On my return to Italy I found a letter awaiting me at Ancona from a Dr. Stahmer, dated May 17, 1946, saying :
In my capacity of counsel for the defence in the Nuremberg trial of war criminals, representing the former Field-Marshal Hermann
Goering, I wish to approach you with the following request.
The matter concerned is the great war crime known to the world by the name of " Katyn ", which was included in the Nuremberg trial by the Russian representatives who accused the German Armed Forces of the said crime. The defence, however, being convinced that " Katyn ' was not a German war crime, oppose it by submitting considerable evidence.
I considered that it would be possible to shed light on this historic facts by availing ourselves of the experiences and facts known to you, General. I do not know whether in the circumstances you would wish to give your experiences and the facts to the defence in the Nuremberg Trial. If you would then certainly you would deserve the gratitude of history.
In accordance with the above, my request aims at obtaining from you for the German defence all the facts which you would consider essential for the study of this historic fact, and also if it is possible the names of further persons and other evidence which would help to obtain the truth about the Katyn murder.
I should be grateful if you would inform me of your decision, even should it be negative, as to the possibility of a statement on the Katyn murder.
For DR. OTTO STAHMER
(Sgd.) Dr. Kauffman
So once again the murder of thousands of Polish officers who had been Russian prisoners of war was brought
to the notice of the world, though a long time had passed since April 1943, when the German authorities made public their discoveries in the Katyn Forest, and the Soviet Government, incensed at the Polish request for an impartial enquiry by the International Red Cross, made the occasion a pretext to break off relations. It was clearly my duty to give evidence to the truth, but equally clearly I could not do so at the direct request of the German counsel for the war criminals. I could, however, do so at the request of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Therefore I ordered to be sent to Colonel J. L. Tappin of the Liaison Section, G.H.Q., CM.F., this letter :
General Anders has asked me to send you the enclosed copy of a letter he has received from Goering�s defending counsel, Dr. Otto Stahmer, at Nuremberg. In the letter counsel asks for any documentary evidence concerning the Katyn Forest crime, as he writes that he is convinced that it was not a German war crime.
In no way does General Anders want either to correspond with him or to put himself in the position of a defence witness for Goering. On the other hand General Anders is in possession of a considerable number of documents concerning the affair, but he will only agree to give these documents to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg at their express written and official request.
General Anders asks that A.F.H.Q. should answer the letter from the Defending counsel.
E. LUBOMIRSKI, Captain
[ 9th July 1946. ]
To this letter A.F.H.Q. made no reply. I did not even know whether A.F.H.G. had approached the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
In the arraignment in Berlin in October 1945, which afterwards became the basis for the Nuremberg trial, the German war criminals were charged with the Katyn murder —� In September 1941, 11,000 Polish officers, prisoners of
war, were murdered in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk �— . . . the crime came before the Nuremberg tribunal at the beginning of July . . . [W]hen sentence was pronounced on September 30 and October 1, the Katyn crime was omitted from the counts of murder and ill-treatment of prisoners of war, which meant that the Tribunal did not find the Germans guilty of it.