The Katyn Forest Massacre

[StefanM]

Attachment 405301Attachment 405302Here are some scans of documents that were given on 14 October 1992 to then Polish President Lech Walesa by russian then President Boris Yelcyn.
These document have been transalated (Polish), however I will show the original versions (or copies in russian).
These were published in a book named: "Documents of Genocide "

Thanks for posting. Does the book have a complete Polish translation word for word of the infamous Beria memo?

The title was interesting as it reflects Polish government's later international legal effort to categorise Katyn as genocide which has no time limits for bringing to trial perpetrators for possible conviction. I think this was rejected by European Court of Human Rights and it is now classified as a war crime rather than genocide?

update------found the text of the 2012 judgement online.

"The court said on Monday, Apr. 16, it had concluded that the executions of Polish prisoners of war were a war crime, as the humane treatment of POWs and the ban on murders were a part of the conventional international law the Soviet authorities were compelled to observe."

"Although war crimes have no statute of limitations, no new evidence was found in the period since the ratification of the Human Rights Convention to compel the Russian authorities to reopen the case, the court said."

[Wagriff]

Why would this "have no resonance with the German public"?? The Army that just Obliterated your finest and absolutely invincible army is coming Next to You and Your home town Now! Look at what we found that they did to the Poles! Somehow, I don't think they'll sit down and invite the German villagers to have a High Tea with them... Did you See that poster they have hanging up in the Gasthaus downtown, Hans and Fritz? Can you imagine what they're going to do to Us?? Or our Wives and Daughters?? If That was how they treated subhuman contemptible Untermensch, can you just imagine what We'll get?? If you can't understand why they would want to raise the alarm and patriotic defense and resistance to this coming horror, I guess I've run out of ways to say it. I have no idea why this doesn't seem blindingly obvious, but apparently there's no way to make it any More clear. As you said before, I guess all we can do here is agree to disagree.

[StefanM]

I guess all we can do here is agree to disagree.

Something I am happy that we can agree on

[dastier]

With respect it doesn't explain or support the argument that the Katyn "JUDE NKVD" poster might have been used to motivate German troops by suggesting this could happen to them if they lost the war.

Almost 11,237 of those fighting and dying at Stalingrad were convinced of ultimate German victory—they wrote as much in their letters home. So why use this poster as motivation if the soldiers at Stalingrad of January 1943 still believed in their ultimate victory and wouldn't other German soldiers also not believe in the same victory? And if that were the case then it was an unnecessary piece of defeatist propaganda.

OK Stefan, lets set aside in your opinion, who those posters were not meant to motivate - the German public or German and Axis soldiers. Who then do you think these posters were meant to motivate? Or are you suggesting the posters represent something else?

If not the German public (or French or Slovakian) or German and Axis soldiers, the only group left to motivate that I can think of is foreign forced labourers; to possibly make then better support the German war effort. But in my opinion, that's even more of a stretch.

So Stefan, in your opinion, who made these posters and why?

[StefanM]

OK Stefan, lets set aside in your opinion, who those posters were not meant to motivate - the German public or German and Axis soldiers. Who then do you think these posters were meant to motivate? Or are you suggesting the posters represent something else?

If not the German public (or French or Slovakian) or German and Axis soldiers, the only group left to motivate that I can think of is foreign forced labourers; to possibly make then better support the German war effort. But in my opinion, that's even more of a stretch.

Greetings Mike

Setting aside my opinion and my not believing the relevance of this specific Katyn poster to the motivation of a German audience to greater fighting spirit, my bigger issue is with the grammatically clumsy German heading "JUDE NKVD" and what possible meaning could it have for any German audience if added to this particular poster or any other. "JUDE" by itself yes, "NKVD" no I don't think so for the same reasons I have posted earlier in this lively discussion. However I am sure I will be soon be proved totally wrong in my argument when another example of the "JUDE NKVD" heading has been found used on a different propaganda poster targeted to a German audience.

So Stefan, in your opinion, who made these posters and why?

We are not (well I am not) talking about "these" posters but one specific "JUDE NKVD" Katyn poster and whether or not it might have been intended for a German audience. So in answer to your question I have no idea why or who created the "JUDE NKVD" Katyn poster in Tony's collection, although I am leaning more and more to the view that the "who" could have been a Ukrainian and the "why" for the seller's profit.

[Gary J]

"The power of propaganda".
.. Whether by..... newsreel film .... poster ..... word of mouth, ...
A tool .... exploited by all to prey on the fears and thoughts of the masses.

The basis of this "tool" was (and is) to drive a wedge of uncertainty, by what ever means possible.

It is clear from the replies to this thread that the "Katyn" example was a gift horse in the "jaws of the vice" crushing Poland from East and West.

The bottom line ....... the Soviets got there first ! .......
And IF there had been a different outcome to the fighting in the East, There can be no doubt to the Polish officers fate, ...... death from another set of "Masters" awaited.

Soviet or Nazi .... Both resolute, crush Poland, and wipe it's existence off the map.

Gary J.

[slados28]

I just want to, on my own behalf, state my points on each of these issues one more time:

Imagery of poster (viewed in isolation): To me this is not about having sympathy with anyone, to me it's about instilling further fear and hatred towards the Jews and Bolsheviks and thereby bolstering the general German fighting spirit... be it civilian or military. "Defeatism" has no part in any of this as I see it. Fear and hatred/creating the image of an outside threat is the foundation that the Nazi regime was built upon.

"Jude NKVD" written as headline on poster: Grammatically, I agree, it's clumsy. With regards to getting the point across to its target audience I see no real problem.... especially not in conjunction with the, IMO, powerful imagery (which is obviously the main focus of this poster).
This was not their only angle of attack from a propaganda viewpoint, it was one out of countless other topics... the most important thing here was that, in this particular instance, they even had irrefutable evidence to factually back it up.

"No search results for NKVD in Bundesarchive" : Would this mean that the Nazi regime itself was in the dark re. the NKVD and their doings as well? Is the Bundesarchive fully searchable (meaning not only searchable by headlines/main topics)? How big of a fraction of the total propaganda and media coverage in the years of 1933-45 do you think these mere 190 000+ digital files would amount to?
And just how many of these 190 000+ files are even relevant to such a search? You'd of course have to exclude files such as photos, footage and non-official documents (at the time) more or less indiscriminately.


In the end it seems like we're even struggling to determine if the poster is actually an authentic period piece or not. I've merely been making the argument that this would have been an effective way, among the countless other angles of attack, of making propaganda coin on the Katyn atrocity....

Whether it's authentic or not I can not say... so the futility of continuing this highly subjectively charged discussion, at least to me, is overwhelming at this point.... espoecially seeing as the poster in question might be nothing but a fantasy item + I'd rather not keep on repeating myself, I really feel that I've said my piece So I'll simply quietly withdraw and leave you guys to it...

It's been interesting

[Gary J]

I must admit, when this thread opened, I'd expected it to nose dive at some point and be closed.

To ALL concerned, the thread has actually run a fairly clear path, and some very valid points shared.

A few of the many angles have been expressed, which all have interest.

Again Gents .... an interesting thread kept clean !

Regards

Gary J.

[dastier]

I said my piece regarding a plausible explanation for the target audience of the posters, that's all I wanted to do. It was a good debate all around. With plenty of excellent information presented.

Whether all or none of the posters are authentic - I guess either other evidence needs to be found or a CSI style forensic examination of the posters will have to be made. (just joking)

I'm leery of any militaria - one of the reasons I like to collect milsurp firearms - they're harder to fake, but not impossible - its still caveat emptor!

[A.J. Zawadzki]

This is an original copy the Illustrowany Kurjer Polski (Illustrated Polish Courier) of April 18, 1943. This was a German directed/censored periodical issued in Krakow with this edition announcing the grisly discovery of the ''Polish officer victims of Bolshevik cruelty".

Also posted is a photo that I don't recall seeing prior to just the other day when it was sent to me along with other Katyn material. This photo shows the skulls with markers indicating the exit wounds from the single shot applied to the nape of the neck of each victim. This was known as the preferred NKVD technique of execution. Quick and efficient, the process was described in the official German report: "The uniform shot in the nape of the neck and the uniform method of tying the victim's hands and binding his head show that this was the work of skilled men".

Regards,
Tony