Germany’s surrender on May 8, 1945, eight days after the suicide of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, ended the war in Europe over 64 years ago.  But although the Allies – led by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union – had fought vigorously to defeat the aggressive German state, the Soviets did not enter the war opposing the Nazi-led Axis powers.  This was a frequent source of trouble for Soviet-era historians, who were often placed in the role of storytellers tasked with weaving a narrative of the Russian involvement in World War II that contained enough truth to be credible while still promoting communist ideals and the glory of Stalin’s war machine.

Are contemporary Russian historians being placed in that same ethical dilemma?  A recent paper issued by the Russian Ministry of Defense which suggests that Poland, not Germany, is responsible for starting World War II is one sign that just such a campaign is underway to polish historical revisions that may have been wearing thin.

According to The Telegraph of London’s article from Thursday:

The Russian defence ministry posted a potentially inflammatory essay on its website which claimed Poland resisted Germany’s ultimatums in 1939 only because it “wanted to obtain the status of a great power”.

The lengthy diatribe, which is unlikely to be welcomed in Warsaw, also lashed out at Britain and France for giving the Poles “delusions of grandeur” by promising to intercede if the Nazis invaded.

“Anyone who has been minded to study the history of the Second World War knows it started because of Poland’s refusal to meet Germany’s requests,” the statement read. “The German demands were very modest. You could hardly call them unfounded.”

Appearing to take Germany’s demands at face value, the defence ministry insisted that the Nazis were interested only in building transport links across the Polish Corridor to East Prussia and assuming control of Gdansk, which had been designated as a free city at the time.

Western historians largely recognise that if Poland would have lost its independence had it acceded to the demands, pointing to Hitler’s policies of Lebensbraum and the creation of a Greater Germany as evidence.

For those whose Russian is up to snuff, the website of the Russian defense ministry’s “History: Against the Lie and the Falsification” [loose translation – ed.] commission can be accessed via http://www.mil.ru/940/25260/index.shtml.  The complete texts (in original Russian) can be downloaded there, and they are not currently available in any other language.

The paper may be an initial product of the commission created in May by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for the purpose of ‘correcting’ negative impressions of the country that went through multiple political upheavals in the last century.  The 28-member commission, according to the decree signed by Medvedev, is tasked with investigating “the falsification of historical facts and events aimed to disparage the international prestige of the Russian Federation,” according to a piece filed by ABC News.

Medvedev’s predecessor and current Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, is also drafting legislation that would make criticizing the Soviet role in World War II a crime punishable by a sentence of up to three years in prison.

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