I don't see at what point exactly that person is doing "apologia" for the nazis.
I am also not aware of any evidence suggesting that the polish people killed in Katyn were "nazi collaborators" as you are trying to claim and it seems like what you're trying to do is thoughtless apologia for a real atrocity commited by the USSR on polish people. Yes, killing 20k people is nowhere near as bad as the nazi atrocities - that doesn't suddenly make it justifiable.
I can't really respond to the NYT article you posted, it requires a subscription to view
When it comes to the Goebbels diaries, it appears that Goebbels himself knew (or at the very least believed) that Katyn was done by the Bolsheviks. Although the massacre was very useful to him for propaganda purposes. At least that is the impression I get by skimming through his 1943 diary (published sometime in the 90s)
On April 14, 1943 he wrote
We are now using the discovery of 12,000 Polish officers, murdered
by the GPU, for anti-Bolshevik propaganda on a grand scale.
Evidence of Soviet guilt was provided in the 90s - Beria's letter to Stalin comes to mind. Recent investigations into the mass graves done by polish archeologists showed that the victims didn't have anything made after 1940 on them.
The people repeating this version of the story now are all the usual suspects: NATO, bourgeois journalists and Polish nationalists.
No, the "people repeating this version of the story" are not just a handful of western propagandists and nationalists. This story is accepted by everyone except for a few MLs.
And on 8 May 1943, he wrote: “Unfortunately, German ammunition has been found in the graves at Katyn It is essential that this incident remains top secret. If it were to come to the knowledge of the enemy the whole Katyn affair would have to be dropped.”
You forgot at least an ellipses in your quote, here is the full version (part you cut out in bold):
“Unfortunately German munitions were found in the graves of Katyn. The question of how they got there needs clarification. It is either a case of munitions sold by us during the period of [the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (1939-1941)], or of the Soviets themselves throwing these munitions into the graves. In any case it is essential that this incident be kept top secret. If it were to come to the knowledge of the enemy the whole Katyn affair would have to be dropped.”
Goebbels, Joseph. The Goebbels Diaries: 1942-1943, edited by Louis P. Lochner, Doubleday, 1948, p. 354.
This confirms exactly what they said. The “throwing munitions” excuse is obviously untrue but I’m not sure about sold ammunitions.
The story of the mass graves at Katyn, which caused a world sensation two years ago, was a propaganda stunt staged by Goebbels and Ribbentrop to cause a split between Russia and her western allies, says a report received here through special channels that is supported by a message from Oslo tonight. A Himmler close collaborator, SS Brigade Leader Schellenberg, is declared to have given this sensational information during an examination at Allied Headquarters in Germany last Tuesday. He is quoted as saying that 12,000 bodies were taken from German concentration camps and attired in old Polish uniforms to make them appear to be Polish officers.
Tonight a corroborative report was received from Oslo, where Erik Johansen–recently repatriated prisoner from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany–tells an interesting story about German production of false identification documents for bodies in Katyn mass graves.
Johansen says a special section of the concentration camp was completely isolated and strongly guarded by SS men, whereupon forty to sixty Jewish prisoners were picked out to forge the documents. They received the best optical instruments obtainable so the work could be done to perfection. They made passports, letters, etc. and even wallets, which were treated with a special chemical fluid to make them look worn.
Before the German capitulation all machines, instruments and material used were destroyed and the Jewish specialists were killed to prevent the secret from getting out, he said.
That article is not about the soviets not doing katyn. It specifically assumes katyn happened according to the official narrative and uses it as a point of comparison.
Since 2010 much more important evidence has come to the fore that casts the strongest doubt upon the "official version" of Katyn. In Volodymyr-Volyns'kiy, Ukraine, Polish and Ukrainian archaeologists found evidence that at least two Polish policemen believed to have been shot by the Soviets in April or May 1940 in or near Kalinin (now Tver'), Russia, were in fact murdered by the Germans and their Ukrainian Nationalist allies in the second half of 1941, after the fascist invasion of the USSR. This fact alone dismantles the "official" version of the "Katyn massacre" narrative. (5) The present writer has endeavored to describe and examine this new evidence and to explain just how it proves that the "official" version has to be false. (6)
These discoveries illustrate how corrupt the history around the "Katyn massacre" has become. The discovery of the badges of the two Polish policemen previously said to have been shot and buried sixteen months or more later and seven hundred miles away is by far the most important find at the Volodymyr-Volyns'kiy excavation. It is the most important development in the Katyn issue since the disclosure of the "forgery evidence" in October 2010. So why has it not received the publicity that it merits? Undoubtedly because powerful political forces in Poland and Ukraine do not want to publicize it - because it casts doubt on Soviet guilt.
No it isn't. It's specifically pointing to this new mass grave as an example of a reverse Katyn.
It is not necessary to lie here. No one here is going to start assuming the nazis were the real heroes of ww2, or that communism has no merits.
Volodymyr-Volyns’kiy is not a comparison to be drawn, but a part of the Katyn narrative; the badges of Josef Kuligowski and Ludwig Małowiejski were discovered in the mass graves, both Polish POWs transferred and claimed as victims of Katyn. But you’re right that it is not explicitly about Katyn, and upon further reading the “reverse” interpretation you made is correct. Sorry.
No. It's discussing how Ukrainians are reframing nazi (And ukranian nationalist/nazi) crimes as Soviet crimes, not in specific reference to Katyn, but in reference to mass graves found in Ukraine.
Come on man. The Katyn massacre wasn't a 1941 massacre committed against predominantly Jews in Volyn. Its off by a year, the entire country of Belarus, and an ethnic group.
I admit I was wrong and you go on to emphasize again that it’s about a massacre in Ukraine and not explicitly about Katyn, which I know and said. The connection I mentioned isn’t addressed, so I don’t know why you point out the disconnect in other areas as if this was in question?
I am not aware of the actual identities of each individual victim at Katyn. But if the 200 doctors had all been SS officers, the soviets would have fucking said so.
A huge amount of the so-called "intelligentsia" were Polish military conscripts who had been working at a university or something prior. It gets cast as though the Soviets were raiding schools, but from what I have seen it's more like they are looking through the resumes of the people killed to find something else to call them.
I was arguing with blanqui about this the other day (unaware of that some people in the current day claim it was Nazis who did it), and it seemed to me from what blanqui cited -- with an admittedly distressing lack of even direct translation from primary documents -- that the Soviets took a population of politicians and military, used an extensive process of interview and interrogation to separate staunch enemies of the Soviets from those who weren't committed, and then executed the former group. Would this be brutal, even cruel, if it is the correct reading? Probably, but it's not wanton slaughter
Perhaps Nazis are responsible for some of the bodies -- and from what I saw, only like 5k - 7k bodies were found, not the oft-cited 20k -- I really don't know what the argument in favor of Nazis doing it is. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that Nazis killed people and it was pinned on the Soviets (see the whole Eastern Front mortality rate issue), though it seems to me that there clearly were a number of people who were executed. The conversation with blanqui didn't establish how many were shown in the documentation to have even existed, all that was mentioned was that about 400 were cleared as not being firm anti-Soviets.
I don't see at what point exactly that person is doing "apologia" for the nazis. I am also not aware of any evidence suggesting that the polish people killed in Katyn were "nazi collaborators" as you are trying to claim and it seems like what you're trying to do is thoughtless apologia for a real atrocity commited by the USSR on polish people. Yes, killing 20k people is nowhere near as bad as the nazi atrocities - that doesn't suddenly make it justifiable.
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Not on my Hexbear!
I can't really respond to the NYT article you posted, it requires a subscription to view
When it comes to the Goebbels diaries, it appears that Goebbels himself knew (or at the very least believed) that Katyn was done by the Bolsheviks. Although the massacre was very useful to him for propaganda purposes. At least that is the impression I get by skimming through his 1943 diary (published sometime in the 90s)
On April 14, 1943 he wrote
Evidence of Soviet guilt was provided in the 90s - Beria's letter to Stalin comes to mind. Recent investigations into the mass graves done by polish archeologists showed that the victims didn't have anything made after 1940 on them.
No, the "people repeating this version of the story" are not just a handful of western propagandists and nationalists. This story is accepted by everyone except for a few MLs.
deleted by creator
You forgot at least an ellipses in your quote, here is the full version (part you cut out in bold):
“Unfortunately German munitions were found in the graves of Katyn. The question of how they got there needs clarification. It is either a case of munitions sold by us during the period of [the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (1939-1941)], or of the Soviets themselves throwing these munitions into the graves. In any case it is essential that this incident be kept top secret. If it were to come to the knowledge of the enemy the whole Katyn affair would have to be dropped.”
Goebbels, Joseph. The Goebbels Diaries: 1942-1943, edited by Louis P. Lochner, Doubleday, 1948, p. 354.
This confirms exactly what they said. The “throwing munitions” excuse is obviously untrue but I’m not sure about sold ammunitions.
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Did you use a forum post/comment as a source?
Transcript of the article:
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That article is not about the soviets not doing katyn. It specifically assumes katyn happened according to the official narrative and uses it as a point of comparison.
There is at least a substantial connection.
Though yes, it is a different site
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No it isn't. It's specifically pointing to this new mass grave as an example of a reverse Katyn. It is not necessary to lie here. No one here is going to start assuming the nazis were the real heroes of ww2, or that communism has no merits.
Volodymyr-Volyns’kiy is not a comparison to be drawn, but a part of the Katyn narrative; the badges of Josef Kuligowski and Ludwig Małowiejski were discovered in the mass graves, both Polish POWs transferred and claimed as victims of Katyn. But you’re right that it is not explicitly about Katyn, and upon further reading the “reverse” interpretation you made is correct. Sorry.
No. It's discussing how Ukrainians are reframing nazi (And ukranian nationalist/nazi) crimes as Soviet crimes, not in specific reference to Katyn, but in reference to mass graves found in Ukraine. Come on man. The Katyn massacre wasn't a 1941 massacre committed against predominantly Jews in Volyn. Its off by a year, the entire country of Belarus, and an ethnic group.
??? Who are you responding to?
You.
I admit I was wrong and you go on to emphasize again that it’s about a massacre in Ukraine and not explicitly about Katyn, which I know and said. The connection I mentioned isn’t addressed, so I don’t know why you point out the disconnect in other areas as if this was in question?
I am not actually familiar with the history but for me (and I assume many others in this context) when I see "inteligentsia" I read "SS"
Edit: so that could be where this is coming from
I am not aware of the actual identities of each individual victim at Katyn. But if the 200 doctors had all been SS officers, the soviets would have fucking said so.
A huge amount of the so-called "intelligentsia" were Polish military conscripts who had been working at a university or something prior. It gets cast as though the Soviets were raiding schools, but from what I have seen it's more like they are looking through the resumes of the people killed to find something else to call them.
I was arguing with blanqui about this the other day (unaware of that some people in the current day claim it was Nazis who did it), and it seemed to me from what blanqui cited -- with an admittedly distressing lack of even direct translation from primary documents -- that the Soviets took a population of politicians and military, used an extensive process of interview and interrogation to separate staunch enemies of the Soviets from those who weren't committed, and then executed the former group. Would this be brutal, even cruel, if it is the correct reading? Probably, but it's not wanton slaughter
Perhaps Nazis are responsible for some of the bodies -- and from what I saw, only like 5k - 7k bodies were found, not the oft-cited 20k -- I really don't know what the argument in favor of Nazis doing it is. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that Nazis killed people and it was pinned on the Soviets (see the whole Eastern Front mortality rate issue), though it seems to me that there clearly were a number of people who were executed. The conversation with blanqui didn't establish how many were shown in the documentation to have even existed, all that was mentioned was that about 400 were cleared as not being firm anti-Soviets.