By R. Smyth
The Gleiwitz affair concerned an allegedly false flag attack by the Germans on a radio station just across the German border from Poland. This whole incident is confused by the many variations of the story, even by main-line historians. One variation, suggests the author, could possibly provide material for Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The many contradictions to the story have given rise to some scepticism and suspicion that the whole story might have been invented by the Allies to cover up an actual attack by Polish insurgents. The keystone of most accounts is the testimony of SS Major Alfred Naujocks given while a prisoner of the allies. Yet, in spite of his alleged murderous activity during the war, he was never hunted down like other Nazis after his supposed escape from Allied custody. This situation continued even when he was living openly in Hamburg and selling his story to the press as ‘The man who started World War II’. This whole affair is here examined. It is an important matter, as it is regarded as the flash point which started the Second World War.
