The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field

[LiberalArkie]

One of the earliest–and certainly the most infamous–mass shootings of prisoners of war during World War II did not occur in the heat of battle but was a cold-blooded act of political murder. The victims were Polish officers, soldiers, and civilians captured by the Red Army after it invaded eastern Poland in September 1939 [see also: “Bad Vlad: 1939, or, Just Screw the Poles and Balts“]…

The considerable logistic effort required to handle the prisoners coincided with the USSR’s disastrous 105-day war against Finland. The Finns inflicted 200,000 casualties on the Red Army and destroyed tons of materiel–and much of Russia’s military reputation. That war, like the assault on Poland, was a direct result of Stalin’s nonaggression pact with Hitler…

Stalin was anxious to settle with Finland so he could turn his attention to Poland and the Baltic countries, which the Red Army would soon occupy and the NKVD would “pacify” using terror, deportations, and executions. Militarily, the war was over by late February, though a peace agreement was not signed until March. NKVD interrogations were completed about the same time. The Poles were encouraged to believe they would be released, but the interviews were in effect a selection process to determine who would live and who would die. On 5 March 1940, Stalin signed their death warrant–an NKVD order condemning 21,857 prisoners to “the supreme penalty: shooting.” They had been condemned as “hardened and uncompromising enemies of Soviet authority.” 6

Snip

https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/mark-collins-stalin-the-pole-slayer-murderer-actually/

[Irish_Dem]

1. Hitler didn't kill the poor in Poland. He kept them alive to be slaves

for his war efforts.

[Journeyman]

2. One of those "little details" which made the Nuremberg Tribunal so problematic . . .

Difficult to sit in judgment of Nazi war crimes when a quarter of the judges and prosecutors represented those who had committed equally heinous acts.