On
this date, September 27, 1939, first Gestapo–NKVD meeting took place reportedly
on 27 September 1939 in Brześć nad Bugiem. I will post information about the
Gestapo-NKVD Conferences from Wikipedia.
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Performers wearing
World War Two Nazi German and Soviet Red Army uniforms wait for the start of a
re-enactment of the 1945 battle of Berlin as part of the 7. Biennale in Berlin,
on April 29, 2012.
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://photo.sf.co.ua/id201]
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Gestapo–NKVD
Conferences
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Location
of the 3rd Gestapo–NKVD conference inside the German torture house in the
Polish mountains, the 'Palace' villa in Zakopane today
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Time
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Duration
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1939–1940
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Type
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Nazi-Soviet bilateral planing for the persecution of
Polish nationals
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Theme
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Secret police talks
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Cause
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1939 Invasion of Poland
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Gestapo
and NKVD personnel pose for a photo.
[PHOTO
SOURCE: http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/viewtopic.php?t=33713]
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The
Gestapo–NKVD conferences were a series of secret police meetings
organized in late 1939 and early 1940 by the German and Soviet officials
following their joint invasion of Poland in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet
alliance. The purpose of the meetings was to enable the German and Soviet
security forces including Gestapo and NKVD respectively, to share information
regarding their parallel terror operations in occupied Poland. In spite of
their differences on other issues, both Heinrich Himmler and Lavrentiy Beria had
common goals as far as the fate of Poland was concerned. The known
conferences were devoted to coordinating plans for joint destruction of Polish nationhood
as well as discussing ways of dealing with the Polish resistance during World
War II.
Out
of four conferences, the third took place in the famous spa of Zakopane in
the Tatra Mountains of southern Poland; it is the most
remembered, as the Zakopane Conference. From the Soviet side, several
higher officers of the NKVD secret police participated in the meetings, while
the German hosts provided a group of experts from the Gestapo.
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German and Soviet forces carved up Poland in 1939.
The Nazis handed over thousands of POWs to Stalin’s NKVD for extermination the
following year.
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Prelude
After
the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August 1939, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September and
the Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17
September resulting in the occupation of Poland by the Soviet
Union and Nazi Germany.
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General Heinz Guderian with NKVD Colonel
Semyon Moiseyevich Krivoshein (right), a responsible for the final solution
against Poles in Poland occupied by the soviets.
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://kanada.net/war/vengeance.html]
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First
Conference
The
first Gestapo–NKVD meeting took place reportedly on 27 September 1939 in Brześć
nad Bugiem, while some units of the Polish
Army were still fighting (see: Invasion of Poland) resulting in mass
internment of soldiers and their extrajudicial shootings across the Curzon Line. Both Gestapo and NKVD expected the
emergence of Polish resistance and discussed ways of dealing with the
clandestine activities of the Poles. In the immediate aftermath of the meeting,
the Soviet NKVD began the collection of data leading to the Katyn massacre
committed in the spring of 1940.
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Col. Krivoshein salutes submissively his
comrade at arms and war crimes - Nazi General Guderian - at the military parade crowning the Nazi-Soviet
slaughter of Poland.
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://kanada.net/war/vengeance.html]
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Second
Conference
This
meeting took place some time at the end of November 1939, probably in Przemyśl,
divided into German and Soviet zones of occupation between September 1939 and
June 1941. Apart from talks of fighting Polish resistance, the Soviets and the
Germans discussed ways of exchanging Polish POWs. Also, first
discussions about the occupation of Poland were started. Some historians claim
this meeting took place in Lwów. It is also claimed a meeting was held in December.
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NKVD
Officer (left) speaks to a SS Officer (right)
[PHOTO
SOURCE: http://kanada.net/war/epilogue_doc3_pl.html]
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Third
Conference
This
one is the best known, and took place in Zakopane, starting on 20 February 1940 in
the villa "Pan Tadeusz", located at the Droga do Białego
street close to the Dolina Białego valley. The German side was represented by Adolf
Eichmann and an official by the name of Zimmermann, who later became chief of
the Radom District of the General Government
territory. The Soviet delegation was headed by Grigoriy Litvinov and — among
others — Rita Zimmerman (director of a gold mine in Kolyma) and a man named Eichmans, creator
of an efficient way of killing in the back of the head.
According
to several sources, one of the results of this conference was the German Ausserordentliche
Befriedungsaktion (see: German
AB Action operation in Poland), elimination of Krakow intelligentsia
Sonderaktion Krakau
and the Soviet Katyn massacre. In his 1991 book Stalin: Breaker of Nations,
British historian Robert Conquest
stated: "Terminal horror suffered by so many millions of innocent Jewish,
Slavic, and other European peoples as a result of this meeting of evil minds is
an indelible stain on the history and integrity of Western civilization, with
all of its humanitarian pretensions". Also, Professor George Watson of Cambridge
University concluded in his "Rehearsal for the Holocaust?"
commentary (June 1981) that the fate of the interned Polish officers may have
been decided at this conference. This is however disputed by other historians,
who point out that there is no documentary evidence confirming any cooperation
on that issue, that the existing Soviet documentation actually makes such a
cooperation improbable and that it is reasonable to say that Germany did not
know about the Katyn massacre until the corpses were found.
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Eastern Europe in 1939-1940.
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Secret protocol of German–Soviet Boundary and
Friendship Treaty "Both parties will tolerate in their territories no
Polish agitation which affects the territories of the other party. They will
suppress in their territories all beginnings of such agitation and inform each
other concerning suitable measures for this purpose."
The secret protocol to second Pact
Ribentropp-Molotov- 28.09.1939 - Nazi-Soviet Treaty on Borders and Friendship.
Photo 1946 of German origin ( Documents of Nurnberg Trial, German defence of
Ribentropp and Goring)
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Fourth
Conference
The
fourth and last meeting took place in March 1940 in Krakow (according to some
historians, it was part of the Zakopane Conference). This event was described
by General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, commander of Armia
Krajowa in his book “Armia Podziemna” (“The Secret Army”). In it, he
describes how a special delegation of NKVD came to Krakow, which was going to
discuss with Gestapo how to act against the Polish resistance. The talks lasted
for several weeks.
Bor-Komorowski′s
description is disputed by Russian historian Oleg Vishlyov, who claims, based
on the original, highly suspect Soviet documents, that the conference was not
between NKVD and Gestapo, but between Soviet and German commissions dealing
with refugees in both occupied territories and that the topic of discussion was
allegedly the 'refugee exchange'. According to that author the conference had
nothing to do with repressions against Poles or with the Katyn massacre.
Meanwhile, some historians (including Wojciech Materski) point out that there
is clear evidence of clandestine murder operations conducted by both Soviet and
German forces in 1939–40 across occupied Poland, however, there is no evidence
of direct connection between the NKVD prisoner massacres and the German
AB-Aktion in Poland leading to massacre of several thousand prominent Poles in
the same time-frame.
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