On August 31, 1939, German commandos dressed in Polish uniforms staged a fake attack on a radio station near the Polish border, broadcast a fabricated message in Polish, and left behind a murdered prisoner to serve as evidence. The next morning, Hitler used the incident as justification for invading Poland. Within days, World War II had begun. This episode of Sidequests covers the Gleiwitz Incident — the false flag operation that started the deadliest conflict in human history, how it was planned and executed in a matter of hours, why the lie worked well enough to serve its purpose, and what investigators discovered after the war when they pieced together exactly what had happened.
","author_name":"Keith Conrad"}