Katyn in advance

Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Viktor Ilyukhin said that his party is confident that the Polish officers in Katyn were shot not by the NKVD, but by German soldiers. Allegedly, in the 1990s there was “tampering and falsification of archival materials of the CPSU Central Committee” in order to prove that the Soviet special services were to blame for the tragedy.

According to Ilyukhin, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has materials at its disposal that prove the guilt of German soldiers, and they were provided by the Ministry of Defense in response to a parliamentary request. The central expert commission of the ministry conducted an examination of archival documents under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense, and the communists were sent testimonies of German military personnel, which testify to the involvement of representatives of the German army in the murder of Polish officers. “The Russian Ministry of Defense does not have any other documents,” Gazeta.Ru quotes from a response to a deputy’s request.

The response sent from the General Staff cites an excerpt from a memo from the head of the 7th department of the political department of the First Ukrainian Front, Lieutenant Colonel Dubrovitsky, which says: “According to the report of the deputy military commandant of the city of Zagan for political affairs, a narrow circle of local residents knew the truth about the murders even under the fascist regime in Katyn. Residents learned the true state of affairs from the former German soldier Waldemar Glemwitz, a resident of the city of Gleiwitz, a direct participant in the executions in Katyn. Glemwitz, in a conversation with a resident of the city of Zagan, Otto Shtan, said: “I don’t understand why the Russians are blamed for the executions. It's a lie. After all, our group shot these officers.”

The communists propose creating a parliamentary commission to investigate the execution of Polish officers in Katyn.