Soviets or Germans Responsible For the Polish Holocaust In Katyn Forest?

[Alkman]

"Russia to release massacre files






The Russian government has agreed to allow the Polish authorities to examine Soviet archives on what Poles call the Katyn Forest massacre of 1940.

More than 20,000 Polish soldiers were killed by the Soviet secret police at the start of World War II.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, hosting his Polish counterpart, said he hoped the two sides would be able to compare accounts of the incident.

Polish experts began an investigation into the killings earlier this month.

An official Russian report released in September avoided calling the deaths a war crime or a crime against humanity, which could still trigger prosecutions.

The massacre - in Katyn Forest near the Russian city of Smolensk - happened while the Poles were held prisoner.

Some families of the victims want the killings to be recognised as genocide.

The Polish Foreign Minister, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, said he hoped the opportunity to examine the archives would not affect current ties between Moscow and Warsaw. The Katyn massacre has been a sensitive issue in relations between Russia and Poland for more than a decade since the fall of communism in both countries. The Nazis discovered the bodies of several thousand Polish officers at Katyn in 1943, but Moscow did not admit responsibility for the killings until 1989. "







It was accepted at Nuremberg trial as being a German crime and many Nazis were executed for this.What really happened in Katyn Forest?

[bocian]

Originally Posted by Alkman

It was accepted at Nuremberg trial as being a German crime and many Nazis were executed for this.What really happened in Katyn Forest?

Soviets.

[Marco Polo]

soviets (who really cares?)

[Cromm]

Originally Posted by Marco Polo

soviets (who really cares?)

ME!!
Who did it.Soviets

[Ellinaras]

Communists

[Blue Devil]

RED ARMY + KGB (NKVD then)

[Perun]

Only Communists nowadays stil claim the Germans did it.

[Almost a Christian]

Anything that even quivered in opposition to the "Revolution"
would've been eradicated with unparallelled severity.....

The only pretext they would've required is the possibility however slight that you had an inkling of a capability for independent thought....

Defeated soldiers, just because the fact that they where soldiers would
immediately have made them marked men & prime material for their death lists....

Any notion of honour would've been viewed purely as a capitalistic indulgence.....

I believe the Red Cross found out it was the Russians.....

But uncomfortable facts makes objectionable reading .....

So why not put the imagination to good use & come up with new "facts"...
the victors feel better & the books bounce off the shelves!

[Eriugena]

Originally Posted by Marco Polo

soviets (who really cares?)

It matters a great deal because the Soviet authors of the Katyn report were also the authors of the Soviet report on Auschwitz. These same people were key figures in the Moscow Show Trials of the late 1930's. It does not take rocket science to see the connections.

[Russian Imperialist]

Circa 100 000 Russian POW were killed in Polish concentration camps in 1920-21.
As to the infamous Katyn case we may argue indefinitely long because one can always find arguments pro et contra Russian or German connection. I don't want to enlist the papers and evidences as I think all the dispute is counterproductive and serving only to heat-up anti Russian (not anti Communist at all!) sentiments.
But also I would ask you: if you were in the place of German or Russian military command, what could you do with several thousand of hostile competent officers who at any occasion would join the enemy's army? German practice in Poland is full of much more bloody and much less justified massacres. So what? It was a war, and during the war the sides NEVER behave ALWAYS as gentlemen.

[Gil]

Communists, not Russians, did it. Though, like Imperialist said it, there can be shown "evidences" of guilt in both involved parts. I say, a duel to the death and iot's settled, huh?

[Eriugena]

Originally Posted by Manji

Communists, not Russians, did it. Though, like Imperialist said it, there can be shown "evidences" of guilt in both involved parts. I say, a duel to the death and iot's settled, huh?

Evidence of guilt for both parties, you say. Intriguing comment, what do you mean?

[Eriugena]

Originally Posted by Russian Imperialist

Circa 100 000 Russian POW were killed in Polish concentration camps in 1920-21.
As to the infamous Katyn case we may argue indefinitely long because one can always find arguments pro et contra Russian or German connection

No we can't because the German investigation at the time, monitored byinternational observers established Soviet responsibility and Gorbachev formally accepted Soviet responsibility for Katyn on 1993.

I don't want to enlist the papers and evidences as I think all the dispute is counterproductive and serving only to heat-up anti Russian (not anti Communist at all!) sentiments.

If you don't want to stir up something then why do you make such provocative comments by suggesting that responsibility is unclear?

[Gil]

Eheh, both pro-russia and pro-germany will show, like I said, "evidences" (notice the punctuation ) both defending themselves and stating "the other's did it". Nobody likes to take the blame, nowadays.

[Eriugena]

Originally Posted by Manji

Eheh, both pro-russia and pro-germany will show, like I said, "evidences" (notice the punctuation ) both defending themselves and stating "the other's did it". Nobody likes to take the blame, nowadays.

Evidences? 'Evidence' is both the singular and the plural. I am not German. I don't see any evidence so I take it you don't have any? Or do you know something Gorbachev did not?

[Agrippa]

But in other cases Russians would have never admit it and German would. Katyn was a Soviet crime and this is proven, its no longer a question for nationalists or Communists, its just a fact that the Soviet Union ordered this crime and later blamed the "Nazis" because they were blamed for everything after the war...

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Russian Imperialist

Circa 100 000 Russian POW were killed in Polish concentration camps in 1920-21. [...]

The issue here is Communists, not Russians.

So what? It was a war, and during the war the sides NEVER behave ALWAYS as gentlemen.

If, like Elstner says, those who produced the report for the Katyn massacre were also responsible for the report on Auschwitz, then the implications are of extreme importance.

No one is blaming Russians here, and no one should blame them only if for honesty and decency sake.

I can tell you about killings and lies from Communists in other parts of the world, and these were not Russian Communists. In Spain, for example, they have been blatantly lying about the Spanish Civil War for over half a century now. Even when historical revisionism is showing that they started the killings and delivered them en masse, and that they brought the nation to a state of war. Yet we are not dealing with 'Spaniards', but with Communists.

[Gil]

Originally Posted by Reinhold Elstner

Evidences? 'Evidence' is both the singular and the plural. I am not German. I don't see any evidence so I take it you don't have any? Or do you know something Gorbachev did not?

First of all, "evidences" is the plural of evidence at least in American English. What are you, the Grammar Police? I was under the assumption that one could post in American-English and British English....

Secondly, no, i don't know state secrets, i'm just stating that no government likes to openly admit to any kind of massacre.

[Eriugena]

Originally Posted by Manji

First of all, "evidences" is the plural of evidence at least in American English. What are you, the Grammar Police? I was under the assumption that one could post in American-English and British English....

No, evidence is both singular and plural. Grammar police?

Secondly, no, i don't know state secrets, i'm just stating that no government likes to openly admit to any kind of massacre.

But Gorbachev officially accepted Soviet responsibility in 1993 so your point is moot.