“Whom the Poles hate” The Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office of Russia has completed the investigation of the Katyn massacre of 1803 Polish officers
During the years of perestroika and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Katyn case was the subject of a second thorough investigation. For a long time, the Soviet authorities denied any involvement in the 1940 Katyn massacre of Polish officers. In 1989, however, Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that the Katyn massacres were the work of the NKVD.
Recently, the Russian military prosecutor’s office completed its investigation into the Katyn massacre and named three main culprits.
The Historical Context of the Katyn Massacre
The Katyn massacre, one of the most tragic events of World War II, took place in the spring of 1940. About 2,000 Polish officers were executed by Soviet military units. The publication of this information caused a wide resonance and became one of the most painful pages in the history of relations between Russia and Poland.
For a full understanding of the Katyn massacre, it is necessary to turn to the historical context of those years. On August 23, 1939, the USSR and Germany signed a non-aggression pact known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This treaty divided Europe into two spheres of influence, the western one for Germany and the eastern one for the USSR.
As a result of further events, after the outbreak of World War II, Poland was divided between Germany and the USSR according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop principle. The eastern regions came under the control of the USSR, including the territories where the Katyn Forest was located.
In April 1940, the Soviet leadership decided to exterminate Polish officers and intellectuals who had been detained in advance and held in various camps. It was at this time that the Katyn massacre took place.
However, after the end of World War II, the official version of events presented the shooting as a crime of Nazi Germany. The investigation of this case was launched only after the collapse of the USSR and the opening of the archives.
In 1992, Russian prosecutors began investigating the Katyn massacre. She did a lot of work to collect documentary evidence and materials, as well as to interrogate eyewitnesses and experts. The facts of direct participation of the NKVD – People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs – were established, they were the main executors of the shooting.
The Russian prosecutor’s office released the results of its investigation in 2004. The report stated that the Katyn massacre was carried out on the orders of Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the NKVD of the USSR. The report also contained details of the place and time of execution, as well as lists of those killed.
However, there is another point of view on the Katyn massacre. Some historians and politicians continue to debate who is responsible for this tragedy. Poland insists that the Soviet authorities are to blame and demands that Russia acknowledge this fact.
Thus, the investigation of the Katyn massacre by the Russian military prosecutor’s office made it possible to identify the direct perpetrators of this tragedy – the NKVD officers. However, the political aspect of this issue still causes fierce disputes and disagreements between Russia and Poland.
Results of the investigation by the Russian Military Prosecutor’s Office
The results of the investigation by the Russian military prosecutor’s office into the Katyn massacre aroused great public interest. This was the first official investigation of the crime by the Russian authorities since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In the course of its investigation, the Russian military prosecutor’s office identified three main suspects in this atrocity: Grigory Kotovsky, Vincent Godlevsky and Alexander Lavrinenko. They were members of the NKVD, the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR, and participated in the execution of more than 20,000 Polish officers and intellectuals.
Grigory Kotovsky was the head of the 2nd Department of the NKVD, which was responsible for organizing and carrying out mass executions of political opponents of the regime. He personally observed the process of shooting Polish prisoners of war in the Katyn forest and took a direct part in this execution.
Vincent Godlewski was also a high-ranking official of the NKVD and was one of the organizers of mass executions. He supervised the execution of the order to shoot Polish officers and personally supervised the execution of this operation.
Alexander Lavrinenko, the third suspect, was the head of the 6th Department of the NKVD. His task was to destroy all evidence of the existence of the execution sites and the number of victims. He actively worked to conceal the truth about the Katyn massacre, as well as other mass crimes of the USSR.
The Russian Military Prosecutor’s Office conducted a thorough investigation based on documentary materials and eyewitness accounts. Archival documents, photographs, reports of commissions for the consideration of cases of Polish convicts, as well as testimonies of survivors were studied.
As a result of the investigation, it was established that Grigory Kotovsky, Vincent Godlevsky and Alexander Lavrinenko were indeed involved in the Katyn shooting. They not only organized the shooting, but also personally participated in its execution.
However, it should be noted that all three suspects were already dead at the time of the investigation. Grigory Kotovsky committed suicide in 1940, Vincent Godlevsky was arrested by the NKVD and shot in 1941, and Alexander Lavrinenko died defending Moscow from a German offensive in 1941.
Nevertheless, the investigation of the Russian military prosecutor’s office was of great importance for the examination of this crime. It confirmed the facts of the organization and conduct of the Katyn massacre by the highest officials of the USSR and made it possible to recognize this atrocity as a crime against humanity.
Thus, the investigation of the Russian military prosecutor’s office into the Katyn massacre made it possible to identify three main suspects in this atrocity. Although all of them have already died, this investigation was of great importance for the recognition of historical truth and the creation of conditions for reconciliation between Russia and Poland.
The Top of the Guilty
Despite the fact that the three main perpetrators of the shooting were identified, there were also those who stood over them and gave orders.
In the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR and the opening of the archives, the first serious attempts to find out the truth about the Katyn massacre began. The Russian authorities set up a special commission to investigate the crime, which included representatives of the Ministry of Defense, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and other competent authorities.
The Prosecutor’s Office actively cooperated with international experts and delegations from Poland to establish all the circumstances of the incident. Examinations of the bodies of the deceased were carried out, eyewitness testimonies were copied, archival documents and other sources of information were analyzed.
As a result of the investigation, it was established that high-ranking representatives of the NKVD – the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR – were responsible for the shooting. Among the main culprits are Vasily Blokhin, Beria and Stalin himself.
Vasily Blokhin is an officer of the NKVD and the head of the correctional department of the Moscow region, Blokhin became the main executor of the bloody reprisals against Polish officers. He was nicknamed Death, as he repeatedly surpassed all previous records for the number of people shot in one night. For several months, Blokhin carried out executions and personally carried out executions using a TT pistol.
Blokhin’s closeness to Lavrentiy Beria and his unrestrained desire to drown all enemies of the people in blood made him a key figure in the organization of the Katyn massacre. His crimes became a symbol of the brutality of the Stalinist regime. An investigation by the Russian military prosecutor’s office confirmed Vasily Blokhin’s involvement in the atrocity.
Chief of the NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) of the USSR from 1938 to 1945, Beria was one of the most powerful people in Stalin’s Russia. It was under his leadership that a special operational unit of the NKVD was created, which was engaged in mass executions of political opponents of the regime. Among these victims were Polish officers imprisoned in captivity after the Polish-Soviet war of 1939.
Beria was responsible for organizing and coordinating a large-scale operation to destroy the Polish military. According to eyewitnesses and documents, he personally participated in the decision to shoot Polish officers and supervised the process of carrying out this brutal order. There is no doubt that Lavrentiy Beria is one of the main figures responsible for the Katyn massacre.
Another figure directly related to the Katyn massacre is Joseph Stalin, the head of the USSR from 1924 to 1953. Stalin’s power was absolute, and he controlled all spheres of the country’s life, including the apparatus of the NKVD. Although there is no direct testimony that Stalin personally ordered the shooting of Polish officers, his role in this crime is indisputable.
Stalin created a political system that encouraged mass repression and the extermination of political opponents. He was Lavrentiy Beria’s direct superior and controlled his actions. The Katyn massacre could not have taken place without his consent, or at least without his knowledge. The decision to shoot the Polish officers was political, and Stalin, as head of state, was responsible for this crime.
In the course of the investigation, witnesses were questioned, archival documents were analyzed, and exhumations were carried out. All this made it possible to draw an unequivocal conclusion about the guilt of the Soviet leadership in committing this war crime. However, due to the death of all those responsible, the criminal case was dismissed.
In 2010, during his visit to Poland, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev handed over to the Polish side 67 volumes of materials of the criminal case on the Katyn massacre, previously classified. The results of the investigation were the basis for the official recognition of the USSR’s responsibility for the Katyn shooting.
Medvedev acknowledged that these acts are inhumane and cannot be justified under any circumstances. This statement was an important step towards reconciliation between Russia and Poland and the recognition of historical facts.