Soviets deny Katyn

[pzrmeyer2]

In denial

Feb 7th 2008
From Economist.com


Russia revives a vicious lie



IMAGINE Nazi rule in Germany surviving for decades, with Hitler undefeated in war and succeeded on his death in the early 1950s by a series of lacklustre party hacks who more or less disowned his “excesses”. Imagine then a “reform Nazi” (call him Michael Gorbach) coming to power in the 1980s and dismantling the National Socialist system, only to fall from power as the Third Reich collapsed in political and economic chaos.

Imagine a shrunken “German Federation” suffering ten years of upheaval, before an SS officer (call him Voldemar Puschnik) came to power, first as prime minister and then as president. Under eight years of rule by Herr Puschnik, Germany regains economic stability, largely thanks to a sky-high coal price.

That would be distasteful to put it mildly. But it might be tolerable. The SS, for all its faults, attracted bright, ambitious people, and Mr Puschnik’s career in its external espionage division meant that he was not directly tainted by the crimes of the past. Better a stable Germany than a chaotic one. Any big country is going to have its own security interests, and the Dutch, Czechs, Danes and Poles would safeguard their regained independence best by trying to get along with Mr Puschnik, rather than harping on about the evils of Nazism.

It’s much the same in Russia. It would be quite wrong to blame modern Russians for Stalin-era crimes. Russia is not going to go away, and Poles, Balts and others should try not to provoke the Kremlin unnecessarily. The KGB had a dreadful history, but Mr Putin’s role was seemingly anodyne.

But that calculus holds only if modern day rulers show no hint of sympathy for their predecessors’ atrocities. If Herr Puschnik, our putative leader of a post-Nazi Germany, starts flirting with Holocaust denial, every alarm should ring.

Vladimir Putin has already come dangerously close to this in Russia. He has claimed that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was legal. He sees no need to apologise to Baltic victims of Stalinism.

But the Russian media is going further. In the past six months no fewer than four different outlets have revived the outrageous falsehood that it was the Nazis, not the Soviets, who murdered 20,000 captured Polish officers at Katyn in 1940. That Stalin-era lie, enforced at gun-point in post-war Poland, viciously aggravated the original crime. It was buried in 1990, with solemn Kremlin support.

The falsehoods are not in fringe publications. It started with Rossiiskaya Gazeta, a state-owned newspaper, on September 18th last year. It was repeated by the mass-market Komsomolskaya Pravda on October 22nd and again by TV Tsentr—a station in effect run by the Moscow Mayor’s office—on November 4th. Now it has been repeated again by what used to be an upmarket broadsheet, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in its weekend supplement on military affairs.

This comes not in response to some Polish provocation, but at a time when the government in Warsaw has been bending over backwards to soothe relations with Moscow.

The Russian media—in theory at least—can print what it likes. But it is hard not to conclude that this outbreak of revisionist history comes with at least tacit official blessing.

The best way to dispel this would be for the Kremlin and the Russian foreign ministry to come out with a clear and forceful statement saying that from the official side at least, no doubt whatsoever exists that the Soviet secret police, acting on Stalin’s orders, carried out the Katyn massacre. Failure to do that suggests at best atrocious cynicism and at worst a nauseating sympathy with the perpetrators.

[statemachine]

The Poles are not about to let the Russkies off the hook regarding Katyn that easy.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 94,00.html

[Benoit Douville]

I believe that the Soviet Union committed the tragedy of Katyn, however let's not forget that in 1940 the Germans and the Soviets were working together to eliminate the Polish intelligentsia, the Germans in the Western part of Poland and the Soviets on the Eastern part, The Gestapo and the NKVD had conferences and a lot of historians including the great Norman Davies believe that the Germans were behind the NKVD to liquidate the Polish POW in Katyn.

Regards

[TPMM]

Hi to all. Katyń is a long topic, so I'll make myself briefly: I doubt that Gestapo could have "made" NKVD killed Polish POWs. Beria signed the order and it was Stalin's choice to get rid of Polish officers, raised in anti-communist spirit. They were a potential threat to him, so eliminating them was quite convenient. He was sure that none will ever know who&when did this - he just could not have imagined that Germans would go so deep into Russia and find it.

Pozdrawiam

[Benoit Douville]

TPMM,

This claim is interesting because don't you agree that the elimination of the Polish intelligentsia benefits both the Germans and the Soviets:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo-NKVD_Conferences

Regards

[TPMM]

Of course I do agree. I only mention, that Gestapo didn't have to insist on Soviets doing it, they'd have done it on their very own. Just imagine yourself over 10,000 (not all would have survived till "liberation") Polish trained officers to cdeal with when the started creating Polish Army in Russia after Sikorski-Mayski pact.

Pozdrawiam

[pzrmeyer2]

a lot of historians including the great Norman Davies believe that the Germans were behind the NKVD to liquidate the Polish POW in Katyn.

so even when Bolshevik NKVD killers pull the triggers and blow the brains out of 15,000 Poles, its still the Germans fault?

Is any event not the fault of these people?

How bout the fire at the Coconut Grove? Gestapo agents?

The Iran earthquake of 1943? Germans again?

what nonsense.

[pzrmeyer2]

the elimination of the Polish intelligentsia benefits both the Germans and the Soviets:

just becuase they may have benfitted from it doesnt implicate them in doing it.

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Odd thing here, but no reasonable student of WWII, including myself, has ever doubted that the NKVD were responsible for this war-crime.

Putin is not an historian, he is only a mere politician.

Best,
~D, the EviL

[phylo_roadking]

...and pinup posterboy, and barechested coarse fisherman, and wrestles bears...

[Kim Sung]

Why has the German government been silent on this matter? Has it ever protested against this false charge put on Germany?

[pzrmeyer2]

Odd thing here, but no reasonable student of WWII, including myself, has ever doubted that the NKVD were responsible for this war-crime.

Putin is not an historian, he is only a mere politician.

Best,
~D, the EviL

how mistaken you are; And "mere politicians" spouting lies to the masses are much more dangerous than historians.

PS define "reasonable"

[pzrmeyer2]

Why has the German government been silent on this matter? Has it ever protested against this false charge put on Germany?

LOL!! ahahahahahhaaah. thats a good one! I'd be surprised if the German government doesnt apologize to Russia and take responsibilty.
They are professional apologizers.

[Kim Sung]

LOL!! ahahahahahhaaah. thats a good one! I'd be surprised if the German government doesnt apologize to Russia and take responsibilty.
They are professional apologizers.

I agree. Admitting war crimes is not a matter of historiography but a matter of power politics. Any evidence given by victims can be manipulated or ignored by victimizers.

Until the national power (mainly economic power) of Poland will overwhelm that of Russia, the Russians will never admit their responsibility for the Katyn Massacre. That's why Poland needs Germany's help.

Likewise, the Turks will never admit the Arminian Genocide until the national power of Armenia will overwhelm that of Turkey. I think this possibility is nearly zero even in the long future.

Recently Japanese rightists have become quieter toward China because China's national power will soon exceed that of Japan. For example, for the fear of losing the Chinese market, Japanese conglomerates stopped funding a revisionist publishing company which published a revisionist history textbook when anti-Japanese demonstration and boycott of Japanese products spreaded in China in 2005. Instead, they are now concentrating on rewriting history against Korea, an easier target for them.

Germany's attitude on Nazi war crimes would not have been that different from that of Japan on Japanese war crimes or that of Russia on the Katyn Massacre if it was not divided after the defeat in WWII and if Germany's national power exceeded all European countries combined as we see in the case of Japan, the economic power of which exceeded that of all Asian countries combined until the early 1990s.

This is the world in which we are now living. Is this a human condition?

[Mansal D]

This is what I like to see. Justice for all.