In the late night of Thursday, August 31, 1939, German incognito

History Channel In the late night of Thursday, August 31, 1939, German incognito agents putting on a show to be Polish terrorists grabbed the Gleiwitz radio station in the German/Poland fringe area of Silesia.

The station's music program went to an unexpected stop, trailed by berserk German voices reporting that Polish developments were walking toward town; Germany was being attacked by Poland!

At that point, similar to an awful impersonation of the earlier year's notorious War of the Worlds show, the transmission went dead for a minute of emotional quiet.

Expression of Gleiwitz Reaches Rest of World

Before long, the wireless transmissions popped and crackled to life once more, and this time Polish voices (cunning little demons, those Germans...) required all Poles in the show region to wage war and assault Germany.

In a matter of seconds, radio stations crosswise over more noteworthy Europe got the story. The BBC telecast this announcement:

There have been reports of an assault on a radio station in Gleiwitz, which is directly over the Polish fringe in Silesia. The German News Agency reports that the assault came at around 8.00pm tonight when the Poles constrained their way into the studio and started television an announcement in Polish. Inside quarter of 60 minutes, says reports, the Poles were overwhelmed by German police, who opened flame on them. A few of the Poles were accounted for executed, however the numbers are not yet known.

Also, in this manner, Hitler developed a reason to attack Poland, which he did the following day: September 1, 1939. The day World War II started.

Alfred Naujocks: The Man Who Started World War II

Alfred Helmut Naujocks was a scholarly go-to intense man. It was Naujocks who got the requests from Heinrich Müller, head of the Gestapo, to put the organized terrorist assault together at the Gleiwitz station.

Available to Naujock were what the Germans had codenamed "canned products," which were protesters and culprits kept alive in detainment camps until the Gestapo required a warm dead body. To add cogency to the Gleiwitz assault, Naujocks brought along one such canned great: Franciszek Honiok.

Honiok, a German from the Silesian area, was a known Polish sympathizer. Before touching base at the station, the Gestapo gave him a deadly infusion. At that point, they dressed him up like a Polish terrorist, and conveyed him to the front of the radio station. Naujocks later affirmed that the man was oblivious, however not dead yet, when he was shot brimming with gun rounds. At the point when the police and squeeze discovered Honiok's body, they expected he'd been one of the anecdotal Polish terrorists that assaulted the station.

Operation Himmler

On the whole, there were 21 fake fear activities along the outskirt that same night, a number of them utilizing "canned products" from German penitentiaries so there would be a lot of bodies in the morning- - confirmation of Polish aggressors that had been shot in self protection. The activities were all a player in a bigger arrangement, called Operation Himmler.

The following day, in the wake of a monotonous night loaded with fake fear, Hitler gave a discourse to the German Army, complete with manufactured indignation:

The Polish State has rejected the tranquil settlement of relations which I coveted, and has engaged arms. Germans in Poland are oppressed with bleeding dread and driven from their homes. A progression of infringement of the boondocks, painful to an incredible Power, demonstrate that Poland is no more eager to regard the outskirts of the Reich.

Keeping in mind the end goal to put a conclusion to this lunacy, I have no other decision than to meet power with power starting now and into the foreseeable future. The German Army will battle the fight for the honor and the imperative privileges of reawakened Germany with hard determination. I expect that each trooper, aware of the considerable customs of unceasing German soldiery, will ever stay cognizant that he is an agent of the National-Socialist Greater Germany. Long experience our kin and our Reich!

Subsequently, the nationals of Germany trusted it was all Poland's issue. With the advantage of knowledge of the past, we ought to figure out how war was begun under the reason of safeguarding the country. What's more, we ought to figure out how an insane person appears like a hero to the tricks he claims to secure. Furthermore, we ought to pay consideration on the time and again rehashed lessons of history...

Where Are They Now?

Had it not been for the Nuremberg trials in 1945, the genuine story behind the Gleiwitz assault may have never been revealed. It was there that the operation's pioneer, Alfred Naujocks, let the cat out of the bag in a composed sworn statement.

After that pivotal night, Naujocks had a few more years of enterprises with the Nazis. At that point he left Germany and turned himself over to Allied powers in 1944. He was held as a war criminal until the war was over. Subsequent to affirming at the Nuremberg Trials, he turned into an agent in Hamburg, and may have helped a few Nazis break to South America as an afterthought. He passed on in 1966.

With respect to the Gleiwitz radio station, despite everything it brags a 38-story tower, nicknamed the Bavarian Eiffel Tower, that is the tallest wooden tower on the planet. In 2004, the station got to be home to the Museum on Radio History and Visual Arts.