(It is the nature of this blog that our most recent entries are at the top, making it a bit awkward to read what is here the third part of a trilogy of posts today. You might want to start with my visit to Góra Świętej Anny.)
Above is a radio tower in Gliwice, Poland. It is an impressive construction in its own right, being made of wood with brass connectors in 1935 by Germans. It is the second tallest wooden structure (118 meters) in the world. How it survived World War II is a mystery to me.
This radio tower is famous for being the site of the Gleiwitz Incident on August 31, 1939. At the time Gleiwitz was within Germany near the Polish border. German SS troops staged a bloody attack on the radio station and tower to make it look like Polish Silesian nationalists were responsible. This was at least conceivable because of the tensions in Silesia between Germans and Poles for centuries, especially in the year after World War I. Of course, the Poles had nothing to do with the Gleiwitz violence. The Nazis used it as a pretext to attack and invade Poland on September 1, 1939. Last week my colleagues and I visited Westerplatte in Gdansk where the first “official” shots were fired. In some ways, though, the war started here.
Here are my patient and friendly colleagues Michał Zatoń and Tomasz Borszcz at the base of the Gliwice radio tower. They are very tolerant of my passion for history and geology.
