Soldier in the Downfall: A Wehrmacht Cavalryman in Russia, Normandy, and the Plot to Kill Hitler by Gersdorff Rudolf-Christoph von

Author:Gersdorff, Rudolf-Christoph von [Gersdorff, Rudolf-Christoph von]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: world war ii, wwii, german general, hitler, german army, personal narratives, wwii memoir, resistance, valkyrie, katyn, military memoir, tresckow, stauffenberg, oster, silesia, allendorf, barbarossa, abwehr, falaise, falaise pocket
Publisher: The Aberjona Press
Published: 2013-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

Dr. Gerhard Buhtz and an assistant (in smock) present the corpse of a murdered Polish officer to visitors investigating the Katyn Massacre.

The Propaganda Ministry had directed that the discovery of the mass graves should be employed for propaganda purposes. Therefore I sought a suitable label for the matter. During the preparation of the initial statement, we had noticed that quite close to Nyezdova (the nearest village to the mass burials) there were mound graves from ancient Russian history that the Soviets could use as an explanation for the discovery. (And not long afterwards, the Soviets actually did so.) I thus looked on the map for a larger place nearby with a memorable name, located the little city of Katyn about five kilometers away, and decided to designate this affair by that title.

Thus, and in no other manner, did the story of the discovery of the “Katyn Massacre” play itself out. All other descriptions are either false or completely made up, including the tale about the wolf that was supposed to have dug up the graves.

Later we established beyond dispute that the murder of the Polish officers had taken place in April 1940, and therefore could only have been carried out by the Soviets. The evidence for this: the clear and unanimous statements of the Russian inhabitants; the three-year-old tree growth over the graves; numerous and still well-preserved documents (such as diaries, letters, newspapers) that were found on almost all the corpses; the results of forensic medical investigations of the time and manner of death; and the type of murder weapons and projectiles in question.

We also established that in many large, deep graves, thousands of corpses were found which could be identified as Polish officers—including two generals—from their well-preserved uniforms. After the Polish campaign in 1939, they were held by the Soviets in the prisoner of war camp at Kozielsk near Orel, and transported to Smolensk in the spring of 1940, one and a quarter years before the start of the Russian campaign. All the diary entries ended during this railroad journey or upon arrival at the Nyezdova station.

Thirdly, all the victims were murdered by being shot in the back of the neck. Some had their hands bound with wire or typical Russian cordage.

Up until the summer of 1943, about 4,500 corpses were exhumed, identified and reburied. The precise number of bodies was never established, because for hygienic reasons we had to call a halt to the exhumations by midsummer, and we were compelled to evacuate Smolensk in the early autumn. Estimates varied from 8,000 to 12,000 bodies.

During the exhumations, numerous commissions and delegations from Poland, Germany, and many neutral countries came to view the graves. I recall the following visitors in particular: the Polish Archbishop of Krakow, Dr. Jasinski; a delegation from the Polish Red Cross, which was actively involved in the work of exhumation and identification; a commission of medical examiners from twelve neutral and occupied countries, who had total freedom to conduct their own examinations of bodies they

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