Gleiwitz

[Werd]

From page 68 of Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II By Michael Bess.

All that now remained was the fabrication of a pretext for a military action. On the night of August 31, Hitler ordered a secret unit of SS troops, commanded by Sturmbannfuhrer Aldred Naujocks, to stage a mock Polish attack against a German radio station at Gleiwitz on the German-Polish border. Naujocks and his SS men took a dozen prisoners from a Nazi concentration camp, dressed them in German and Polish army uniforms, and shot them, leaving their boies strewn about as if a fierce gunfight between German and Polish forces had occured. The next morning German newspapers stridently proclaimed than an unprovoked Polish incursion into German terriroty at Gleiwitz had resulted in the deaths of several German soldiers.

Found this from a googlebooks search. The point of my quoting it is to note that he has no secondary sources cited that also claim this about German newspapers making this proclomation, nor does he give any primary German sources that he found on his own accord or maybe even hopefully in a secondary source.

[Werd]

Page 112 from Blitzkrieg Unleashed: The German Invasion of Poland, 1939 By Richard Hargreaves.

Since 6am, German radio had been broadcasting news and communiques every ten minutes. The first editions of Friday's papers were all but torn from the hands of street vendors. There was only one topic of conversation on the trams and trains as Berliners went to work. Or so the Nazi propaganda machine would have the German people believe. An apthetic Berlin public trudged to work, CBS radio correspondent William Shirer observed as he drove through the heart of the capital. The overast sky captured the mood perfectly. Luftwaffe crews were installing flak guns on the East-West Azis. No-one Shirer saw was buying the special editions.

Those special editions were filled with alarming headlines: 'Polish insurgents cross the German border' , 'German police throw Polish hordes back across the border' , 'Attack on German guards - the Poles were beaten back' , 'Poland opens fire.' The raid at Gleiwitz, the Nazi newspapers explained, 'was evidently the signal for a general attack by Polish guerillas in German terrirory.' A raid on a railway halt in West Prussia had been thwarted by machine-gun fire. The fields around the Silesian village of Pitschen, near Kreuzberg, had seen the fiercest fighting. Two for the Reich's soil after dark the previous night. After a brief fire-fight, the Poles had fled, leaving behind two dead - 'one a soldier'. At least one German border guard had also been killed. At Hichlinden, the fighting had raged for half and hour before the Polish insurgents were driven away and the customs house re-taken; at least fourteen Poles had been captured. 'Because it was dark, the precise number of dead and wounded is not yet known.' In fact, the number of 'Polish' dead at Hochlinden was known. It was precisely six. But they were not Poles. [47]

So apparently many German papers in Berlin had those bolded headlines all referring to the Gleiwitz incident.

[Werd]

Page 783 of The Library of Congress World War II Companion edited by David M. Kennedy.

World War II in Europe began with an act of propaganda. On September 1, 1939, German newspapers ran front-page stories announcing that "Polish volunteers and Upper Silesian rebels" had attacked a German transmitter at Gleiwitz. Despite German claims that Poles were responsible, historians believe that the attackers were members of the German Security Service dressed in Polish uniforms. These men announced over the Gleiwitz transmitter that Poles had taken over the station. In "retaliation," Germany invaded Poland to "protect" itself against such acts of "terrorism."

[Werd]

Page 183 of Always on the Other Side: A Journalist's Journey from Hitler to Howard's End By Juergen Corleis

If international and not only Australian military history was taught at schools more people would know about the "Gleiwitz incident" on the even of World War 2, one of the several actions staged by the SS to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany. Polish "insurgents" had seized the German radio station in the frontier town of Gleiwitz, it was alleged. The Nuremberg War Crimes trial revealed that the SS acted under orders by Heinrich Mueller, the Gestapo Chief (and father of Si Mustapha, Chapter 22). To make the "raid" more convincing the SS had brought along a concentration camp inmate, dressed up as an "insurgent", whom they shot at the scence. Photographs of his corpse were published in German newspapers. In his speech of September 1, 1939, on declaring war on Poland, Hitler cited 21 border incidents to justify "Germany's defensive action."

Page 298 of The Ruling Elite: Death, Destruction, and Domination By Deanna Spingola.

The next day, the Volkischer Beobachter published a story, Raiders attack Radio Gleiwitz. It reported that "A troop of Polish insurgents rushed last night, shortly before eight o' clock, the building of Gleiwitz radio. At that time, there was only the usual skeleton staff on duty; it is obvious that the Polish hoodlums must have had an exceptional lay-out of the place." WIth a few exceptions, newspapers ignored the whole incident during the war and only resurrected the story later, at the Nuremburg War Crimes tribunal, to accuse Germany of using subterfuge as justification for the invasion of Poland.

I'd like to know the exceptions.

From this online summary.

Late evening on Thursday, 31 August 1939 the audience was listening to Gleiwitz, a radio-station on the Germano-Polish frontier but just inside Germany. Suddenly the musical programme broke and excited German voices announced that the town of Gleiwitz had been invaded by Polish irregular formations marching towards the emitting station. Then the station "went dead". When received again, Polish was being spoken. An inflammatory statement was broadcast urging Polish minority in Silesia to take up arms against Adolf Hitler. Radio Cologne gave out that German police was repelling the attackers at Gleiwitz. The BBC also broadcast a statement, which read:

There have been reports of an attack on a radio station in Gleiwitz, which is just across the Polish border in Silesia. The German News Agency reports that the attack came at about 8.00pm this evening when the Poles forced their way into the studio and began broadcasting a statement in Polish. Within quarter of an hour, says 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. [1]

This was the excuse Hitler needed to invade Poland on the next day, 1 September 1939. The incident, which triggered the Second World War could have remained obscure, had it not surfaced during the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1945.


[1]
H. Hohne, The Order of the Death Head

Next.

From This week in history: Nazis stage fake attack at the start of WWII

American journalist William L. Shirer, reporting from Berlin when the war broke out, noted in his book “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” that the New York Times and other American newspapers reported on the Gleiwitz incident as one of the events that touched off the war. Additionally, Shirer suggests that many of the SS men who were involved in the operation were “put out of the way.” Whether they were killed or merely assigned to dangerous combat duty in Poland, Shirer doesn't say.

So the Americans know. The British know. And according to Spingola, there were a few German exceptions as well.

[Hektor]

From page 68 of Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II By Michael Bess.

All that now remained was the fabrication of a pretext for a military action. On the night of August 31, Hitler ordered a secret unit of SS troops, commanded by Sturmbannfuhrer Aldred Naujocks, to stage a mock Polish attack against a German radio station at Gleiwitz on the German-Polish border. Naujocks and his SS men took a dozen prisoners from a Nazi concentration camp, dressed them in German and Polish army uniforms, and shot them, leaving their boies strewn about as if a fierce gunfight between German and Polish forces had occured. The next morning German newspapers stridently proclaimed than an unprovoked Polish incursion into German terriroty at Gleiwitz had resulted in the deaths of several German soldiers.

Found this from a googlebooks search. The point of my quoting it is to note that he has no secondary sources cited that also claim this about German newspapers making this proclomation, nor does he give any primary German sources that he found on his own accord or maybe even hopefully in a secondary source.

Although some newspapers seem to have mentioned incidents at Gleiwitz, but not the important ones.



The important point is that from the German side it was declared an insurrection, but not an incursion by polish troops.

The Auswaertige Amt reports also do not mention polish incursion at Gleiwitz.

[Werd]

Vera Icona Publishers - Veronica K. Clark - The Gleiwitz Incident 2-Volume Set
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArPhQnNevwU

Vera Icona Publishers - Veronica K. Clark - The Gleiwitz Incident 2-Volume Set
http://www.veraiconapublishers.com/?p=205

[Hektor]

I quote the affidavit as cited at the Nuremberg Trial again:

I now offer in evidence Document 2751-PS, which is Exhibit USA-482. It is an affidavit of Alfred Helmut Naujocks, dated November 20, 1945. This affidavit particularly refers to the actual occurrences in connection with the Polish border incident. I believe it was referred to by the Witness Lahousen when he was on the stand:

"I, Alfred Helmut Naujocks, being first duly sworn, depose and state as follows:

"1. I was a member of the SS from 1931 to 19 October 1944 and a member of the SD from its creation in 1934 to January 1941. I served as a member of the Waffen-SS from February 1941 until the middle of 1942. Later I served in the Economics Department of the Military Administration of Belgium from September 1942 to September 1944. I surrendered to the Allies on 19 October 1944.

"2. On or about 10 August 1939 the Chief of the Sipo and SD, Heydrich, personally ordered me to simulate an attack on the radio station near Gleiwitz, near the Polish border, and to make it appear that the attacking force consisted of

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20 Dec. 45

Poles. Heydrich said: 'Actual proof of these attacks of the Poles is needed for the foreign press, as well as for German propaganda purposes.' I was directed to go to Gleiwitz with five or six SD men and wait there until I received a code word from Heydrich indicating that the attack should take place. My instructions were to seize the radio station and to hold it long enough to permit a Polish-speaking German, who would be put at my disposal, to broadcast a speech in Polish. Heydrich told me that this speech should state that the time had come for the conflict between the Germans and the Poles and that the Poles should get together and strike down any Germans from whom they met resistance. Heydrich also told me at this time that he expected an attack on Poland by Germany in a few days.

"3. I went to Gleiwitz and waited there a fortnight. Then I requested permission of Heydrich to return to Berlin but was told to stay in Gleiwitz. Between the 25th and 31st of August I went to see Heinrich Muller, head of the Gestapo, who was then nearby at Oppeln. In my presence Muller discussed with a man named Mehlhorn plans for another border incident, in which it should be made to appear that Polish soldiers were attacking German troops .... Germans in the approximate strength of a company were to be used. Muller stated that he had 12 or 13 condemned criminals who were to be dressed in Polish uniforms and left dead on the ground at the scene of the incident to show that they had been killed while attacking. For this purpose they were to be given fatal injections by a doctor employed by Heydrich. Then they were also to be given gunshot wounds. After the assault members of the press and other persons were to be taken to the spot of the incident. A police report was subsequently to be prepared.

"4. Muller told me that he had an order from Heydrich to make one of those criminals available to me for the action at Gleiwitz. The code name by which he referred to these criminals was 'Canned Goods.'

"5. The incident at Gleiwitz in which I participated was carried out on the evening preceding the German attack on Poland. As I recalls war broke out on the 1st of September 1939. At noon on the 31st of August I received by telephone from Heydrich the code word for the attack which was to take place at 8 o'clock that evening. Heydrich said, 'In order to carry out this attack, report to Muller for "Canned Goods."' I did this and gave Muller instructions to deliver the man near the radio station. I received this man and had

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20 Dec. 45

him laid down at the entrance to the station. He was alive, but he was completely unconscious. I tried to open his eyes. I could not recognize by his eyes that he was alive, only by his breathing. I did not see the shot wounds, but a lot of blood was smeared across his face. He was in civilian clothes.

"6. We seized the radio station as ordered, broadcast a speech of 3 to 4 minutes over an emergency transmitter, fired some pistol shots, and left."

And then "sworn to and subscribed to before Lieutenant Martin".
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/12-20-45.asp

So much for reference.
It would be interesting, if we could get our hands on the following:

Anti-Nazi movements in Austria. This file consists largely of reports concerning Alfred NAUJOCKS, a former major of the RSHA captured in November 1944, who claimed to be a peace emissary from the Austrian anti-Nazi movement. A paper at 11a addresses the subject of anti-Nazi groups in Germany as well as Austria
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.u ... /C11439394

Telling the Allies that he's a " peace emissary from the Austrian anti-Nazi movement". How's that one for a credible witness? One has to order that file. Not sure how big

His files in British archives are rather large:

Alfred NAUJOCKS, alias BONSEN: a member of the S.S. and later of the S.D. in the nineteen-thirties, he was involved, at Heydrich's direction, in operations to liquidate opponents of the Nazi regime. He may have been involved in deception operations on the Polish border which aimed to suggest Polish incursions into German territory in order to provide a pretext for the German invasion of Poland. He was second in command of the operation to capture Best and Stevens at Venlo, Netherlands, in 1939. During the war he was disgraced and sent to the Russian front. He was later reinstated and served in various European countries. He was assessed as a callous murderer and was thought by some to have been guilty of war crimes particularly in Denmark.
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.u ... /C10907236
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.u ... /C10907237

First group of files is "197 files totalling approximately 100 MB" second "126 files totalling approximately 76.5 MB"
That's 323 records and I'd estimate this to be more then 700 pages. Don't have a credit card to pay, so it's off limits for me at the moment. If anyone else does, please share.

They seem pretty convinced that he liquidated opponents at Heydrich's directions. However they don't seem to be that certain on the Gleiwitz claims, since they write "may have been".

Here are some notes by the British on propaganda against as well as by the Germans.

https://archive.org/details/NotesOnGerm ... 939CAB6399
Doesn't seem they took note of any "Gleiwitz incident" for war justification.

[christianbethel]

How do we know if Naujocks is telling the truth?

[Pia Kahn]

How do we know if Naujocks is telling the truth?

The fact of the matter is that we don't know.

My main point for disbelieving the story is the following: Hitler had no reason for a "false flag operation" in order to justify the attack on Poland.

1. The treatment of the German Minority in Poland leading to thousands of deaths and refugees flodding Germany.

2. The massive mobilization of the Polish Army on the German border starting in March 1939.

3. Numerous border incidents , in particular in August 1939.

Thus, Hitler didn't need a false flag operation in order to justify his attack. He did not mention Gleiwitz explicitely in his speach justifying his decision. Therefore, I believe that the Gleiwitz-incident was spiced up by the allies in order to convict Germany for evil deeds. Naujocks saved his neck by telling the allies what they wanted to hear.

This is my hunch.

[Hannover]

How do we know if Naujocks is telling the truth?

Please try reading the thread.

- Hannover

[christianbethel]

It sounds to me like he's just saying this to save his own skin, that it's just another of the innumerable forced confessions at the Nuremberg 'trials'. But I will read this thread as recommended.

I'm sure this has been brought up in various other threads, but is Veronica Clark's work about the Gleiwitz incident really reliable, or is it a result of personal bias against the Allies? I'm a little sketchy on the history of false-flag operations.

[Pia Kahn]

"but is Veronica Clark's work about the Gleiwitz incident really reliable, or is it a result of personal bias against the Allies? "

You can find out by reading her books and doing your own research.

[Hannover]

christianbethel:

"but is Veronica Clark's work about the Gleiwitz incident really reliable, or is it a result of personal bias against the Allies? "

Please show us what could be wrong with it.
Are you biased against Veronica Clark?
What do you think about Gleiwitz?
Do you believe the claim? If so, why?

- Hannover

[Hektor]

The so called 'Gleiwitz Incident' as an excuse for Germans to start shooting makes little sense. After all, the well documented Polish atrocities against Germans and the very fair proposals by Germany for return of stolen land did not require an incident in order to justify force against Poland.
....

If you mention this to normies, they look like deers in the spot-light:

In order to make the attack scene convincing, the Germans allegedly brought in Franciszek Honiok, a German known for sympathizing with the Poles, who had been arrested the previous day by the Gestapo. According to the establishment story, Honiok was dressed to look like a Polish insurgent; then killed by lethal injection, his body was given gunshot wounds and left at the scene so he looked as though he had been killed while attacking the station. His corpse was presented as proof of the attack to the police and press.

What's the proof this Franciszek Honiok was indeed killed the way it is claimed?

It seems there is only one "witness" for this and that is Alfred Naujocks ... The man that made a number of fabulous claims about himself to the British interrogators.

[christianbethel]

As it turns out, Clark's writings about the Gleiwitz incident are legitimate. Robert Smyth has an excellent booklet detailing the events.