Jump to content

Gestapo–NKVD conferences: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
mNo edit summary
Line 34: Line 34:


===Kraków–Zakopane===
===Kraków–Zakopane===
[[File:Pact Ribentropp-Molotov- secret protocol1.jpg|upright|left|thumb|The [[German–Soviet Frontier 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."''<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-1941 |title=Secret Supplementary Protocol |date=28 September 1939 |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/sesupp1.asp}}</ref>]]


This one is the best known, and took place in [[Zakopane]],<ref name="Warsaw">{{cite web|url=http://www.warsawuprising.com/paper/jankowski1.htm |title=Warsaw Uprising Witnesses: Dr. Jan Moor-Jankowski |publisher=Warsawuprising.com |date= |accessdate=2012-05-05}}</ref> starting on 20 February 1940<ref name="Paul"/> 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 with—among others—Rita Zimmerman, director of a [[Kolyma]] gold mine.<ref name="Dębiński"/>
This one is the best known, and took place in [[Zakopane]],<ref name="Warsaw">{{cite web|url=http://www.warsawuprising.com/paper/jankowski1.htm |title=Warsaw Uprising Witnesses: Dr. Jan Moor-Jankowski |publisher=Warsawuprising.com |date= |accessdate=2012-05-05}}</ref> starting on 20 February 1940<ref name="Paul"/> 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 with—among others—Rita Zimmerman, director of a [[Kolyma]] gold mine.<ref name="Dębiński"/>

Revision as of 16:49, 27 January 2019

Gestapo–NKVD conferences
location
Location of the 3rd Gestapo–NKVD conference inside the German torture house in the Polish mountains, the 'Palace' villa in Zakopane today
Time
Duration1939–1940
TypeNazi–Soviet bilateral planning for population exchange and the persecution of Polish nationals in occupied territories
ThemeSecurity police talks
Cause1939 Invasion of Poland

The Gestapo–NKVD conferences were a series of security police meetings organized in late 1939 and early 1940 by Germany and the Soviet Union, following the invasion of Poland in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.[1] The meetings enabled both parties to pursue specific goals and aims.[3] The conferences were held by the Gestapo and the NKVD officials in several Polish cities. In spite of their differences on other issues, both Heinrich Himmler and Lavrentiy Beria had similar objectives as far as the fate of the prewar Poland was concerned.[2][3][4]

The attack on Poland ended with the Nazi–Soviet victory parade in Brześć, which was held on 22 September 1939.[6] Brześć was the location of the first Nazi-Soviet meeting organized on 27 September 1939, prior to the signing of mutual agreements in Moscow a day later.[7] They met again in occupied Przemyśl at the end of November, because Przemyśl was a border crossing between the two powers.[1] The next series of meetings began in December 1939. The conferences were held in occupied Kraków in the General Government on 6–7 December 1939; and continued for the next two days in the resort town of Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains of southern Poland (100 km from Kraków) on 8–9 December 1939. The Zakopane Conference is the most remembered. 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.[3]

Background

After Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 [8][9]. 16 days later the USSR decided to move troops into Eastern Poland in order to prevent German troops from entering the Soviet sphere of influence. Nazi Germany crossed into the Soviet sphere of influence in Lublin but their advance was halted by Soviet forces. The USSR didn't engage the Polish troops in battle with the Germans and allowed them to retreat into Romania where they were captured. Poland and its allies France and Great Britain declared war on Germany while the USSR stayed neutral.

The USSR and Germany began negotiations already during the conflict. The first Gestapo–NKVD meeting took place in Brześć nad Bugiem (Brest) reportedly on 27 September 1939,[1] while some units of the Polish Army were still fighting (see: Invasion of Poland) resulting in mass internment of soldiers and their extrajudicial shootings on both sides of the Curzon Line.

Conferences

Dark gray: the Third Reich in 1939 after the conquest of Poland, with the Nazi-Soviet demarcation line (centre), and locations of German colonisers from the Soviet "sphere of influence" brought in Heim ins Reich into the annexed territories of Poland. Genuine Nazi German propaganda poster, superimposed with red outline of Poland missing from the original, as if the country vanished from the map of Europe even though borders of all other countries have been marked by the publisher with dotted white lines.

The next meeting took place some time at the end of November 1939 in Przemyśl,[1] shared by the German and the Soviet occupational forces 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.[2] It is also claimed a meeting was held in December.[4][10]

Kraków–Zakopane

This one is the best known, and took place in Zakopane,[11] starting on 20 February 1940[4] 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 with—among others—Rita Zimmerman, director of a Kolyma gold mine.[1]

According to several sources, one of the results of this conference was the German Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion (see: German AB Action operation in Poland),[12] elimination of Krakow intelligentsia Sonderaktion Krakau and the Soviet Katyn massacre[4][13] 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.[14][15] 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.

The fourth and last meeting took place in March 1940 in Krakow.[5] 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.[16][17]

Bor-Komorowski's description is disputed by Russian historian Oleg Vishlyov, who claims, based on the original 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.[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Józef Dębiński (2007). "Decyzja władz sowieckich z 5 marca 1940 r. o zagładzie polskich jeńców wojennych" [Soviet decision on the murder of Polish prisoners of war]. Voskresenie - Catholic Magazine. Niedziela.pl. Archived from the original on April 29, 2007. Retrieved 2017-01-05 – via Internet Archive. Pierwsza konferencja, dotycząca współpracy niemieckich i sowieckich służb bezpieczeństwa, miała miejsce 27 września 1939 r. w Brześciu n. Bugiem. Druga konferencja odbyła się w końcu listopada 1939 r. w Przemyślu, a dotyczyła wymiany jeńców i przemieszczeń ludności. Trzecia konferencja NKWD i Gestapo miała miejsce 20 lutego 1940 r. w Zakopanem. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ a b c Rees, Laurence (2008). "An alliance in all but name". World War Two Behind Closed Doors. BBC Books. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-563-49335-8. The Gestapo and the NKVD met in Lwów in October 1939.
  3. ^ a b c d e Kalbarczyk (2015). Zbrodnia. p. 19 (33 / 266 in PDF). Earlier historical assessments of the two winter conferences in Kraków and Zakopane suggesting that they might have been 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 have been ruled out in contemporary research in favour of a more probable subject of a mass population transfer. Nowsze badania przekonująco dowodzą, że hipotezy tego typu nie znajdują potwierdzenia w faktach. Sowiecko-niemieckie konferencje w Krakowie (6–7 grudnia 1939 r.) i Zakopanem (8–9 grudnia 1939 r.), na których – jak uważano w dawniejszej literaturze przedmiotu – uzgadniano antypolskie represje o charakterze policyjnym, były w istocie poświęcone wymianie ludności między ZSRS a III Rzeszą
  4. ^ a b c d e Mark Paul (2006). "Foreword (cooperation between the NKVD and the Gestapo)". Neighbours on the Eve of the Holocaust. Polish-Jewish Relations in Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland, 1939-1941. Electronicmuseum.ca. Archived from the original on September 26, 2007. Retrieved 14 September 2015 – via Internet Archive. While the Soviets had undertaken the extermination of captured Polish officers, the Germans carried out (starting March 31) a parallel 'Operation AB' aimed at destroying Poland's elites. — Mark Paul. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) See also: Commentary from Wojciech Materski (October 2008). [in:] Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment. ISBN 978-0300151855. (cited), about the lack of documentary evidence connecting the conferences to the advent of genocidal policies in Poland, which indicates that the mass murder operations were carried out by both sides independently.
  5. ^ a b Stenton, Michael (2000). Radio London and Resistance in Occupied Europe. Oxford. p. 277. ISBN 978-0-19-820843-3.
  6. ^ Czerwony Blitzkrieg. Wrzesien 1939: Sowieckie Wojska Pancerne w Polsce [Red Blitzkrieg. September 1939: Soviet armoured troops in Poland]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Pelta. 1994. ISBN 978-83-85314-03-5. Scan of page 72 of the book, archived. Archived from the original on 2017-01-06. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ a b Олег В. Вишлёв (Oleg Vishlyov), Накануне 22 июня 1941 года, М.: Наука, 2001, pages 119-123 (with links to chapters). Глава I: Один из параграфов соглашения предусматривал "очищение" городов и местечек, передаваемых Красной Армии немцами, от "саботажников", а также помощь Красной Армии немецким подразделениям в уничтожении (фернихтунг) "вражеского", то есть польского сопротивления.[74] Translate.
  8. ^ Zaloga, Steven J. (2002). Poland 1939: The birth of Blitzkrieg (Campaign). Osprey. ISBN 978-1841764085.
  9. ^ "1 September - This Day in History". Thehistorychannel.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2009-06-03. Retrieved 2012-05-05. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ "Timeline of World War II – Poland". PolandsHolocaust.org. 2005. Archived from the original on August 18, 2005 – via Internet Archive. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ "Warsaw Uprising Witnesses: Dr. Jan Moor-Jankowski". Warsawuprising.com. Retrieved 2012-05-05.
  12. ^ Peter Jambrek, ed. (January–June 2008), Crimes committed by Totalitarian Regimes (PDF). Reports and proceedings; the European Commission. Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Retrieved 14 September 2015 via Internet Archive.
  13. ^ Conquest, Robert (1991). Stalin: Breaker of Nations Phoenix ISBN 1-84212-439-0 Page 229
  14. ^ Louis Robert Coatney, M.A. (1993). "The Katyn Massacre: an assessment of its significance". Western Illinois University, Department of History. Retrieved 14 September 2015. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  15. ^ George Watson. "Rehearsal for the Holocaust?". Available for purchase, from Commentary Magazine. Archived from the original on 17 December 2012 – via Archive.is. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ Bór-Komorowski, Tadeusz (2011) [1950]. The Secret Army: The Memoirs of General Bor-Komorowski. Frontline Books. p. 46. ISBN 978-1848325951.
  17. ^ "Nazi-Soviet complicity in Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact especially blatant in NKVD-Gestapo co-operation - EWR". Eesti.ca. Retrieved 2012-05-05.

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Davies" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Kalbarczyk" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Further reading

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Gestapo–NKVD_conferences&oldid=880471170"