Lavrentiy Beria — Four Frightening Facts About the Evil Chief of Stalin’s Secret Police
Notorious for being a sexual predator, even Stalin was afraid of letting his daughter Svetlana near Beria
Lavrentiy Beria (1899-1953) was the head of the notorious NKVD, the secret police of the Soviet Union. In his position, Beria was responsible the imprisonment and death of millions of his own people.
“Our Himmler.”
— Joseph Stalin when introducing Beria to British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill
Beria was intelligent and brutal. He became de facto number two in the Soviet Union, behind only Stalin.
Everyone hated and feared Beria and his NKVD. The only person who terrified Beria was Stalin.
“Going to have coffee with Beria.”
— the phrase used by Red Army generals for being arrested
Among others, Lavrentiy Beria orchestrated the Katyn massacre in 1940, where his NKVD executioners, such as Vasily Blokhin, shot 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia in a mere two months.
