False Flag attack – a historical case study

Introduction

Being members of this formidable community has led us to be familiar with certain buzzwords that constitute the very vocabulary of conspiracism, such as cover-up, double agent, disinfo shill, shape shifting lizards and many more. Not all of them are appealing and some of them are misplaced, nonetheless using these words on a day-to-day basis distinguishes us from people who never delve into subject. One such word that has always fascinated me is” False Flag Operation” as I found the implications and the very concept of the idea to be very intriguing. So I have played with the idea of making a thread about False Flag attacks, and this is what finally came of it. Enjoy.

Cliffhanger quote

Next time it went better: As soon as Hitler decided on the definitive date of attack (September 1, 0445) Heydrich informed his secret army on the polish border. Around 4 o clock in the afternoon (31. Aug., Nichirasu) the phone in Najock’s room ringed and a dry, metallic voice said: “I request you to call back”. Nothing more. Naujock then called Heydrichs office where he was again connected to the metallic voice which this time said “Grandmother has died”. Naujock understood. He called his men together and told them they would head to the radio station at quarter to eight and gain control of it. Müller too was in haste: he ordered the trucks to fire up the engines – after all the corpses needed to arrive on the different scenes on time. For Naujock he held one “canned good” (“Konserve, code name for the corpses, Nichirasu) ready – it had to be delivered to the gate of Gleiwitz radio station by eight o’ clock the latest
Translated by Nichirasu from a german book called “Der Ordern unter dem Totenkopf. Geschichte der SS."

General Info

The operation mentioned in the quote above describes one of the 3 various False Flag attacks that the Nazis staged shortly before attacking Poland on September 1st, 1939. Although it is generally accepted among historians and has been the subject of some consideration by main stream media, for various reasons the fact that the Second World War was started by implementing a False Flag attack is not mentioned very often.

Read about this specific action, called the Gleiwitz incident, here on wiki:

en.wikipedia.org...

Heydrich had come up with the plan for an operation among these lines a year before during the so called “Sudetenkrise” with Czechoslovakia. It is documented that he forwarded the idea of using the Wehrmacht to stage “Scheinangriffe” (False Attacks) on troops stationed along the border. As most readers will know, war with Czechoslovakia was avoided by British appeasement in Munich.
The plans were revamped for the attack on Poland and eventually it was decided to stage 3 independent but coherent attacks in the area of Gleiwitz on the Polish border. One attacked would target a customs station, the second attack would target a camp in the woods, and the third, most prominent attack was to be staged against a radio station located about 5 km from the border.

Absent a historically verified operation name, this plan has been called “Operation Himmler” or “Operation Tannenberg”:

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

This operation is also mentioned in the following September 1, 1939, edition of Time magazine in an article by W.H. AUDEN.
www.time.com...

Most links as well as literature on the subject is in the German language though. For those of you frustration-prone folks who have mastered German;

de.wikipedia.org...
www.h-ref.de...
www.spiegel.de...
de.wikipedia.org...
einestages.spiegel.de...
www.ifz-muenchen.de...

Stay tuned for part 2!


[edit on 16-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

[edit on 16-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

Inconsistencies
For some Nazi apologists the fact that these operations were executed in everything else than a professional manner is evidence of it not being a Nazi plot. That’s kind of weird since the documentary evidence; while not extensive and not clear on every detail, is quite enough to come to the conclusion that it indeed was a planned operation by the Nazis.
I will dot on some of the inconsistencies:

- Although several of the Nazi junta alluded to these “polish aggressions” to diplomats and the press, they were never made a central element of the Nazis justification of their actions. The Weissbuch (White Book) that they published simply omits the Gleiwitz incident and mentions others it and Hitler in his war-opening speech of September 1st, 1939 only alludes to “14 incidents on the border, 3 of which were grave.”

See original: www.reichstagsprotokolle.de...

-While it is true that he does not specifically allude to these operations by names, it is noteworthy that he speaks of “3 grave incidents” – exactly the number of planned False Flag attacks.

Another strange thing about these incidents is that they were given away by a coincidence: Officers critical of Hitler in the Military Counter-Espionage Unit “Abwehr” had inserted some false lines into a copy of a speech given by Hitler to his Generals on August 22nd. This document got into the hands of Hermann Maas who gave it to a friend at the Associated Press by August 25. So by that time the British suspected a German-Polish war to start with such False Flag incidents, though based on a forgery, the information would eventually come true a week later when the war began.

General Comments on the operation

- Some details that stand out about this operation is surely the use of corpses of concentration camp inmates, who were especially killed by injection for this occasion and then, after being dressed up as polish soldiers or polish “banditti”, were dragged to the scenes by a separate them who would deliver the corpses to the unit that actually implements the False Flag attack.

Since this is a bona fida case of a False Flag attack, one can draw many conclusions from this specific case to False Flag attacks in general.

- Not only the groups that attacked “under False Flag” were in the loop but also all (or certain elements) of those “playing guards”. In 2 of the 3 cases the guard unit of the facilities was exchanged in a highly irregular fashion. So in order to succeed you have to control both sides of the action; although control and knowledge of the plot tends to be deeper on the attacking side in this case. Another example of this would be the figure of SS Oberführer Heinrich Müller, chief of the Gestapo, who was the one who trucked the concentration camp corpses dressed as poles to the 3 scenes. After delivering them, he drove away, shortly to return in his function of chief of the Gestapo in order to investigate the crime. So the Nazis literally sent the perpetrator to investigate the story – another way of keeping control of all possible contingencies.

In the end, this story proved to be marginal; the Nazi’s position was not one that the public opinion of the world was going to accept; whatever “polish border provocations” there might have been. Heydrich even built a small scale model of the “Gleiwitz incident” with interactive blinking lights and miniature machine-gun sounds; but the press was not all that impressed with or interested in it.

One thing that I find especially notable about the whole story is the overall narrative that it followed. Given the situation as it was, no one was going t believe that the Poles would be interested in taking any such actions. The Poles wanted to avoid a war more than anything – constructing a cover story of “polish commandos on German territory” was highly implausible. And this counts for the individual actions themselves: Why would the Poles attack a radio station, cut the program, grab the mic and start a 4-minute rant against Germans and their policy? Or what would they have to gain by attacking some obscure, unimportant custom station in the West-Prussian pampas? Maybe the whole thing has been forgotten because it was so completely insane and incredible.

But it’s interesting to think about whether the Gleiwitz incident would have been a standard narrative of World War 2 if the Germans would have won the war. Maybe then people would open threads on ATS and asking “Was Gleiwitz a False Flag? – evidence discussed here”….

Well anyway… When discussing fringe stuff like False Flags it is always good to provide a baseline against which to check other possible cases, I hope I have provided such a baseline with my presentation of the story and the links. Thanks for reading!




[edit on 16-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

There's a good short summary of events and especially about Naujock, the principle character in this play at:

www.damninteresting.com...

There is a movie based on the subject in German on veoh (focusing on Glewitz) at:

www.veoh.com...

There's not much english links, though. It's a shame. Am I the only one on ATS how finds this incident to be mind-boggling?

[edit on 16-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

I find it terrifying, but vital, thank you.
I spent the evening watching a film on the Port Arthur Incident in Tasmania. After listening to so many reports of twisted events, one can no longer say with certainty that any aggression, action, or war is necessary.
My question is if all people wanted or want war so badly, why are the areas without warlords so quiet? One would think everyone around the world would be attacking the person next to them daily.
The attacks I see are driven by the controllers of certain sub-groups, or perpetrated suddenly by the insane.
They all seem to be planned, to get the people manipulated to embrace aggression and depravity.
Thank you and I am glad more people are learning about incidents like this one, back in History, I feel it helps validate newer claims of FF activity.
love and peace.

Yet another clear and concise contribution to ATS that is noteworthy.
The implications while known are disturbing especially in light of recent and on going events in this century.


Star and flag from me, Great thread. One Ill be saving for reference. Thanks.

Interesting stuff,OP s&f for ya. I have been wanting to look into the attacks on Poland for awhile now.

Good post .S&F for you. I want to watch this thread as anyone looking for the truth.This whole Rome thing seems to show up in ways that sort of tell me that they make a ton of money and give a ton of sorrow in their path . These evil people seem to always have ties to Rome,weather threw treaties or Jesuit orders. Thanks for your post. peace

Some questions that could be discussed under this topic...

- Was it worth it? Did the "False Flaggers" achieve their goal?

- Did their dressing up of corpses in Polish uniforms, shooting them up and placing them on the scene help to further the credibility of the whole scheme?

- Was it just? Should actions like these be permitted by the law of war? ( False Flagging and false uniformation, as well as false capitulation are all forbidden under the current laws of war between sovereign states).

- Was the Nazis cover story credible? If you would have lived then, would you have been inclined to believe it?

- Does this example show that i) False Flags are easily detectable or does it show that ii) False Flags are always detected if the False Flagger doesn't carry home victory in the conflict he provoked?

- What would have been a more convincing False Flag attack in this situation?