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One of the thing Stalin ORDERED was that as many Germans as possible had to be removed from what was to be Poland in 1945 i.e. everything East of the Oder River. Many of the Ethnic Germans left before the Russian Army took over the area, but many stayed and were removed by the Russian Army itself.
Now I do NOT see these people being killed off by the Poles, even Poles from the area for most Poles did NOT have the means to do so (The Germans had strictly restricted weapons in this area). The Germans had no reason to kill Poles in 1945 (Even the killings in the Death Camps tend to end as 1944 became 1945 do to the final breakdown of the German Economy in early 1945 do to the Soviet onslaught in early 1945). Thus that leaves the Russians. If a group of Germans refused to leave with the Germans and then under pressure of the Russians, I see some Russian unit, seeking revenge for the atrocities the Germans did in Russian between 1941 and 1944, the ongoing fight to the death between the German Army and the Soviet Army, Pressure from Stalin to "Solve" the ethnic problems of the pre WWII Polish Corridor (German Populated but part of Poland) I can see such an "small" execution taking place, more to scare other Germans into leaving then anything else (The stripping of clothes would be the result of how desperate the Russian Army was in supplies, the Soldiers taking the clothes off the bodies for their own use to keep warm). The reason it was secret was do to Stalin's other order to avoid killing Civilians AND to cover up the stealing of the clothes. Thus this smacks of being a one time execution do by a unit told to get German to move back to Germany and refusing to do so. At the same time the unit was under orders NOT to harm Civilians AND suffering from a shortage of winter Clothing. Thus the people were executed, the story was spread to other villages but once that was done the bodies were dumped into a grace and the whole incident Covered up.
I always like Patton's famous Order (Paraphrased from memory), which went this way: "In war rapes occur, I want all and any report of such rapes brought to my attention so the offending soldier can be shot". Bad incidents occur in any war by every army, the issue is how that army handles such incidents, does it cover it up? does it punish the offender? does it deny it happen? The Soviet Army seems to have done #2, i.e. Covered it up, for given the Soviet Tactics of the time period, the Soldiers who did the killing were probably dead from combat by the time Stalin heard about the incident (And Stalin was a detailed oriented person, so he would have heard about it, unlike Hitler who avoided details completely, thus there is little evidence Hitler knew about the Death Camps for their were a mere detail he habitually ignored, but the fact that the Jews were being killed he knew and encouraged, just a comment on one of the chief differences between Hitler and Stalin, both ruthless dictators, but one lost his dictatorship through losing a war, the other dieing of nature causes).
Thus this was probably a Soviet Red Army massacre, not approved by higher command, but a war crime none the less, but one that has to be directed at the people who did the crime, through we can put blame on those in higher command who put the men into a situation that a war crime seemed to them to be the best solution to the problem facing them (To different this was the German policy of not only permitting such massacres, but encouraging them when it came to the people and the Army of the Soviet Union).
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