“4. In connection with the deterioration, for Germany, of the general military and political machinery at the beginning of 1943, the German occupational authorities, with a view to provoking incidents, undertook a whole series of measures to ascribe their own misdeeds to organizations of the Soviet authorities, in order to make mischief between the Russians and the Poles.
“5. For these purposes:
“a. The German fascist invaders, by persuasion, attempts at bribery, threats, and by barbarous tortures, endeavored to find ‘witnesses’ among the Soviet citizens from whom they obtained false testimony, alleging that the Polish prisoners of war had been shot by organizations of the Soviet authorities in the spring of 1940.
“b. The German occupational authorities, in the spring of 1943, brought from other places the bodies of Polish prisoners of war whom they had shot, and laid them in the turned up graves of Katyn Forest with the dual purpose of covering up the traces of their own atrocities and of increasing the numbers of ‘victims of Bolshevist atrocities’ in Katyn Forest,
“c. While preparing their provocative measures, the German occupational authorities employed up to 500 Russian prisoners of war for the task of digging up the graves in Katyn Forest. Once the graves had been dug, the Russian prisoners of war were shot by the Germans in order to destroy thus all proof and material evidence on the matter.
“6. The date of the legal and medical examination determined, without any shadow of doubt:
“a. That the time of shooting was autumn 1941.
“b. The application by the German executioners, when shooting Polish prisoners of war, of the identical method—a pistol shot in the nape of the neck—as used by them in the mass murders of the Soviet citizens in other towns, especially in Orel, Voronetz, Krasnodar and in Smolensk itself.”
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recess.