KATYN

On the 1^st of September 1939 Hitler's troops invaded Poland. A prisoner was dressed up in Polish uniform, shot and presented as a Polish attacker. The Polish troops were no match for the “Wehrmacht”. On horse-back they attacked the German “Panzer”. The Luftwaffe bombarded Warschau and after 2 months Poland surrendered. Hitler had instructed his troops that it would be a violent and heroic fight, with no mercy to the opponent or the civilians. This was a war of occupation and extermination.

Many forget, that Soviet Russia held a nonaggression pact with Adolf Hitler. In exchange for wheat and oil, the German factories even sold war-equipment to their future enemy. As gesture of good-will Hitler invited Josef Stalin to invade and occupy the east of Poland. The Red Army did not hesitate and quickly invaded the area and decided with the Nazis about their new border. One should expect, that France and England would declare war on Russia, but they did not.

Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941 and made the occupation of Poland complete. But the Soviets, who had their own ideas about the occupation and domination of Eastern Europe, used their time well. More than 20.000 army officers, policeman, anti-communists, professors and teachers were rounded up, put in death-camps and executed in the end. This war crime became known as “the massacre of Katyn”. It was a deliberate act to eliminate future opposition.

Strangely enough the mass-graves were discovered by the Germans in 1943. They tried to use these atrocities in their propaganda campaign against the Soviet animals. In fact nobody believed the Nazis and blamed it on the German's themselves. Especially Stalin. He publicly stated that the Soviet Union had nothing to do with the mass-murder in the forests of Katyn. The Allies believed him and “Katyn” became part of the genocide, the holocaust and crimes against humanity the “Reich” had committed.

It took till 1990, that the Soviet Union officially recognized that it was responsible for the murders. It was all organized by the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police). The orders were signed by Beria, head of the secret police, and by Stalin. The orders said explicitly that the 8000 officers of the Polish Army had to be put to death. Still the former Soviet Union recognizes only 1872 victims and refuses to recognize “Katyn” as genocide or a war-crime. In France, you cannot say this, still. Officially Katyn is part of the holocaust. Denying (this part of) the holocaust in France is punishable by law.