Katyn Massacre of 1940

The massacre was initially proposed on the 5th March 1940 by Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, the executive of the NKVD during the Second World War, and was approved by all the Soviet hierarchy including Stalin.

After this approval the NKVD moved in and started their massacre from the 3rd April 1940.

The Katyn Massacre was carried out as a mass execution with each person killed by a bullet to the back of the head.

Most of those buried at Katyn were killed in the forest by being brought in trucks from other areas and being brought out of the trucks one at a time and being shot to fall on top of comrades in the open pits that served as mass graves.

It is said that many were killed at a slaughter house in Smolensk, close to the NKVD head quarters. These people were taken in to the slaughter house one at a time and were killed with the bullet to the back of the head. Those killed in Smolensk were taken to the Katyn Forest and buried in mass graves with those killed in Katyn.

Others that were killed in other areas away from Katyn were killed in the same execution style but were buried in other places.

Of the 22,000 massacred the following people were included:

3,420 NCOs
654 Captains,
300 Physicians
258 Majors
200 Pilots
131 Refugees
85 Privates
79 Lieutenant Colonels
43 Officials
24 Colonels
20 University Professors
17 Naval Captains
7 Chaplains
3 Landowners
2 Generals
1 Admiral
1 Prince

The graves were first found in 1942 by Polish Railroad workers who reported the information to the Polish Secret State but the reports were ignored as people did not believe the extend of the amount of dead found.

It was not until April 1943 that the massacre was reported to the world when German Wehrmacht soldiers found a grave with 4,243 Polish military reserve officers in the Katyn Forest on Goat Hill near Katyn.

The Germans saw the opportunity for propaganda and to also cause a rift between Poland, the Allies and the Soviet Union.

On the 13th April 1943 Berlin Radio announced the discovery and said it was carried out by Soviet forces in 1940. Some words used in this announcement were: "a ditch ... 28 metres long and 16 metres wide [92 ft by 52 ft], in which the bodies of 3,000 Polish officers were piled up in 12 layers."

The Soviet Union countered these claims by saying that all those killed were Polish prisoners of war who were working for the Soviet Union by carrying out construction work. The Soviet Union went on to say that the massacre was actually by the German Nazi forces who invaded in 1941, the Soviet response was: "[...]Polish prisoners-of-war who in 1941 were engaged in country construction work west of Smolensk and who [...] fell into the hands of the German-Fascist hangmen [...]."

While the mass graves were under the governing of the invading German forces the Germans allowed the Polish Red Cross to build a cemetery for the executed people. When Katyn fell back into the hands of the Soviet Union the NKVD started a cover up that included destroying the cemetery and removing all other evidence that the Soviet Union carried out the atrocities.

Today Katyn is a huge memorial and war cemetery. This is a fairly recent addition post Soviet era erected by the Polish and Russian Governments.

The memorial is to all those that lost their lives in the Katyn Massacre and the mass graves of those who were executed have been made into real graves where people can pay their respects.