MARCH 5 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

MARCH 5

1813

Kazimierz Stanislaus Gzowski (dob) was an engineer best known for his work on a wide variety of Canadian railways as well as work on the Welland Canal. He also served as acting Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Ontario from 1896 to 1897. Gzowski was born in Saint Petersburg to a noble Polish father, Count Stanislaw Gzowski, who was Captain in the Russian Imperial Guard. During the Polish November Uprising Kazimierz served as combat engineer in rank of podporuchik in Polish army under the command Józef Dwernicki against Russians. He emigrated to Canada in 1841.

1940

The Katyn Massacre was perpetrated by Soviet NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps. His official document was approved and signed by Stalin. Of the total number of victims, about 8,000 were Polish officers arrested and during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland;  about 6,000 were Polish police, and the remainder were Polish intelligentsia whom the Soviets referred to as "intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials, and priests" The Nazi Germans announced that they discovered mass graves in the Katyn Forest in 1943 and blamed the Soviets for the crime. Stalin denied it and blamed the Nazi Germans for the killings. When the Polish Government-in-exile asked for an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross, Stalin immediately severed diplomatic relations with Poland. It wasn't until 1990 that the Soviet government officially admitted and condemned the NKVD as the perpetrator,  whose crimes were covered up by the Soviet government for decades.

1945

The 19th Army of the Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front captured Köslin. This battle was fought against the German Wehrmacht on the eastern front as part of the East Pomeranian Strategic Offensive.  It was followed by the Danzig Offensive Operation from March 7 to 31; the Arnswalde-Kolberg Offensive Operation from March 1 to 18; and the Altdamm Offensive Operation  from March 18 to April 4, 1945. The fighting in Danzig was the most savage. According to Soviet claim,  39,000 German soldiers were killed, and 10,000 captured.

1946

Churchill's famous Iron Curtain speech was delivered at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri. It sent shock waves throughout the world. Here is an excerpt of the speech:  ".... From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone -- Greece with its immortal glories -- is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy......"  Churchill was not surprised by this outcome as he and Roosevelt were well informed of Stalin's intentions at the Yalta Conference, and other conferences of the Big Three. Their impetus for bowing to Stalin's wishes is that they needed Russia to support the war effort,  and the west disseminated a flood of propaganda to persuade the world that Stalin was just a good ole boy, and even nicknamed him "Uncle Joe".  The reality was quite different. Stalin was a dictator and a ruthless killer. Stalin instigated the Cold War and threatened the world with communist expansion that was continued for more than three decades after his death.

1947

The Judge's Trial was the third of 12 trials of the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (not to be confused with the Nuremberg Trials). It was also called the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials". The trial was held from March 5 to December 4, 1947 at which the accused were 16 Nazi German jurists and lawyers. They were charged with crimes against humanity in the implementation of Nazi German "racial purity" programs through the eugenic and racial laws. Among the defendants, 10 were found guilty, 4 received sentences for lifetime imprisonment,  6 received prison sentences of varying lengths and 4 persons were acquitted of all charges.