Tag Archives: World War II

November 6 in the days of the War

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November 6 – the day before the celebration of the Great October Socialist Revolution – saw many significant events during the span of the great Patriotic War of 1941 – 1945. We marked them at “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”, and are bringing them to the Beehive!

«Our cause is just – Victory will be ours!»

Drawing by artist Vladimir Vinokur, 1948: «Stalin’s speech on November 6, 1941, at the Mayakovskaya metro station»

On November 6, 1941, the famous speech by Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and Head of the State Defense Committee of the USSR, was broadcast throughout the country from the Mayakovskaya metro station.

Stalin’s speech was short but meaningful. The Soviet leader announced the failure of the Nazi blitzkrieg, the reasons for the temporary setbacks of the Red Army, and the inevitability of victory in the war.

With the Wehrmacht storming the nearest approaches to Moscow, it was decided to hold a solemn meeting of the Moscow City Council of Workers’ Deputies dedicated to the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution in deep secrecy. The decision on this was made only on November 3, 1941. This was due to the situation at the front, with battle for Moscow raging. It was also necessary to make sure that the weather would prevent the Luftwaffe from launching a massive bombing attack on the Soviet capital, spoiling the celebration.

Due to concerns about secrecy and security, the event was held at a different location than the usual venue, the Bolshoi Theatre. Instead, it was held at the deepest metro station at the time, Mayakovskaya, which served as a bomb shelter for the residents of Moscow.

On November 5, the metro station was prepared for the arrival of guests. In the evening, the station was closed to passengers entering and leaving. Trains passed through Mayakovskaya without stopping. Late in the evening, representatives of the Supreme Command Headquarters and the State Defence Committee arrived at the station for a check, accompanied by Stalin himself.

On November 6, preparations continued: chairs were brought and placed at the station, the floor was covered with carpets and rugs, and posters were hung. The place for the presidium was set up in front of the escalators, where there was no exit from the station (the medical center was located there). A podium was set up, a raised platform with a table for the members of the presidium was installed, and a portrait of Stalin was hung on the end wall, with a bust of Lenin placed in front of it. Technicians connected microphones to the loudspeakers placed at the station, ensuring that everyone could hear the speech of the head of the Soviet Union. Radio broadcasting equipment was set up.

The tunnel leading from the Gorkovskaya station to the Belorusskaya station was de-energized. A special train of 10 cars was placed on the tracks, with tables set up for the event’s participants. A wardrobe, an orchestra for the concert, which was scheduled to begin after the ceremony, and recording equipment were also set up. The tracks leading from the opposite side of the station were free. High-ranking guests were expected to arrive there.
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The FSB declassified the archive about the Nazi executions of Poles and the falsification of the “Katyn case”

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On April 11, 2024, the FSB declassified the archive about the Nazi executions of Poles and the falsification of the Katyn case. The archive includes information, intelligence and special reports from SMERSH counterintelligence, dated 1944-1945.

This article combines translations of the publications by TASS and Zvezda News. Before the articles, we include an image gallery with 18 machine translated pages (containing inevitable translation inaccuracies) of some of the documents, along with their original versions (at the end of the article).

Foreign Agen Intel Telegram channel put it well in their post about the publication:

The truth always comes out eventually.

We can add it to a long list of crimes committed by Germany over the years. Blaming Stalin and the USSR was always convenient, both to Nazi Germany and their NATO successors. Just like we see today’s politicians in the West blaming everything from rising prices to earthquakes on Russia, so it was the case then. Nothing changed.

It also shows us how the NATO alliance is built on American and British coercion, rather than any natural mutual interests. The whole of Europe has always been at each others’ throats over the tiniest of disagreements. Yet today they aspire to lecture Russia and virtue signal about their superior morals.

Convincing their “allies” that Russia is the enemy was America’s greatest trick – you’ve been had. You Poles, you Czechs, you Latvians, you Finns and so on.

See also:

The FSB Directorate for the Smolensk Region has declassified archival documents on crimes committed by the Nazis in the region during the Great Patriotic War, including materials on the executions of Poles and the falsification of the Katyn case by the German special services.
– TASS, April 11,2024

A TASS correspondent got acquainted with copies of documents submitted to the “State Archive of the Modern History of the Smolensk Region” as part of the “No Statute of Limitations” project.

The archive includes information, intelligence and special reports from Smersh counterintelligence, dated 1944-1945. A significant part of the documents are made up of interrogation protocols of Poles who served with the Germans in the Smolensk region; the forensic medical expert of the Budapest City Royal Court, Imre Sechody; a member of the commission investigating the murder of Polish officers in the Katyn forest, Boleslav Smektal; and others involved.
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Stalin: “From now on we shall know what kind of allies we are dealing with.”

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A full year passed after the telegram exchange between Winston Churchill and Stafford Cripps, where Churchill cynically laid the blame on the USSR for the start of WWII, and where Britain adopted a wait-and-see position. No second front was still forthcoming.

Iosif Stalin was fully aware of what kind of allies Britain and the USA were, as becomes apparent from the following two telegrams, sent by him to the USSR ambassador to Great Britain, I.M. Maisky on October 19 and 28, 1942.

Telegram from the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, I.V. Stalin, to the USSR ambassador to Great Britain, I.M. Maisky, on the intentions of the head of the British government, W. Churchill

From the Electronic Library of Historical Documents.

October 19, 1942
We all have the impression in Moscow that Churchill is pursuing a course aimed at the defeat of the USSR, in order to then conspire with Hitler’s Germany or Breuning at the expense of our country. Without such an assumption, it is difficult to explain Churchill’s behaviour on the issue of the second front in Europe, on the issue of arms supplies to the USSR, which are progressively declining despite the growth of production in Britain, on the issue of Hess, whom Churchill apparently keeps in reserve, and finally on the issue of the systematic bombing of Berlin by the British during September, which Churchill proclaimed in Moscow and which he did not fulfill one iota, despite the fact that he certainly could have done it.
I. Stalin

Soviet-British relations during the Great Patriotic War 1941 – 1945: Documents and materials: In 2 volumes. Vol. 1. 1941 – 1943. Moscow, 1983. p. 294.

It is noteworthy that as early as August 30, 1941 — a whole month before the Churchill-Stafford communication — I.V. Stalin wrote to I.M. Maisky:

“In fact, the British government is helping the Nazis with its passive wait-and-see policy. The Nazis want to beat their opponents one by one — the Russians today, the British tomorrow. The fact that England applauds us and scolds the Germans with the last words does not change the matter at all. Do the British understand this? I think they do. What do they want? They seem to want to weaken us. If this assumption is correct, we need to be careful about the British.”

(Soviet-British relations… Vol. 1. p. 109)

A follow-up telegram from I.V. Stalin to I.M. Maisky with arguments in favour of his point of view that W. Churchill is aiming for the defeat of the USSR

From the Electronic Library of Historical Documents.

London. Sov.Embassy. For Maisky.
October 28, 1942

I have received your suggestions. I found a lot of interesting and instructive things in them. A number of your suggestions coincide with the events we have planned.

I still think that, being a proponent of an easy war, Churchill will easily succumb to the influence of those who are pursuing a course aimed at the defeat of the Soviet Union, because the defeat of our country and compromise with Germany at the expense of the Soviet Union is the easiest form of war between Britain and Germany.

Of course, the British will later realise that without the Russian front on the continent of Europe, if France fails, they, i.e. the British, are doomed to perish. But when will they realise this?

We shall see in due course.

I doubt that the British would support the Northern operation. They’re just talking about it for show.

Churchill told us in Moscow that by the beginning of the spring of ’43, about a million Anglo-American troops would open a second front in Europe. But Churchill seems to be one of those figures who easily make a promise, in order to just as easily forget about it or even blatantly break it.

He also solemnly promised in Moscow to bomb Berlin intensively during September-October. However, he did not fulfil his promise and did not even try to inform Moscow about the motives for non-fulfilment.

Well, from now on, we shall know what kind of allies we are dealing with.

I have little faith in Operation Torch. If, contrary to expectations, this operation ends successfully, we can come to terms with the fact that they took away our planes for this operation.

I spoke to Wilkie and informed Roosevelt that in the next 12 months we will need to receive 2 million tons of wheat from the United States. Wilkie said that the United States doesn’t know what to do with its bread and that our request is quite feasible. Roosevelt responded positively, but did not offer anything concrete. Your proposal to involve Canada in this matter is absolutely correct, as Canada also doesn’t know what to do with its bread.
STALIN

“Stalin and Churchill. Meetings. Talks. Discussions: Documents, comments. 1941 – 1945.” 2004. Page 378.

Georgy Zhukov: “Not one step back – this is the Motherland’s combat order to us, the defenders of Moscow…”

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November 1, 1941 – Commander of the Western Front General Georgy Zhukov and member of the Front’s Military Council Nikolai Bulganin gave the order: “Not one step back – this is the Motherland’s combat order to us, the defenders of Moscow. This is what Comrade Stalin ordered… Deal mercilessly with cowards and deserters.”

At the command post of the Western Front in the fall of 1941. In the photo: G.K. Zhukov, N.A. Bulganin, V.D. Sokolovsky

A month after the start of Operation Typhoon, the situation at the front was becoming critical: the Nazi invaders managed to encircle a large group of Soviet armies near Vyazma, take Kalinin and other cities on the outskirts of Moscow. The capital was under siege, and enterprises and institutions were being evacuated.

Despite the difficult situation, there was no intention of surrendering the capital – Stalin and the top leadership of the state remained in the city, all city services continued to function, and on November 1, 1941, the troops of the Western Front were given order number 051, signed by the commander of the Western Front Zhukov and member of the Front’s Military Council Bulganin:

«FIGHTING FRIENDS, RED ARMY SOLDIERS, COMMANDERS AND POLITICAL WORKERS!

In these harsh days, the Motherland, our people and our Great STALIN have entrusted us with the protection of our native and beloved MOSCOW. The Motherland has entrusted us with a responsible and honourable task: to become an indestructible wall and block the path of the German hordes to our capital.

Not one step back — this is the Motherland’s combat order to us, the defenders of Moscow.
This is what Comrade Stalin ordered… Deal mercilessly with cowards and deserters.»

This order was important for maintaining discipline in the troops and raising the morale of soldiers and officers. The slogan “Not one step back!” had a strong psychological impact and emphasised that there was no land beyond Moscow, that it was necessary to fight to the death.
With the help of tough wording and measures, Commander Zhukov managed to stop the enemy’s advance, and already on December 5, the troops of the Western Front launched a counteroffensive, during which the enemy was thrown back hundreds of kilometers from Moscow — Operation Barbarossa failed.
Source: CPRF

The order of the Commander of the Western Front troops on the further mobilisation of all forces to repel the enemy

The complete text of the order as presented at the Electronic Library of Historical Documents, with the text sourced from “G.K.Zhukov in the Battle of Moscow. A Collection of Documents”, 1994, pages 33-34.

“That’s how it was… and that’s how it will be!” Poster by Nikolai Dolgorukov, 1941. Source: digital exhibition of the Nekrasov library, “The Artists of Victory”.

November 1, 1941

Active army

A month has passed since the Nazi invaders launched their offensive. The Hitlerite hordes are straining every effort and are madly rushing towards Moscow. The troops of the Western Front, who have the historic task of defending Moscow, are putting up heroic resistance to the enemy onslaught.
In heavy bloody battles, defending every inch of their native land, their families, their children, fathers and mothers, defending their freedom and independence, our troops repel this onslaught of the enemy. Every step forward is taken by the Germans at the cost of enormous losses.
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Churchill’s cynicism towards war-torn Russia

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The following material is based on a post from the channel “WWII Day by Day”. We did some additional research, locating the texts of the mentioned telegrams. Kudos to ЭТО Я for the lead and inspiration, plus DeepSeek AI for the detective work assistance.

October 28, 1941: The entire double game of England is revealed in the telegram exchange of the British ambassador to Moscow, Sir Stafford Cripps, and the British PM, Winston Churchill.

On October 26, the British Ambassador to Moscow, Stafford Cripps, sent a telegram to the Foreign Office in London, explicitly stating what the Prime Minister needed to understand:

  1. The Russians do not trust England; they know that London is waiting for them to do everything for the English.
  2. The English (the delegation that participated in the Moscow Conference at the end of September) did not bother to explain anything at the military level. And there were people who could have done so.

Harold Lionel Ismay, a British general from 1940 to 1945, was the chief military advisor to Churchill. He was in Moscow and participated in the Moscow Conference of the three powers from September 29 to October 1. Cripps explains to Churchill that the lack of proper staff-level negotiations leads to a fatal misunderstanding by the Russians of the motives of the British. In a report on the conference, prepared by Ismay himself, it was written:

“No negotiations on military matters were held with the Russian General Staff…”

Ismay only exchanged a few words with Stalin informally during a reception at the Kremlin. Stalin already told the British generals that Great Britain must have a strong and large land army:

“The entire situation in Europe has changed. England will never be able to rely solely on its fleet…”

Cripps, in general, understands everything and feels a certain moral wrongness. He writes frankly: “…We have never honestly explained our own position to them…” In other words, England was never honest with the USSR during the war, says the ambassador in Moscow!

Winston Churchill discussed this telegram with members of the British government on the night of October 27-28. And on October 28, he sent a fantastically cynical response telegram to Cripps. This is a set of instructions to him as a diplomat — the official British position. Moreover, Churchill, knowing Cripps’s character and understanding that he belonged to a different faction of the British elite, stated that he did not really want to talk about what he was writing publicly, but he was willing to do so if Cripps “gave him out”.

The telegram is also interesting because it contains the exact words that are now repeated by some of our “historians”… well, those who tirelessly call for repentance for all “Stalin’s mistakes in World War II” and in general “for its outbreak”… Read it, it’s just a manual of talking points.
Keep in mind that this is the same Churchill who, on June 22, 1941, publicly said something completely different on the radio! The one who promised to help in every way possible, but so far has not helped at all… because the Germans are at the gates of Moscow, and it seems like this is the end for the Russians… they are to blame for it themselves…

♦️ ♦️ ♦️

A partial text of Stafford Cripps’ telegram to Winston Churchill, October 26, 1941

The complete text of the telegram is not available in English on the Internet. We found the Russian translation containing five paragraphs of the telegram at the Electronic Library of Historical Documents. It is sourced from the 2015 book “The Road to Great Victory. USSR through the eyes of the Western contemporaries: Documents and Materials”, which in turn source archive number “TNA, PREM 3/395/6”. Below we present a reverse translation of the text to English.
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Katyn – a lie that has become history. Why do some Russian politicians continue to repent for everything that our ancestors did not do?

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The article, the translation of which we are presenting here, was written by Yuri Krinitsky and Philip Sorokin, and first published by Military Industrial Courier (WebArchived version) on June 8, 2021 (Issue No. 21 (884)). It was later re-blogged by historian Nikolai Starikov.

“Today Katyn is a propaganda weapon of the Polish establishment in the struggle for political dividends. It uses various methods, including falsifications, lies, and double standards.”

Mikhail Gorbachev’s transfer of the “Special Folder No. 1” to the President of the Republic of Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski

On August 25, 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin said: “Forgive us,” he laid a wreath at the monument to the victims of Katyn in Warsaw. After that, the governments of Russia and Poland agreed on the construction of memorials in Katyn and Mednoye. It would seem that a a mutual rapprochement step has been taken… But over the years, the inaccuracies and falsifications in the “official” (Goebbel-Polish-Gorbachev-Yeltsin) version of the shooting of Poles have become more and more obvious. Especially if both Katyn and Mednoye themes are viewed as a whole.

There are two burials on the territory of Russia, the history of which is deliberately muddled and used for information warfare purposes. One is in the Smolensk region (Katyn forest, Kozye Gory tract), the second is in the Tver (former Kalinin) region, near the village of Mednoye. Polish prisoners of war were shot and laid to rest here in the early 40s of the twentieth century. But there are two fundamentally different opinions about the number of people killed, the date and the perpetrators of the crime.

According to the version of the Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels – which is also the version of the current Polish leadership and the liberal elite of modern Russia – Poles were executed by NKVD officers a year before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. According to the Soviet version, the prisoners did not have time to evacuate during the retreat of the Red Army. They ended up on the territory occupied by German troops, and in the fall of 1941 they were shot by the Nazis.
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The Katyn Schism. Gorbachev and his followers became confounded in repentance

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The article by Yuri Krinitsky and Andrey Romanchenko was published in Military Industrial Courier (WebArchived version ) on May 22, 2018 (Issue No. 19 (732)).

Representatives of the NKVD-NKGB commission and the special commission at the ChGK in Katyn. Photo: 2w.su

The West’s desire to weaken the authority of our country is dragging up to the surface even old disagreements that arose decades ago. In the Katyn tragedy, which any enlightened person knows about today, there are proven and controversial facts. The mass execution of captured Polish officers is generally recognised. But there is uncertainty about the date of the shooting, the number of people killed, and the perpetrators of the crime.

The discussion around these “minor details” has long acquired the character of an information struggle, in which history has become a weapon of politics. But what if, without taking a priori anyone’s position in this dispute, we conduct an uncompromising and independent assessment to what degree the knowledge that exists about the events in the Kozye Gory tract of the Smolensk region is sufficient to identify the true perpetrators of the crime committed there?
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Nuremberg Trials through the eyes of the Soviet caricaturists

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Several of the episodes described in the article Nuremberg at 80: How do you put a death machine on trial? An article reblog were immortalised in the caricatures, drawn by the Soviet caricaturists observing the trials.

The last line of the German-Fascist defence. The defenders at work

A 1945 caricature from the Nuremberg trials by “Kukryniksy”.

In Krokodil issue №6 of 1982, there was a large publication, celebrating the famous Soviet art collective “Kukryniksy” — Mihail Kupriyanov, Porfiry Krylov, Nikolai Sokolov. The publication went under the title “My Veterans”, and featured, among other, excerpts from their book “The Three of Us Together”. Below is one such fragment:
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Nuremberg at 80: How do you put a death machine on trial? An article reblog

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— An article by Evgeny Norin, Russian journalist and historian focused on war and conflict in the former Soviet Union, published at RT.

A courtroom gave the defeated Reich’s leaders a chance to defend themselves – and the world a record of crimes they could no longer conceal

RT composite. © Getty Images

On the night of October 16, 1946, 10 individuals were hanged in the Nuremberg prison. These were the main Nazi criminals who had been captured and brought to trial.

Despite the horrifying scale and brutality of the crimes, the Nuremberg Trials remain one of the most controversial proceedings in world history.

Justice instead of revenge

The idea of an international tribunal to address Nazi atrocities had been considered for some time. In 1942, the Soviet Union established a special Extraordinary Commission that gathered information about these crimes. Tragically, it had a lot of work to do. The USSR became the primary battleground for the bloodiest and most brutal war in Europe.

The range and nature of the crimes committed on Soviet soil were staggering: genocide against multiple peoples, mass killings on various grounds, all sorts of war crimes, deliberate attacks on medical facilities and civilian infrastructure, arbitrary executions, economic exploitation, and sexual violence. Essentially, every town liberated from the Nazis had enough evidence to warrant its own tribunal. When the concentration camps were liberated, it became clear that Allied propaganda had not exaggerated but rather understated the extent of Nazi atrocities.

In addition to the Soviet government, the exiled governments of occupied countries – Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Norway, France, and Yugoslavia – also wanted to hold the Nazis legally accountable for their crimes.

On October 19, 1943, the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers of the Soviet Union, the USA, and Great Britain began, with Vyacheslav Molotov, Cordell Hull, and Anthony Eden.
On October 30, they and the Chinese Ambassador to the USSR, Fu Bingchang, adopted the Declaration of the Four Governments on General Security, proclaiming the determination of the governments of the USA, Great Britain, the USSR, and China “in accordance with the Declaration of the United Nations of January 1, 1942, and subsequent declarations, to continue military actions against those Axis powers with which they are respectively at war until those powers lay down their arms on the basis of unconditional surrender.”
At the initiative of the USSR, on October 30, the Moscow Declaration on the Responsibility of the Hitlerites for Atrocities Committed was adopted.
It contained a warning that “German soldiers and officers and members of the Nazi Party <…> will be sent to the countries where their heinous crimes were committed so that they can be tried and punished according to the laws of these liberated countries.”
The declaration stated that “the Allied powers will surely find them even at the ends of the earth and hand them over to their accusers so that justice may be done.”
The leaders of the Third Reich and other officials, “whose crimes are not connected with a specific geographic location,” were to be handed over to an international tribunal.
Source: Historian Magazine, translated by Beorn And The Shieldmaiden

The outlines of the future tribunal began to take shape in the fall of 1943 during a conference in Moscow attended by the foreign ministers of the ‘Big Three’ – the USSR, the UK, and the US. The three powers agreed that Nazi leaders who committed crimes across multiple nations should be tried by an international court.

At that time, even the idea of lynching Nazi leaders seemed valid. Benito Mussolini was executed along with his mistress by Italian partisans on April 28, 1945, without any trial. Their mutilated bodies were publicly displayed. No one mourned Mussolini; similarly, no one would have objected if a Red Army soldier had shot Hitler.

Mussolini’s corpse hanged at Piazzale Loretto after his execution in Milan in 1945. © Keystone-France / Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

Sporadic acts of vigilante justice also occurred as the war neared its end. A well-known incident involved American soldiers executing the staff of the Dachau concentration camp. Polish troops beat to death Oscar Dirlewanger, the commander of a punitive brigade responsible for countless deaths in Belarus and Poland.

Yet vigilante justice was not what the Allied leaders envisioned.
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Japanese Yasukuni Shrine and what kind of demons worship there

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On October 17, 2026, TASS News Agency reported that Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has sent an offering to the Yasukuni Shinto shrine, which is considered a symbol of militarism in China and several other Asian countries, according to Kyodo news agency.

Takaichi refrained from making a personal visit to the shrine not to create diplomatic problems with South Korea and China, which react sharply to such pilgrimages. The offering was made on the occasion of the traditional autumn festival celebrated at the shrine.

On September 8, 2024, it was the ambassador of Ukranazistan who was worshipping at the Yasukuni Shrine

In a slightly sarcastic post at LiveJournal we could read a bemused description of somewhat of an unreal event, should we have lived in a normal world:

The Ukrainian Embassy in Japan dropped by to the Yasukuni Shrine to worship the “ghosts of fallen soldiers.” (allies of the hitlerites)

There is a memorial in the Yasukuni Shrine to all those who fought for the Third Reich, and occupied China on top of that.

Well, it’s understandable – where else would the Hohols go if there’s no SS march nearby (this is not the Baltics, after all), but for their relations with China this is a veritable control shot in the head. Flowers were laid at the memorial of “employees of detachment 731”, and all that jazz.

And the Chinese went all out with the topic of the visit of the Ukrainian ambassador to Japan – on the date of the end of World War II and the date of remembrance of those killed in China – to the Japanese Yasukuni Shrine, worshipping the Nazi criminals.

Back then, the Ukro-Nazi ambassador to Japan visited the temple just a week after Russian FSB , on August 31, 2024, had declassified certain documents pertaining Detachment 731.

❗The FSB has released a declassified archival document about Japan’s use of bacteriological weapons against Soviet troops during the battles at the Khalkhin-Gol River in late August 1939.

This atrocity was committed by Detachment No. 731 of the Kwantung Army, infamous for its monstrous experiments in infecting people with deadly infections.

By the way, we call it the “Battles of Khalkhin Gol,” Mongolia – the “Khalkhin Gol War”, and Japan called just the “Nomon Khan Incident”.

The atrocities that Detachment 731 committed are too numerous to describe in one publication. Below is an article from “Arumenty i Fakty” about the declassified documents.

The experiment of the killer doctors. Japan used biological weapons against the USSR

The FSB published declassified archival documents stating that at the end of August 1939, Japan used bacteriological weapons against the USSR. The documents contain the protocol of the interrogation of a non-commissioned officer of the Japanese army, who served under the command of Japanese microbiologist Ishii Shiro (photo) near Harbin.

Shiro is a famous Japanese war criminal who conducted experiments on living people while commanding the infamous secret unit “Detachment 731”. Under his command, Japanese doctors infected prisoners with bacteria of deadly diseases, extracted organs from living victims and conducted many other savage experiments. At the same time, most of the fanatical doctors managed to evade responsibility – they were given asylum by Americans who were very interested in the results of their work.

What do the declassified documents say?

The interrogation of senior non-commissioned officer of the Japanese army Hayashi Kazuo was conducted in Morshansk on January 15, 1947. According to his testimony, from October 1938 to February 1941, he served as a treasurer in the Ishii Shiro unit located in the village of Heibo, 30 km south of Harbin. By the unit of “Ishii Shiro”, one obviously means “Detachment 731”, whose direct leader at the time was Shiro.
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Declassified: MI6 Support For Nazi ‘Forest Brothers’, a reblog of Kit Klarenberg’s article, with a follow-up

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First, an article by Kit Klarenberg from October 12, 2025. Make sure to visit Kit’s site and support the author. Then we will round off with the most significant for this case legal update coming from Russia on October 5, 2026.

Lithuanian monument to Viktoras Vitkauskas-Saidokas, Nazi collaborator turned Forest Brother who beheaded a rabbi in June 1941

September 22nd marked “Resistance Fighting Day”. It was on this date in 1944 anti-Communist guerrilla forces in Estonia declared war on the Soviet Union’s local ‘occupation’. Parallel paramilitary factions rapidly formed in neighbouring Latvia and Lithuania. For over a decade, these violent factions – popularly known as the Forest Brothers – waged a brutal, ill-fated insurgency against Soviet authorities. They remain venerated in the region and beyond today as courageous freedom fighters, immortalised by commemorative monuments, street names and statues throughout the Baltic states.

In reality, the vast majority of the tens of thousands of Forest Brothers were Holocaust perpetrators and Nazi collaborators. In many cases, militants joined the movement due to fear of prosecution and punishment for their activities during World War II. While waging their anti-Soviet crusade, the Brothers also murdered thousands of innocent civilians, including many children. However, critical scrutiny of the Forest Brothers’ genocidal legacy is criminalised throughout the Baltics. Academics, journalists and lawyers have been jailed for exposing the truth.

The same legislation moreover prohibits any public discussion (https://www.jpost.com/opinion/lithuania-promotes-a-false-holocaust-narrative-opinion-655487) of how the Jewish populations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were slaughtered in their virtual totality, largely before the Wehrmacht arrived in June 1941 under Operation Barbarossa. Western powers are aggressively complicit in this historical coverup. In July 2017, NATO produced a slick propaganda film heroising the Forest Brothers. Meanwhile, mainstream pundits routinely whitewash Baltic Nazi collaboration, on the risible basis local populations simply sought to resist Communist rule.

There is another core component of the Forest Brothers’ history their advocates at home and abroad are keen to conceal. Namely, the Baltic Nazi guerrilla war was covertly supported financially, materially and practically by MI6. Britain’s foreign spying agency assisted their attempted insurrection by supplying explosives and weapons, infiltrating and exfiltrating agents, and sponsoring assassinations and sabotage attacks. Yet, MI6 records documenting this dark alliance are unforthcoming. Evidence of London’s cloak-and-dagger assistance to the Forest Brothers is provided largely by declassified CIA files.

Lithuanian Forest Brothers pose in the woods, 1945

The documents indicate Langley glommed onto MI6’s secret bond with the Baltic insurgents some time after British intelligence first struck up a relationship with the Forest Brothers, in the precise manner London recruited Nazi-created ‘stay-behind’ units in Ukraine before World War II was even over. It was the CIA’s first covert action targeting the Soviet Union, and the Agency was extremely concerned about its exposure. “Any breaches of security” revealing US involvement would lead “to an immediate cessation of financial support” for the Brothers.
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85 Years Since the Tragedy of Babi Yar: “They Were All Soviet Citizens, Murdered by Fascists”

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Words of remembrance by historian, Yaroslav Listov.

September 29th marks the 85th anniversary of the beginning of mass shootings at the Babi Yar ravine near Kiev. While it has become an exclusive symbol of the Jewish Holocaust in the post-Soviet era, the tragedy that occurred here was deeper, more extensive, and more devastating.

🕯️ The shootings at Babi Yar did not begin with Jews. Just days before the tragedy of September 29-30, 1941, the Nazis murdered 752 patients from the Ivan Pavlov psychiatric hospital, which was located near the ravine. Hundreds of people were shot, unable to escape, hide, or understand what was happening.

🕯️ Then it was Kiev’s turn. On September 29, 1941, an order was posted throughout the city: all Jews were to gather on the outskirts. In two days, approximately 60,000 people were exterminated in the ravines of Babi Yar.

🕯️ Among the victims were tens of thousands of Jews – from the elderly to children of Kiev, but they were not the only victims of fascism. In Babi Yar, partisans, communists, Komsomol members, underground fighters, and prisoners of war – Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Tatars, and people of other nationalities from the vast Soviet Union – were shot. The “factory of death” operated throughout the entire period of German occupation.

🕯️ On January 10, 1942, approximately 100 sailors from the Dniepropetrovsk Detachment of the Pinsk Military Flotilla were executed here. They were driven through the frost naked and barefoot, and they sang «The Internationale» before their deaths.

🕯️ Babi Yar became the site of the execution of five Gypsy camps.

🕯️ Near Babi Yar, the Syrets KZ camp was established, where communists, Komsomol members, underground fighters, prisoners of war, and others were held. At least 25,000 people died there.

An experimental soap factory was set up in Babi Yar to produce soap from the murdered. The Germans did not manage to complete its construction.
Prisoners were used for the most horrific task – burning the corpses. Semyon Berlyant, one of those who worked near the furnaces, testified:

“All of us, 180 people, worked (in Babi Yar) chained in iron. People literally collapsed and could not work. The gendarmerie beat these people with sticks and rifle butts… and shot and burned them in these furnaces.”

⚡️ As they retreated from Kiev and tried to hide their crimes, the Nazis partially destroyed the camp in August-September 1943, digging up and burning tens of thousands of corpses in the open “furnaces.” The bones were crushed in machines brought from Germany, and the ashes were scattered around the area.

⛓️ On the night of September 29, 1943, a rebellion broke out in Babi Yar involving 329 prisoner-of-war inmates who were working near the furnaces. 18 people survived. The remaining 311 were shot.

🗣️ The memories of witnesses are chilling:
Nadezhda Gorbacheva, a resident of Kiev:

“I personally saw Germans throwing infants into the ravine. There were not only those who had been shot in the ravine, but also the wounded, as well as living children. The Germans were burying the ravine, and it was noticeable how a small layer of earth moved from the movement of living people.”

Dina Pronicheva, an actress who miraculously survived:

“I saw women, old people, and children being undressed group by group… They were all led to an open pit, and machine gunners shot them… I saw this horror with my own eyes…
Young people became gray before my eyes.”

Raisa Dashkevich, who lost her entire family:

“The procession was terrifying – a stream of thousands of people doomed to death was moving towards Babi Yar. There was still hope that they would be sent somewhere… but when they were ordered to undress and led to this ravine – our grave – everyone realised that it was the end.”

🕯️ According to various estimates, between 100,000 and 200,000 people were shot in Babi Yar between 1941 and 1943. People of different nationalities. Different views. Different destinies.
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“Mission to Moscow” – The Two Missions of Joseph Davies

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Reading time: 15 minutes

Yesterday we presented at “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” the 1943 film “Mission to Moscow”, along with the contemporary Soviet review. We are bringing this review here, followed by a translation of one chapter, speaking of the book and how the film came to be, titled “The Two Missions of Joseph Davies” from a book by Lev Ashotovich Balayan, simply called “Stalin”.

The following review, written by N.Krugkov was published in the Soviet Red Army newspaper “Red Star” on July 30, 1943. The film in question is possibly one of the two truthful films about the USSR, coming from Hollywood, the other one being “Why We Fight: The Battle of Russia”.

«Mission to Moscow»

A new American film

Mr. Davies, the former United States Ambassador to our country, has published a book called “Mission to Moscow”. The book was a great success. It described the events leading up to the war in the language of facts and documents. The factual nature of the book, written with a sharp pen of a publicist, created its success. For the American reader, who was poorly informed about the USSR and European affairs, Davies’ book was in many ways a revelation.

Director Michael Curtiz created a movie based on the book by Joseph Davis. Of course, it was not an easy task. Davies’ book, which is a political document, did not pretend to be artistic in its presentation, it is entirely factual, and seemingly plotless. However, the events described in it are so dramatic, so close to us, people experiencing the storms and tempests of the World War, that they fit neatly within the script and allowed to create a film that makes a great impression.

Of course, to us, the Soviet people, a lot of things in the picture seem naive and sometimes even funny. Russia, apparently, remains an exotic country in the eyes of Americans, and the desire to convey to the viewer the uniqueness of the country clearly dominates the direction.

Therefore, the film carefully emphasises the shots designed, according to the authors, to show Russian exoticism. Of course, the film features a mighty-sized samovar, some bearded people dancing “hopak” at a skating rink, a sled painted with flowers, and so on. All this makes our audience smile involuntarily. But at the same time, we see the efforts of the film’s authors to show our factories built during Stalin’s five-year plans, our endless collective farm fields and our new people — energetic and courageous builders and creators of a new life.

J. Davis went to Germany before coming to the USSR. He saw the stupid German military, heard the roar of drums, the incessant brass roar of military marches, children beating the goose step, a rampant, muzzled Germany, a country where preparations for war were going on at a furious pace, where everything was trembling under Hitler’s heel.

— Tin soldiers, he said of the Germans.

And so he crossed the border: a new world, the USSR. The lively people, the ease of communication, the smiles on their faces, even the air was different, clean and fresh, and the Americans who arrived immediately felt free and simple.

This noticeable difference between the two countries is perfectly captured in the picture.

The Soviet and foreign chronicles abundantly presented in the film give the picture a documentary character, making up for what could not be done in the studio, making you feel the pulse of authentic life.

The film says: The USSR is a great country, inspired by high common and social ideals, inhabited by courageous, energetic and talented people.

The film shows political figures of the USSR and other countries. The direction did not achieve an exact similarity of images — neither in external nor in internal expression. It was satisfied with the conditional similarity, the sketchy outlines. However, even actor Walter Huston, who plays the role of Davis, did not strive to accurately reproduce the image of his character.

Some events in the film are shifted in time, apparently in order to develop the plot more dynamically, but this does not deprive the film of truthfulness, because it is based on actual facts, real events.

We see and feel the ardent desire of the film’s authors to honestly comprehend and reflect the life of our fatherland — they have succeeded in many things, some have failed — but in any case, we can rightfully say: This is the voice of our overseas friends.

The Soviet Union, which bore the brunt of the Hitlerite horde that threatened to incinerate the whole world, attracted the sympathies of all advanced humanity with its courageous struggle. America, which is fighting alongside us, has feelings of recognition and respect for the Soviet people. The film “Mission to Moscow” expresses these feelings.

You are about to read a chapter from Lev Ashotovich Balayan’s book “Stalin”. After Lev Balayan’s passing, the book was made public domain by his son, Yan Bayalan, at the site stalin.su between 2003 and 2015. The site itself is now available through the WebArchive. The book can also be found at LitLife Club.

The Two Missions of Joseph Davies

The bestseller of the 40s

Davies and Stalin in May of 1943

At the end of 1941, Joseph Davies’s book “Mission to Moscow” was published in the United States of America. This man was the US ambassador to the USSR, or rather, Franklin Roosevelt’s personal envoy to the Soviet capital, where he arrived with a very specific mission: to obtain an audience with Stalin, to deeply study and analyse the internal political situation in the Soviet Union and its foreign policy, as well as to gather information on the defence capability of our country. Davies’s work as U.S. Ambassador to the USSR lasted from January 1937 to the spring of 1938, that is it fell on the peak of “political repression”, and therefore F.Roosevelt’s personal envoy and his testimonies about the events that took place at that time, as well as his book itself, are of great interest. It is not for nothing that President Roosevelt left this inscription on his personal copy of the “Mission to Moscow: “This book is a phenomenon, it is for all times.”
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Fritzes of This Summer

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Reading time: 5 minutes

Before you is the first part of an article written by Ilya Ehrenburg, and published in “Red Star” on July 30, 1943.

The face of fascism never changes, nor its dynamics. Today, totally mobilised Ukrainians are in the same shape and form as the “Total Fritzes”, the brainwashed youths of Ukraine are just as brainwashed as were their German predecessors. And Tigers… where are the vaunted Leopard II and Challengers, that were supposed to have become the “game-changers”? Article first translated to “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

Voluntarily mobilised Ukrainians are being sent to the front in a fully demoncratic fashion.

“Tigers” and Germans, who were conscripted into military service in February-March of this year on “total mobilisation”, are the highlights of the German season.

“Tigers” have been described more than once. I will try to describe the Total Fritzes. I saw them coming out of the woods, raising their hands in the air. I talked to them before they had time to put their feelings in order and find decent formulations. Total Fritzes were the last to arrive at the front, but they are the first to surrender.

In 1943, after the defeat at Stalingrad, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels cried for “Total War” and “Total Mobilisation”.
Here, Adolf Hitler is “vacuuming” the streets of Germany in search of fresh soldiers, as so aptly depicted by the Soviet artist Boris Yefimov.
The non-elected puppet Führer of Ukraine, Volodomyr Zelensky, is now doing the same thing 80 years later to provide fresh cannon fodder for his western masters.
Source: Beorn And The Shieldmaiden

Here’s a middle-aged, sad German. The military uniform does not give him a military appearance. Until March, Heinrich Sturman lived in Emden and was considered “irreplaceable”. But the Germans are masters at substitutions: a French prisoner of war replaced Heinrich Sturman. The latter was sent to the marching battalion. The training lasted two months. Heinrich Sturman learned how to shoot a rifle. He did not venture close to either a machine gun or a mortar. On July 14, he arrived at the front line. The day was quite noisy, and the music unpleasantly surprised the Total Fritz. However, even in Emden he had become unaccustomed to silence. He says that three-quarters of his city was destroyed by British bombs, but he adds: “But there were shelters there after all…” And here Heinrich Sturman found himself in a field. He climbed into a small hole. From the excess of impressions, he fell ill with dysentery. He sat in the hole, not moving, for two days. Our fighters had gone past him a long time ago, and Total Fritz was still squatting. He was discovered by our signalmen.

I’ve seen a lot of such warriors. The harvest of total mobilisation gave Hitler very mediocre soldiers. Here they are both weak-witted, and blind-sighted, and fingerless. Forty-year-old Fritzes are not suitable for the “eastern campaign”. These are mostly asthmatic, hemorrhoidal, gouty townspeople. They were afraid to sit on the grass in a German park, so as not to catch a cold. It is easy to imagine what they are going through in the Bryansk forests.

Total Fritzes are poorly trained. In the diary of the commander of the 32nd sapper battalion, Gerhardt, whom I mentioned, there is the following assessment of the replenishment: “The marching battalion is indescribably bad. They have no bearing, and they don’t understand anything.”
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«Fritz in Russia»

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Reading time: 4 minutes

A caricature series by Boris Yefimov from the 1943 book “Hitler and His Pack”. The series consists of 12 frames and covers the first year of Fritz’ stay in Russia. First published at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

Let’s take a closer look at each frame!


1.
— Dear Martha, I’m not saying good-bye, because I’m going to come back in a month. The Fuhrer said that the war would last three weeks. I’ll spend a week in Moscow shops, and then head right back home…
— See you soon, Fritz!.. Remember that the size of my shoes is 38…



2.
— Dear Martha! Russians are a dark and uncultured people who do not know foreign languages. Judging by yesterday, they simply did not read Goebbels’ statement that they no longer have airplanes, guns and tanks… Your Fritz. July 1941.

⚡️⚡️⚡️

🦇 At this point we had to take a break for laughing, as the second frame came to us in Ursula von der Lying’s voice of 2022…

⚡️⚡️⚡️

“Tomorrow we will be corpses”
— A German testimony from an article in Historian Magazine.

General Günther Blumentritt, who in 1941 was chief of staff of the 4th Infantry Army, recalled after the war:

“With astonishment and disappointment, we watched the Russians in late October and early November, realising that they did not seem to care that their main forces had been defeated. During these weeks, the enemy’s resistance only intensified, and the battles became more fierce with each passing day.”



3.
— The weather is hot here. An athlete has awakened in me, and sometimes I run at night, on both short and long distances.… It’s called a marathon steeplechase and without pants. Your Fritz. August 1941.



4.
— Yesterday, I participated in a very fierce attack. Be calm, Martha, your Fritz remains unharmed. If you could have heard how our enemies were running around, how they were trying in vain to get into the air, how I grabbed my opponent along with the guano… that is, with a gun… Your brave husband Fritz. September 1941.


5.
…Russian nature is very picturesque. I am writing to you, sitting in a large birch grove. Many of my friends liked this place so much that they decided to stay here permanently… Fritz. October 1941.


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