The Katyn Forest Massacre of World War II

At least 21,857 Polish prisoners were executed. Some of them were Jewish. Some of them were not. Some of them were civilians. Some of them were soldiers. All of them were brutally shot and killed. While this execution style massacre may seem like the work of Nazi soldiers or SS at first, it was not. For years, it was believed that the Nazis perpetrated the Katyn Forest Massacre, but it was the Soviets who did the killing.

Those who study World War II and the worldwide repercussions of the war know that the Nazis were not the only monsters at work. Perhaps the fact that the Nazis were enemies of the Allies and many of their crimes were against non-Germans made them more infamous. Whatever the case, while the Nazis were busy slaughtering POWs, Jews, the infirm, gypsies and just about whomever else they felt like killing, the Soviets were up to their own nasty business. Much of this, like the Katyn Massacre, was not revealed until later because of the Soviet Union's status as part of the Allied force. Leaders of the Soviet Union were killing their prisoners and their fellow citizens. They had concentration camps and massacres of their own. In fact, they were perpetrating genocide (See: The Holodomor) years before the Nazis were.

In 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland in tandem with Germany. This was the beginning of World War II. During this invasion, the Red Army took tens of thousands of Polish prisoners. They could not be called prisoners of war because the Soviets had not declared war, but they were treated like POWs. They were questioned harshly and when it was time to decide their fate, Josef Stalin disposed of them as he would have disposed of POWs. He ordered them executed.

The group of Polish prisoners was placed in concentration camps before the Katyn Forest Massacre. Finally, on March 5, 1940, Josef Stalin signed the order of execution. In May and April, some of the victims were taken to Smolensk, Russia (near Katyn) and murdered in the Communist Secret Service Headquarters there. (It is still hard to tell how many were killed where because it was kept secret for so long.) The rest appear to have been taken to the Katyn Forest and killed there. Three years later, the Nazis took control of the Katyn area. By then, the Soviets and the Nazis were bitter enemies.

While in the Katyn area, the Nazis came across the remnants of the Katyn Massacre, namely the bodies of thousands upon thousands of murdered Poles. They immediately publicized it to make the Soviet Union look bad. They told the world that the Soviet Union had carried out a massacre in Katyn Forest. The Soviets retaliated by saying it was the Nazis who had done it. Of course, many countries took the position that it was the Nazis who killed all of those people. Among those countries was the United States.

For many years, the debate over who was responsible for the Katyn Forest Massacre continued. U.S. Captain George Earle conducted an investigation into the matter and concluded that it was not the Nazis. It was the Soviets. F.D.R dismissed his report and stuck to the official sentiment. The truth did not come out until Mikhail Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union was to blame for the Katyn Forest Massacre in 1989.

Sources

The Katyn Massacres, retrieved 12/22/10, anti-communist.net/Katyn.html

The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field, retrieved 12/22/10, cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/winter99-00/art6.html