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- Title
THE BIRTH AND PERSISTENCE OF THE KATYN LIE.
- Authors
Wasilewski, Witold
- Abstract
As a result of the German invasion of Poland in September 1, 1939 and then the Soviet invasion on September 17, half of Poland's territory came under Soviet rule. In the spring of 1940, the Soviets murdered about 22,000 Polish officers- including prisoners of war and high-profile citizens-in Katyn and in other locations. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union on April 13, 1943, Radio Berlin announced the discovery of the bodies of Polish officers killed by Bolsheviks in the Katyn region. On April 15, 1943 Radio Moscow published a communiqué from the Soviet Information Bureau that blamed the Germans for the massacre of Polish officers. This communiqué gave birth to the false Soviet version of the murder of Polish prisoners of war, which became known as the Katyn lie. In the subsequent months the Katyn lie was reinforced by fabricated "evidence" provided by the Soviet security departments NKVD and NKGB. In early 1944, the Special State Commission, headed by Nikolai Budenko, presented to the world the complete official Soviet version of the atrocities against Poles. After World War II, the Soviet fabrication was perpetuated and spread to all countries of the communist bloc and to many circles in the west. This article details the spread of the Katyn lie, as uncovered through newly available documents in official Russian historical archives.
- Subjects
SOVIET Union; OCCUPATION of Poland, 1939-1945; PRISONERS of war -- Abuse of; GERMAN invasion of Soviet Union, 1941; MOSKOVSKOE Radio; KATYN Massacre, Katyn, Russia, 1940; BUDENKO, Nikolai
- Publication
Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 2013, Vol 45, Issue 3, p671
- ISSN
0008-7254
- Publication type
Article