Germans in Katyn

Germans in Katyn. Documents on the execution of Polish prisoners of war in the autumn of 1941.
Compiled by: R. I., Kosolapov, V. E. Pershin, S. Yu. Rychenkov, V. A. Sakharov

Responsible for the issue: S. A. Lozhkin.

Moscow: ITRK Publishing House, 2010 - 280 p. ISBN 978-5-88010-266-2

Note of the Soviet government on the decision to break off relations with the Polish government. April 25, 1943

On April 25 of this (1943. - Ed.) year, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Comrade V. M. Molotov, handed over to the Polish Ambassador, Mr. Romer, a note of the Soviet government with the following content:

"Mr. Ambassador,

On behalf of the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I have the honor to bring to the attention of the Polish Government the following:

The behavior of the Polish Government towards the USSR in recent times is considered by the Soviet Government to be completely abnormal, violating all the rules and norms in the relations between the two allied states.

The slanderous campaign, hostile to the Soviet Union, launched by the German fascists about the Polish officers they had killed in the Smolensk region, in the territory occupied by the German troops, was immediately picked up by the Polish Government and is in every possible way fomented by the Polish official press. The Polish Government not only did not rebuff the vile fascist slander against the USSR, but did not even consider it necessary to address the Soviet Government with any questions or explanations on this matter.

The Hitlerite authorities, having committed a monstrous crime against Polish officers, are playing an investigative comedy, in the staging of which they used some Polish pro-fascist elements selected by themselves from occupied Poland, where everything is under the heel of Hitler and where an honest Pole cannot openly say his word.

For the “investigation” the International Red Cross is involved both by the Polish government and the Hitlerite government, which is forced in the conditions of the terrorist regime with its gallows and the mass extermination of the civilian population to take part in this investigative comedy, directed by Hitler. It is clear that such an "investigation", which, moreover, is being carried out behind the back of the Soviet Government, cannot inspire confidence in any honest people.

The fact that the hostile campaign against the Soviet Union was launched simultaneously in the German and Polish press and is carried out on the same plan leaves no doubt that there is contact and collusion between the enemy of the Allies, Hitler, and the Polish Government in carrying out this campaign. hostile campaign.

While the peoples of the Soviet Union, shedding blood in the hard struggle against Hitler's Germany, are exerting all their strength to defeat the common enemy of the Russian and Polish peoples and of all freedom-loving democratic countries, the Polish Government, for the sake of Hitler's tyranny, deals a treacherous blow to the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Government is aware that this hostile campaign against the Soviet Union was undertaken by the Polish Government in order to put pressure on the Soviet Government by using the Hitlerite slanderous forgery in order to wrest territorial concessions from it at the expense of the interests of Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Belorussia and Soviet Lithuania.

All these circumstances force the Soviet Government to admit that the present government of Poland, having slid into the path of collusion with the Hitlerite government, has in fact ceased allied relations with the USSR and has adopted a position of hostility towards the Soviet Union.

Based on all this, the Soviet Government decided to break off relations with the Polish Government.

I ask you, Mr. Ambassador, to accept the assurances of my highest consideration, V. Molotov.”

Foreign policy of the Soviet Union during the Patriotic War. Documents and materials. Volume 1. June 22, 1941 - December 31, 1943. M., 1944. S. 301-303.