Soviet Civilians as Witnesses: Facing Liberation and Testifying in Closed Trials in the 1940s

• In Event: War, Liberation, Repression: Trials as Storytelling in the USSR and Post-Soviet Space

Abstract

Once Soviet territories were liberated from Nazi invaders, the Soviet government sent regional military tribunals to prosecute individuals who expressed disloyalty to the Soviet Union during the war. Hundreds of thousands people were put on trial, and materials of these processes have become accessible for scholars. Soviet citizens faced the need to construct narratives about the crimes that happened during the war since many were eager or compelled to testify in closed trials. Historians express various opinions about the credibility and reliability of these sources, generally stating that trials were a political tool to fight politically unreliable citizens rather than a real method of investigation. Yet in many cases, witnesses were victims of the Nazi regime who lost their beloved ones, who suffered enormously, and experienced violence as well as humiliation. In my paper, I argue that in some cases witnesses, possessing their own agency, testified according to their interests. As a result, postwar trials represented a conjunction between defendants’ attempt to justify themselves, witnesses’ willingness to propose their picture of what happened, and the decisive role of regional investigators in weighing their testimonies. Complicated personal relations, complicity in Nazi crimes, and fear of punishment influenced accounts of those who testified about the occupation. Thus, I analyze how Soviet citizens interacted with those who represented returning Soviet power, and how the regime reacted to their testimonies.

Author

• Irina Makhalova, Humboldt U Berlin (Germany)