Communists still in denial over Katyn | Winston Smith Ministry of Truth Archive

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Communists still in denial over Katyn

Initially I thought this might be satire, but no, it's not. This leaflet was issued by the Communist Party of Great Britain in 2009.

The obverse can be read here

I decided to visit the library and get a copy of Goebbels' diary entry of May 8, 1943. The applicable part cited by the Katyn deniers reads:

Leider ist in den Gräbern von Katyn deutsche Munition gefunden worden. Es muß noch aufgeklärt werden, wie die dort hingekommen ist. Entweder handelt es sich um Munition, die von uns während der Zeit des gütlichen Übereinkommens an die Sowjetrussen verkauft worden ist, oder die Sowjets haben selbst diese Munition hineingeworfen. Jedenfalls ist es notwendig, diesen Fall vorläufig noch streng geheimzuhalten; würde er zur Kenntnis unserer Feinde kommen, so würde damit die ganze Katyn-Angelegenheit hinfällig werden.
Translation: (thanks to Anon.)

Sadly, German ammunition was found in the graves from Katyn. It remains to be clarified how it got there. It either was the ammunition that was bought from us during the period of friendly agreement with the Soviet Russians, or the Soviets themselves have thrown in this ammunition. In any event, it is necessary that these circumstances are for the time being still kept strictly secret; should it come to the knowledge of our enemies, thus would the entire Katyn matter crumble.

enlarged version

Despite Goebbels' hesitations on hearing the news (which was dishonestly clipped on the communist leaflet), the Germans made no secret of the fact that the Soviets had used German-made bullets to execute the Polish officers at Katyn; it's discussed at length in the official German report, Official Material Concerning the Katyn Massacreon Katyn, published in 1943:

The pistol ammunition demonstrably used at Katyn — Geco 7.65mm caliber — is exactly the ammunition which was produced for many years at the ammunition factory Gustav Genschow & Co. from Durlach in Karlsruhe (Baden). In a report "pulled" from the firm, are disclosed last-decades variations of the cases' headstamps with regards to the pistol rounds. The bottom impressions found on the Katyn cartridge cases allow, on the basis of applied expertise, the certain conclusion that the ammunition utilized in the Katyn shootings was manufactured in Durlach and indeed in the years 1922-1931.

Since in Germany a market was hardly possible owing to the Versailles Treaty, pistol cartridges of 7.65mm-calibre were supplied, from behalf of the Genschow firm, to numerous other countries, such as Poland, the Baltic states, and indeed especially until the year 1928 on a large scale — later afterwards, still, on a lower scale — also to the Soviet Union. It therefore comes as no surprise that, at the death site in Katyn Forest, cartridges and slugs from pistol ammunition of known German manufacture would be found. From the above it compellingly follows that the German ammunition could have come not only from direct German deliveries to Russia, but also from stocks seized after the occupation of Eastern Poland in the year of 1939.

Amtliches Material zum Massenmord von Katyn, Berlin: F.Eher Nachf., 1943, p. 75.

In his 2005 work Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice and Memory (London: Routledge), British professor of Political science George Sanford wrote that the Soviets used German Walther pistols to shoot the Polish officers at Katyn, and at Kharkov, and Kalinin (now Tver); two of the other main killing sites of the 1940 Soviet operation to dispose of the Polish army officers, policemen and border guards. Sanford states that NKVD functionaries had learnt that the Soviet TT pistols were unreliable for repeated use as they tended to get jammed (p.158 and 145).

The British communists aren't alone in denying the Soviets perpetrated the massacre at Katyn, their comrades in Germany are also at it. The headlines above appeared in articles published in 2011 (left and right), in the one on the left they also feature the dishonestly clipped quotation from Goebbels' diary entry of May 8, 1943 as "evidence" of German guilt. Although, to be fair, the German communists later admitted they'd quoted Goebbels' diary out-of-context—blaming the error on a French communist. But they still maintain the Nazis committed the massacre, even if Goebbels' diaries only prove that: A. Goebbels was lying to himself in his diary, or, B. Goebbels wasn't in on the conspiracy!

Stalin wrote the following in a telegram to Churchill dated April 21, 1943, every word of which is true, according to his admirers.

The anti-Soviet slander campaign launched by the German fascists in connection with the Polish officers whom they themselves murdered in the Smolensk area, in German-occupied territory, was immediately seized upon by the Sikorski Government and is being fanned in every way by the Polish official press. Far from countering the infamous fascist slander against the U.S.S.R., the Sikorski Government has not found it necessary even to address questions to the Soviet Government or to request information on the matter.

The Hitler authorities, having perpetrated a monstrous crime against the Polish officers, are now staging a farcical investigation, using for the purpose certain pro-fascist Polish elements picked by themselves in occupied Poland, where everything is under Hitler's heel and where no honest Pole can open his mouth.

Both the Sikorski and Hitler Governments have enlisted for the "investigation" the aid of the International Red Cross, which, under a terror régime of gallows and wholesale extermination of the civil population, is forced to take part in the investigation farce directed by Hitler. It is obvious that this "investigation," which, moreover, is being carried out behind the Soviet Government's back, cannot enjoy the confidence of anyone with a semblance of honesty.

The fact that the anti-Soviet campaign has been started simultaneously in the German and Polish press and follows identical lines is indubitable evidence of contact and collusion between Hitler-the Allies' enemy-and the Sikorski Government in this hostile campaign.

At a time when the peoples of the Soviet Union are shedding their blood in a grim struggle against Hitler Germany and bending their energies to defeat the common foe of the freedom- loving democratic countries, the Sikorski Government is striking a treacherous blow at the Soviet Union to help Hitler tyranny.

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