Gliwice Radio Tower

Tilt your head back. Above you, a lattice of dark timber climbs into the sky, beam crossing beam, until the eye loses count. The wood has weathered to a deep brown, almost black in places. On a breezy day you may hear a faint creak from somewhere high up, like an old ship at anchor. This is not steel. It is larch, a tough conifer wood, and it has stood here, through war and peace, for nearly a century.

You are standing beside the Gliwice Radio Tower, in a quiet, leafy corner of this Silesian city. It is often described as the tallest wooden structure in Europe, and among the tallest still standing anywhere in the world. Its height is usually given as around 111 metres. That is roughly the height of a thirty-storey building, made almost entirely from wood. Look at the base, where the frame spreads wide, and follow it up as it narrows toward the top.

The tower went up in the mid-1930s. At that time, this city was not Polish. It was German, and its name was Gleiwitz. The border with Poland ran very close by, and the region of Upper Silesia was a place of mixed languages, mixed loyalties, and sharp political tension. A powerful radio transmitter here could reach far across that border. Radio, in those years, was a new and serious weapon of influence.

Why wood, and not steel? The usual explanation is a technical one. Large amounts of metal close to a transmitting antenna can interfere with the radio signal. So the builders chose timber, and they joined the beams with brass fittings rather than iron or steel. Locals like to say that not a single nail holds the tower together. Whether or not that is exactly true, the brass bolts are real, and they have lasted remarkably well.

Now look at the low brick buildings nearby. These housed the radio station itself — the studios, the equipment, the people who kept the signal on air. They look modest, almost domestic, beside the tower. It is hard to believe that one of the most notorious events of the twentieth century began inside them. But it did, on the evening of 31 August 1939.

That night, a small group of German SS men arrived at the station. They were not wearing German uniforms. They were dressed to look like Polish insurgents. The operation is usually linked to an SS officer named Alfred Naujocks. The men seized the building, and they broadcast a short, angry message in Polish. The aim was simple and cynical. They wanted the world to believe that Poland had attacked Germany.

To make the lie more convincing, they brought a body. The victim was Franciszek Honiok, a local Silesian man known for his sympathy toward Poland. He was murdered and left at the scene, dressed to look like one of the attackers. He was, in a sense, one of the very first victims of the Second World War. Many visitors leave without ever hearing his name. It is worth remembering it here.

The next morning, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Hitler used staged incidents along the border, including this one, as a pretext. Historians often call it the Gleiwitz incident. It was a piece of theatre, a provocation built on false identities and a stolen microphone. And the tower above you watched it all happen. The broadcast itself was brief — and, by many accounts, it did not even reach very far.

The war ended in 1945, and the borders of Europe moved. Gleiwitz became Gliwice, part of Poland. The German population largely left or was expelled, and new residents arrived, many of them from Poland's former eastern lands. The tower stayed. It outlived the regime that used it, and the city around it changed its language, its name, and its people. That alone makes it a strange and powerful survivor.

Today the site belongs to the Gliwice city museum. Inside the station buildings, an exhibition tells the story of radio, of the station, and of that night in 1939. You can see historic broadcasting equipment, the kind of heavy, glowing machinery that once carried voices through the air. The tower is also recognised as an official Historic Monument of Poland, one of the country's highest heritage designations.

Here is a detail many people miss. Look closely at the frame, and you may spot a narrow ladder running up through the inside of the structure. Workers once used it to reach the top for maintenance. Visitors cannot climb it, so do not expect a viewing platform. But simply picturing that climb, through a forest of creaking beams in a winter wind, tells you something about the people who kept this place running.

Take a moment to walk slowly around the base. The view changes with every few steps. From one side, the beams line up into neat diamond patterns. From another, they seem to tangle into a dense web. In soft afternoon light, the wood glows warm and brown. Under grey skies, it looks darker and more severe. The trees around the site soften the edges and frame the tower against the sky.

So, as you stand here, look up once more. The same timber that carried a lie into the night of 1939 still stands, quietly, above a park in a Polish city. Listen for the wind in the beams, and the ordinary sounds of Gliwice around you — traffic, birds, voices. As you walk away, glance back over your shoulder. The tower will stay in view for a long time, a dark line rising above the rooftops.