Operation Himmler
[back] False flags

World War II was started with a false flag operation by the Nazis. Called Operation Himmler, it consisted of a score of actions designed to create the appearance that Poland was engaging in agression against Germany.

One such action was the Gleiwitz Incident of August 31, 1939, in which German operatives led by Alfred Naujocks seized the radio station at Gleiwitz in order to broadcast messages in Polish urging Poles in Silesia to attack Germans. The goal was to make it appear that Polish saboteurs were attempting to foment aggression against Germans.

To make the fraud more convincing, a Polish prisoner of the Gestapo, Franciszek Honiok, was dressed in a Polish uniform and killed, then presented to the press as proof that the attack was the work of Polish saboteurs.

e x c e r p t
title: Brief History of Covert 'Intelligence' Operations
 
 
The code name was "Operation Himler". The SS Gestapo would stage a fake attack on the German radio station at Gleiwitz, near the Polish border, using condemned concentration camp prisoners outfitted in Polish Army uniforms. Thus Poland would be blamed for attacking Germany.

A young SS secret-service, Alfred Naujocks, deserted to the Americans and at Nuremburg [Trial] made a number of sworn affidavits:

On or about August 10, 1939, the chief of the SD, Heydrich, personally ordered me to simulate an attack on the radio station near Gleiwitz near the Polish border and to make it appear the attacking force consisted of Poles. Heydrich said: "Practical proof is needed for for these attacks on the Poles for the foreign press as well as for German propaganda."

The attack, also known "Operation Canned Goods", consisted of a total of 21 fake terror attacks along the border on that same night.

The Himmler Operation may have remained a secret if not for the Nuremberg trials. The operation's leader, Alfred Naujocks, who had truned himself over to the Allied forces in November of 1944, was put on trial as a possible war criminal. He presented to the trial a written afidavit in which he declared that he had directed the attack on the radio station under orders from Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Müller.