Given the number of seismic happenings that fell on either side of the so-called Gleiwitz Incident, it is little wonder that history has largely airbrushed this episode from memory. Yet as little -known as it is, this would be the final domino to fall in the lead-up to World War Two.
A classic false flag attack, it was part of a wider series of actions launched to justify Hitler’s planned Blitzkrieg.
Speaking to his generals on August 22, 1939, the Fuhrer had warned them of what lay ahead: “I will provide a propagandistic ‘casus belli’. Its credibility does not matter, for the victor will not be asked whether he told the truth or not.”
That this was coming was already suspected. Just a week before, Hitler had railed at the High Commissioner of the League of Nations: “If there is the slightest provocation, then without warning I will smash Poland into so many pieces that there will be nothing left to pick up.”
Codenamed Operation Himmler, the plan had been jointly devised by Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Reinhard Heydrich, and foresaw a series of small-scale raids around the Polish-German border.
Conducted by German soldiers dressed in Polish uniforms, the attacks were to be lent further authenticity by the corpses of concentration camp inmates also dressed as Polish soldiers. By leaving these bodies scattered at various scenes, the Nazis hoped to give the impression that the Poles had been beaten back after fierce skirmishes had taken place.
Originally set for August 26, the turbulent diplomatic situation saw Operation Himmler postponed by a few days and it wasn’t until the evening of August 31 that it finally went ahead.
As part of the operation, a customs house was targeted in Hochlinden (today a suburb of the southern Polish town of Rybnik), as well as a forestry station in Pitschen (nowadays known as Byczyna).
The principal attack, however, was slated for the radio tower in Gleiwitz. Now known as the southern Polish city of Gliwice, in 1939 Gleiwitz was four kilometers from the border of Poland, and therefore viewed as a border town of pivotal significance. To lead the raid, Heydrich headhunted a loyal Nazi by the name of Alfred Naujocks.
Having previously taken part in state-approved murders and covert missions, Naujocks was the ideal candidate for this sordid job.
Speaking after the war, he revealed how he had met Heydrich after being summoned to Berlin: “Heydrich told me, ‘Within a month we shall be at war with Poland. The Fuhrer is determined. But first, we have to have something to go to war about. We've organized incidents in Danzig, along the East Prussian border with Poland, and along the German frontier. But there has to be something bigger’.”
Gleiwitz would be it. “This is where you come in,” Heydrich told him. “The idea is that you and six men will burst into the radio station, knock out the staff, and broadcast a speech in Polish and German announcing Poland’s intention to seize the disputed territories by force.”
Going exactly to plan, this is precisely what unfolded. After receiving a coded telephone message from Heydrich announcing ‘Grossmutter gestorben’ (‘Grandmother is dead’), Naujocks and his group crept into the radio station and terrorized the staff before seizing a microphone: “Attention,” declared one of the Polish-speaking operatives. “This is Gliwice. The broadcasting station is in Polish hands.”
Among the bodies left at the scene was that of Franciszek Honiok, a 43-year-old who had been arrested the day before for anti-German, subversive activities.
From London, the BBC announced: “There have been reports of an attack on a radio station in Gleiwitz, which is just across the Polish border in Germany. The German News Agency says the attack came at about 8 p.m. this evening when the Poles forced their way into the studio and began broadcasting a statement in Polish.”
It added: “Within a quarter of an hour, say reports, the Poles were overpowered by German police who opened fire on them. Several of the Poles were reported killed but the numbers are not yet known.”
The die was cast – just hours later, as day broke on September 1, German forces struck back by bombing the Polish town of Wieluń and the Westerplatte Peninsula by the Free City of Danzig (today, Gdańsk). World War Two had begun.
