Katyn Commission

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International Katyn Commission

Leonardo Conti, Reich Health Leader, (right) holds the Report of the International Katyn Commission, 4 May 1943, in front of Dr. Ferenc Orsós from the University of Budapest. Centre, Professor Louis Speleers of the Ghent University in Belgium. Eduard Miloslavić, Croatian professor of pathology, is the 4th person from left
Date	April and May 1943
Location	Katyn, Kalinin and Kharkiv
Also known as	Katyn Commission
Cause	Mass murder

The Katyn Commission or the International Katyn Commission was a committee formed in April 1943 under request by Germany to investigate the Katyn massacre of some 22,000 Polish nationals during the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland, mostly prisoners of war from the invasion of Poland including Polish Army officers, intelligentsia, civil servants, priests, police officers and numerous other professionals. Their bodies were discovered in a series of large mass graves in the forest near Smolensk in Russia following Operation Barbarossa.^[1]

An international commission of experts in anatomy and forensic pathology were brought in from 11 countries in Europe, predominantly from Nazi Germany's allied or occupied states.^[2][3] The Commission concluded that the Soviet Union had been responsible for the massacre. Consequently, the German government made extensive reference to the massacre in its own propaganda in an attempt to drive a political wedge between the Allies of World War II.^[4] The severing of relations between the Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet Union was a direct result of Polish support for the investigation.^[5]

The Soviets denied their responsibility for the crime immediately, and their Extraordinary State Commission was tasked with falsifying documents and forensic science in order to reverse the blame and charged Germany with the crime.^[6][7]