1940 Katyn massacre revelations (4-13-43)

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760C.61/4–2443

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State 

Washington, April 24, 1943.

The Soviet Ambassador called to see me this afternoon at his request. The Ambassador said that he had just received an urgent and private message addressed by Mr. Stalin to the President and since he knew the President was away, he had come to give it to me with the request that it be transmitted to the President as rapidly as possible. The Ambassador then gave me the message addressed to the President, together with a copy thereof. The copy is attached herewith.

After I had read the message, I said to the Ambassador that inasmuch as the message was addressed by Mr. Stalin to the President, I would not make any official comment upon the message at this time since any official comment should, of course, be made by the President himself. I said, however, that speaking quite unofficially and personally to the Ambassador, I desired to express my very deep regret that matters had come to this pass. I said that I did not need to explain to the Ambassador that the step which the Soviet Government had determined to take in breaking relations with the Polish Government would have very profound repercussions upon public opinion in this country and that implications would be drawn therefrom which, of course, were obvious to the Ambassador, but which I hoped and believed were not intended by the Soviet Government. The Ambassador said that he fully realized this and that he himself regretted that this should be the case.

The Ambassador then went on to say that the investigation of the alleged murder of Polish officers which the Polish Government had suggested should be undertaken by the International Red Cross would obviously be held in German territory and would obviously be completely controlled by the local German authorities. He said the suggestion made played directly into the hands of the Hitlerite government and was intolerable for that reason to the Soviet Government. The Ambassador said, however, that the Poles always behaved this way and that “there was no helping them”.

I went on to say that I was all the more surprised at this development in view of what I had always understood was a very satisfactory personal relationship which had been created between Mr. Stalin and General Sikorski. The Ambassador said that was in fact the case and that when General Sikorski was in Washington only a short time ago the latter had told the Ambassador of his great satisfaction with his conversations with Mr. Stalin. The Ambassador concluded by saying that, as I had already been informed, it was the policy of the Soviet Government at the conclusion of the war to see the reestablishment of a “strong Poland” and that the step now taken did not in any sense imply any change of policy on the part of the Soviet Union.

SUMNER WELLES

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (April 24, 1943)

The propaganda front –
Rift between Poles and Reds aids Nazi propaganda program

Split threatens to upset Allied applecart and give Goebbels greatest victory of the war, Shirer declares
By William L. Shirer

That relations between the Soviet and Polish governments have reached a pretty pass can no longer be ignored. But that the Polish government-in-exile should make them worse by deliberately playing into the hands of Nazi propaganda, as it appears to have done following German allegations that the Russians massacred 12,000 Polish officer-prisoners near Smolensk, will surprise many friends of Poland in this country.

Before matters get out of control, it might be well to look into the facts of an affair which threatens to upset the Allied applecart and give Dr. Goebbels his greatest propaganda victory of the war.

On the afternoon of Monday, April 12, the Nazi propaganda machine, having just finished 24 hours of ballyhooing the Hitler-Mussolini meeting, suddenly let loose with one of the most gruesome atrocity stories of the war. The Nazis, whose murders in the occupied lands now number over 1,000,000, according to an inter-Allied committee, announce that they had just discovered a mass grave in Katyń Forest near Smolensk. In the great grave, they said, they had found the remains of 3,000 Polish officers. These men, said the Nazis, had been executed by the Russians in February or March 1940 – that is before the German occupation of Smolensk.

The first Berlin broadcast, which I heard at 4 p.m. on Monday, ended with this sentence:

The German authorities calculate that about 10,000 Polish officers were killed by the Soviets.

Thus, the number of alleged victims increased from 3,000 to 10,000 during the course of one broadcast. Two days later, without any explanation, the German press and radio raised the number to 12,000, where it was at last reports.

Immediately Dr. Goebbels laid down a terrific propaganda barrage. The airwaves crackled with alleged details of the massacre. All the officers had been shot in the back of the neck. The bodies had been piled 12 deep in a grave exactly 28 meters long and 16 meters wide. Polish officers and the Polish Red Cross (the latter having lost its independence and many of its leaders since the German occupation) were rushed to the scene “to help in identification.”

And for a fortnight, every newspaper and radio station in Germany, German-controlled territory and the satellite countries played up the story to prove that Germany must destroy Bolshevist Russia and that Great Britain and the United States, by maintaining silence in the matter, had shown that they were really accomplices in the frightful murder.

One of Goebbels’ oldest propaganda tricks is to make the satellite press back him up and thus give the impression that “all of Europe” understands and sympathizes with Nazi indignation. Thus, the German press and radio carried dispatches such as this:

Europe’s disgust at the frightful massacre has evoked indignation in Italy… The Stampa calls the bloodbath a tragic perspective for the Anglo-American plan to accept Bolshevik rule for Eastern Europe. Athens: The Greek papers stress that world history does not know of a similar crime. It is a blessing for Europe that the heroic fight of Germany and her Allies makes similar Bolshevik atrocities impossible. Kraków: The disgust of the Polish people over the frightful massacre reaches ever-increasing dimensions. The Hungarian Magyarsag writes that Russia is only following in the old tracks. If Bolshevism were to triumph, the whole of Europe would become dotted with fearsome communal graves. The Romanian Curentul writes on the same lines. In Bulgaria, the Doce shows concern at the Bolshevik menace.

And so on, day after day.

Now you and I have no means of knowing whether the Russians killed Polish officers or not. But what is incontestable is that the Nazis, who have the blood of millions of innocent victims on their hands, waited for nearly two years after their occupation of Smolensk before “discovering” the mass grave, and then proceeded to make of it one of the most gigantic propaganda campaigns of the war, deliberately designed to separate not only the Poles but the British and Americans from their Russian ally.

As regards the Polish government-in-exile at least, this propaganda did not fail. The German Red Cross, which has shown not the slightest interest in the victims of Gestapo brutality in the occupied lands, asked the International Red Cross at Geneva to help in the work of identifying the bodies at Katyń. A week ago, the Polish government in London added its request to that of the German Red Cross. It thus officially gave credence to the Nazi reports.

This correspondent, like most Americans, fully understands the concern of the Polish government over the fate of some 15,000 Polish troops, 8,000 of whom were officers, who were captured by the Russians in the fall of 1939 and never heard of again. When Premier Sikorski, who sincerely desires an understanding with Russia, visited Moscow in December 1941, he asked Premier Stalin about the missing men. Stalin is reported to have answered that they would be released. Apparently, they never were. Many Poles believe they will never be, because they are no longer alive. The Russians have denied this and last week angrily accused the Poles of swallowing a baited hook thrown out by German propaganda agencies to conceal the Nazis’ own black record.

Whatever the truth is about this latest Nazi allegation which the Poles have now asked the International Red Cross to investigate, the question will not down as to why the Polish government did not at least ask the Red Cross at the same time to investigate Nazi murders in Poland.

According to figures supplied to me by the Polish government, more than half a million Poles have been murdered by the Nazis in Poland. This does not include, the Polish government explains, the million and a half Jews, some of them originally from Germany and Austria, slain by the Nazis in Poland. Nor does it comprise the two million or so who died from mistreatment or forced starvation under the Nazi yoke. In one concentration camp in Poland alone, at Oświęcim, 57,000 Poles and Jews are believed to have been killed by the Nazis. If the Polish government insists on the Red Cross investigating the alleged Russian massacre at Katyń, would it not be natural for it to ask the Red Cross to look into what happened at Oświęcim, from which so many sinister reports have come?

For the Polish government must know that the Nazis have not uncorked the story of Katyń out of any tender mercies for the Poles. Part of Hitler’s policy, openly boasted of among Nazi officials when I was in Berlin, is so to decimate the Polish race that it will never be able again to form a free Polish nation. Gen. Sikorski knows this better than any of us for the reports smuggled out of his homeland to him have been heartrending.

But he also knows that one of the major aims of German policy is to keep the Poles and the Russians at each other’s throats. Recently, Nazi propaganda had a field day with the Russo-Polish exchange of notes on the border controversy. When that died down, it “discovered” the big grave near Smolensk. The timing will escape no one’s notice, especially since the Germans have been at Smolensk for nearly two years. Tomorrow the Nazis will find another peg to hang their propaganda on.

My own feeling is that the Nazis hope to stave off the consequences of defeat by isolating Russia from her Allies. If they have such easy access with the Poles, they will be encouraged in their bigger political game of separating Great Britain and the United States from the Soviet Union. The very day after the National Catholic Welfare Conference in Washington charged that Russia was holding two million Poles “as virtual hostages,” Braun von Stumm, the assistant press chief of the German Foreign Office and one of the most unprincipled officials I ever knew in the Wilhelmstrasse, seized upon the Conference’s statement and used it to further Nazi propaganda about “Soviet brutality.”

One need have no illusions about Soviet gentleness. But to fall for German propaganda or to feed it, when we know what its purposes are, seems to this correspondent, at least, a good way of trying to lose the war.

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That place is known to English speakers by its German name Auschwitz.

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U.S. State Department (April 25, 1943)

760C.61/4–2443: Telegram

The Secretary of State to President Roosevelt

Washington, April 25, 1943.

I have just received from Ambassador Litvinoff the following private and confidential message dated April 21st addressed to you by Stalin indicating that the Soviet Government has broken relations with the Polish Government-In-Exile. The text of Stalin’s message to you follows:

The recent conduct of the Polish Government towards the Soviet Union is regarded by the Soviet Government as absolutely abnormal and contrary to all rules and standards governing relations between allied countries.

The campaign of calumny against the Soviet Union, initiated by the German fascists regarding the Polish officers they themselves slaughtered in the Smolensk area, on German-occupied territory, was immediately taken up by the Sikorski government and inflated in every possible way by the official Polish press. The Sikorski government, far from taking a stand against the vile fascist slander of the Soviet Union, did not even see fit to ask the Soviet government for information or explanations.

The Hitlerite authorities, after perpetrating an atrocious crime against the Polish officers, are now engaged upon an investigation farce for the staging of which they have enlisted the help of certain pro-fascist Polish elements picked up by them in occupied Poland, where everything is under Hitler’s heel and where honest Poles dare not lift their voices in public.

The governments of Sikorski and Hitler have involved in these “investigations” the International Red Cross which is compelled to take part, under conditions of a terroristic regime with its gallows and mass extermination of a peaceful population, in this investigation farce, under the stage management of Hitler. It should be clear that such “investigations”, carried out, moreover, behind the Soviet Government’s back, cannot inspire confidence in persons of any integrity.

The fact that this campaign against the Soviet Union was launched simultaneously in the German and the Polish press, and is being conducted along similar lines, does not leave any room for doubt that there is contact and collusion between Hitler, the enemy of the Allies, and the Sikorski government in the conduct of the campaign.

At a time when the peoples of the Soviet Union are shedding their blood in the bitter struggle against Hitlerite Germany and straining every effort to rout the common foe of all liberty-loving democratic countries, the government of Mr. Sikorski, pandering to Hitler’s tyranny, is dealing a, treacherous blow to the Soviet Union.

All these circumstances force the Soviet Government to infer that the present government of Poland, having fallen into the path of collusion with the Hitler government, has actually discontinued relations of alliance with the USSR and assumed a hostile attitude toward the Soviet Union.

In view of these circumstances the Soviet Government has come to the conclusion of the necessity for breaking relations with the present Polish government.

I deem it necessary to inform you of the above and trust that the Government of the United States will realize the inevitability of the step which the Soviet Government has been compelled to take.

In considering this matter the following are the more important developments with respect to Soviet-Polish relations which have taken place during your absence:

  1. On April 14 the Polish Minister in the absence from Washington of the Ambassador brought to the attention of the Department the charges made by German propaganda agencies to the effect that the Germans had discovered near Smolensk a mass grave containing the bodies of some 10,000 Polish officers executed by the Russians in 1940. The Minister under instructions while acknowledging that the story might well be a fabrication on the part of the Germans, said that the Polish Government could not fail to take note of the allegations since it had for over a year and one-half been endeavoring to ascertain without success from the Soviet authorities the whereabouts of approximately 8,000 Polish officers known to have been captured by the Red Army in 1939. He also pointed out that in December 1941 the Polish Prime Minister himself had taken up with Stalin and Molotov the whereabouts of the missing Polish officers and advised this Government of the evasive reply received.

  2. Lord Halifax on April 21 handed me an aide-mémoire indicating that because of the recent grave deterioration of Polish-Soviet relations there was a danger of serious trouble among the Polish armed forces abroad particularly those in the Middle East. It stated that Mr. Churchill was considering sending a message to Stalin. The draft text of this message, together with further information on recent developments and on the action which the British Government would like to take, would be communicated to the United States Government shortly with a view to ascertaining whether we would wish to make a similar approach to the Soviet Government.

The Ambassador said then that the aide-mémoire was only a preliminary reference and that he expected in a few days to receive a somewhat more elaborate statement from his Government. Lord Halifax has not yet taken up the matter in detail.

  1. In connection with the statement in paragraph 4 of Mr. Stalin’s message indicating that the International Red Cross has been “compelled” to take part in the investigations carried out behind the back of the Soviet Government, it should be pointed out that the American Consul in a telegram from Geneva dated April 22, 6 p.m. stated that he had been informed that the International Red Cross Committee had communicated on April 22 to the Polish and German Governments that the International Red Cross was prepared to propose the designation of neutral experts to conduct an investigation provided “all parties concerned” request it to do so (special reference to the Soviet Union as a party concerned was made therein).

  2. The Department of State has thus far had no intimation from any source other than Stalin’s message quoted above that the Soviet Government contemplates breaking relations with the Polish Government.

  3. I am endeavoring to delay action in the Finnish matter until you return, in view of the foregoing developments.

[File copy not signed]

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760C.61/4–2543: Telegram

The British Prime Minister to President Roosevelt

London, April 25, 1943.

284.

Former Naval Person to President Roosevelt.

I understand that Stalin has repeated to you his message to me of April 21st about Poland.

My two immediately following messages contain my reply.

As you see, I am now going to follow these up with a fuller message appealing to Stalin to cooperate with us in getting as many Poles as possible out of Russia. Halifax has already spoken to Hull about this. I shall be sending you a further message on this subject.

Message from Prime Minister to Premier Stalin begins:

Ambassador Maisky delivered your message to me last night. We shall certainly oppose rigorously any “investigation” by the International Red Cross or any other body in any territory under German authority. Such investigation would be a fraud and its conclusions reached by terrorism. Mr. Eden is seeing Sikorski today and will press him as strongly as possible to withdraw all countenance from any investigation under Nazi auspices. Also we should never approve of any parley with the Germans or contact with them of any kind whatever, and we shall press this point upon our Polish allies.

I will wire you later how Sikorski reacts to the above points. His position is one of great difficulty. Far from being pro-German or in league with them, he is in danger of being overthrown by Poles who consider he has not stood up sufficiently for his people against the Soviets. If he should go, we should only get somebody worse. I hope therefore that your decision to “interrupt” relations is to be read in the sense of a final warning rather than of a break and that it will not be made public at any rate till every other plan has been tried. The public announcement of a break would do the greatest possible harm in the United States where the Poles are numerous and influential.

I had drafted a telegram to you yesterday asking you to consider allowing more Poles and Polish dependents to go into Persia. This would allay the rising discontent of the Polish Army formed there, and would enable me to influence the Polish Government to act in conformity with our common interests and against the common foe. I have deferred sending this telegram in consequence of yours to me in the hopes the situation may clear. April 24, 1943.

First message ends.

Message from Prime Minister to Premier Stalin personal and secret.

Mr. Eden saw General Sikorski yesterday evening. Sikorski stated that so far from synchronising his appeal to the Red Cross with that of the Germans his Government took the initiative without knowing what line the Germans would take. In fact, the Germans acted after hearing the Polish broadcast announcement. Sikorski also told Eden that his Government had simultaneously approached Monsieur Bogomolov on the subject. Sikorski emphasised that previously he had several times raised this question of the missing officers with the Soviet Government and once with you personally. On his instructions the Polish Minister of Information in his broadcasts has reacted strongly against German propaganda and this has brought an angry German reply.

As a result of Eden’s strong representations Sikorski has undertaken not to press request for Red Cross investigation and will so inform the Red Cross authorities in Berne. He will also restrain Polish press from polemics. In this connection I am examining possibility of silencing those Polish papers in this country which attack the Soviet Government and at the same time attack Sikorski for trying to work with the Soviet Government.

In view of Sikorski’s undertaking I would now urge you to abandon idea of any interruption of relations.

I have reflected further on this matter and I am more than ever convinced that it can only assist our enemies, if there is a break between the Soviet and Polish Governments. German propaganda has produced this story precisely in order to make a rift in the ranks of the United Nations and to lend some semblance of reality to its new attempts to persuade the world that the interests of Europe and the smaller nations are being defended by Germany against the great extra-European powers, namely, the USSR, the USA, and the British Empire.

I know General Sikorski well and I am convinced that no contacts or understanding could exist between him or his government and our common enemy, against whom he has led the Poles in bitter and uncompromising resistance. His appeal to the International Red Cross was clearly a mistake though I am convinced it was not made in collusion with the Germans.

Now that we have, I hope, cleared up the issue raised in your telegram to me, I want to revert to the proposals contained in my draft telegram to which I referred in my message of the 24th April, I shall therefore, shortly be sending you this earlier message in its original form. If we two were able to arrange this matter of getting these Poles out of the Soviet Union it would be easier for Sikorski to withdraw entirely from the position he has been forced by his public opinion to adopt. I hope you will help me to achieve this. April 25, 1943.

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760C.61/4–2643: Telegram

The British Prime Minister to President Roosevelt

London [undated.]

285.

Former Naval Person to President Roosevelt.

I repeat to you herewith the reply I have just received to my telegram which I forwarded to you in my number 284. I shall be glad of your views.

Begins Premier Stalin to Premier Churchill personal and most secret. Kremlin April 25th.

I received your message concerning the Polish affairs. Many thanks for your interest in the matter. I would like, however, to point out that the interruption of relations with the Polish Government is already decided and today V M Molotov delivered a note to this effect. Such action was demanded by my colleagues as the Polish official press is ceaselessly pursuing and even daily expanding its campaign hostile to the USSR. I was obliged also to take into account the public opinion of the Soviet Union which is deeply indignant at the ingratitude and treachery of the Polish Government.

With regard to the publication of the Soviet document concerning the interruption of relations with the Polish Government, I am sorry to say that such publication cannot be avoided.

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The Pittsburgh Press (April 26, 1943)

Reds accuse Poles of plot with Axis, relations severed

Break with refugee government follows clash over fate of 10,000 soldiers Nazis say Russia killed in Poland

London, England (UP) –
The Soviet Union today broke off diplomatic relations with the Polish government-in-exile, the Moscow radio announced, charging that the Poles had “taken up and stirred up in every way” a false Nazi propaganda charge that Russians had slain about 10,000 or 12,000 Polish troops in Russia.

The Polish soldiers were actually killed by the Germans when they occupied the Smolensk area, the Soviet note to the Poles said.

The Russian note charged that the Poles and Nazis have contact and an agreement to carry on “a hostile campaign” against Russia.

Polish authorities announced that a special communiqué dealing with the Russians situation would be issued tomorrow. No statement will be forthcoming today, the announcement said, pending a study of the case.

More behind break

There was more behind the break than the slaying of the soldiers. Recently, the Russians established a Moscow newspaper called Free Poland devoted largely to attacks on the Polish refugee government and upholding Russians claims to former Russian territory which was part of Poland before the war. The Poles also allegedly have encouraged underground newspapers attacking the Soviet Union.

It was not believed that the Russians would stop with severance of diplomatic relations. The next step, some observers believed, may be announcement that a “Free Polish Army” has been formed by hundreds of thousands of Poles still in the Soviet Union.

First United Nations break

The Soviet action was the first formal break in the United Nations diplomatic front.

The Russian note said:

The Polish government not only did not oppose the mean slander against the USSR, but even did not find it necessary to approach the Soviet government with any questions on the mater or ask for any explanation.

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, in a note to the Polish Ambassador in Moscow, charged the Poles with using German propaganda in an effort to snatch Soviet territory in the Ukraine, in White Russia and in Lithuania, the Moscow broadcast said.

Opinion in British sources described the break as “tragic and regrettable.”

Called Nazi propaganda

One source said:

A very clever piece of German propaganda has had it effect. These countries have had their differences before and we are hopeful this latest unfortunate happening can be patched up.

We will constantly work to this end.

British sources, however, seemed to be surprised by the extremity of the Russian action.

The Russian action climaxed steadily worsening relations with Poland, especially in regard to the alleged slaying of the Polish troops in 1940.

8,000 officers missing

The Poles contended that some 8,000 Polish officers were never accounted for and assetted that the Nazi allegations were so detailed that an investigation was necessary.

The Russians had recently criticized the Polish government for asking the International Red Cross to investigate Nazi propaganda charges that about 10,000 Polish troops had been killed in Russia by the Russians.

Moscow newspapers denounced the Polish request on the grounds that it was aiding Nazi propaganda aimed to divide the United Nations.

The slain Polish soldiers were alleged by Berlin to have been found in Russian territory now occupied by the Germans. Extensive dispatches allegedly giving details of the slaying of the Polish officers and men were put out by the German propagandists, but all of the charges were denounced by Moscow as lies.

Also boundary question

The Polish-Russian controversy also involved a question of post-war boundaries. The Poles have insisted that the boundaries that existed before the European war started must be restored with few exceptions while the Russians have indicated that they desire at least part of the territory they occupied before the Nazi invasion of Russia.

The Moscow broadcast said:

Molotov handed to Polish Ambassador Tadeusz Romer a note from the Soviet government with the following contents. Monsieur Ambassador, on behalf of the government of the USSR, I have the honor to communicate the following to the Polish government.

The attitude of the Polish government toward the USSR is recently considered by the soviet government, as entirely unnormal, breaking all rules and usances in mutual relations of two Allied countries.

The slanderous campaign begun by German fascists which is hostile to the USSR in the question of Polish officers killed by them [the Germans] in the Smolensk region on territory occupied by German troops was immediately taken up by the Polish government and stirred up in every way by the Polish official press.

‘Under Hitler’s heel’

The Moscow broadcast continued:

Hitlerite authorities, after having committed monstrous crimes against Polish officers, are putting up a comedy of investigations in the stating of which they use some Polish pro-fascist elements picked up by them [the Germans] on occupied Polish territory, where everybody is under the Hitler heel and where no honest Pole can openly express his opinion.

For the “investigation” the International Red Cross was asked to carry out an investigation by the Polish government, just as by the Hitler government.

The International Red Cross is compelled to take part in this “investigation comedy” in an atmosphere of a regime of terror with its gallows and mass extermination of the peaceful population while Hitler is the producer of this comedy.

Not regarded with trust

It is clear that such an investigation, which in addition is being carried out behind the bac of the Soviet government, cannot be regarded with trust by any honest people.

The Soviet broadcast said:

The fact that the campaign against the Soviet Union was begun simultaneously in the German and Polish press and is being conducted on the same plan, this fact leaves no doubt that between the enemy of the Allies a Hitler and Polish government contact exists, as well as an agreement to carry through this hostile campaign.

While the peoples of the Soviet Union are shedding their blood in the heavy struggle against Hitlerite Germany and straining all their strength to rout the common enemy of the Russians and Polish peoples and all the freedom-loving peoples of the democratic countries, the Polish government is favoring Hitler’s tyranny and is dealing a treacherous blow to the Soviet Union.

Pressure on Soviets

It is known to the Soviet government that this hostile campaign against the Soviet Union has been undertaken by the Polish government with the aim to exert pressure on the Soviet government by using Hitler’s slanderous falsification in order to snatch territorial concessions at a cost of the interest of the Soviet Ukraine, Soviet White Russia and Soviet Lithuania.

All the circumstances compel the Soviet government to state that the present government of Poland, which has deviated to the way leading toward an agreement with the Hitlerite government, has in fact ceased to maintain Allied relations with the Soviet Union and put itself in a position hostile to the Soviet Union.

On the basis of all the foregoing, the Soviet government decided to break off relations with the Polish government.

I beg, Mr. Ambassador, that you accept affirmations of my deep respect.

MOLOTOV

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Washington regrets Russian action

Washington (UP) –
A State Department spokesman, in response to questions, said today that the department had learned “with regret” that the Soviet Union has severed diplomatic relations with the Polish government-in-exile.

The State Department did not make clear whether it had been informed in advance of the pending move, but in answer to questions, it said:

Without reference to the merits in the matter of the difference between these two governments and without knowing as yet the full facts, it is with regret that we learn of this situation.

The Soviet action came as a surprise to observers here, since only this morning the Soviet Information Bureau bulletin had published as article about the Polish charges concerning slayings of Polish troops which described them as Hitlerite propaganda. It was notable for its absence of reference to the Polish government.

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U.S. State Department (April 26, 1943)

President Roosevelt to the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union

Washington, April 26, 1943 — 1:30 p.m.

Your telegram was received by me while on my inspection trip out West. Your problem is well understood by me but I do hope that in this present situation you can find means to label your action as a suspension of conversations with the Polish Government-in-exile rather than a complete severance of diplomatic relations.

In my opinion Sikorski has in no way acted with the Hitler gang but instead he has made a mistake in taking up this particular matter with the International Red Cross. Also Churchill will find ways and means, I am inclined to think, of getting the Polish Government in London to act in the future with more common sense.

If I can help in any way, please let me know, particularly with reference to looking after any Poles which you may desire to send out of the Soviet Union.

In the United States, incidentally, I have several million Poles, a great many of them being in the Navy and Army. All of them are bitter against the Nazis, and the situation would not be helped by the knowledge of a complete diplomatic break between yourself and Sikorski.

ROOSEVELT

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760C.61/4–2643

Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by Mr. Elbridge Durbrow of the Division of European Affairs 

Washington, April 26, 1943.

I was just told in the strictest confidence by a Secretary of the British Embassy that a telegram had just been received from the British Ambassador in Moscow the general tenor of which was that he felt that the Soviet Government had broken with the Poles primarily because they were trying to cover up their guilt in connection with the Smolensk affair.

The Secretary of the Embassy asked me particularly to make sure that the source of this information was kept absolutely confidential.

ELBRIDGE DURBROW

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760C.61/1035: Telegram

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union to the Secretary of State

Moscow, April 26, 1943 — 6 p.m.
[Received April 27 — noon.]

354.

My 350, April 26, 2 p.m.

  1. The Polish Ambassador informed me this morning that he was requested to call at the Kremlin last night at midnight where he was read by Molotov a note accusing the Polish Government of conspiring with Hitler in connection with the recent campaign against the Soviet Union over the Polish officers alleged to have been murdered at Smolensk and stating that as a result “the Soviet Government had decided to discontinue its relations with the Polish Government.”

The Ambassador said that he refused to accept the note from Molotov declaring that he could not do so because of the insulting language in which it was couched and also because it did not represent the true facts; that he then asked Molotov for permission to return to Kuibyshev to make arrangements for the departure of himself and his staff and that Molotov said that he should take this matter up with the Foreign Office.

The Ambassador stated that about 2 a.m. a messenger delivered to him at his hotel a note from the Foreign Office and that he found it to be identical to the one read to him by Molotov. He gave me a translation of the note.

  1. Molotov requested me to call this afternoon. Clark Kerr was leaving as I arrived and said in passing:

Try to persuade him to postpone the publication of the note. This is madness – I’ve been trying to for the last hour but am afraid I was unsuccessful.

Molotov advised me of a message dated April 21 addressed to the President and Churchill regarding Polish-Soviet relations which he said was delivered in the absence of the President and Mr. Hull, to Mr. Welles on the 24th. He said that this message was almost identical to the note which he was “forced” to give to Romer last night, and was sent to the President in order to explain the position of the Soviet Government in respect to the present controversy. He added that he was confident that the American Government would understand the Soviet position. He then read the note.

In reply to my query Molotov stated that no answer had been received from the President to Stalin’s message. I explained the President’s absence as reason for no reply and stated that I felt sure that the President would be greatly disturbed at this turn of events. Learning that the note would be published this evening I stated that, speaking without instruction, I felt sure that the American and British Governments had been examining the question of Polish-Soviet relations hoping to find some solution which would make the present rupture in relations unnecessary and that I sincerely hoped that the publication of the note could be postponed long enough to permit a thorough examination of the question.

Molotov stated that the slanderous campaign against the Soviet Union in which Poland was playing hand in hand with Germany had been dragging on, in fact increasing in intensity, for 2 weeks, that the Soviet Government had shown the maximum patience, that public opinion in the Soviet Union was extremely indignant and that the Soviet Government could not ignore its public. For that reason it had decided to publish the note and it was hoped that the American Government would understand its position. Again speaking personally I said that it was impossible for me to believe that the Poles were conspiring with Germany and again I endeavored to prevail upon Molotov to hold up publication at least until the President had had an opportunity to reply to Stalin’s message. He was adamant maintaining that no Government with any self-respect could postpone even for a few days its decision to take action.

Since I understand that the tenor of the note has already been conveyed to the Department and since I assume that it will be published at home I am consequently not telegraphing it.

I am informed that Lozovski read the note to the Chiefs of Mission in Kuibyshev today.

Several days ago the Polish Ambassador in commenting on the worsened state of Polish-Soviet relations requested the Embassy to take over the Polish Embassy’s confidential files in case of a rupture in relations. I told him that I could not do so without instructions from the Department and suggested that he request that the Polish Embassy in Washington take up this question with the Department. He has not broached the subject since.

Department’s instructions requested.

STANDLEY

32

Völkischer Beobachter (April 27, 1943)

Der Wald von Katyn – ein europäisches Fanal
Auf der Spur neuer GPU.-Morde

Smolensk, 26. April –
Die Frühlingssonne scheint über dem Walde von Katyn. Durch die Zweige, Föhren und Jungbirken dringen ihre hellen Strahlen. Sie tanzen über restliche Schneeinseln und beleb en herbstbraune Erika und dunkles Bodenmoos mit freundlichem Schein.

Seit Tagen wandere ich durch diesen Jungwald, der auf sandigem Boden am Steilufer des Dnjepr im leichtwelligen Gelände von Süden nach Norden streicht. Der trägfließende Strom und die Rollbahn Smolensk-Witebsk grenzen diesen freundlichen Erdenfleck gegen das weite Brachland ab, in dem nur ganz vereinzelt die Häuschen bolschewistischer Elendsbauern aufscheinen. Rechts des Waldweges türmen sich gelbe Sandhaufen. Sie begrenzen die weiträumigen Schächte, in denen tausende Leichen in ihren polnischen Uniformen liegen. In den vertrockneten Gesichtern steht meist noch als letzter Ausdruck des Diesselts jenes unendliche Grauen, das todgeweihte Menschen empfunden haben, als ihnen der Revolver der GPU.-Bestien als Ultima ratio eines entwürdigenden Gefangenendaseins im Nacken saß. Seit mehr als drei Wochen wird an der Freilegung dieser Mordstätte gearbeitet und noch ist der Umfang jener Katastrophe nicht zu sehen, die Kultur von Unkultur deutlich scheidet und vor den Augen aller empfindenden Wesen den Trennungsstrich zog zwischen Mensch und Tier.

Ich setze mich ans Lagerfeuer, das einheimische Arbeiter entbrannten, damit der Rauch verprasselnder Föhrenzweige den süßlichen Hauch der Verwesung verschlinge, der gleich einem giftigen Odem über der Stätte des Grauens liegt. Neben mir steht Sergej, der Vorarbeiter der Russen. Auch er will für einen Augenblick dem Verwesungsgeruch entfliehen, diesem häßlich-süßen Hauch, der noch Stunden später am Gaumen sitzt, an Rock und Mantel haftet.

Wahrend sich der lange, blonde Vorarbeiter mit Zeitungspapier und etwas Machorka seine Zigarette dreht, weist er so beiläufig mit dem Ellbogen nach der Lichtung links des Weges. Im ersten Augenblick sehe ich nichts, was mein Auge stören würde. Jungbirken und lichtgrüne ältere Bäume zaubern den Eindruck des Waldes hervor. Wie ich aber weiterblicke, über die Wipfel der jungen Nadelbäume, bleibt mein Blick wieder haften an der gelben Farbe des Sandes, der sich auch dort drüben, etwa 150 bis 200 Meter entfernt, zu neuen kleinen Haufen türmt.

…Dort suchen Söhne des Landes ihre Väter und Mütter ihre Kinder. Dort liegen ebenso wie hier, gleiche Massen, geschlachtet zu Tausenden wie die polnischen Offiziere, Leute, die nichts verbrachen, als daß sie den jüdischen Kommissaren, den Machthabern der GPU., nicht zu Gesicht standen. Und wie zur Bekräftigung springt Sergej auf und eilt voran nach der neuen Stätte des Grauens. Mit wutverzerrten Gesichtern schaufeln dort Männer in eiliger Hast. Drei kleine Gruben sind bereits in Manneshöhe ausgehoben, noch klein im Geviert. Aber in jeder dieser Gruben sind bereits bloßliegende Menschenleiber sichtbar. So wie in den Polengräbern jenseits des Waldes, liegen sie auch hier – einer neben dem anderen. Hier ragt vorerst ein kahler Kopf aus der Erde, an dem das Haar bereits fehlt, dort eine Hand, ein Schuh, aber gerade das zeigt mir, daß auch hier unter diesem raffiniert angepflanzten Jungwald der Bolschewismus sein grauenhaftes Verbrechen verbarg.

Erst wenige Leichen sind an dieser neuen Mordstätte freigelegt, aber jede der Leichen ist gefesselt. Dünne Rebschnur schlingt sich um verkrampfte Hände, die dürr und ledern auf dem Rücken in der Schlinge stecken. Die Leiche eines Mannes liegt oben auf der sandigen Böschung, und der Befund des deutschen Gerichtsarztes, den ich von den Polengräbern herüberhole, zeigt mit einem Schlag die ganze Grausamkeit eines bestialischen Systems auf. In der knöchernen Mundhöhle eine handvoll Sägespäne, vor den Mund eine Mütze gepreßt, über dem Kopf der Rock mit den Ärmeln zusammengebunden und die Hände gefesselt. Dazu zwei Schüsse im Schädel… Grausamer kann man einen Menschen wohl kaum mehr töten.

Daß es sich auch hier um wohlorganisierte Morde der GPU. handelt, dafür bürgen uns die Aussagen der Umstehenden. Da ist ein junger Bursche aus dem nahen Ort, der suchenden Auges in jedem Opfer seinen Vater sieht. Dann dieser ältere Mann, gleichfalls aus einem Nachbarort, dem die GPU. im Jahre 1938 seinen Bruder raubte, weil er einen Witz über die bolschewistischen Verbrechen erzählte, und schließlich der junge Leutnant, der sich freiwillig zum Kampf gegen den Bolschewismus meldete, weil er seine Familie rächen muß, die von den Agenten der GPU. mit 500 anderen Bürgern seiner Vaterstadt verschleppt und erschossen worden war.

Wie weit im Wald von Katyn noch gegraben werden soll, um nach neuen Opfern zu suchen und die graßlichen Schandtaten jüdisch-bolschewistischer Mörder aufzudecken, ist im Augenblick noch nicht klar. Aber wir alle, die wir nun diesen Schrekkenswald kennen, wir glauben den biederen Bauern, wenn sie uns versichern, daß unter dem Jungwald soweit das Auge reicht, die stummen Zeugen der bolschewistischen Greueltaten schlummern.

G. Slovencoik

Moskau fürchtet Untersuchung

tc. Ankara, 26. April –
In der Sowjetunion fürchtet man offensichtlich eine Untersuchung der Vorgänge von Katyn. Das sei ein schlechtes Zeichen, denn wenn Moskau unschuldig an dem Mord von Katyn sei, müßte es geradezu auf eine Untersuchung drängen. Angesichts der deutschen und sowjetrussischen Haltung gegenüber den Vorgängen von Katyn könne kaum mehr ein Zweifel darüber herrschen, daß die Deutschen überwältigendes Beweismaterial für diese sowjetrussische Blutschuld in Händen hielten.

Diese Erklärung zur Bluttat von Katyn gab zu Ostern der amtliche Kommentator des türkischen Rundfunks. Sie ist um so bemerkenswerter, als bisher der türkische Rundfunk und die türkische Presse in dieser Angelegenheit größte Zurückhaltung geübt hatten.

33

The Pittsburgh Press (April 27, 1943)

Polish regime plans appeal to Roosevelt

Americans, British begin discussions on Soviet diplomatic split
By John A. Parris, United Press staff writer

London, England –
The Polish government-in-exile was reported reliably today to be considering an appeal to President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill to intervene in the crisis precipitated by Russia’s suspension of diplomatic relations with the Poles.

American and British authorities have already begun discussions on means of restoring the relations between the Soviets and exiled Polish governments. A Moscow dispatch said, however, that only a purge of Polish anti-Soviet elements would satisfy Moscow.

The Polish Cabinet met for two hours. Some Polish officials were represented afterward as believing there was hope for a reconciliation with Russia within three months.

Cites two conditions

The Anglo-American discussions were disclosed by authoritative sources who declined, however, to give any details.

A dispatch from M. S. Handler, United Press correspondent in Moscow, said there appeared to be two essential conditions for any conciliation between the two governments:

  1. All political elements which the Soviet government considers hostile to Russia must be eliminated from the Polish government.

  2. The new Polish government must be composed of men ready to settle Soviet-Polish problems on a basis of realities.

Mr. Handler said the Soviet note to Poland merely suspended relations between the two countries, thus leaving the door open for an agreement with those Poles who are inclined to take a more realistic view of Soviet-Polish ties.

Eden, aides confer

Soviet sources in London translated the note as completely “severing” or “breaking off” relations, but they, too, agreed that an early rapprochement was possible.

Predict end of rupture

London newspapers almost unanimously predicted that the rift would prove only temporary, but at the same time cautioned against belittling the incident.

The Daily Telegraph, which usually reflects the government’s viewpoint, said there was:

…ample hope that the present differences will be repaired within a reasonable time.

The Daily Mirror said the suspension would not:

…make the slightest differences to Poland’s part in the war as a whole or to her relations with us.

The Mirror added:

She remains our ally and our friend.

Moscow dispatches said the Russians had long been watching anti-Soviet activities on the part of Poles in certain foreign countries, but took no official cognizance so long as the campaign remained unofficial.

The break came when the Polish government committed itself by asking the International Red Cross to investigate German propaganda charges that the Russians murdered 10,000 Polish officers near Smolensk in 1940 without asking a Soviet reply. The Russians claim that the Poles were slain by the Germans.

Soviet authorities felt that they had shown remarkable restraint in dealing with certain Polish problems arising from time to time. Last summer, Mr. Handler’s dispatch said the Soviet government hushes up a mysterious affair concerning a number of highly-placed persons charged with action inimical to Russia.

Reports bitterness

Mr. Handler said:

It is difficult to convey the bitterness prevailing in Soviet political circles as well as among ordinary citizens against the Polish authorities.

There was no immediate indication of which Allied government would be charged with caring for Polish affairs and there likewise was no authoritative interpretation of what effect the rupture would have on the 1941 Soviet-Polish Treaty of Friendship.

May form army

Observers here believed that the Russians next may announce formation of a “Free Polish Army” composed of the hundreds of thousands of Poles still in Russia to fight with the Red Army and perhaps be the first Poles to return to their homeland with an Allied Army.

Soviet sources in New York said that Premier Sikorski withdrew his Polish Army of 100,000 from Russia last fall when Stalingrad was in greatest danger.

No Polish exile-government troops are believed to be in Russia at present. Several divisions are thought to be still in Iran, but all in the British rather than the Russian zone. Some of the Poles formerly in Iran were transferred to Iraq and possibly Syria and Egypt.

Berlin labels Russia executioner of Poles

By the United Press

The German radio, in its first comment on the break in Soviet-Polish relations, charged today that Moscow has become the “executioner of Poland and the Poles while London stands idly by.”

The 10,000-12,000 Polish officers whose graves were found near Smolensk in occupied Russia, were “only a small part of the Poles murdered by the Soviets,” the broadcast said.

Russia’s severance of relations with Poland was said to be designed to make an investigation of the murders impossible.

The broadcast said:

Smaller nations have been given an example of how all peoples are supposed to live in a world ruled by Moscow, London and Washington.

34

Russian, Polish rupture called blow at Roosevelt

Churchill’s diplomacy also suffers because break between Allies bring comfort to Axis
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington –
The rupture of Polish-Russian diplomatic relations was viewed realistically today as a major defeat for President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s diplomacy if for no other reason than it will comfort the Axis.

It came at a moment when Washington was apparently moving further to appease the Soviet Union with a major diplomatic rebuff to Finland – a state with which Russia is at war and the United States is at peace. There are unconfirmed rumors that the United States is about to break relations with the Finns.

The abrupt Moscow announcement that relations with the Polish government-in-exile in London had been broken came without an advance hint to Washington or London.

Upsetting to Congress

It might be interpreted as a hurry-up prod from Moscow for establishment of a second front and for Washington and London to recognize Moscow’s post-war territorial claims as being exempt from the no-aggrandizement provisions of the Atlantic Charter.

While the State Department “regretted” the Polish-Russians break, some others thought it was grounds for even more emphatic expressions of diplomatic sorrow. Senator Theodore F. Green (D-RI) considered it “tragic,” and other Congressional commentators expressed misgivings.

But there seemed to be no immediate tendency to reproach the Russians. In general, there was uneasiness over a break in the United Nations front and a tendency to charge the Germans with having smartly fostered Polish-Russian friction.

Takes Russian side

Senator Arthur Capper (R-KS), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said:

I am inclined to take Russia’s side in this matter. Russia has done a good job and I am very sorry to see this break.

The Polish-Russian break may lead to establishment of a new exiled Polish government, this time in Moscow. If so, Premier Stalin could easily negotiate with it a settlement of one of his major post-war territorial claims involving eastern Poland. These claims have been set out in detail by the communist press. They embrace an undisclosed but not necessarily large part of Finland; all of the three Baltic states which are Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia; eastern Poland, comprising nearly half of that nation; and all of the Romanian province of Bessarabia and part of the province of Bukovina.

Would expand borders

That would considerably expand Russian borders beyond their limits of Sept. 1, 1939. The Russian thesis is that those areas would be absorbed without the territorial aggrandizement which is proscribed by the Atlantic Charter, and Moscow is bidding for Washington’s agreement that the charter terms do not cover the special circumstances involved.

The Russians assert that those areas owe allegiance to Moscow because they were parts of Czarist Russia or, briefly, of the newborn Soviet Union in 1918-20, or voted to become Soviet republics after they were invaded by the Red Armies in 1939-40.

Formal Russian announcement that eastern Poland would be taken over after the war would raise difficult problems for Washington since it would involve an interpretation of the Atlantic Charter which the Roosevelt administration might be reluctant to make. And the issue is complicated further by the fact that there are considerable numbers of Americans of Polish extraction in the United States – a minority which would be heard and which, in some areas, would be potent at election time.

35

Break is climax to 8-month feud

By Helen Kirkpatrick

London, England –
Deep regret is felt in London that German propaganda should have scored a victory by causing a diplomatic break between the Soviet Union and the Poles and every effort will be made by the British government to heal the breach as soon as possible.

Polish-Russian relations gave every promise of improving from the time British mediation brought the two together following the German attack on Russia. But those relations have been deteriorating steadily for the past eight months and they reached acute strain early this year as a Ukrainian writer in the Communist Party organ Pravda accused the Polish government in London of fomenting trouble between the Poles and the Russians.

Anxiety over the reconstruction of Poland within its pre-war frontiers and fear that Russia would insist on retaining the Ukraine and Polish White Russia after the war led, in January of this year, to the exchange of sharp notes. Since that time, British censorship, in the hope, undoubtedly, that relations would improve faster with less publicity, has banned all reference to the affair. Hence, yesterday’s break initiated by Moscow, will come as a greater surprise to the public than to the diplomatic and press world.

The discovery of the bodies of thousands of Polish officers at Smolensk, announced by the Germans, led to a Polish demand for investigation. The German allegations that the officers were slaughtered by the Russians was denied in Moscow where it was felt that the Polish desire for an investigation was playing into the Germans’ hands. This episode was not in itself the cause for the diplomatic rupture but is merely the climax after months of acute strain.

In some quarters, it is felt that the agitation to the United States over the Erlich and Alter case (the execution by the Soviet government of two Polish labor leaders) may have given the Russians the impression that the United States was basically anti-Russian, perhaps to the point of concluding a separate peace with Germany. It may well be that the Russians hope to test this belief at the present time through their break with the Poles. To support this belief, Russian circles point to various articles on the Erlich and Alter case such as the one in The New Republic of March 15 which said:

In the U.S. Army circles, there is talk of the “next” war against Russia. There are some who believe that the preparations now being made to train an army of more than nine million men are designed with a view not only of defeating Germany and Japan but also of crushing Russia.

36

Soviet newspaper repeats charges

By David M. Nichol

Moscow, USSR –
The Polish Embassy staff is preparing to quit Moscow and Kuybyshev as soon as possible in the newest chapter in Europe’s thorniest political problem, in which it can be said that only Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels has scored a victory.

It would be a mistake to believe that the “suspension” of relations between the USSR and the Polish government in London results from any snap decision. The difficulty has been brewing for months and the basic border question dates back several hundred years.

The only expansion of Russian Foreign Commissar Vyacheslav M. Molotov’s note, which was dated April 25, appears in today’s government organ Izvestia. Editorially, it repeats the charges that the Polish government, by asking an investigation of the Katyń Forest grave through the International Red Cross, was linking itself with Hitler and the Soviet Union’s enemies.

Renews assertion

Izvestia says that only those persons “who are too credulous or too blind to see through falsehoods and provocations” will believe the German report of this crime. It renews the assertion that the Polish officers died at German hands.

Izvestia continues:

There can be no doubt that the Polish people who are struggling for freedom and independence will condemn the treacherous behavior of the Sikorski government which has dealt a blow to the common struggle against the butcher Hitler.

37

From the Yiwo Institute form Jewish Ressearce:
:“Henryk Erlich (1882-1942) and Wiktor Alter (1890-1943) were Jewish Bundist leaders in Poland, prior to the outbreak of World War II. Erlich was denounced to Soviet authorities (he had left Poland at the outbreak of the war), imprisoned, and interrogated for two years. Alter was likewise arrested by the NKVD on September 29, 1939. During this period, he was forced to provide detailed information regarding the activities of the Polish Bund. In August 1941, both Erlich and Alter were sentenced to die for anti-Soviet activities, but the sentence was later changed to a ten-year prison term. Following Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union and the signing of the Sikorski-Mayski agreement between the Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet Union, both Erlich and Alter were released from prison. Upon their release, Erlich and Alter set about establishing the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which raised suspicions among Soviet authorities. In October 1941, the Soviet authorities placed Erlich and Alter in a hotel in Kuibyshev (mod. Samara), where private conversations were conducted and taped. Among the content discussed and reported to Joseph Stalin were rumors about the murder of Polish officers, including many Polish Jews. During this period, Erlich once again endured harsh interrogations, which severely affected his health. He committed suicide on May 15, 1942 in his Kuibyshev jail cell. Official notification about his death was not released by the Soviet leadership until February 1943. Precise details surrounding Alter’s death remain unknown to this day. According to some reports, he was sentenced to death on December 23, 1941, and immediately executed. Other sources state that his execution did not take place until February 1943. The death sentence was signed by Vyacheslav Molotov, in a note stating that Stalin had personally approved the order. Following Alter’s death, in 1943, Soviet authorities issued a statement that Alter had been executed for “spying for Hitler.” These events led to an international outcry. Erlich and Alter were not vindicated or “rehabilitated” until February 8, 1991, under Russian president, Boris Yeltsin.”

1 Like
38 
760C.61/1038: Telegram

The Ambassador to the Polish Government-in-Exile to the Secretary of State 

London, April 27, 1943 — 8 p.m.
[Received April 27 — 6:16 p.m.]

Polish Series [No.] 24. My 23, April 26.

I have just seen General Sikorski who tells me that Ambassador Romer reported to him yesterday that at a meeting early yesterday morning Molotov had read to him the substance of the Russian Government’s note notifying the Polish Government of its decision to sever relations. Romer reported further that he refused to accept the note.

Sikorski also states that a further telegram from Romer received today reports that Molotov subsequently sent the note to the Polish Embassy and that after studying it Romer found that contrary to his original impression the Soviet Government uses the term “suspend” relations instead of “sever.” Romer is consequently of the opinion that the door may thus still be open for discussion.

Sikorski states further that on Saturday he met with Mr. Eden who informed him that M. Stalin had wired Mr. Churchill that the Soviet Government would break relations with the Polish Government unless General Sikorski would personally publicly deny the German allegations regarding the fate of the Polish officers near Smolensk and withdraw his request of the International Red Cross for investigation. Sikorski says he told Eden he could not comply with those conditions but he was willing for Mr. Churchill to inform M. Stalin that he would “soft pedal” the Polish press regarding the missing officers, that he would not press for the International Red Cross investigation, but that he desired that the Russians should permit the evacuation of certain categories of Poles from Russia. He states he was assured that such message would be sent. The next development was the Soviet Government’s note to Ambassador Romer.

Sikorski tells me the matter has been fully discussed by the Polish Cabinet today and his Government proposes, subject to Mr. Churchill’s approval, to issue a statement which he describes as “firm, dignified and polite”. While the text is still in Polish, he tells me it is on the following lines: (a) A résumé of Polish-Russian relations since the Polish-Russian agreement of 1941; (b) notwithstanding difficulties caused the Polish Government by a lack of clear information concerning the fate of the missing Polish officers, the Polish Government wished to maintain good relations with the Soviet Government; (c) the Poles had received information from Polish sources regarding these officers previous to the German allegations; (d) a denial of collaboration with the Nazis in connection either with the allegations or the request for International Red Cross investigation; (e) it is the Polish Government’s policy to defend the interests of Poland and its citizens and to strengthen the solidarity of the common front against the enemy.

Sikorski states he is quite uncertain what is behind the Soviet move. He believes it may be (a) a move calculated to force the present or a reconstructed Polish Government to pay a stiff price for resumption of relations or (b) a long-entertained idea of seeking a pretext favorable to Moscow for breaking with the Polish Government. The use of the term “suspend” in the recent note supports the first theory. On the other hand, he believes the following considerations support the second theory: (1) The Soviet Government have been building up Drobner, formerly a radical leftist of Krakow, as a possible leader of some sort of national committee, as they threatened during the Polish-Russian negotiations in the summer of 1941; (2) the creation of a Polish-Communist armed force under General Rogoszowski; (3) the publication of the Polish-Communist paper Wolna Polska. He feels certain in any case that the Soviet Government’s decision to suspend its relations with the Polish Government at this time was motivated primarily by its belief that it should adopt an offensive rather than a defensive action to divert attention from the alleged massacre of Polish officers and the suggested investigation by the International Red Cross.

BIDDLE

39

Völkischer Beobachter (April 28, 1943)

Dokumentarische Beweise aus französischen Akten –
England verriet schon 1940 Europa an Stalin

Bereits damals verhinderte London Protest der polnischen Emigranten gegen die Sowjetgreuel

vb. Wien, 27. April –
Am 18. Mai 1940 nahm der stellvertretende Leiter der politischen Abteilung des französischen Außenministeriums eine Aufzeichnung zu den Akten, deren volle Bedeutung wir heute erst zu schätzen vermögen. Es geht aus ihr hervor, daß schon damals der Gegenseite die bolschewistischen Mordtaten im vormaligen Ostpolen bekannt waren – die Abschlachtung der polnischen Offiziere im Wald von Katyn erfolgte nur einige Wochen früher! – England sich aber weigerte, dagegen in Moskau Einspruch zu erheben, weit Churchill bereits mit Stalin Fühlung genommen hatte und seinen Partner bei Laune halten wollte.

Das Dokument hat folgenden Wortlaut:

Der stellvertr. politische Direktor.
18. Mai 1940.

Aufzeichnung betr. russische Greuel in Polen.

Der englische Botschafter hat die Politische Abteilung davon unterrichtet, daß die polnische Regierung der britischen Regierung vorgeschlagen hat, eine gemeinsame englisch-französisch-polnische Erklärung zu veröffentlichen, die gegen die Greuel der Russen in Polen protestiert.

Das Foreign Office hält eine solche Kundgebung unter den gegenwärtigen Umständen für unzweckmäßig, da sie praktisch belanglos wäre und auf der anderen Seite politische Unzuträglichkeiten mit sich bringen könne.

Das heißt: dem Foreign Office war ebensogut wie den polnischen Emigranten bekannt, daß die Bolschewisten in den Gebietsteilen des vormaligen Polen, die sie seit dem Herbst 1939 besetzt hielten, vor allem die Polen ausrotteten, verschleppten und die Kriegsgefangenen entsprechend behandelten. Vielleicht wußten sie auch schon von dem Verschwinden der polnischen Offiziere, die zu Tausenden bei Smolensk dem Genickschuß der GPU. zum Opfer gefallen waren. Aber England, das sonst aus den nichtigsten Anlässen wilde und verlogene Greuelfeldzüge ins Werk setzte, wenn es ihm genehm war, und dann vor den tollsten Lügen nicht zurückschreckte, ließ den Emigrantenchef Sikorski glatt abfallen. Es wünschte keine „politischen Unzuträglichkeiten“ mit Moskau, das es als künftigen Trumpf gegen Deutschland ansehen zu dürfen glaubte.

Während solcherart die Angelsachsen die schauderhaftesten Greuel ihrem künftigen Bundesgenossen zuliebe zu vertuschen versuchten, waren sie fieberhaft bemüht, ihrem deutschen Gegner solche Schandtaten anzuhängen. Wir erinnern an unsere seinerzeitige Veröffentlichung eines Aktenstückes, das ebenfalls am Quai d’Orsay gefunden wurde und das über einen Besuch des USA.-Botschafters Bullitt berichtet, der ja nicht mehr und nicht weniger Versuchte, als von den Franzosen die Erfindung deutscher Greuel zu erpressen. Dabei waren die USA. Damals noch offiziell neutral und ihr Präsident dachte angeblich damals an weiter nichts als an die Erhaltung des Friedens. Die sachliche Gegenüberstellung der beiden Dokumente, des heute bekanntgegebenen vom 18. Mai 1940 und des damals veröffentlichten vom 24. Mai 1940, genügt restlos, um die abgrundtiefe Verworfenheit der britischen und amerikanischen Moral in den Dingen reinster Menschlichkeit an den Pranger zu stellen.

Im März 1940 hatte sich Finnland, von den Westmächten verraten und verkauft, zum Abbruch seines Abwehrkampfes gegen den bolschewistischen Angreifer entschließen müssen. Das englische Interesse an dem finnischen Winterkrieg hatte sich darauf beschränkt, unter dem Vorwand einer Hilfe für Finnland Skandinavien überrumpeln und Deutschland vom

Norden angreifen zu können. Jetzt sollte dieser Plan auch ohne Tarnung ausgeführt werden. Die Briten spielten sich als Herren der norwegischen Hoheitsgewässer auf und setzten zum Sprung auf die Häfen Norwegens an, als ihnen der Führer zuvorkam. Am 10. Mai aber begann der Kampf im Westen.

Darum schwieg Churchill

In dieser Lage hatte Churchill, soeben Ministerpräsident geworden, guten Grund zu der Annahme, daß die Bolschewisten bereit wären, gegen Deutschland zu marschieren. Darauf deuteten ja auch die Vergewaltigung der baltischen Länder und die fieberhaften Vorbereitungen in Ostpolen hin. Von Protesten gegen bolschewistische Greuel wollte er also nichts wissen. Polen hatte wohl einen guten Vorwand geboten, den Krieg zu entfesseln, der sich dann an der Danziger Frage entzünden ließ. Aber wie die Briten dann dem Zusammenbruch Polens tatenlos zusahen, so behandelten sie jetzt die polnischen Emigranten nur als lästige Bittsteller. Die Sowjets waren ihnen als künftige Partner zu wertvoll.

Die britisch-bolschewistische Verschwörung war also schon im Frühjahr 1940 in vollem Gang. Es ist nichts als eine kindische Legende, daß England erst im Juni 1941 Moskau „selbstlos zu Hilfe geeilt“ sei. Schon wenige Wochen nach dem Vorfall, den der stellvertretende politische Direktor am Quai d’Orsay verzeichnete, erwies der Entschluß Churchills, den Krieg auch nach Frankreichs Zusammenbruch weiterzuführen, die Tatsache, daß der Eintritt der Sowjetunion in den Krieg nur noch eine Terminfrage war. England war damals bereits fest entschlossen, Europa den Bolschewisten preiszugeben.

40

Wie Moskau unbequemen Fragen ausweicht –
Die Sowjets brechen mit den polnischen Emigranten

vb. Wien, 27. April –
Da England schon 1940, wie wir heute auf der ersten Seite unseres Blattes noch einmal beweisen, entschlossen war, Europa dem Bolschewismus auszuliefern, ließ es in diesen Wochen auch folgerichtig die polnischen Emigranten fallen, als diese gegen die Zubilligung der Grenze von 1941 an die Sowjets protestierten. Nach seinem bequemen Grundsatz, daß sich aus anderer Leute Haut gut Riemen schneiden lassen, hatte England sich Stalins Forderung gebeugt, ein bolschewistisches Besitzrecht an den baltischen Ländern, Ostpolen und Bessarabien anzuerkennen und darüber hinaus die Zuteilung aller vorgelagerten Staaten als „Sicherheitszone,“ die wiederum nur als Sprungbrett für die Bolschewisierung ganz Europas gelten kann. Den Polen in London wurde der Mund verboten.

Im Fall Katyn haben sie ihn trotzdem wieder geöffnet. Daß sie das Internationale Rote Kreuz anriefen, hat Moskau Anlaß gegeben, die Beziehungen zu der polnischen Emigrantenorganisation abzubrechen. In einer groben, agitatorisch gefärbten Note hat Molotow diesen Beschluß damit begründet, daß die Sowjetregierung das Benehmen der polnischen Emigranten in letzter Zeit für absolut unnormal und alle Regeln und Normen der Beziehungen zwischen zwei Verbündeten verletzend halte. Ferner hätten die Polen die von deutscher Seite im Fall Katyn gegenüber der Sowjetunion erhobenen Anklagen wegen des Verschwindens der polnischen Armee in jeder Hinsicht weitergeschürt, und die Tatsache, daß die Kampagne gegen die Sowjetunion von der deutschen und polnischen Presse geführt werde, lasse keinen Zweifel, daß zwischen Deutschland und der polnischen Emigration in London eine Berührung sowie eine Abmachung über die Fortsetzung dieser Kampagne bestehe. Deshalb habe die Sowjetregierung beschlossen, ihre Beziehungen zu den polnischen Emigranten um den General Sikorski abzubrechen.

Eine groteske Behauptung

Diese Note, in der übrigens auch von „Sowjetlitauen“ gesprochen wird, enthält also die geradezu groteske Behauptung, daß Deutschland mit den Sikorskis zusammenspiele, nur weil die Polen in London es wagen, eine Untersuchung der Schandtat von Katyn zu verlangen, also die faustdicken Sowjetlügen über diesen Fall nicht willenlos hinnehmen. Gleichzeitig wurde ein „Ausreiseverbot“ für die Polen erlassen, die noch in der Sowjetunion leben, was naheliegende Rückschlüsse auf ihr weiteres Schicksal zuläßt. Darunter befinden sich zahlreiche Frauen und Kinder jener polnischen Soldaten, die England als Kanonenfutter geliefert und jetzt in Iran zu Verbänden zusammengestellt wurden.

Daß dem Kreml die Gelegenheit günstig erscheint, unbequeme Fragen von polnischer Seite künftig aus dem Wege zu gehen, zeigt die Eilfertigkeit, mit der die Suspendierung der Beziehungen zwischen der Sowjetunion und den polnischen Emigrantenkreisen inszeniert wurde. Das Entsetzen über die Mordtat im Walde von Katyn legt ja jedem vernünftigen Menschen die Überlegung nahe, was aus den anderen Polen geworden ist, deren sich die Sowjetunion seinerzeit bemächtigen konnte. Das Schicksal von 1,5 Millionen Menschen ist ungeklärt und die Frage nach ihrem Verbleib war bis heute noch nicht zu beantworten. Was liegt näher, als daß sie von polnischer Seite gestellt werden kann? Und was liegt demnach für Stalin näher, als die Polen mit dem Abbruch der Beziehungen zu ihren Emigrantenkreisen in London, als für den Bolschewismus nicht mehr existent zu erklären und jeder Frage von dieser Seite damit den Boden zu entziehen.

Die Aufdeckung der bolschewistischen Untat bei Katyn hat ein so grelles Licht auf die blutbesudelte Fratze der Sowjetunion geworfen, daß sie jeder weiteren Aufhellung der Tatbestände gerne aus dem Weg gehen möchte. Wir haben im Laufe dieses Krieges so viel Gefangene gemacht, daß sich ihre Zahl auf Millionen beläuft. Wir haben auch hunderttausende polnische Gefangene dabei. Wir brauchten uns keiner diplomatischen Mätzchen zu bedienen, um uns einer Frage nach ihrem Verbleib oder Ergehen zu entziehen. Für Stalin aber liegt die Sache anders. Im Wald von Katyn wurden vielen Leuten die Augen über das bolschewistische System der Erledigung unbequemer oder um willkommener Personen in furchtbarer Weise geöffnet. Die Frage liegt zu nahe, als daß er sie nicht fürchten müßte: Herr Stalin, wo sind die anderthalb Millionen Polen geblieben, die Ihnen vor drei Jahren in die Hände fielen?

Wie die Engländer über diesen Konflikt denken, ergibt sich aus dem Rundfunkkommentar Harald Kings, in dem es heißt:

Vielleicht kann man wieder ein Arrangement treffen; man brauchte nur die gegenwärtigen polnischen Machthaber zurücktreten zu lassen. An ihre Stelle treten dann Leute, zu denen die Bolschewisten mehr Vertrauen haben.

Nicht umsonst läßt sich jetzt auch der jämmerliche Benesch dahin vernehmen, man müsse eben „mit den Bolschewisten mitmachen“ und die tschechischen Emigranten hätten darüber „mit der Sowjetunion feste und endgültige Abmachungen.“ Das glauben wir gern, denn derselbe Benesch verbündete sich ja schon 1935 mit den Bolschewisten gegen Europa.

Die Börsenjuden reagieren bereits

Wie der vielfache Verräter des tschechischen Volkes gegen ein entsprechendes Handgeld in Pfunden und Dollars mit den Bolschewisten paktiert, so sollen es auch die Polen in London tun. England ist entschlossen, dem Bolschewismus die Tore Europas zu öffnen und ihm die Völker des Ostens zuzutreiben. In dieser Erkenntnis haben denn auch die Neuyorker Börsenjuden auf ihre Weise reagiert, indem sie die Kurse der polnischen Dollaranleihen beträchtlich fallen ließen.

Diese Entwicklung kann niemand überraschen. Seit Monaten erklärt man in England und in den USA., die „ideale Lösung“ sei die Errichtung der Sowjetherrschaft auf dem Kontinent. Ginge es nach diesen Gangstern, so wäre heute schon die GPU. in Warschau und Prag am Werk, über das Schicksal des Abendlandes entscheiden aber weder die jüdischen Plutokratien noch Stalin, sondern die Ostfront, die Europa vor dem Versinken in Mord und Barbarei bewahrt, die ihm die Churchill und Roosevelt zudenken. An diesem Felsen werden sich aber auch weiterhin die Wogen der Vernichtungswut brechen, in der sich die Briten, Yankees und Bolschewisten so gleichen wie ein Ei dem anderen.