The Medvedev Forest massacre (Russian: Медведевский расстрел) or Orel massacre (Орловский расстрел) was a mass execution in the Soviet Union carried out by the Soviet secret police NKVD on 11 September 1941. Barely three months after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, 157 political prisoners incarcerated at Oryol Prison were executed in Medvedev Forest, just outside the Russian city of Oryol, by personal order of Joseph Stalin.[1] This execution was one of the many massacres of prisoners hastily committed by the NKVD in 1941 in the wake of German invasion.
In 1941, the Oryol Prison contained some five thousand political prisoners. On 5 September 1941, on the order of Lavrentiy Beria, the NKVD composed a list of 170 Oryol prisoners to be executed. Beria claimed they formed the "more angry part of the prisoners" and that they "performed defeatist agitation and attempted to organize escapes with the aim of renewing underground activities". The list was sent to Stalin, who approved it. On 8 September, judges Vasiliy Ulrikh (as chairman of the collegium), Dmitri Kandybin and Vasiliy Bukanov, without any litigation and without any kind of investigation, formally sentenced 161 persons to death. By the time of the execution, some in the list had already died or had been transferred while others had been released.
Many of those executed were foreign citizens, among them Fritz Noether, whose liberation even Albert Einstein had demanded. Other detainees executed that day include Christian Rakovsky, Sergei Efron, Olga Kameneva, Garegin Apresov, Maria Spiridonova and Dmitry Pletnyov (a famous doctor who had been sentenced to 25 years in a show trial).[2]
^Parrish, Michael (1996). "The Orel Massacres, the Killings of Senior Military Officers". The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939-1953. Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 69–109. ISBN 0275951138.
^Rabinowitch, Alexander (July 1995). "Maria Spiridonova's 'Last Testament' ". Russian Review, Vol. 54, No. 3, pp. 424-446.
and 30 Related for: Medvedev Forest massacre information
The MedvedevForestmassacre (Russian: Медведевский расстрел) or Orel massacre (Орловский расстрел) was a mass execution in the Soviet Union carried out...
in the Kalinin and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere, the massacre is named after the Katyn forest, where some of the mass graves were first discovered by...
and the first wife of Lev Kamenev. Arrested and killed in the MedvedevForestmassacre. Semyon Kanatchikov 1879 1940 Member of the RSDLP since 1898. Bolshevik...
Kameneva, Christian Rakovsky, and Maria Spiridonova in Oryol Oblast. MedvedevForestmassacre www.executedtoday.com "Prozessbericht über die Strafsache des antisowjetischen...
Medvedevforest outside Orel together with Christian Rakovsky, Maria Spiridonova and 160 other prominent political prisoners in the MedvedevForest massacre...
arrested and later executed with other inmates of Oryol Prison in MedvedevForestmassacre in 1941. Galaktion’s cousin and fellow poet, Titsian Tabidze, like...
propaganda". He was shot in Oryol on 10 September 1941 during the MedvedevForestmassacre. His burial place is unknown, but there is a memorial plaque in...
Great Purges of 1936–1938, although Rakovsky survived until the MedvedevForestmassacre of September 1941, where he was shot dead along with 156 other...
list of massacres that have occurred in Russia (numbers may be approximate). For massacres that occurred in the Soviet Union, see List of massacres in the...
were shot on September 11, 1941 on Joseph Stalin's orders in the MedvedevForestmassacre outside Oryol. During the German-Soviet War, Oryol was occupied...
Federal District of Russia. He was subsequently executed during the MedvedevForestmassacre. Although many of her former colleagues had been forced out of...
firing squad along with 156 other Oryol prison inmates during the MedvedevForestmassacre. The 26 "Baku Commissars" were not all commissars and were not...
prisoners incarcerated here were executed just outside Oryol, in the MedvedevForestmassacre. During the occupation by the Nazi Germany (since October 1941...
over 150 other political prisoners in the MedvedevForestmassacre. This execution was one of the many massacres of prisoners committed by the NKVD in 1941...
the Soviets. Murdered by the Soviet secret police in Stalin's MedvedevForestmassacre on 11 September 1941. Maurice Beublet (?–1943) Belgian lawyer Simexco...
Kovalevsky forest (Russian: Ковалевский лес) is a forest near St Petersburg, Russia, where thousands of Soviet citizens were massacred and buried in the...
The NKVD prisoner massacres were a series of mass executions of political prisoners carried out by the NKVD, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs...
The Vinnytsia massacre was the mass execution of between 9,000 and 11,000 people in the Ukrainian town of Vinnytsia by the Soviet secret police NKVD during...
2017, p. 195. Medvedev 1986, p. 155. Medvedev 1986, p. 159; Doder & Branson 1990, p. 59; McCauley 1998, p. 44; Taubman 2017, p. 196. Medvedev 1986, p. 159;...
consisted almost entirely of ethnic Russians (Nikulin, Medvedev (Kudrin), Ermakov, Vaganov, Kabanov, Medvedev and Netrebin) with the participation of one Jew...
The NKVD prisoner massacre in Dubno was a Soviet war crime conducted by the NKVD in the city of Dubno, then in occupied Poland and now in Ukraine. Between...
siege (also referred to as the Beslan school hostage crisis or the Beslan massacre) was a terrorist attack that started on 1 September 2004. It lasted three...
The NKVD prisoner massacre in Zolochiv was a Soviet war crime conducted by the NKVD in the city of Zolochiv, then in occupied Poland and now in Ukraine...
The NKVD prisoner massacre in Berezhany was a Soviet war crime conducted by the NKVD in the city of Berezhany, then in occupied Poland and now in Ukraine...
The NKVD prisoner massacre in Lutsk was a Soviet war crime conducted by the NKVD and NKGB in the city of Lutsk, situated in occupied Poland (present-day...
The NKVD prisoner massacre in Sambir was a Soviet war crime conducted by the NKVD in the city of Sambir, then located in occupied Poland (now in Ukraine)...
2004, p. 102. Medvedev and Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin, p. 103. Medvedev and Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin, p. 103–104. Medvedev and Medvedev, The Unknown...