Hitler's Fake Attack on Germany that Started World War II - Operation Canned Goods

The horrors of World War II began with Hitler's Blitzkrieg of Poland at 4:45 a.m. on September 1, 1939 when the Nazi Luftwaffe attacked the grounded Polish Air Force. The plans for the attack were made as early as June 1939 under the code name Fall Weiss (Plan White). The incorporation of a strip of German land, known as the Corridor, into Poland as part of the Treaty of Versailles outraged Hitler. He believed the land to be rightfully part of Germany, and he intended to take it back just like he had Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia. When he continued to demand the land, Poland declared that any attempt to take the Corridor would lead to conflict.

Poland's obstinate behavior made Hitler decide that he would not be satisfied with just the Corridor, but all of Poland. He planned to completely control Poland before England and France could effectively mobilize their forces. He wanted a quick and conclusive victory over the Poles, a lightning war - a blitzkrieg. But to justify his unwarranted attack, he needed to convince the world press and the German people that his attack on Poland was provoked. He had the SS develop a phony incident that would appear as if Polish soldiers attacked a German radio station.

Though a faked attack on a small German town's radio station may seem trivial enough to warrant only a footnote in history, the operation epitomizes the brutality, deceit, and atrocious nature of Hitler's Third Reich. The plan was instigated by one of the most ruthless Nazi henchmen, Reinhardt Heydrich, the head of the SS security service, Sicherheitsdients (SD). Heydrich was a cold-blooded man who answered only to Himmler, and is believed to be the author of the "Final Solution" - the SS's wanton mass murder of millions of "undesirables." Heydrich ordered SS operative Alfred Helmut Naujocks, to simulate an attack on a radio station in the German town of Gleiwitz near the German-Polish border. It would appear that the attack was only the beginning of a complete assault by the Polish Army on Germany. The attack was code named "Operation Canned Goods."

Naujocks was an engraver-forger and street-brawler from Kiel, a perfect character for carrying out Heydrich's vicious schemes. Naujocks's orders from Heydrich came on August 10, 1939. He took command of several SS troops and contacted Heinrich Mueller, head of the Gestapo, on August 25th. Mueller promised to help Naujocks by supplying him several dead men dressed in Polish Army uniforms; this ruse would help convince the world press that the Poles were in fact attacking Gleiwitz. Mueller went to a German concentration camp and found 12 to 13 men, whom Naujocks later characterized as "condemned criminals." Heydrich supplied a doctor for Mueller. The doctor would administer fatal injections, and then Mueller would put them in Polish uniforms and machine-gun the bodies to make it appear that they died by German patriots. The dead men would then be quietly delivered to Naujocks, like so many "canned goods."

At 8 p.m., August 31, 1939, while a million and a half German soldiers waited to attack Poland, Naujocks prepared to attack the Gleiwitz radio station. He and his hand-picked group of SS troops surreptitiously surrounded the radio station. With Naujocks was a Polish-speaking SS agent poised to broadcast a special message to the world. The SS troops quickly and easily took control of the radio station. From the broadcast booth the Polish-speaking SS agent told his audience that Germany was in the hands of the Polish Army, and it was time for the Poles to attack Germany. The broadcast ended with revolver shots and a loud cry of "long live Poland." Less than ten hours later the greatest war the world would ever know would begin.

Mueller and Naujocks had their "canned goods" spread around the radio station and the surrounding forest. The SS then stole into the night just before police cars arrived at the radio station. Foreign newsmen appeared only minutes after the police - they had been tipped off by SS agents. The newsmen began collecting information about the "assault."

At 9 p.m. Hitler's sixteen point proposal to Warsaw was broadcast. On the surface the proposals looked like legitimate requests. The proposal was, of course, never presented to the Poles and only vaguely mentioned in an unofficial manner to the British 24 hours earlier. It appeared to the German people that the Poles were a dangerous neighbor, unwilling to return what was rightfully German land. Hitler heightened suspicions by having Berlin radio broadcast details of the Gleiwitz incident at 10:30 p.m. The attack was referred to the next day by Hitler at the Reichstag. The New York Times reported the fake attack in their September 1, 1939 issue. It was later learned that the Gleiwitz attack was only one of as many as twenty other faked attacks staged on Germany that had been designed by Heydrich.

The stage was set for war. Hitler never wanted the Poles to respond to any kind of proposal; he wanted war. Only days before at the Eagles Nest, his Berchtesgaden mountain retreat on the German-Austrian border, Hitler had received a telegram from Stalin declaring that Russia would agree with Hitler's non-aggression pact. Hitler was overjoyed that Russia would be subdued for present. He then proudly declared to his guests that it was imperative for Germany "to be in a war during my lifetime."

Naujock allegedly went on to assist Nazi commando hero Otto Skorzeny with Operation Odessa, the clandestine operation to help Nazis out of Germany at the end of the war.

Naujocks made a detailed statement about the Gleiwitz conspiracy at the Nuremberg Trial in 1945. His affidavit, dated November 20, 1945, declared that Heydrich " . . . personally ordered me to simulate an attack on the radio station new Gleiwitz, near the Polish border and to make it appear that the attacking force consisted of Poles." The Nuremberg Trials also contained interesting testimony from General Lahousen, of the Abwehr, hinting that all the SS troops, save Naujocks, that were involved in the incident were subsequently murdered to keep them quiet about the sordid affair. Naujocks continued his covert exploits with the SS throughout the war, but not before providing Hitler " . . . a propagandist reason for starting the war - never mind that it is plausible or not . . . "