According to revelations of Russian intelligence, Polish leaders ‘conspired’ during the 1930s with Nazi Germany against the vital interests of the Soviet Union, ‘instigating separatism’ in the Caucasus, Ukraine and Central Asia to promote the ‘disintegration’ of the USSR, and ‘opposed’ the formation of an international coalition against Hitler in 1939. These are some revealing information contained in a new set of documents presented by Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
The documents point to Poland being ‘keen to enter into an alliance with Nazi Germany during the 1930s, and that the Poles had a secret intelligence division aimed at destabilising and destroying the Soviet Union.’
Amidst Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s efforts to forge relations with Warsaw, Lev Sotskov, retired general and former head of the secret services and author of the volume, claims that Poland had its share of blame for the outbreak of World War II but has been falsifying history to hide the facts while equally blaming the USSR and Nazi Germany for the atrocities of the twentieth century.
Sotskov compiled his documentary report with the use of SVR materials obtained from recordings of conversations, including wiretaps, intercepted letters and telegrams, plus reports of military attaches stationed in Soviet embassies from different European countries.
History tells us that ‘Poland endured the most severe wartime occupation conditions in modern European history. Initially, Germany annexed western Poland directly, establishing a brutal colonial government whose expressed goal was to erase completely the concept of Polish nationhood and make the Poles slaves of a new German empire. About 1 million Poles were removed from German-occupied areas and replaced with German settlers. An additional 2.5 million Poles went into forced labor camps in Germany. Until mid-1941, Germany and the Soviet Union maintained good relations in the joint dominion they had established over Poland. Moscow had absorbed the eastern regions largely inhabited by Ukrainians and Belorussians. By 1941 the Soviets had moved 1.5 million Poles into labor camps all over the Soviet Union, and Stalin’s secret police had murdered thousands of Polish prisoners of war, especially figures in politics and public administration. The most notorious incident was the 1940 murder of thousands of Polish military officers; the bodies of 4,000 of them were discovered in a mass grave in the Katyn forests near Smolensk in 1943. Because Soviet authorities refused to admit responsibility until nearly the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, Polish opinion regarded the Katyn Massacre as the ultimate symbol of Soviet cruelty and mendacity.’
Posted by GSerrano on September 6, 2009 in News + Politics · 2 Comments
What Russian intelligence says is one great lie. Poles had signed non-aggression treaty with Germany in 1934, which said that neither Germany nor Poland will attack each other. There was nothing about cooperation with Germany against Russia. Poland didn’t want to cooperate with Germany. Poles only wanted to secure their own country and make sure that Germans won’t attack them. Poles didn’t want to attack anyone. Russian media try to falsify the history and put the blame for WWII on Poland.
Well, regardless of whether Russian intelligence is lying or not, it is evident that Poland had a far greater dislike for the Soviet Union than Germany during the 1930′s. While I agree Poland did not want a war with either Germany of the Soviet Union, the Poles nevertheless felt more threatened by Stalin than Hitler before the war began. Despite this, Hitler attempted several times to make an alliance with Poland to attack the Soviet Union. Poland refused Germany and did not want a war with either side. The problem for Poland is they trusted the West to save them and the cost of this trust was a tragedy. In retrospect, the Polish people would have been better off had Woodrow Wilson left Europe alone by not reestablishing Poland after WWI. The reestablishment of Poland created a power-vacuum in Europe and its existence was repugnant to both Russians and Germans collectively. Consequently, Poland’s existence alone was a leading contributor to the origins of WWII.