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| Gleiwitz (youtube) |
During
the mid 1930's, political events on continental Europe began to focus on
expansionism, until ultimately in 1939, it became very evident that a major war
was on the horizon. Historians tell us
that World War 2 began over the first weekend in September (1939) when massive
German air and land forces crossed the border into neighboring Poland on
several fronts.
A radio station on the edge of the
city of Gleiwitz (German) or Gliwice (Polish) featured in the events leading up
to the invasion, and this is the story of what happened.
The city of Gleiwitz was first
mentioned as a town in the year 1276, and at the time it was ruled by Silesian
dukes. Over the years, it was sometimes
part of a neighboring dukedom, and there were times when it was an independent
entity in its own rights.
In the 1300s, Gleiwitz
became a possession of the Kingdom of Bohemia, and two hundred years later it
was absorbed into the Austrian Hapsburg Empire.
Subsequently, the city was absorbed into the Prussian province of
Silesia, and in the late 1800s during the unification of Germany, Gleiwitz was
recognized with the status of a Stadtkreis, a city with its own urban district.
During the development of the
industrial era in continental Europe, Gleiwitz became a center for heavy
industries and mining. At the time,
there was strife between the German and Polish inhabitants, and under a plebiscite
administered by the League of Nations, a vote of nearly 80% ensured that the
city would remain as an integral part of Germany. However, after the end of World War 2, the
city of Gleiwitz was mandated to Poland; and this prosperous and modern city of
two million citizens remains Polish to this day.
Along with many other countries
throughout the world, the radio revolution of the 1920s was evident in Germany,
and their first radio station in Gleiwitz was inaugurated on November 15,
1925. At the time, this small station
served as a relay transmitter for the programming from the Silesian radio
station (callsign GPU) located in the neighboring city of Breslau.
This original radio station in
Gleiwitz was located on Raudener Strasse in suburban Petersdorf and it radiated
with 1½ kW
on the medium wavelength 251 meters (1195 kHz).
The aerial system was a center fed T antenna, mounted on two steel
towers standing at 245 feet high. In
1928, the power of the station was increased to 5 kW and the frequency was
adjusted to the nearby channel 1184 kHz.
Work commenced in
August 1934 on a new station on a nearby country property amidst a pine tree
forest on Tarnowitz Road, on the edge of Gleiwitz city. At the time, this location was still inside
Germany some four miles from the border with Poland.
Several new buildings were constructed,
including a new three storey transmitter building, together with a new high
self standing tower; and new electronic equipment that was manufactured by the
Lorenz, Siemens and Telefunken companies was installed.
The new tower, standing at 365 feet
high, was constructed entirely of Larch timber, a tree that is related to the
pine tree with a very durable quality.
The timbers in the high tower were fastened with more than 16,000 brass
bolts. This new radio broadcasting
station was inaugurated just before Christmas in the year 1935, on December 23,
still with 5 kW on another new though nearby channel, 1231 kHz.
Close on four years later, the
Gleiwitz radio station was suddenly and unexpectedly thrust into an ignominious
prominence as a pretext for the launching of a massive invasion of nearby
Poland. The Gleiwitz incident was one of
twenty-one provocative border incidents that occurred on that same evening, and
they were intended to create the appearance of Polish aggression against
Germany in order to justify the subsequent invasion of Poland.
As revealed in the best available
documents, this is what happened.
Shortly before 8:00 pm on the night of August 31, 1939, two cars drove
through the entrance gateway to the station and stopped outside the entrance to
the transmitter building. The small
contingent of German troops in these two cars, six men with 26 year old Major
Alfred Naujocks as their unit leader, were all clothed in Polish army
uniforms.
The
soldiers stormed the radio station building and quickly overpowered the two
security guards at the entrance doorway and the three radio engineers on
duty. Major Naujocks
fired a few shots into the air to intimidate the radio personnel, and all,
except Engineer Nawroth, were led to the basement with their hands tied.
The
Gleiwitz radio broadcasting station was a slave relay station, carrying the
programming from the mother station in Breslau, and at the time of the
incident, a music program was on the air.
There was no production studio here in Gleiwitz, and a microphone was
inserted into the transmitter circuitry only for the broadcast of local weather
and for occasions of emergency, if needed.
Engineer Nawroth was ordered to
connect the microphone. It
is stated that they were unable to use the main transmitter and that they used
a second transmitter. This seems to be
an non-technical way of describing the use of the inserted microphone; there is
no way that a standby transmitter back then could be spliced into service so
quickly.
One of the German soldiers, Karl
Hornack, grabbed the microphone and attempted to make a clandestine broadcast
in Polish. The broadcast lasted no more
than part of a sentence before they were cut off the air by Engineer Nawroth
who surreptitiously pushed a button, effectively putting the station off the
air.
A multitude of local citizens heard
the botched broadcast, but apparently it made little impact upon them. During an interview just last year, 85 year
old Joachim Fulczyk in Gliwice recalled that he, his mother and her sister
heard the broadcast and they were puzzled as to what was happening.
On the previous day, an unmarried 43
year old Catholic farmer was arrested on suspicion of partisan sympathy with
the Poles. This man, Franciszek Honiok,
was brought by car from a local encampment to a
pre-arranged location near the station.
He had been injected with a lethal drug and was unconscious.
Honiok was shot and killed and
dragged into the doorway of the station.
There are reports that other unconscious or dead people were brought in
and shot and laid at strategic locations to indicate supposed evidence of a
Polish attack.
This raid on the radio station at
Gleiwitz was a sufficient pretext for a massive onslaught into Poland; and so
that radio broadcast was the beginning of World War 2.
And
so, what happened to them all afterwards?
Due to the realignment of
international borders after the war, Gleiwitz and the surrounding areas of
Silesia became part of Poland, and the city adopted the Polish name Gliwice.
The radio station survived the war
without damage. On October 3, 1949 the frequency
at Radio Gliwice was changed to 737 kHz, and then on March 15, 1950, the
transmitter was re-tuned to 1079 kHz. At
this stage, it was in use only as an emergency backup transmitter for the
mediumwave station at Ruda Slaska.
In
1955, this medium wave station at Gliwice was withdrawn from service, and the
facility was used for jamming Polish programming from Radio Free Europe. These days, the tower is in use for the
transmission of 50 or more mobile phone systems, and a low power FM
station. The transmitter building was
turned onto a museum in 2005, and the tower is now a tourist attraction. It is the tallest wooden tower in the world,
and the only wooden tower that is still in use for radio transmissions.
The
Polish partisan Franciszek Honiok was killed at the radio station and he was
buried in an unmarked grave, the location of which is forever unknown. He is listed officially as the first casualty
of World War II.
Major Alfred Naujocks
survived the war and he became a businessman in Hamburg Germany; he died in
1966.
We would presume that Engineer
Nawroth who put the station off the air during the surreptitious broadcast,
continued in service at the station.
Nothing more is known about the
German army
man who spoke both German and Polish, Karl Hornack; he was the temporary
announcer who made the short broadcast over Radio Gleiwitz.
Last year, (2014) 75th
anniversary celebrations of the Gleiwitz Incident were conducted at the radio
station, with representatives attending from both Germany and Poland.
And that’s
the end of the story: the radio broadcast that began World War II.
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 340)
