At first, I think, we can agree, that Polish flak fired upon German planes BEFORE even the preparations for the faked attack on Gleiwitz radio station started. A fact, Michele didn't acknowledge at all.
Then we don't know, why the flak fired. It is indeed a possibility that they fired upon a plane, which was on a wrong direction. Still, that doesn't justify the firing upon a civilian craft. Also it may be possible, that the planes were flying on a right course. As the air space over the Baltic in that days ended three nautical miles from the coast, it is very possible, that a landing plane, on course, can be fired at from Hela peninsula.
Thanks for your work.
I don't think we can say that it is a "fact" at all that Polish AA guns fired upon a German civilian plane. What we have is German official reports of that happening (containing glaring mistakes, it seems), these reports being commented upon in the foreign press, and then the technical and organisational fact that there were functional and manned Polish AA guns on the Hel peninsula.
But we know that we can't really trust what the German government told the world those days and weeks, not by a longshot. And even if the Polish (unsourced) comment that Polish AA on Hel fired warning shots to the general direction of German (military?) planes earlier in the summer, due to them flying in Polish airspace (I assume over the sea), would be true, that merely means that the AA on Hel doing the same in August to German civilian planes is technically plausible, not that it actually happened.
What trips me up about this is
intent. Why would the Polish AA battery on Hel fire upon German civilian aircraft apparently going away from it (en route from Danzig to Berlin), especially if we are talking about officially reported flights? Are they doing it just for the heck of it, to deliberately escalate the situation, or then because they need practice?
What we would need, IMHO, would be a better look at the Polish sources. This might be difficult online for different reasons, though.
EDIT: Found this
French document:
No. 223 :
M. Leon Noel, French Ambassador in Warsaw, to M. Georges Bonnet, Minister for Foreign Affairs. Warsaw, August 24, 1939. 7 p.m.
(Received 1155 p.m.)
THE Polish Press today announces the following incidents:
(1) Arrest at the Silesian frontier of a Polish diplomatic courier. He is said to have been imprisoned at Breslau and is being detained, in spite of intervention by the Consulate and by the Embassy.
(2) Last night a three-engined German bomber flew over Bohumin. A Polish fighter went up after it and the bomber returned to German territory.
(3) The body of the Polish soldier killed on Danzig territory some days ago has been returned in a mutilated condition to the Polish authorities. This has aroused great indignation.
(4) The Polish Press publishes the following statements about the two German commercial aircraft which, according to the D.N.B., were shot at in the vicinity of Danzig: at eight o'clock in the morning, a German plane was seen flying over Polish territory, but no shot was fired. At four o'clock another plane flew over the forbidden zone of the Hel peninsula. After the Polish anti-aircraft batteries had fired three warning salvos the German plane turned back.
So: it appears that the German planes in question, whether they were civilian or military,
flew over Polish territory, specifically
a forbidden military area, and that was why the Polish AA guns fired "warning salvos", according to the Polish authorities.
If these were civilian (or any) planes en route from the Danzig airport to Berlin, they had no reason to fly over the Hel peninsula which, as we know, is directly due north from Danzig/Gdansk.
Why were these German planes over Polish territory on Hel? Was it an accident or was it deliberate? What comes to my mind is aerial reconnaissance of the Polish positions on Hel peninsula, and/or testing the Polish reaction to such overflights. In any case, the Polish would have had all the right to protect their airspace from intrusion.
EDIT2: In
another French document, from August 25th, the French ambassador in Germany, Coulondre, details Hitler using these incidents as arguments against the Polish:
"At first," pursued Herr Hitler, "I forbade the Press of the Reich to publish accounts of the cruelties suffered by the Germans in Poland. But the situation has now become intolerable. Are you aware," he asked me emphatically, "that there have been cases of castration? That already there are more than 70,000 refugees in our camps? Yesterday seven Germans were killed by the police in Bielitz, and thirty German reservists were machine-gunned at Lodz. Our aeroplanes can no longer fly between Germany and East Prussia without being shot at; their route had been changed, but they are now even attacked over the sea. Thus, the plane which was carrying State Secretary Stuckart was fired at by Polish warships, a fresh incident which I was not yet in a position to bring to the notice of Sir Nevile Henderson this morning."
Raising his voice, Herr Hitler went on: "No nation worthy of the name can put up with such unbearable insults. France would not tolerate it any more than Germany. These things have gone on long enough, and I will reply by force to any further provocations. I want to state once again: I wish to avoid war with your country. I will not attack France, but if she joins in the conflict, I will see it through to the bitter end. As you are aware, I have just concluded a pact with Moscow that is not only theoretical, but, I may say, practical. I believe I shall win, and you believe you will win: what is certain is that above all French and German blood will flow, the blood of two equally courageous peoples. I say again, it is painful to me to think we might come to that. Please tell this to President Daladier on my behalf."
On the face of it, this all pretty much reeks of deliberate and concerted German provocations in preparation for the invasion. Hitler definitely is committed to make hay about the airplane incident at the highest political level. His claim how he "forbade" the German press to report "cruelties suffered by the Germans in Poland" is just precious.