In the summer of 1943, the German army discovered war crimes committed by the Soviet Union in the Katyn Forest. A large number of Polish officers and other people were massacred in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk.

 　In the summer of 1943, the Germans discovered Soviet war crimes in the Katyn Forest. In the Katyn Forest outside Smolenks, Polish officers and others were massacred in great numbers. In 1940, the Soviet authorities ordered the secret burial of the slain victims of the Katyn Forest massacre.

　　The Katyn massacre was a mass murder of Poles by the Soviet Union during World War II. The Soviet secret police (NKVD) massacred about 22,000 Polish prisoners of war in the Katyn Forest, about 20 km from Smolensk By April 1990, the Gorbachev regime had accepted Soviet responsibility.

　　In April-May 1940, about 22,000 Poles were massacred by Soviet troops in the Katyn Forest (now Smolensk, Russia). The victims were mainly captured Polish soldiers, police, doctors, teachers, scientists, engineers, and journalists.

　　After the German invasion of Poland, Poland was divided between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany occupied western Poland, while the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland until the Axis powers invaded the Soviet Union at the end of June 1941 By June 1941, the Soviets had already arrested 500,000 Poles. Throughout World War II, at least 150,000 Poles were massacred by Soviet forces on Polish soil.

　　The exhumation, examination, and identification of the bodies of Polish officers by the Germans was completed on June 7, 1943, and the German police made their final report on June 10. The Katyn forest was the execution site in 1925 for those condemned to death by the Soviet NKVD and others. Excavations in the forest area invariably revealed Russian corpses, both male and female, in mass graves. Without exception, the cause of death was a shot to the back of the neck. They were prisoners of the NKVD prison in Smolensk, and the majority were political prisoners.