740.00116 European War 1939/876: Telegram
The Second Secretary of Embassy in the Soviet Union (Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 20—5:15 p.m.]
322. On April 16 the Soviet press carried a Sov[iet] Inform[ation] Buro statement denying a recent accusation attributed to Goebbels14 concerning an alleged mass execution of Polish officers by Soviet organs in the region of Smolensk in the spring of 1940. The denial stated that the German accusation was made in an endeavor to cover German atrocities and maintained that now there is no doubt as to the tragic fate of the former Polish prisoners who were in Smolensk in the fall of 1941 and who fell into German hands.
Pravda of April 19 carried a leading front page editorial entitled “The Polish collaborators of F. O.” which attacked certain Polish Government circles and especially the Polish Ministry of National Defense for giving credence to the German accusation and for asking the assistance of the International Red Cross in “investigating something that never happened”. Many references are made to statements previously published in the Soviet Press on German atrocities in Poland and on “the odious lies regarding Bolshevik brutalities in Lwow”. The editorial concludes: “The Polish people will cast aside the Hitlerite slander on the fraternal Soviet people. But those Poles who are inclined to accept the Hitlerite falsifications support them and who are prepared to collaborate with the Hitlerite butchers of the Polish people will go down in history as of Hitler. The Polish people will turn away from them as from any person collaborating with the accursed enemy of Poland”.15
- Josef Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933–45.↩
- In telegram No. 327, April 20, the Second Secretary of Embassy in the Soviet Union reported a statement by the Soviet official news agency Tass that this editorial “fully reflects the position of the leading Soviet circles in regard to the question”. (740.00116 European War 1939/881)↩