What was the Gleiwitz incident and why did it happen?
The Gleiwitz incident was a false flag attack staged by Nazi Germany on the night of the 31st of August 1939, in which SS officers dressed in Polish uniforms seized the Sender Gleiwitz radio station and broadcast an anti-German message in Polish. Germany manufactured the attack as a casus belli to justify its invasion of Poland the following morning. It was part of Operation Himmler, a series of roughly two dozen staged border incidents designed to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany.
Who organised the Gleiwitz incident?
SS-Sturmbannführer Alfred Naujocks organised and led the Gleiwitz operation under direct orders from Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Müller, chief of the Gestapo. Oskar Schindler also played a role, supplying Polish uniforms and weapons as an agent for the Abwehr.
Who was Franciszek Honiok and what happened to him during the Gleiwitz incident?
Franciszek Honiok was a 43-year-old unmarried Upper Silesian Catholic farmer known for sympathising with the Polish cause. The Gestapo arrested him the day before the attack, drugged him, dressed him as a saboteur, killed him with gunshot wounds, and left his body at the Gleiwitz station as fabricated proof of a Polish attack.
What was Operation Himmler and how does it relate to the Gleiwitz incident?
Operation Himmler was a series of roughly two dozen staged incidents carried out by SS and Abwehr forces along the Polish-German border on the night of the 31st of August 1939. The Gleiwitz incident is the best-known action within the operation. All the incidents were designed to fabricate the appearance of Polish military aggression and provide a propagandistic justification for Germany's invasion of Poland.
How did the world learn the truth about the Gleiwitz incident?
The primary evidence came from Alfred Naujocks's affidavit at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945, in which he described organising the operation under orders from Heydrich and Müller. Erwin von Lahousen provided additional oral testimony at Nuremberg confirming the Abwehr's role in supplying Polish uniforms and equipment.
What films and adaptations have been made about the Gleiwitz incident?
The 1961 East German film Der Fall Gleiwitz, directed by Gerhard Klein for DEFA studios, was the first major adaptation. The Polish film Operacja Himmler followed in 1979, the same year Volker Schlöndorff's Die Blechtrommel briefly depicted the incident. Jim Goddard's 1985 television film Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil also included the events, and the 2004 video game Codename: Panzers stirred brief controversy in Poland by referencing the incident.