Polish operation of the NKVD

Copy of the first page of the NKVD order No. 00485 to initiate the Polish operation

The Polish Operation of the NKVD is an operation to arrest and murder Poles and Polish-born Soviet citizens by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) . It was the second NKVD action as part of the so-called “ national operations ” during the time of the Great Terror of 1937/38 in the Soviet Union and the model for all subsequent national operations of the NKVD . Even the German operation , triggered a little earlier - at the end of July 1937 - developed along the lines of the Polish one.

procedure

The basis for the action was the NKVD order No. 00485 of August 11, 1937 “On the liquidation of Polish sabotage and espionage groups and sub-organizations of the Polish Military Organization (POW) ”. This order, to which a 30 page long explanatory letter - approved by Stalin and signed by Yezhov - was attached, assumed the existence of a corresponding military organization of the Polish state , which was subversively active in the Soviet Union . In reality, the order was used for the mass repression of Soviet citizens of Polish descent or with Polish-sounding names, as well as Soviet citizens with work contacts or private connections to Poland. In addition, residents of the Soviet-Polish border area were particularly at risk. All these people came under suspicion because they were perceived as Poles or Poles-friendly by the leadership of the Soviet Union as enemies.

The 14-month “Polish Operation” was by far the largest of all “national operations” by the NKVD in the wake of the Great Terror. Within 14 months, 143,810 Soviet citizens of Polish descent, with Polish-sounding names, with contacts in Poland or with a place of residence near the border were arrested. 139,885 of them were convicted. 111,091 were shot. According to Andrzej Paczkowki, ethnic Poles made up more than 10 percent of the victims of the Great Purge and about 40 percent in the course of the operations against national minorities.

literature

Andrzej Paczkowki: The POW affair and the "Polish operation" of the NKVD (1933–1938). In: Stéphane Courtois et al., Joachim Gauck , Ehrhart Neubert : The Black Book of Communism - Oppression, Crime and Terror . (1998) Piper Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-492-04053-5 , pp. 398-402.
Nikita Petrov , Arsenii Roginskii : The “Polish Operation” of the NKVD 1937-8. In: Barry McLoughlin , Kevin McDermott (Eds.): Stalin's terror. High politics and mass repression in the Soviet Union. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [et. a.] 2004, pp. 153-172, ISBN 1-4039-3903-9 ; Partial digitization at Google Books .
Timothy Snyder : Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin . From the English by Martin Richter, Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62184-0 , in particular pp. 107–123.
Nicolas Werth : The Mechanism of Mass Crime. The Great Terror in the Soviet Union 1937-1938. In: Robert Gellately (Ed.): The specter of genocide. Mass murder in historical perspective. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge [and a.] 2003, ISBN 0-521-82063-4 , pp. 215-239.

Web links

“The Great Terror”: 1937–1938. Short chronicle. In: Memorial Russia website, Krasnoyarsk region. Retrieved July 14, 2016 .

Individual evidence

↑ Nikita Ochotin; Arsenij Roginskij: On the history of the "German Operation" of the NKVD 1937–1938. In: Hermann Weber , Ulrich Mählert (Ed.): Crimes in the name of the idea. Terror in communism 1936-1938. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-7466-8152-8 , p. 149. Quote: “The Polish operation was the model for all national operations (in the terminology of the NKVD: Massoperacii po nacional'nym linijam) in the Years 1937/38. "

↑ Nikita Ochotin; Arsenij Roginskij: On the history of the "German Operation" of the NKVD 1937–1938 , p. 149. Quote: "The development of the German line of reprisals follows the 'Polish model'."

^ Werth: Mechanism of Mass Crime. Pp. 232-234. See also Timothy Snyder: Bloodlands , pp. 110-125. Comprehensive on this Petrov, Roginskii: The “Polish Operation” of the NKVD.

↑ Andrzej Paczkowki: The Black Book of Communism , p. 401.

[1] Nikita Ochotin; Arsenij Roginskij: On the history of the "German Operation" of the NKVD 1937–1938. In: Hermann Weber , Ulrich Mählert (Ed.): Crimes in the name of the idea. Terror in communism 1936-1938. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-7466-8152-8 , p. 149. Quote: “The Polish operation was the model for all national operations (in the terminology of the NKVD: Massoperacii po nacional'nym linijam) in the Years 1937/38. "

[2] Nikita Ochotin; Arsenij Roginskij: On the history of the "German Operation" of the NKVD 1937–1938 , p. 149. Quote: "The development of the German line of reprisals follows the 'Polish model'."

[3] Werth: Mechanism of Mass Crime. Pp. 232-234. See also Timothy Snyder: Bloodlands , pp. 110-125. Comprehensive on this Petrov, Roginskii: The “Polish Operation” of the NKVD.