The commission's full ceremonial name was Extraordinary State Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating Crimes Perpetrated by the German-Fascist Invaders and their Accomplices (, ChGK). The official aim of this agency included "punishing for the crimes of the German–fascist aggressors." According to its own data, 32,000 regular organization staff took part in the work of ChGK. On top of that, around 7,000,000 Soviet citizens had participated in the collection of materials and evidence. The first 27 reports published by ChGK constituted the majority of Soviet evidentiary material in the
Nuremberg process and the trials of
Japanese war criminals. The reports appeared in English in the daily publication
Soviet War News issued by the Press Department of the Soviet Embassy in London. The first report, "Protocol on the plunder by the German–Fascist invaders of Rostov Museum at
Pyatigorsk", was published on June 28, 1943 and the last report, "Statement on 'Material Damage caused by the German-Fascist invaders to state enterprises and institutions, collective farms, public bodies and citizens of the U.S.S.R, was published on September 18, 1945. A complete collection of the original 27 communiqués issued by the commission appears in the Soviet Government publication,
Soviet Government Statement on Nazi Atrocities. Work of the Commission The facts of atrocities were to be established by acts on the basis of statements by Soviet citizens, interviews of victims, witnesses, medical examinations and inspection of the crime scene. At the same time, it was necessary to establish the perpetrators of the atrocities - the organizers, instigators, perpetrators, accomplices, their names, the names of military units, institutions, organizations. The acts were to contain as accurate a description of the crimes committed as possible. It was necessary to indicate the surname, name, patronymic and place of residence of citizens certifying the fact of atrocity. All relevant documents were to be attached to the acts, such as protocols of interviews, statements of citizens, opinions of medical experts, photographs, letters from
Soviet people deported to Germany, German documents, and the like. Members of the commission and secretariat staff traveled to different republics to help organize the work of local commissions and to monitor their work. They inspected graves and corpses, collected numerous testimonies from witnesses and released prisoners of German prisons and concentration camps, interrogated captured soldiers and officers, studied enemy documents, photographs and other evidence of heinous crimes. In addition, according to Nils Bo Poulsen, some of the crimes for which the Extraordinary State Commission blamed the German side were in fact committed by Soviet state security agencies. In particular, this concerns
the execution of prisoners of war near Katyn (in this case, the members of the Commission simply signed a report prepared in advance by the
NKVD) and
the execution of prisoners in Vinnitsa (the investigation report of which, however, was never published). The Russian historian
Nikita Petrov pointed out that the persons interviewed by the ChGK could not give the names of specific participants in war crimes, and as a result, responsibility was automatically assigned to the leadership of the German army and military administration. Responding to Petrov's remarks, the Hungarian historian Tamas Kraus pointed out that Petrov takes the position of presentism and forgets that in wartime it is much more difficult to identify the perpetrators of crimes and therefore in wartime the role of commanders sharply increases, who “alone have the right and opportunity to curb and discipline their soldiers". According to Kraus, authenticity makes ChGK documents indispensable historical sources for scholars. == Members of the Commission ==