The Beggining of the War: The Gleiwitz Incident

The Gleiwitz incident was a Nazi Forces, which in that moment were acting like if they were Poles, attack on August 31 in 1939. It was against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz the eve of World War II. This was part of the several actions in the Operation Himmler, a series of unconventional operations by the SS in order to make propaganda about Nazism at the outbreak of the war. 

The objective was to create the impression that there was a Polish aggression against Germany and in that way justify the subsequent invasion of Poland. Most of the information known about the Gleiwitz incident is because of Alfred Naujocks testimony, where he states that he organized the incident under the order from Reinhard Heydrich and Heincrich Muller that was the chief of Gestapo.

The night of August 31, a small group of Germans that were dressed as if they were from Poland seized the Gleiwitz station and broadcast a little anti-German message in Polish. Germans wanted like it seems that the attack and the broadcast were because of those “anti-German Polish saboteurs”. But to make it more convincing, Germans brought Franciszeck Honiok that was a German Silesian who was known as a man that sympathizes a lot with the Poles. Days before, he was arrested by the Gestapo. They dress him as a saboteur and then killed him with a lethal injection, then make him gunshot wounds and left him dead at the scene so he looks like he was killed during the attack.

The Gleiwitz incident is part of a large operation. It wasn’t only one attack, because there were other incidents orchestrated by the SS forces along the Polish. German Border, such as the House torching in the Polish Corridor and the spurious propaganda output. There were a total of 21 attacks all categorized as part of the Operation Himmler, all with the intensions of making people think that Poland was going against them. Also months before this, Germans started to publish in their newspapers messages from politicians, such as Adolf Hitler, accusing Polish authorities of organizing operations to harm the German people that lived there. The next day of Gleiwitz, Germany started the Fall Weiss operation (invasion of poland), initiatinf the WW2

Is incredible how Germans were so preparated and intelligent in a way, to create this big and datiled plan in order to invade Poland. Its a really shocking how people can be so determinated to  reach their goals, people thirsty of power that could do anything, to the point they killed people. And this is what the war is about. How the idea of one men can make a revolution all around the world, the extermination of a million of inocent families, the destruction of many countries, and the beggining of one of the worst mistakes humans may have been commited: the World War II.

Mariana Flores

Valeria Otarola