Wyrok niemieckiego Trybunału Ludowego z 1943 r. w sprawie kłamstwa katyńskiego

Abstract

The article concerns a singular criminal case which constitutes probably the only (!) case of a valid conviction for dissemination of false information which stated that it were the German forces who were responsible for the Katyn massacre, i.e. the Katyn lie. The perpetrator of the crime — sentenced to death in the court of law — was an Austrian man, demobilized after the September Campaign in 1939. The crime was committed on May 31st, 1943 in an Austrian inn, where the perpetrator imbibed alcohol in the company of German soldiers remaining on leave at the time. Referring to a newspaper article concerning the exhumation of Polish officers, the man claimed that the Polish officers were not murdered by the Russian forces, but rather by Waffen- SS. His claim had been classified as defeatism and high treason by means of a propagandist lie. The sentence was passed by the German People’s Court, which constitutes a subject of a brief description in the article. The aforementioned study has been based on the verdict and its justification, discovered in a German archive.