In the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, the Soviet Union took Lwow/Lviv, which became the capital of the Lviv Oblast. In the initial stage of Opeartion Barbarossa (late June 1941), Lvov was taken by the Germans. This was a period of massacres in Galicia. The evacuating Soviets practiced Stalin's SCORCHED EARTH POLICY and killed most of the prison populations. When the Wehrmacht forces arrived in the area, they discovered the evidence of the mass murders committed by the NKVD and NKGB, including the mass killing of Ukrainians, Jews and Poles.