Propaganda: The lies behind the Katyn Massacre.

Yesterday, April 3, 2007, was the 67th Anniversary of the first transport of approximately 20,000 Poles who left a POW camp in Soviet Russia, bound for the Katyn Forest and other sites, to be summarily executed, without benefit of trial.

Stalin personally ordered the executions of Polish officers, policemen and other people belonging to the Polish elite, in a memorandum dated March 5, 1940, to Lavrenti Beria, the head of the NKVD (predecessor of the KGB). Per Stalin's instructions, the prisoners were to be shot. They were. In the back. After they had dug out their grave.

It was in 1943 that the Nazis discovered the mass grave in Katyn Forest, and disinterred more than 4,000 bodies. Though the Nazis told the story to the world, the world dismissed it as German propaganda. President Roosevelt thought so. Winston Churchill decided it was best not to speak about it.

While German propaganda failed, Soviet propaganda took over, so much so, that in 1956 the KGB recognized that international public opinion believed that the Germans were responsible for Katyn, and suggested all records on the incident be destroyed. They were not.

In 1990, the Soviet Union formally expressed ‘profound regret’ and admitted Soviet secret police responsibility for the murder of the Poles, although the numbers given were about "around 15,000", about 6,000 short of the real total.

There is still a bone of contention for the Poles: to this day, Russia refuses to acknowledge that the Katyn Massacre was an act of genocide, as defined by the UN Resolution of 1948.

The Hoover Institution received all the secret documents pertaining to this incident, and you can read more about it Brian Crozier's "Remembering Katyn" here. See also Polish Radio’s External Service.


Katyn Forest PolandRussiaWorld War IIHoover Institution genocide Stalin Beria Brian Crozier