The Katyn Massacre: Explained
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2023
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dan explains what happened in the spring of 1940 when the Soviet secret police executed over 22,000 Polish prisoners of war at three secluded sites in the Soviet Union. Sanctioned by Stalin and the most senior members of the Communist Party, this flurry of mass killings has become known collectively as the Katyn Massacre. It drove a wedge between the Allied Powers and cemented the Polish government in exile against Stalin's regime. To this day, it remains an extremely charged topic for Russia and Poland. So what can atrocities like this tell us about the nature of Soviet occupation? And what parallels can we draw with the present day, as Russia continues the invasion of yet another of its neighbours? Dan is joined by Anne Applebaum, a Polish-American journalist and specialist in the history of Communism in Europe, to tackle the aftermath and legacy of this infamous event.
Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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Transcript
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| 0:33.1 | Hi, everybody. Welcome to this |
| 0:35.0 | explainer episode of Dan Snow's History Hit. |
| 0:38.8 | It's April 1943, |
| 0:42.1 | 80 years ago this month. |
| 0:44.9 | An attachment of their mark soldiers, |
| 0:47.6 | soldiers from the German Army, |
| 0:49.5 | are sweeping through the cat-in forest |
| 0:51.7 | near the occupied city of Smolensk in the Soviet Union. |
| 0:56.6 | The invasion of Russia is now going badly for the Germans. |
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