I don't suppose anyone has a non-State Department source on what did happen at Katyn?
The Germans committed a mass killing of Polish officers in 1941, and everyone completely forgot.
Then in 1944 when the Germans were in full retreat, Geobbels and the german propaganda wing magically found a mass killing zone that the “Soviets” had committed 3 years prior in order to try and radicalize the Poles into helping them fight the Soviets.
Literally the only source that the Soviets committed Katyn come from the Nazis.
Didn't the USSR confirm its involvement in 1990? And the Russian Federation right after that in 1991?
With some bizarre claims, such as one NKVD officer executing 7,000 prisoners all by himself, or that the 0.25 APC German made Luger bullets and guns used were used because sustained firing of soviet guns were uncomfortable for the executioners.
Or that the NKVD officers planted evidence to coverup and implicate the Germans as being behind the massacre in 1941.
In the immediate aftermath, the UK and US governments also dismissed the claims as bogus which was later handwaved away by being attributed to “Soviet spy interference”, which is an interesting conclusion.
I really have to wonder how the USSR could have obtained German guns and ammunition (their guns did not use the same caliber) to commit this massacre with in 1940-1941 of all years. This is original research of sorts, I've never seen anyone else look at the calibre and the availability of these weapons to the Soviets. If the massacre happened after Operation Barbarossa then they probably captured weapons and ammo, but it still made no sense to use foreign weapons for this since Gorbachev and Yeltsin produced "documents" signed by Stalin and Beria that pinned the massacre on them. Like you said, the only reason they would have ever used German weapons, in light of these revelations, is for something silly like handling comfort.
Exactly, the guns are handwaved away as being supplied by Moscow, but the simple question remains... how? Where would the NKVD have gotten nearly enough of an uncommon, WW1 Walter pocket pistol from 1915, and its extremely unique ammunition? If they had captured guns, they probably would have been the Model 5 and Model 7, where did they get such outdated guns from?
0.25 APC is a 6mm round, and the Walther Model 2 is a tiny gun. That feels like the most uncomfortable, and unpleasant way you could execute someone. You would essentially have to be point blank to the head for a 6mm to do anything if you didn't want to have to shoot the person 25 times.
This is the gun we are talking about.
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USSR trained german units during pre-nazi period, pre-1933. 1925 Lugers could also have been purchased during trade exchanges with german-nazi government, to test weapons, but there is no record of such a thing, afaik. They were comercially available pre-1939 probably, maybe during that period they could be bought by private owners and requisitioned in record time for some big conspiracy (unlikely).
Ultimately none of this makes sense, since the ammunition was 98.7% german made bullets from 1941. It was ammo that soviets couldnt get.
Exactly, the more you look at the official narrative, the less sense it makes. Releasing documents supposedly signed by Stalin (which got "transferred" translated to "liquidated", as in prisoner transfers) was something they must have thought made sense at the time and would have been a smoking gun, but ultimately it just unravelled the entire thread.
Also the documents aren’t even “signed” by Stalin, it’s letters from Beria asking what they should do with the Poles who then gives a few suggestions. There’s no smoking gun of Beria saying “Yes sir, I will now execute all the poles”.
You definitely seem to know more about this event than I do, would you be willing to edit the Katyn page on ProleWiki? You don't necessarily have to request an account, you can write it up as a Word or Google Doc file and I can import it afterwards!
I wouldn’t mind! It might take me a decent while, but I wouldn’t mind fact-checking, adding sources, and doing as best a write up as I can!
Thank you for the offer!
for the sources you will be able to add them right in the text btw as we use our custom references template and will likely have to copy them from your document and redo them in our format.
that the 0.25 APC German made Luger bullets and guns used were used
Sauce?
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This is the linked source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=umQqmFXTosMC&q=walther+2+modell++katyn&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q=walther%202%20modell%20%20katyn&f=false
Thanks! Well, off to EPUB that book then I guess.
Edit: This is what the source says:
Major of State Security Vasilii M. Blokhin (a GUGB Administrative-Economic Department functionary and commandant of and NKVD building in Moscow) directed the execution stage. He also, personally, acted as the main executioner, bringing with him from Moscow a whole suitcase full of Walther 2 type pistols used to shoot the Poles.
Comically large suitcase of pocket pistols. You think the guy carried all the ammunition with him too?
Yes. While the soviets did have the Korovin Pistol, which chambered the .25 ACP, there is no guarantee there was ammo for it where he was going. Plus he had to execute.. a few hundred, at best that's one bullet per person, so a few hundred bullets.
It’s reported that he executed 7,000 people.
Assuming you had a perfect shot each and every time, with no duds or misfires, that is still 7,000 rounds of ammunition. Remember, this is 6mm ammo, getting a kill in the first shot would be lucky unless it’s point blank to something extremely vital and at the perfect angle.
Walking around with luggage of an uncommon German pocket pistol with several thousand round of ammunition is a comical thought.
We have some evidence here: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
It's difficult to investigate because the site was closed by Polish authorities just as the evidence started pointing the other way, and most people who went to investigate basically ended up saying "the Soviets totally did it guys". Let's be honest, the evidence to show it wasn't a Soviet massacre is circumstantial, but there's enough of it to start pointing the finger at the Nazis. There's a few smoking guns, it's all in the page
Ughhh.. Why does history have to be so difficult. I looked into things a little, and now I'm just even more confused.
I mean read the references. 98.67% of the bullets are german from 1941 (year of the massacre), 2 bullets are soviet bullets of 1930s type.
The killed were arranged in the same way as with other nazi massacres (how would NKVD know how nazis arranged the dead?), the killed included many children (soviets almost never killed children) and were likely jewish...
It is clearly a nazi massacre covered up to be soviet made.
I feel like even a coverup would have taken more effort, such a low proportion of soviet bullets to me says that they were likely just doing a regular massacre and a couple guys were using soviet weapons, presumably to replace lost or broken ones
Because it wasn’t designed to be blamed on the Soviets. The Germans just repurposed the massacre when it was obvious they were about to lose that region of Poland, so they could blame the Soviets and drive war propaganda.
It wasn’t a bad coverup because there was no coverup, it was just a Nazi massacre that just so happened to be dug up and repurposed by Goebbels.
Ok. So I'm 100% sure that the people in Volodymyr-Volyns'kiy were killed in 1941, the Ukranian report states that. Furthermore a Polish police badge bearing the numbers "1099" was found in (and this is important because another, 1441, was found ~5m away from it) the grave. 1099 seemingly belongs to Ludwik Małowiejski, who, based on the transfer lists, was presumed dead in Tver/Kalinin and so buried Mednoe.
https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv16n2/katyn.htm
https://espressostalinist.com/the-real-stalin-series/katyn/
![[Polish anticom] nKvD DiD kAtYn!!!1111](https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/fa96acbb-da7a-4723-a4b7-65e1bef74d9e.jpeg){kind=link}