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Extraordinary State Commission

Coordinates: 49°51′15″N 23°59′24″E / 49.85417°N 23.99000°E / 49.85417; 23.99000
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Extraordinary State Commission
The Extraordinary State Commission researches the crimes of German Nazis at Janowska concentration camp, 1944
Date1942–1947
LocationTerritories liberated during Soviet counter-offensive
Coordinates49°51′15″N 23°59′24″E / 49.85417°N 23.99000°E / 49.85417; 23.99000
Also known asExtraordinary State Commission for ascertaining and investigating crimes perpetrated by the German–Fascist invaders and their accomplices
CauseMass murder, destruction and looting

The Extraordinary State Commission was a Soviet government agency formed by the Council of People's Commissars on 2 November 1942, by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. It was tasked with investigating World War II crimes against the Soviet Union and collecting documentation which would confirm material losses caused by Nazi Germany. The report prepared by the Commission about the Katyn massacre is now considered erroneous.[1][2][3]

History

The Commission's full ceremonial name was: "Extraordinary State Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating Crimes Perpetrated by the German-Fascist Invaders and their Accomplices" (Russian: Чрезвычайная Государственная Комиссия, ChGK).[4] The official aim of this agency included "punishing for the crimes of the German–fascist aggressors." According to its own data, 32,000 regular organization staff took part in the work of ChGK. On top of that, around 7,000,000 Soviet citizens had participated in the collection of materials and evidence. The first 27 reports published by ChGK constituted the majority of Soviet evidentiary material in the Nuremberg process and the trials of Japanese war criminals. The reports appeared in English in the daily publication Soviet War News issued by the Press Department of the Soviet Embassy in London. The first report, Protocol on the plunder by the German–Fascist invaders of Rostov Museum at Pyatigorsk, was published on June 28, 1943[5] and the last report, Statement on "Material Damage caused by the German-Fascist invaders to state enterprises and institutions, collective farms, public bodies and citizens of the U.S.S.R" was published on September 18, 1945.[6] A complete collection of the original 27 communiqués issued by the commission appears in the Soviet Government publication, Soviet Government Statement on Nazi Atrocities.[7]

Communiqués

The report prepared by the Commission about the Katyn massacre is now considered erroneous [1][2](confirmed by the Russian State Duma that it was done by the soviets )[3] The 24 January 1944 communiqué about the Katyn massacre (1940), published under the title "The Truth about Katyn". This lengthy document purported that the mass shootings of the Polish prisoners had been done by the Germans. In fact, the crime was committed by the Soviets on Joseph Stalin's orders. The truth was first revealed by the international Katyn Commission but confirmed by Soviet documents only after they had been declassified and made public by the Government of the Soviet Union in 1990 during the last days of the USSR.[1][2] They proved conclusively that 21,857 Polish internees and prisoners of war were executed by the Soviet Union after 3 April 1940 including 14,552 prisoners from three largest Soviet POW camps at this time.[8][b] Of the total number of victims, 4,421 officers were shot one by one at the Kozelsk Optina Monastery, 3,820 at the Starobelsk POW camp, and 6,311 at the Ostashkov facility, in addition to 7,305 Poles secretly eliminated in the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs' political prisons.[8] The head of the NKVD department, Maj. General P. K. Soprunenko, organized "selections" of Polish officers to be massacred at Katyn and elsewhere.[9]


Members of the Commission

The decree issued by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R on 2 November 1942 confirmed the appointment of the following members of the commission:

List of Reports submitted at Nuremberg

The Soviet prosecution introduced 31 reports from the Extraordinary State Commission as Exhibits for the prosecution at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.[10]

  1. USSR-1 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on atrocities in the Stavropol region
  2. USSR-2 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the destruction of industry, etc. in the Stalino region
  3. USSR-2(a) Report of a special commission on crimes in Stalino
  4. USSR-4 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on causing death by spreading epidemic of typhus
  5. USSR-5 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the "Gross-lazarett" in the town of Slavuta
  6. USSR-6 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in the Lvov region
  7. USSR-8 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in Auschwitz Nazi death camps
  8. USSR-7 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on atrocities in Lithuania
  9. USSR-9 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on atrocities in Kiev
  10. USSR-29 Joint Polish and Soviet report of the Extraordinary State Commission
  11. USSR-35 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on losses sustained by State enterprises and establishments
  12. USSR-37 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in the city of Kupiansk
  13. USSR-38 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on German crimes in the city of Minsk
  14. USSR-39 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on atrocities in Estonia
  15. USSR-40 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission concerning destruction and atrocities in the Pushkin Reservation of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Science
  16. USSR-41 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in Latvia
  17. USSR-42 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in the town of Krasnodar and vicinity
  18. USSR-43 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in Kharkov and vicinity
  19. USSR-45 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in the town of Rovno and vicinity
  20. USSR-46 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in Ore1 and vicinity
  21. USSR-47 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on atrocities in the city of Odessa and vicinity
  22. USSR-49 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission dated 13 September 1944: destruction of works of art and art treasures
  23. USSR-50 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the destruction of monuments in Novgorod
  24. USSR-54 Report by a special Soviet commission, 24 January 1944, concerning the shooting of Polish officer prisoners of war in the forest of Katyn
  25. USSR-55 Report of special Soviet commission on crimes in the city of Krasnodar and vicinity
  26. USSR-56 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on atrocities committed in Smolensk and vicinity
  27. USSR-63 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in Sevastopol and other cities
  28. USSR-246 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union concerning destruction of ecclesiastical buildings
  29. USSR-248 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission concerning the destruction of Kiev's Psychopathic Institute
  30. USSR-249 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on German atrocities in Kiev
  31. USSR-279 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in the city of Viazma and others in the Smolensk region
  32. USSR-415 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes committed against Soviet prisoners of war in the camp of Lamsdorf

Only one of these reports, USSR-54 (in German) concerning the Katyn massacre, appears in the English version of the NMT "Blue Series" collection of exhibits. An editor's note states that "the absence of a Soviet editorial staff [made] it impossible to publish any documents in Russian". As a result, of the 51 Soviet prosecution exhibits included in the document collection all are written in either English or German.[11]

See also

Notes

b ^ Aleksandr Shelepin (3 March 1959) note to Khrushchev, with information about the execution of 21,857 Poles including new secret proposal to destroy their personal files."Записка председателя КГБ при СМ СССР А.Н. Шелепина Н.С. Хрущеву о ликвидации всех учетных дел на польских граждан, расстрелянных в 1940 г. с приложением проекта постановления Президиума ЦК КПСС." 3 марта 1959 г. Рукопись. РГАСПИ. Ф.17. Оп.166. Д.621. Л.138–139. (in Russian) Retrieved 23 November 2013. English translation available at Katyń Justice Delayed or Justice Denied? Law.case.edu.

References

  1. ^ a b c Fischer, Benjamin B., "The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field". "Studies in Intelligence", Winter 1999–2000. Retrieved on 10 December 2005.
  2. ^ a b c Anna M. Cienciala; Wojciech Materski (2007). Katyn: a crime without punishment. Yale University Press. pp. 226–229. ISBN 978-0-300-10851-4. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  3. ^ a b "Russian parliament condemns Stalin for Katyn massacre". BBC News. 26 November 2010. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  4. ^ Lawrence Raful (2006). The Nuremberg Trials: International Criminal Law Since 1945. Walter de Gruyter. p. 47. ISBN 3110944847 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ Soviet War News, June 28, 1943. No. 597
  6. ^ Soviet War News, September 18, 1945. No. 1257.
  7. ^ Soviet Government Statements on Nazi Atrocities, Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers), Ltd, 1946, pp 77-317
  8. ^ a b Łojek, Bożena (2000). Muzeum Katyńskie w Warszawie. Agencja Wydawm. CB Andrzej Zasieczny. p. 174. ISBN 978-83-86245-85-7. Retrieved 7 May 2011.
  9. ^ Parrish, Michael (1996). The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939–1953. Praeger Press. pp. 324, 325. ISBN 978-0-275-95113-9.
  10. ^ Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, 1949, Volume XXIV "Exhibits of the Soviet Prosecution", pp. 170-186
  11. ^ Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, 1949, Volume XXXIX "Documents and Other Material in Evidence", Editor's Note and pp. 241-555

Literature

  • Alexander E. Epifanow: Die Außerordentliche Staatliche Kommission. Stöcker, Wien 1997.
  • Stefan Karner: Zum Umgang mit der historischen Wahrheit in der Sowjetunion. Die "Außerordentliche Staatliche Kommission" 1942 bis 1951. In: W. Wadl (Hg.): Kärntner Landesgeschichte und Archivwissenschaft. Festschrift für Alfred Ogris. Klagenfurt 2001, Seite 508-523.
  • Marina Sorokina, People and Procedures. Toward a History of the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in the USSR. In: Kritika. Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 6, 4 (Fall 2005), 797 - 831.
  • Joachim Hoffmann, Stalins Vernichtungskrieg 1941-1945. Ch.8 Sowjetischen Untaten werden den Deutschen zugeschrieben.
  • Kiril Feferman, "Soviet Investigation of Nazi Crimes in the USSR: Documenting the Holocaust." In Journal of Genocide Research 5, 4 (2003), 587–602
  • Andrej Umansky: "Geschichtsschreiber wider Willen? Einblick in die Quellen der „Außerordentlichen Staatlichen Kommission" und der „Zentralen Stelle"", in: A. Nußberger u.a. (Hrsg.), Bewusstes Erinnern und bewusstes Vergessen. Der juristische Umgang mit der Vergangenheit in den Ländern Mittel- und Osteuropas, Tübingen 2011, S. 347-374.
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