At a recent commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, Vladimir Putin admitted the Soviet Union’s role in initiating the conflict, but deflected blame by criticizing the West.

In fact, the Russian intelligence service, the SVR, presented declassified documents allegedly proving Poland played a role in starting the war, in essence participated in the invasion of itself as executed by the Nazis on September 1, 1939 and the Soviets some 17 days later.

Putin did not elaborate on the intimate Nazi-Soviet collaboration once Poland had been invaded and occupied by the two totalitarian regimes. The previous article described the assistance and advice given by the Nazis to the Red Army prior to the massacre of Polish officers and civilian authorities, too embarrassing for Putin to acknowledge. Putin also avoided mentioning the approximately 4,000 individuals of Jewish descent handed over to the Nazis for their disposition.

The friendship between the two regimes went further than military and intelligence cooperation. On December 26, 1939 Joseph Stalin thanked Joachim Von Ribbentrop (Hitler’s representative) for his warm birthday wishes and pointed out that their joint spilling of blood had strengthened German-Soviet friendship.

NKVD – Gestapo cooperation went further than just line operations. A joint training center was established in the Polish city of Zakopane. In March of 1940 the personnel of the Main Security Office of the Third Reich and the staff of the NKVD meet to discuss a wide range of topics.

By the summer of 1940 the NKVD handed over to the Nazis more than 4,000 individuals, including families of those arrested in the Soviet Union and also executed German communists.

On the military front German and Soviet forward units exchanged special communications officers.

Military pomp and circumstance were also handled jointly. In Brest, Grodno and other Polish towns special military parades were held before Warsaw’s capitulation. In both Brest and Grodno Soviet Corps commanders and German generals jointly took the pass in review as partnered commanders.

At a joint meeting in December of 1939 in Zakopane, Poland, the NKVD made a proposal of a network of secret Communist agent provocateurs on Nazi held territory to penetrate the authentic Polish underground with information culled going both to the Gestapo and the NKVD. The plan was implemented and resulted in the capture and execution of numerous Polish underground leaders. This network of agents provocateurs was later transformed into the Polish Workers’ Party and thence into the Communist Party in Poland. Thus the bogus resistance helped in the liquidation of the authentic resistance and became Moscow’s partner in holding Poland as a captive nation. It is obvious why this topic would be anathema to Putin.

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