2012 also pointed towards a 1941 date:
It actually says that it couldn’t have been done earlier than 1941:
Z pewnością stwierdzono, że zbrodnia została dokonana nie wcześniej niż w 1941 roku. (p.4)
It is confirmed with certainty that the crime did not take place earlier than 1941.
Transcript of the article:
The story of the mass graves at Katyn, which caused a world sensation two years ago, was a propaganda stunt staged by Goebbels and Ribbentrop to cause a split between Russia and her western allies, says a report received here through special channels that is supported by a message from Oslo tonight. A Himmler close collaborator, SS Brigade Leader Schellenberg, is declared to have given this sensational information during an examination at Allied Headquarters in Germany last Tuesday. He is quoted as saying that 12,000 bodies were taken from German concentration camps and attired in old Polish uniforms to make them appear to be Polish officers.
Tonight a corroborative report was received from Oslo, where Erik Johansen–recently repatriated prisoner from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany–tells an interesting story about German production of false identification documents for bodies in Katyn mass graves.
Johansen says a special section of the concentration camp was completely isolated and strongly guarded by SS men, whereupon forty to sixty Jewish prisoners were picked out to forge the documents. They received the best optical instruments obtainable so the work could be done to perfection. They made passports, letters, etc. and even wallets, which were treated with a special chemical fluid to make them look worn.
Before the German capitulation all machines, instruments and material used were destroyed and the Jewish specialists were killed to prevent the secret from getting out, he said.
That article is not about the soviets not doing katyn. It specifically assumes katyn happened according to the official narrative and uses it as a point of comparison.
There is at least a substantial connection.
The Ukrainian Excavations
Since 2010 much more important evidence has come to the fore that casts the strongest doubt upon the “official version” of Katyn. In Volodymyr-Volyns’kiy, Ukraine, Polish and Ukrainian archaeologists found evidence that at least two Polish policemen believed to have been shot by the Soviets in April or May 1940 in or near Kalinin (now Tver’), Russia, were in fact murdered by the Germans and their Ukrainian Nationalist allies in the second half of 1941, after the fascist invasion of the USSR. This fact alone dismantles the “official” version of the “Katyn massacre” narrative. (5) The present writer has endeavored to describe and examine this new evidence and to explain just how it proves that the “official” version has to be false. (6)
These discoveries illustrate how corrupt the history around the “Katyn massacre” has become. The discovery of the badges of the two Polish policemen previously said to have been shot and buried sixteen months or more later and seven hundred miles away is by far the most important find at the Volodymyr-Volyns’kiy excavation. It is the most important development in the Katyn issue since the disclosure of the “forgery evidence” in October 2010. So why has it not received the publicity that it merits? Undoubtedly because powerful political forces in Poland and Ukraine do not want to publicize it - because it casts doubt on Soviet guilt.
Though yes, it is a different site
I was arguing with blanqui about this the other day (unaware of that some people in the current day claim it was Nazis who did it), and it seemed to me from what blanqui cited – with an admittedly distressing lack of even direct translation from primary documents – that the Soviets took a population of politicians and military, used an extensive process of interview and interrogation to separate staunch enemies of the Soviets from those who weren’t committed, and then executed the former group. Would this be brutal, even cruel, if it is the correct reading? Probably, but it’s not wanton slaughter
Perhaps Nazis are responsible for some of the bodies – and from what I saw, only like 5k - 7k bodies were found, not the oft-cited 20k – I really don’t know what the argument in favor of Nazis doing it is. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that Nazis killed people and it was pinned on the Soviets (see the whole Eastern Front mortality rate issue), though it seems to me that there clearly were a number of people who were executed. The conversation with blanqui didn’t establish how many were shown in the documentation to have even existed, all that was mentioned was that about 400 were cleared as not being firm anti-Soviets.
I am not actually familiar with the history but for me (and I assume many others in this context) when I see “inteligentsia” I read “SS”
Edit: so that could be where this is coming from
A huge amount of the so-called “intelligentsia” were Polish military conscripts who had been working at a university or something prior. It gets cast as though the Soviets were raiding schools, but from what I have seen it’s more like they are looking through the resumes of the people killed to find something else to call them.
