RT’s Donald Courter dives into newly declassified FSB documents, uncovering how the USSR hunted down and prosecuted Nazi war criminals after World War II 📂🎖️.
From intelligence operations to courtroom justice, these revelations shed light on a determined effort to hold fascist leaders accountable ⚔️📜.
History’s hidden chapter — now exposed.
#FSB #WWIIJustice #NaziCrimes #DeclassifiedDocuments #USSRHistory #WarCriminals #PostWWII #JusticeServed #RTNews #DonaldCourter #HistoricalRevelations #SovietJustice #WWIISecrets #FSBArchives #ColdWarHistory #HistoryUncovered #WWIICrimes #NazisOnTrial #RedArmyLegacy #TruthFromThePast
From intelligence operations to courtroom justice, these revelations shed light on a determined effort to hold fascist leaders accountable ⚔️📜.
History’s hidden chapter — now exposed.
#FSB #WWIIJustice #NaziCrimes #DeclassifiedDocuments #USSRHistory #WarCriminals #PostWWII #JusticeServed #RTNews #DonaldCourter #HistoricalRevelations #SovietJustice #WWIISecrets #FSBArchives #ColdWarHistory #HistoryUncovered #WWIICrimes #NazisOnTrial #RedArmyLegacy #TruthFromThePast
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NewsTranscript
00:00Throughout and after the Second World War, thousands of Nazi war criminals used every
00:04means at their disposal to escape justice.
00:07And here at the headquarters of Russia's Federal Security Service, historical documents are
00:11being declassified showing just how the Soviet Union worked to bring those criminals to justice.
00:18All of the cases are labelled as having no statute of limitations.
00:22From the very start of the war, security agencies documented Nazi crimes in occupied
00:28territory.
00:29They were tasked with collecting testimonies, documents and information given by locals
00:33and those units that ventured out beyond the front line.
00:36In 1945, 80 years ago, the first list of wanted servicemen was published.
00:41It numbers several thousand people and briefly details who was responsible and where their
00:45crimes were committed.
00:46This work continued until the 1980s as these crimes have no statute of limitations.
00:51To verify the information, you look here in the collection.
00:54For example, Colonel Stoltzer led sabotage and terrorist activities against the Soviet
00:59Union during the war.
01:00The FSB had prepared an archival criminal case on him where his criminal activity is confirmed
01:05with his own confessions and the testimonies of other people.
01:08He personally recruited agents who would be sent into the Soviet Union.
01:12He used German agents and prominent Ukrainian nationalists.
01:15Some of those named in the list were identified abroad.
01:18It's significant. A number of them assisted the Nazi regime and at the end of the war found themselves
01:23in the US and UK. Both the British and the Americans offered such people the opportunity
01:28to continue their work in either the British or American special services. In effect, the
01:32Cold War was being prepared. Some of these people were made an offer which I understand they
01:37could not refuse. Accordingly, they moved abroad. In general, SS members had specific tattoos.
01:44Some people could be identified by them, but they found out and tried to remove them.
01:48SS members normally had their tattoos in similar places on their bodies, so those areas were
01:53scrutinised more. And if there were any signs of removal, that person was brought to the
01:57attention of security services. It was immensely painstaking work and took years. It all had
02:03to be double checked several times, supplemented, clarified and only then could the search for
02:07a particular person begin. Initially, the search for a particular person could begin even
02:11without the knowledge of their surname. They just knew that a certain person was acting
02:15in a certain place. Someone saw him. Someone could describe him. Then there was a person
02:20who could add more to the story, characterise him or say where he was from. Then they tried
02:25to look for him according to his place of birth or some of his relatives were identified and
02:30they could tell us something more detailed. This was very difficult work, but as there was
02:34no statute of limitations, it could be carried out over many decades.
02:39Many of these Nazi war criminals ended up fleeing to the West to escape justice. Some of them
02:43continued to live in the Soviet Union, trying to reintegrate using fake names and identities.
02:50Some of them even went on to win government awards without people even understanding anything
02:55about their previous crimes. That's why it was so important to keep accurate information
03:00about the suspects in question. Like these documents we have here are actually part of what was called
03:05the Krasnodar process, which was an initiative by the Soviet government to capture and track down
03:12some of these war criminals before World War II even ended.
03:16Here is one of these newly declassified documents with some of the people in question. For example,
03:22here it says Timoshenko VP. This was someone who was part of the Krasnodar Gestapo.
03:28Here Puskaryov, another member of the Krasnodar Gestapo. So these are people that ended up serving
03:36in these German military Nazi party formations on Soviet territory.
03:44Here we have some historical photographs of these actual crimes that were committed by these Nazis that
03:49were being hunted down by the Soviet Union. Here we can see in Russian the descriptions of what these
03:56photos are showing. Here this is Soviet children that were killed as a result of fascist bombings of their area.
04:05And over here we can see the Russian also talks about how these were a war, prisoners of war that were tortured and these are the skeletons,
04:16the remains of those prisoners of war that we're looking at here. Also here, corpses of Soviet prisoners of war
04:24that were tortured by the German invaders.
04:29The Krasnodar Trial Against War Criminals is an example of a successful criminal investigation in a front-line zone.
04:38There were a number of accomplices to the occupiers, former Soviet citizens who went to serve in the Sonderkommando.
04:45These materials show that immediately after the liberation of territory in the Krasnodar region, Soviet security bodies were able to detain active members of the Sonderkommando 10A, which took part in countering the partisan movement in this
04:59area and in the persecution of civilians. Their hands are stained with the blood of thousands of people.
05:05These are the accomplices who drove the cars, the so-called gas vans, which used exhaust fumes to slaughter people.
05:13In the run-up to the trial there was active discussion between Stalin and the anti-Hitler coalition allies about when and how and whom to try among the Nazi criminals.
05:24The Western countries, first of all the UK, were in favor of judging at the end of the war.
05:29And Stalin argued that we can do justice even in the course of the conflict.
05:33And by example, with this trial we proved we were able to conduct large trials.
05:38These were public events. All foreign journalists who were in the Soviet Union at that time were invited.
05:45Each of the defendants had a lawyer. There were witnesses. All the international rules of due process were respected.
05:52The beginning of the Cold War had a significant impact on the mutual extradition of Nazi criminals.
05:58In the first months after the war was over, the process of mutual extradition, regulated by documents that were assigned by the allies, was quite active.
06:07Many of those who should have been in the dark for their atrocities were turned into instruments of the Cold War and became figures of various anti-Soviet formations.
06:16For example, the anti-Bolshevik bloc of nations created in 1946.
06:22The bloc was aimed at the collapse of the Soviet Union by means of ethnicity.
06:27Members of this organization were representatives of various peoples, most of whom fought in the Nazi national SS legions.
06:34Most of the members of this anti-Bolshevik bloc, which existed until 1991, were eligible for execution, but since the bloc, financed by Western countries, was used to fight against the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there could be no question of extradition or persecution.
06:52The anti-Bolshevik bloc of nations had anti-Soviet, or as it is now called, Rosophobic ideology, which they transferred to their family and it all went on.
07:03And I do not rule out that it is their descendants who now go to our embassy with banners and Ukrainian flags.
07:10Over 80 years have passed since the end of World War II, and the hunt for these Nazi war criminals continues with the unfortunate reemergence of neo-Nazi ideology in Ukraine and the truth of what happened during the war fading from living memory.
07:25The work of Russia's counterintelligence services is more relevant than ever.
07:30Donald Corder, RT, Lubyanka, Moscow.