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 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.