Background
Men'shagin, Boris was born on May 9, 1902. Son of a lawyer.
Men'shagin, Boris was born on May 9, 1902. Son of a lawyer.
Graduated in law from Moscow University, 1928.
Joined the Red Army, July 1919. Served until May 1927. Worked as a lawyer in provincial towns.
Returned to Moscow, 1931. In the legal department of various organizations. From 1937, in Smolensk.
Remained there when the Germans occupied the city. Appointed mayor of the city of Smolensk. When the Germans retreated in September 1943, he took up the same position in Bobruisk.
At the end of World War II, in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia. Interned by the Americans for a short time. On 25 May 1945, went to the Soviet HQ to find out about his family’s whereabouts.
Arrested and brought to Lubianka prison in Moscow where he shared a cell with Beria’s deputy, Mamulov. Later, the head of Soviet counter-espionage, Shteinberg, was put into his cell. Received a 25-year sentence in prisons and camps.
Released in May 1970. Lived in exile in Kniazhaia Guba on the White Sea. Left his memoirs which were published in Russian in 1988 in Paris, and which told how he had witnessed the murder of thousands of Polish officers at Katyn.
Apparently the Soviet authorities had tried to get him to change his views to support the Soviet version, and when that failed, he had received his prison sentence.