Ivan Ivanovich Stelmach

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Ivan Ivanovich Stelmach ( Russian Иван Иванович Стельмах * January 22 . Jul / 3. February  1882 greg. In the village Omelenetz, county Brest-Litovsk , † 2. December 1957 in Smolensk ) was an officer of the Soviet secret police NKVD . In the spring of 1940 he was in command of the Katyn firing squad , which killed more than 4,000 Polish officers and ensigns.

Life

Stelmach came from a poor farming family. In his childhood he was used by his parents to work in the fields and to tend cattle, he only attended school irregularly and did not graduate from school.

From 1903 to 1909 he served in the Imperial Russian Army , he finished his service as senior sergeant . From 1909 to 1911 he was a railroad worker, handling trains at the Smolensk station. From 1911 to 1914 he worked in a munitions factory in Saint Petersburg . With the beginning of the war he was drafted back into the Russian army. In 1915 he was taken prisoner by Germany and was interned in the Tuchel camp (West Prussia) until the end of the war in 1918 .

After his return to Russia, he joined the Cheka secret police (later: OGPU, NKVD, NKGB) in Smolensk in November 1918 . From 1928 he took part in shootings of "enemies of the people". According to the files, 7,931 "enemies of the people" were shot with his participation in Smolensk District until 1939. In an official assessment it was said of him: "Little educated, politically illiterate, but boundlessly devoted to the matter." In 1938 he was appointed commander of the "inner prison" of Smolensk, which is subordinate to the NKVD and separated from the general penal system. In the same year, the Communist Party accepted him as a full member.

Stelmach remained in the ranks of the militarily organized secret police until his retirement in the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1946. He spent the rest of his life in Smolensk. According to reports from contemporary witnesses that the Russian press tracked down half a century later, he was last terminally ill and died “in terrible agony”. He was buried in Smolensk.

Role in the Katyn massacre

In March 1940 he received an order from the deputy NKVD chief Vsevolod Merkulov to carry out the shooting of the intended Polish prisoners of war from the Koselsk special camp with his subordinates . The execution of around 4,400 prisoners dragged on from April 5, 1940 to May 12. When the Russian Military Prosecutor's Office investigated the crime in 1992, a former NKVD soldier said of Stelmach: “Not everyone could handle a matter like shooting people. But he did it with pleasure. "

In October 1940, as the leader of the Katyn firing squad, he and Vasily Blochin of the Kalinin firing squad , where Polish officers and policemen had been shot at the same time, received, on the orders of NKVD chief Lavrenti Beria, a cash bonus "for successfully performing special tasks" .

After the Wehrmacht withdrew from the Smolensk area in the autumn of 1943, Stelmach was again commissioned by Merkulov to track down and shoot alleged collaborators who had helped the Germans with the exhumation work in the Katyn forest or who had been named by them as witnesses.

After the end of the war, he was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner in 1945 for his participation in the executions of 1940 and 1943 and for removing traces .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical information, unless otherwise stated, according to: Nikita Pietrow: Poczet katów katyńskich. Warsaw 2015, pp. 348-350.
  2. ↑ NN Il'kevič, Svidetel'stvo o besčinstvach in: Vestnik Katynskogo Memoriala, 7.2007, p 109-110.
  3. ↑ Gennadij Žavoronkov, Katynskij les načinaetsja govorit ', in: Novaja Pol'ša , 1.2007, p. 55.
  4. ↑ Gennadij Žavoronkov, Katynskij les načinaetsja govorit ', in: Novaja Pol'ša , 1.2007, p. 59.
  5. ^ Andrzej Przewoźnik / Julia Adamska: Katyń. Zbrodnia prawda pamięć. Warsaw 2010, p. 141.
  6. ↑ "С таким делом, как расстрел, не каждый справиться может, а он делал это с удовольствием." Quoted in: Gennady Žavoronkov, Katynskij les načinaetsja govorit ', in: Novaja Pol'ša , 1.2007, p.59.
  7. ^ Andrzej Przewoźnik / Julia Adamska: Katyń. Zbrodnia prawda pamięć. Warsaw 2010, p. 150.
  8. ↑ NN Il'kevič, Svidetel'stva o besčinstvach in: Vestnik Katynskogo Memoriala , 7.2007, p 115th
  9. ↑ Nikita Petrov : Palaci. Oni vypolnjali zakazy Stalina. Moscow 2011, p. 274.

literature

  • Nikita Pietrow : Poczet katów katyńskich. Przekład Justyna Prus-Wojciechowska. Warsaw: Centrum Polsko-Rosyjskiego Dialogu i Porozumienia 2015, pp. 348-350 ISBN 978-83-64486-33-3

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Stelmach, Ivan Ivanovich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Стельмах, Иван Иванович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Soviet NKVD officer
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Omelenetz , Brest-Litovsk district
DATE OF DEATH 2nd December 1957
Place of death Smolensk