Nine documents were declassified and published on the Russian FSB (Federal Security Service) website on 1 June 2024, the International Day for the Protection of Children. The documents will be translated and published on this site over the coming weeks. The following is a translation of the introductory FSB article. Subsequent translated documents will beContinueContinue reading “RUSSIAN FSB PUBLISHES DECLASSIFIED WW2 DOCUMENTS ON GERMAN TRAINING OF ORPHANED SOVIET CHILDREN TO CONDUCT ACTS OF SABOTAGE”
Category Archives: World War Two
Coded Telegram to Moscow on Meeting Between Maksim Litvinov and FDR the Day After the Attack on Pearl Harbor
On 8 December 1941, new Soviet Ambassador to the United States Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov met with US President Franklin Roosevelt to present same with his credentials and address the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The following is an English translation of the coded telegram penned by Litvinov that day (sent to Moscow on 10 December).ContinueContinue reading “Coded Telegram to Moscow on Meeting Between Maksim Litvinov and FDR the Day After the Attack on Pearl Harbor”
Former WWII German Sailor Passes Classified Minesweeping Document to Soviets under British Noses
In today’s translation of an undated Russian document, Osip Borisovich Bron (1896-1988), head of the Department of Theoretical Foundations of Electrical Engineering at the Leningrad Institute of Aviation Instrumentation, related the story of the Soviet Navy’s post-war quest for a rumored instruction on how to properly sweep for German mines, and British efforts to thwartContinueContinue reading “Former WWII German Sailor Passes Classified Minesweeping Document to Soviets under British Noses”
Russian FSB Publishes Declassified Archival Materials About Hitler’s Last Days
An announcement was made on 27 April 2023 that the Russian FSB’s Public Relations Center has published declassified documents from the investigation file stored in the FSB archives for the Novgorod Region regarding Adolf Hitler’s personal pilot, SS Gruppenführer and Police Lieutenant General Hans Bauer. Along with the documents of Baur himself, the investigation fileContinueContinue reading “Russian FSB Publishes Declassified Archival Materials About Hitler’s Last Days”
1971 Ukrainian KGB Report Documents Grisly Discovery of Ukrainian Mass Burial Site in Bykvinya
The following is a declassified Secret report filed by Vitaliy Fedorchuk, at the time the Chairman of the Ukrainian Committee for State Security, regarding the discovery of the now infamous mass grave site in Bykvinya, near Kyiv. Following up on the news that a number of juveniles had unearthed gold dental work and skeletal humanContinueContinue reading “1971 Ukrainian KGB Report Documents Grisly Discovery of Ukrainian Mass Burial Site in Bykvinya”
New Declassified Soviet Documents Published Commemorating the Liberation of Prague
The Russian Federation Ministry of Defense announced on 21 May the release of a substantial cache of freshly declassified documents relating to the liberation of Prague via its multimedia website, using a number of documents from the Ministry’s seemingly endless Central Archive. The website, entitled “…И Прага была спасена. Не вправе забыть, переписать, исказить” […AndContinueContinue reading “New Declassified Soviet Documents Published Commemorating the Liberation of Prague”
1955 Top Secret Soviet Documents on Plans to Repatriate WW2 POWs
The following set of documents wас published in the book “Военнопленные в СССР 1939-1956” [‘Prisoners of War in the USSR 1939-1956’], a joint venture of the Volgograd State Institute’s Scientific Research Institute of Problems of the Economic History of the 20th Century, the Russian Federal Archive Service, the Russian Federation State Archive, and the StorageContinueContinue reading “1955 Top Secret Soviet Documents on Plans to Repatriate WW2 POWs”
New Declassified Documents Published Marking the Liberation of Poland
The Russian Federation Ministry of Defense announced today (7 May) that it has created a new web portal commemorating the liberation of Poland, using a number of documents from the Ministry’s voluminous Central Archive. The site, entitled “Освобождение Польши: Помнит, нельзя забыть!” [The Liberation of Poland: Remember, Never Forget!], provides a multimedia walkthrough of aContinueContinue reading “New Declassified Documents Published Marking the Liberation of Poland”
New Declassified Documents Online Commemorating the Liberation of Hungary
The Russian Federation Ministry of Defense today published a number of recently declassified documents commemorating events leading up to and involving the February 1945 liberation of Hungary by Soviet Red Army forces. The multimedia portal, titled “Hungary Remembers and Cannot Forget,” appears to cover a number of events throughout the 50-day siege of Nazi-occupied Budapest.ContinueContinue reading “New Declassified Documents Online Commemorating the Liberation of Hungary”
Details of Publication of New Collection of WW2 Documents
On 9 March 2021, Вести Тула (Tula News) reported the publication of a new volume in the series “Без срока давности” [No Statute of Limitations], part of an ongoing effort to collect and declassify records documenting crimes and atrocities committed during the Great Patriotic War against non-combatants by occupying Nazi forces and their accomplices. TheContinueContinue reading “Details of Publication of New Collection of WW2 Documents”
Translating History 