History
The tower was erected from 1 August 1934 as Sendeturm Gleiwitz (Gleiwitz Radio Tower), when the territory was part of Germany. It was operated by the Reichssender Breslau (former Schlesische Funkstunde broadcasting corporation) of the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft radio network. The tower was modeled on the Mühlacker radio transmitter, it replaced a smaller transmitter in Gleiwitz situated nearby on Raudener Straße and went in service on 23 December 1935.
On 31 August 1939, the German SS staged a 'Polish' attack on Gleiwitz radio station, which was later used as justification for the Invasion of Poland. The transmission facility was not demolished in World War II. From 4 October 1945, until the inauguration of the new transmitter in Ruda Śląska in 1955, the Gliwice transmitter was used for medium wave broadcasting of the Polish Public Broadcasting Company. After 1955, it was used as a jammer against medium wave transmitters broadcasting Western Polish-language programmes, e.g. Radio Free Europe.
Following the decision of the City Council taken on 2 December 2004, the radio tower is a museum on radio history and visual arts, located in the former radio transmitter building.
Read more about this topic: Gliwice Radio Tower
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like this since creation. Creation, huh, that took six days, this was done in one. History made in an hour. Why it’s a miracle out of the Old Testament!”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)