Duration 1939–1940 | Theme Security police talks | |
 | ||
Time 27 September 1939 in Brześć
October 1939 in Lwów
November 1939 in Przemyśl
6–7 December 1939 in Kraków
8–9 December 1939 in Zakopane
20 February 1940 in Zakopane
March 1940 in Kraków Type Nazi–Soviet bilateral planning for population exchange and the persecution of Polish nationals in occupied territories Cause 1939 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 their joint invasion of Poland in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet alliance. The meetings enabled both parties to pursue specific goals and aims as outlined independently by Hitler and Stalin, with regard to the acquired, formerly Polish territories. 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.
Contents
The attack on Poland ended with the Nazi–Soviet victory parade in Brześć, which was held on 22 September 1939. Brześć was the location of the first Nazi-Soviet meeting organized on 27 September 1939, in which the prisoner exchange was decided prior to the signing of mutual agreements in Moscow a day later. In the following month, the Gestapo and the NKVD met in Lwów to discuss the fate of civilian populations during radical reorganization of the annexed territories. They met again in occupied Przemyśl at the end of November, because Przemyśl was a border crossing between the two invaders. The next series of meetings began in December 1939, a month after the first transfer of Polish prisoners of war. 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.
Background
After the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August 1939, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, and the Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 September, resulting in the occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The first Gestapo–NKVD meeting took place in Brześć nad Bugiem reportedly on 27 September 1939, 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. At the meeting, the German and Soviet officials reached a mutual agreement about the fate of Polish infantry soldiers captured by the Red Army. Between 24 October and 23 November 1939 a total of 42,492 Polish prisoners of war were transferred from Kozelsk (Kozielsk) and Putyvl (Putywl) camps across the Nazi-Soviet demarcation line and handed over to the Germans. Both Gestapo and NKVD expected the emergence of Polish resistance and discussed ways of dealing with the clandestine activities of the Poles. In the immediate aftermath of the meeting, the Soviet NKVD began the collection of data leading to the Katyn massacre committed in the spring of 1940.
Conferences
The next meeting took place some time at the end of November 1939 in Przemyśl, 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. It is also claimed a meeting was held in December.
Kraków–Zakopane
This one is the best known, and took place in Zakopane, starting on 20 February 1940 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 and — among others — Rita Zimmerman (director of a gold mine in Kolyma) and a man named Eichmans, creator of an efficient way of killing in the back of the head.
According to several sources, one of the results of this conference was the German Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion (see: German AB Action operation in Poland), elimination of Krakow intelligentsia Sonderaktion Krakau and the Soviet Katyn massacre In his 1991 book Stalin: Breaker of Nations, British historian Robert Conquest stated: "Terminal horror suffered by so many millions of innocent Jewish, Slavic, and other European peoples as a result of this meeting of evil minds is an indelible stain on the history and integrity of Western civilization, with all of its humanitarian pretensions". Also, 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. 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 and that it is reasonable to say that Germany did not know about the Katyn massacre until the mass graves were analysed by the Katyn Commission.
The fourth and last meeting took place in March 1940 in Krakow. 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.
Bor-Komorowski′s description is disputed by Russian historian Oleg Vishlyov, who claims, based on the original, highly suspect 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. Meanwhile, some historians (including Wojciech Materski) point out that there is clear evidence of clandestine murder operations conducted by both Soviet and German forces in 1939–1940 across occupied Poland, however, there is no evidence of direct connection between the NKVD prisoner massacres and the German AB-Aktion in Poland leading to massacre of several thousand prominent Poles in the same time-frame.