"A report has reached us from Smolensk to the effect that the local inhabitants have mentioned to the German authorities the existence of a place where mass executions have been carried out by the Bolsheviks and where 10,000 Polish officers have been murdered by the Soviet Secret State Police. The German authorities went to a place called the Hill of Goats, a Russian health resort situated twelve kilometers west of Smolensk, where a gruesome discovery was made." Radio Berlin broadcast
The Germans claimed that they found a ditch 28 meters long and 16 meters wide at the Hill of Goats in which were 3,000 bodies piled up in layers of twelve. All the bodies were fully dressed in military uniform; some were bound and all had pistol shots to the back of their heads. The Germans believed that they would find 10,000 bodies (hence the figure in the broadcast) but eventually the final total was 4,500.
The Germans claimed that the bodies were in good condition and they even recognised a general Smorawinsky as one of the victims. The soil had done a great deal to preserve the bodies and any documentation found on them.
However, any information relating to this massacre made public during the war came from Goebbel's propaganda ministry and had to be treated as suspect by the Allies. In January 1943, the Russians had turned the tide of the war with the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad - a victory Churchill had urged all on the Allied side to celebrate. As if in a knee-jerk reaction, any criticism about the Russians in Easter 1943 would not have been acceptable. Any connection between the massacre and the Germans, however, would have been more readily accepted by all those fighting against the Nazis.
But what exactly did happen at Katyn Wood?
When German forces attacked Poland in September 1939, the Blitzkrieg tactic tore great holes in the Polish defence. However, on September 17th, as part of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Russian forces also invaded Poland. The Russian leadership called on the Polish soldiers to rise up against their officers and political leaders as a punishment for getting the country into an unjust war. Those Polish officers and senior NCO's captured by the Red Army were arrested and deported to Russia.
It is known that they were taken to three camps in Russia - Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov. One of the camps, Kozelsk, contained more than just officers. It contained arrested Polish university lecturers, surgeons, physicians, barristers and lawyers. One woman prisoner was held at Kozelsk - Janina Lewandowski. Her body was found at Katyn clothed in the uniform of the Polish Air Force. Ostashkov held officers - but it also held anybody from Poland who was considered to be 'bourgeois'. It seems that only Starobelsk held only officers from the Polish military.
To start with, the Russians attempted to 're-educate' the Poles in all three camps. Brigadier Zarubin of the Soviet Secret State Police was put in charge of this task. His efforts to promote the Soviet way of life probably had no chance. The Poles in the camp were forbidden to say Mass - which for a devout Roman Catholic nation was a major blow and it was almost certainly done secretly. Therefore, it is untenable to think that there were any takers for the Soviet view point which Zarubin was trying to sell. It seems that Zarubin reported his failure to Moscow and shortly after this a colonel from the Soviet Secret State Police turned up at all three camps. Just after the visit of this colonel, groups of prisoners were taken from the camps to an unknown destination.
In April 1940, all three camps were simultaneously cleared.
On June 22nd, 1941, Nazi Germany launched 'Operation Barbarossa'. The German military swept aside the Russian army and penetrated deep into Russia. Stalin, alarmed by the collapse of the Red Army, ordered that an amnesty should be granted to all Polish prisoners who were willing to fight against the Germans. On August 14th 1941, a Polish-Soviet military agreement was signed. However, no-one could account for the whereabouts of the officers held in Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov. Winston Churchill himself wrote about the embarrassment such a disclosure brought on the Russian authorities.
The Polish government in exile, based in London, was especially concerned that the Russians explain where these men were. Stalin gave two answers. Initially, he claimed that the men had escaped to Manchuria. However, the authorities in Moscow - which was effectively Stalin - claimed that the men were held in territory that the Germans had taken in their lightning attack in June 1941 and that only the Germans could account for their whereabouts. This was to become the standard Moscow answer to the problem - the Germans were responsible.
Locals at Katyn Forest had long known that it was an area used by the secret police to execute those who had fallen out with Stalin's government. As early as 1929, the Soviet secret police had built a dacha there surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. To keep out the locals, the secret police also used guard dogs to patrol the perimeter of the dacha.
On July 16th, 1941, Smolensk fell to the Germans. The Russian authorities had fled from Katyn and for the first time in years, the area was open 'to the public'. In 1942, Poles from the Todt Organisation arrived in the area to collect any form of scrap. As they worked on the Hill of Goats, they found the body of a dead Polish officer who was later buried in a dignified service. However, the winter for 1942-43 was severe and the ground at the Hill of Goats was frozen over.
In the Spring of 1943, a Russian peasant, Ivan Krivozertzev, read an article in a newspaper ('Novyj Put') regarding General Sikorski and his search for thousands of Polish officers whom he could not account for. Despite communism in Russia, Krivozertzev had maintained his religious beliefs and re-called what he had seen in Smolensk in 1940.
He had seen rail wagons coming into Smolensk station but being shunted into screened sidings. He had seen men being herded under armed guard into 'Black Ravens' - the local nickname for prison vehicles. Krivozertzev had also seen 'normal' prisoners being driven from Smolensk city in lorries with shovels and pick axes. Krivozertzev went to the Germans and told them that he believed the Polish officers would be found at the Hill of Goats. The Germans went to the forest and dug up mounds that had young fir trees on the top of them. These trees gave away an obvious secret as the rings on them indicated that they had been planted in April 1940.
The Germans started digging in the Hill of Goats and found the bodies of many men, still in military uniform, who had been shot in the back of the head with their hands tied behind their backs. The Germans also found the bodies of Russian men and women who had been shot long before 1940. Curiously, the Germans claimed that the way the Russians and Poles had been tied was identical and that whoever did both sets of murders was the same organisation. The 4,500 bodies that were exhumed came from Kozelsk - no-one knows what happened to the men held at Starobelsk and Ostashkov. Moscow announced its stance on April 14th 1943:
"The Polish prisoners in question were interned in the vicinity of Smolensk in special camps and were employed in road construction. In was impossible to evacuate them at the time of the approach of the German troops and, as a result, they fell into their hands. If, therefore, they have been found murdered, it means that they have been murdered by the Germans who, for reasons of provocation, now claim that the crime was committed by Soviet authorities."
On April 15th, the British government publically stated via the BBC that the Germans had told lies and that it accepted the Russian version. This caused the Polish government in exile to call for an independent inspection of Katyn - something the International Red Cross in Switzerland could do. The German and Polish government (in exile) agreed to this; Moscow did not. The Russians broke off all relations with Poland and set up a puppet Polish government in Moscow.
When Russia advanced into Europe and re-captured Katyn, it seemed as if the issue was solved as it was clear that the Russians were not going to allow any investigation into what happened at Katyn. At the Nuremburg trials, the murders were linked to the indictment against Goering and the Russians presented their evidence to 'prove' it was the Germans, but they were never probed and Katyn drifted into obscurity. At the final judgment of the International Tribunal, Katyn was not even mentioned.
For their part the Russians claimed that the massacre took place after it became obvious that the Wehrmacht was in full retreat after their defeat at Stalingrad and that it was carried out by the Nazis. They put up the following evidence gathered at Nuremburg:
The Germans did not allow any external authority to fully examine either the bodies or the grave sites. The Polish Commission, set up by the Nazis to examine the evidence, was only allowed to see what the Germans wanted them to see. One Bulgarian professor, Marko Markov, claimed that he was only allowed to dissect one body that was presented to him and that he could not conclude from this body that it had been in the ground for three years – as the Nazis tried to suggest to him that it had been. In his written report, Markov only wrote about what he found on the body – he did not give a conclusion as to how the body got into its state.
He and seven other experts were only allowed two half-a-day visits to the grave sites by the Germans. “It reminded me of a tourist trip”, claimed Markov.
The Russians also claimed that the issue of the three year old saplings was also easy to explain. They claimed that there was no evidence that they came from the grave mounds themselves and that they could have been gathered at any point from Katyn Wood and handed in as ‘evidence’.
The Russians also claimed that all the bullets found on the bodies were made by the German firm Geko. It was claimed that they were all Geko 7.65 mm bullets which only the German would have had access to.
Who committed the murders remained a mystery until 1990 when the Russian authorities admitted that it was the Russian Secret police (NKVD), that then spent much time and effort in attaching blame on the Germans.
@historylearningsite.co.uk
Pic : General Mieczyslaw Smorawinski
As I walk into the lavish dining room of the Carlyle Hotel in New York, I notice a figure who looks vaguely like an elf. He is hunched on a very low red stool, partly behind a door, so close to the floor that his frame seems diminutive, with a slightly pointed face and watchful, intense manner. Is that Nicolas Berggruen, I wonder?
If I am unsure of what to expect, it is no surprise. Berggruen, 47, has spent most of his life in the shadows. The Paris-born investor is reportedly one of the world’s wealthiest, having conjured a $2.2bn-plus fortune buying real estate and stakes in companies such as Karstadt, the German retailing group, and Prisa, the Spanish media conglomerate that publishes El País and owns Le Monde. Normally, this kind of success comes with lavish houses, cars and paintings – maybe even a football club. And, until recently, Berggruen did own such toys, including plenty of art (a passion instilled by his father, Heinz, a renowned German Jewish art dealer who fled the Nazis and later became a friend of Pablo Picasso). But a few years ago, he apparently tired of what billions can buy. So he gave his art to museums, on long-term loans, sold his homes in New York and Florida along with most of his possessions. Except, that is, for a jet that now spirits him around the world, a “homeless billionaire” moving from hotel to hotel – or so the urban legend goes.
Berggruen (for it is he) springs to his feet, up to a normal height, and we are quietly ushered to the only free table in his current temporary “home”, in an annexe full of tapestries, cushions and mosaics. It is quite different from the austere sea of white marble found in the Carlyle’s main restaurant and feels like a slightly whimsical, magical place. Is it really true, I ask, that you don’t live anywhere.
“That’s the truth,” he replies, in an accent that is not entirely French or American or German (German is his family’s first language). “I spend time in London, New York, California and in, let us say, ‘standard’ places and much less standard places.” These, it transpires, include destinations ranging from Japan to the Congo.
So where does he keep his clothes? Today he is decked out in an understated but clearly expensive dark blazer and open-necked shirt. “Luckily, as a man you don’t need much,” he says, pointedly eyeing my dress. “I have very few possessions ... a few papers, a couple of books, and a few shirts, jackets, sweaters. It fits in a little thing, in a paper bag, so it’s very easy.”
My mind boggles; I cannot conceive of a 21st-century billionaire nomad carting his possessions about in a paper bag. Even on a private jet. “You seem very stern ... very disturbed by this,” he observes, searching my face with intense blue-grey eyes. “You are funny.”
I’m the funny one, I wonder indignantly; his Teutonic style of delivery is such that I cannot tell whether he is jesting, needling, or flirting.
“I don’t recommend this lifestyle for others,” he continues, explaining that he first started to turn “nomadic” 10 years ago. “I have always spent a lot of time in hotels, so it started to seem easier to do this, I feel happier. I am not that attached to material things. And the good thing is I can make choices.
“Now, si prego!” He summons a waiter, with the air of a man who always gets what he chooses. “The lady is going to have a lobster salad, right? Can I have a salade niçoise please, no anchovies. And the sauce, not the garlic sauce, you have a horrible garlic sauce. There is one sauce that is excellent but it’s not the garlic one. Thank you! Now, back to you ... ”
I suggest wine but it is summarily rejected: “I don’t drink, I don’t indulge. Quite sad. Boring.” We both order water and double espressos instead. He has just arrived from California and confesses to being “a little jet-lagged”.
Berggruen’s unusual approach to life began early. Born in 1961, with one brother and two half-sisters, he enjoyed a privileged childhood, courtesy of his father’s art business, and went to school in Paris, where he became a wildly leftwing teenager. “I wouldn’t learn a word of English [at school] because that’s the language of imperialism,” he recalls. He later attended a Swiss boarding school, to broaden his experience, but was expelled for sedition.
In 1978, still a teenager, he moved to London and a year later attended New York University to study business. “I decided to reverse. I said, ‘OK, let’s learn about the real world and capitalism.’ The real world for me was a game and I wanted to work out how to function in it, to use it as a platform.”
In 1988, he co-founded Alpha Investment Management, a fund of hedge funds, with Julio Mario Santo Domingo Jr, the eldest son of a Colombian tycoon. They later sold it to Safra Bank for an undisclosed sum. He also created Berggruen Holdings, a private vehicle that buys stakes in companies around the world. Berggruen has never explained in detail the secret of his investment success. Indeed, when a Dutch magazine ran a profile a few years ago, he tried to buy all the copies and destroy them. “I wanted to be private,” he says. But these days Berggruen Holdings has a website, which says that the group holds real estate and long-term stakes in ventures ranging from GLG hedge fund to Karstadt and La Prisa and, more recently, the British Resolution insurance group. These, he says, have created his wealth. “My father helped me through school but everything else I did on my own.”
And, having conjured a fortune, he has now a second more ambitious goal: a bold initiative to change the way that western politics and government is conducted. A few years ago, he started attending university courses and became fascinated with the flaws in western government systems. “I have always been very interested in history, so I sat down with a group of intellectuals and wrote a utopian constitution.”
He also used $100m of his money to create a think-tank, the Berggruen Institute, which promotes fresh debate about politics and constitutional reform. Then, four months ago, he used $25m to launch a more specific campaign to “save” California, a place where he spends several months each year, usually living at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills.
The institute is now promoting radical fiscal measures to tackle the state’s ballooning debt burden and to implement longer-term structural reforms, under the rubric of the “Think Long Committee for California”. Berggruen has so much clout that his committee is now backed by a formidable array of political and business heavyweights, such as Condoleezza Rice, former US secretary of state, Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, and Gray Davis, former governor of California.
But why does he care so much about the Golden State? Until now his most notable contribution to the region has been to throw a star-studded party each year for the Oscars (where he is usually photographed with a bevy of beautiful stars; he does not have a long-term companion).
“California is the kind of place where change is possible,” he explains. “California is in trouble – but I think California is ready.” More specifically, the severity of the debt problem in California – which is almost comparable to that of Greece or Ireland – makes it a bellwether for the rest of the US but has also bred a sense of crisis and receptiveness to change. And, since California has a constitution that allows politicians to introduce new reforms through a popular vote, Berggruen plans to put his ideas directly to the electorate. “California is worth saving,” he insists.
Our food arrives but Berggruen barely notices. Earnestly, he explains that since his teenage years he has always wanted to write a better constitution for the modern world, drawing on the best traditions of both east and west. “I feel very strongly that the two things that make a country good or not are culture and government ... my utopian constitution combines western values of the individual with the excellence of government and ideal of harmony that exists more in the east ... The key issue is: how good are the structures of government, how good are they at delivering to citizens?” And now, he argues, this issue is doubly relevant given that so many western government institutions appear to be hopelessly paralysed and deficient.
But if you want to fix something, I say, why not start with Germany? “If I went to Germany and said, ‘Listen, I’ve got a bag of reforms for you,’ they would throw me out. They would say, ‘We’re Germans, we’re wonderful, we’re perfect,’ ” he says. “But here [in the US] there is a very different attitude. The system is broken, people realise it’s very broken. In California they’re all unhappy.”
So what model does he want instead? Singapore? “I think it’s probably the best-run country in the world. It probably is on the authoritarian side and it needs to loosen up a little bit,” he observes. “But the ideal system is not necessarily the most exciting system. Probably, on average, boring is good for the average person.”
That medicine is presumably not intended for him, I observe; after all, he would not park in “boring” Singapore for long. “I am a hypocrite,” he admits. “But I am not thinking of me but what is good for most.”
I laugh but, as I eat my lobster salad, I feel torn. Is it just a crazy fantasy to hope that a billionaire could solve California’s fiscal woes simply by sprinkling about some intellectual fairy dust? Perhaps. Yet his passion is mesmerising; this is a man who truly believes that he can conjure a new future. And having worked in the US for the past year, I agree with Berggruen’s criticism of the modern political system. I am also impressed that he wants to do more than just grumble.
So, I ask, is this going to be your legacy? He confesses that these days he gets “bored” making billions through business ventures. He plans to continue with his investments but wants to put more effort into politics and philosophy; one model, he concedes, is George Soros, the financier and philanthropist. Since Berggruen does not have any children, he also plans to give his money away to his political think-tank and other reform causes. He is considering creating a media empire to provide an alternative to Rupert Murdoch’s, and promote civil society.
“The biggest problem is time, not enough time to do everything and not enough time to be bored,” he complains. “My greatest luxury is boredom, but it never happens.”
I glance at my watch and say that I should get the cheque; his plate is barely touched but I have eaten most of my salad.
“You seem to be in a rush, I’m much more relaxed than you,” he chides.
I point out that his office had told me that my allotted time was one hour.
“No, you had an hour and a half,” he insists. “In six minutes, I go.” Being a global nomad might sound bohemian, but a team of earthly staff is clearly organising his diary with Teutonic precision.
I gesture for the cheque, and he grabs it. Equally firmly, I lunge. But he pulls it away. “I live here, this is my house,” he declares, laughing. “I pay.”
No, I argue, I have to pay. It’s the rules of the article.
“I know. But in this case, we’ve bypassed the rules.”
We sit frozen in a stand-off, staring at each other. Then he glances at the bill: “Hold on – oh my God, it’s very expensive!” he says. “That’s very embarrassing.” I glance too: it is, indeed, startlingly expensive; though my lobster salad tasted very pleasant, it was not so extraordinary.
“See, I must pay,” he says.
I wonder whether I dare make a huge scene – and then give up. Being a homeless billionaire, I reflect, can clearly be a very expensive business; especially if you camp in places such as the Carlyle. But as I leave the ornate restaurant, without the bill, I also feel oddly cheered.
If Berggruen displays as much stubborn determination in pushing his ideas as he did with this bill, then maybe – just maybe – they might actually fly. In any case, I would like to dream so: right now, the western world certainly needs political magic.
Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand is desperate to be fit enough for the clash against Arsenal, so as to help his side register a victory over old foes that, he says, they have now come to respect.
The 31-year-old centre-half is currently recovering from a hamstring injury and is a doubt for the encounter, though there have been encouraging words from manager Sir Alex Ferguson that the defender will be back in time for Monday night's game.
And Ferdinand, for his part, wants to put pressure on the north London club by beating them, with inspiration coming in the form of United's defeat to the Gunners in the 2005 FA Cup final.
Ironically, that was the last trophy that Arsene Wenger's side won, as they have since gone without silverware in the past five years.
"The 2005 FA Cup final, when we battered them but lost on penalties, was one of the worst moments of my career," Ferdinand told The Telegraph.
"
But then we have had some very good times against them. They have had us when we would have beaten anyone in the world, like in the 2008 Champions League semi-final [when United beat Barcelona].
"There used to be a genuine rivalry bordering on dislike between us. You saw that when we had a couple of fracas in the tunnel. Now it is more respect."
But looking beyond the game against the Gunners, Ferdinand insisted that he would like to remain at Old Trafford for the remainder of his career.
"I want to finish my career at United," he said. "I have two years on my contract, and if the manager sees that I am fit enough, a four year deal at that age would be great."
After missing the start of the season due to a knee injury that he suffered on the eve of the World Cup finals in South Africa, subsequently ruling the England captain out of the tournament, Ferdinand's return to fitness has seen him rocket up the Castrol Rankings. The centre-back is now rated as the 94th most influential player in Europe's top five leagues.
