Gliwice Radio Station, Where World War 2 Began

 On the evening of August 31, 1939, when the last rays of the setting sun rested on the top of the huge wooden mast over the then German city of Gliwice, a few miles from the border with Poland, two cars passed through the gates of the Gliwice radio station and three Stopped outside the storied transmission building. A small unit of SS officers posing as Polish partisans got out of the car. They were accompanied by Franciszek Hoeniok, a 43-year-old unmarried German Catholic who had been arrested the previous day for his involvement in several local uprisings against German rule in Silesia, a border region of present-day Poland. Honiok was wearing a stolen Polish army uniform. The Gestapo had decided to sacrifice him to make the attack, which was about to occur, look like the work of Polish anti-German saboteurs. Honieok did not protest because he was drunk and did not know what was happening.

Ever since Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, he wanted to invade and partition Poland. But the German-Polish non-aggression pact signed in 1934, as well as the Treaty of Versailles, prevented them from mobilizing their forces against the predominantly Jewish country. The Fuhrer needed a single act of aggression from the Polish side to justify the German invasion of Poland. But when no one was forthcoming, Hitler decided to come up with an invention and Operation Himmler was born.

Led by the feared Heinrich Himmler and supervised by Reinhard Heydrich, the purpose of Operation Himmler was to plant numerous false flags at several locations along the border to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany. In the days before the invasion of Poland, German soldiers dressed in Polish uniforms would raid various German sites on the border and commit acts of barbarity, and then retreat, leaving dead bodies in Polish uniforms. These bodies were obtained from concentration camps run by the Nazis. These extravagances were called "conserves", or "canned goods".

About three weeks before the attack, Reinhard Heydrich summoned SS Sturmbannführer Alfred Naujaux to Berlin and gave details of the intended attack.

Heydrich told Naujauks, "Within a month we will be at war with Poland." “The Fuhrer is determined. But first we have to do something about the war. We have organized events in Danzig, on the East Prussian border with Poland and on the German border. But there has to be something bigger and clearer."

Heydrich then turned to a wall map of Eastern Europe and pointed a finger at Gliwice. "This is where you come in. The idea is that six men and you will break into the Gliwice radio station, take out the staff and broadcast a speech in Polish and German, attacking Germany and the Fuhrer and taking over the disputed territories. "Will announce Poland's intention to use force."

On the appointed day – 31 August – the day before German tanks crossed the border and rolled into Polish territory, marking the beginning of a painfully long global conflict, Alfred Naujoks led a group of seven SS soldiers, including himself, into a radio station. Did. The Nazis immediately overpowered the guards and informed the three engineers on duty to broadcast anti-German messages. One of the SS men, Karl Hornack, who spoke Polish, grabbed the microphone and shouted: “Uwage! Tu Gliwice. '(Attention! This is Gliwice. The broadcasting station is in Polish hands.)

Hornack continued to speak out against the Germans, but one of the engineers quietly flipped a switch and the transmission stopped. However, the first nine words that hit the airwaves were enough to trigger a cataclysmic chain of events.

The next morning, in a speech to the Reichstag, Hitler accused Poland of instigating the violence, and cited twenty-one acts of aggression against Germans, all of which were committed by the SS. Hitler, speaking to the Germans, said, "I no longer see any desire on the part of the Polish government to enter into serious negotiations with us." He announced, "Therefore, I have resolved to speak to Poland in the same language that Poland has been using for us for the past several months."

The previous night before the SS men left the radio station, they shot Franciszek Honiok in the forehead and discarded his body. No one talked about this man for decades, and no commemorations were held in Poland in honor of his death. His own family was reluctant to raise the subject, and were afraid to even ask questions. Poland was under German occupation until the end of World War II, and then under the Communists until their dissolution in 1989. Nobody was interested in knowing the truth, alleged Pawel Honiok, Franciszek Honiok's nephew and only relative. They don't even know where the body is buried.

Details of the Gliwice incident first emerged during the Nuremberg trials shortly after the war, but the full facts were not revealed until 1958 after British author Comer Clarke tracked down Alfred Naujoks in Hamburg. Naujoks died two years later. He never faced a war crimes tribunal.

The Gliwice Radio Tower – Europe's tallest wooden structure (at 387 feet) – still stands, although the station has long ceased to exist. Its building now houses a museum dedicated to this event. The massive wooden tower now carries airwaves for mobile phone services and FM broadcasting. The site now belongs to Poland itself.