Gliwice Radio Tower — the tallest wooden tower in the world

Larch, brass and no steel nails

The tower was put up in 1935 by Christoph & Unmack of Niesky, to a design credited to Paul Meltzer. Work on the site started on 1 August 1934 and assembling the tower itself took around five months. Its height is usually given as 112 metres, with Polish sources quoting 111.1 metres for the timber structure; until 2013 an antenna mast took the total to 118 metres.

It is built of impregnated larch, joined with wooden dowels and some 16,000 brass screws. There is no structural steel, because metal would have interfered with the aerial. The cross-section is square and the profile follows a parabola — broad at the base, visibly tapering towards the top. Locals call it the Silesian Eiffel Tower, which is less of a stretch than it sounds: the principle of a tapering lattice is identical, only the material differs.

Inside, a ladder of 365 rungs runs to the top, with platforms at 40.4, 55.3, 80 and 109.7 metres. Since the wooden tower at Żórawina was demolished in the autumn of 1990, Gliwice has held the record for the tallest wooden tower in the world.

31 August 1939

On the evening of 31 August 1939 a small group in worn civilian clothes entered the station compound. They were led by Alfred Naujocks of the SD, acting on orders from Reinhard Heydrich. The staff were overpowered and intimidated with gunfire.

The raiders had arrived not at the studio but at the relay building on Tarnogórska Street, and could not get a microphone working. Only a plain storm-warning microphone, handed over by the staff under interrogation, let them cut into the stronger signal from Wrocław. A few sentences went out in Polish, announcing that the station was in Polish hands.

Franciszek Honiok, a forty-year-old from nearby Łubie and a veteran of the Silesian uprisings, was murdered on the spot. The Gestapo had brought him in drugged so that his body would support the story of a Polish attack, and he is generally counted as the first victim of the Second World War. Gliwice was one of three such staged operations that night. German radio broadcast news of the attack the same evening, and the invasion of Poland began a few hours later. This is the reason most visitors come, and the exhibition does not soften it.

Eighty years on air

The first transmitter here opened on 15 November 1925 as a relay for the Wrocław broadcaster. A stronger station of eight kilowatts followed in December 1935, and from 1937 it served as the parent station of a synchronised Silesian network, with Görlitz as its daughter station.

Broadcasting stopped on 22 January 1945 as the front approached. Polish authorities took over in May, and regular Polskie Radio Katowice programmes began in October 1945. Through the 1950s the station was used to jam foreign broadcasters, Radio Free Europe among them, and later served as a reserve transmitter. The historic Lorenz transmitter was taken to the Museum of Technology in Warsaw in 1963 and came back to Gliwice in 2013.

From transmitter to museum

The city of Gliwice bought the complex in 2002, and in 2005 the Museum in Gliwice took it over, opening a branch devoted to the history of radio and to media art. In 2009 the grounds were opened as a public park and the tower was floodlit.

The site has been on the register of monuments since 1964 and was declared a Historic Monument of Poland on 15 March 2017. The old transmitter no longer works, as its final stage is missing, but the tower carries antennas for mobile networks, emergency services and a local radio station, so it remains a working structure rather than a relic.

Getting there

• By car — the station stands in the north of Gliwice on Tarnogórska Street. The city sits where the A1 and A4 motorways cross, so it is straightforward from Kraków, Katowice or Wrocław.
• By public transport — city buses run from Gliwice main station towards Tarnogórska; it is a few minutes on foot from the stop.
• By train — Gliwice is on the main line from Katowice towards Opole and Wrocław, then a bus or taxi for the last stretch.
• By bike — a few flat kilometres from the centre, which in this conurbation is a genuinely practical option.

Practical notes

You cannot go up the tower; the ladder is there for maintenance crews. You see it from the park at its foot, which is close enough to pick out individual beams and brass fittings, and close enough to feel the height.

The visit proper is the exhibition in the old station buildings, covering both the engineering and the events of 1939. Two hours is enough. The site has been through modernisation work and the displays change, so it is worth checking the museum's page before travelling.

Afternoon light suits the tower best, and the evening floodlighting suits photographs. The ground is flat and easy to walk, including with a pushchair.

How to get there and practical info

Location

northern Gliwice, on Tarnogórska Street, Silesian Voivodeship

Tower height

112 metres; the timber structure is also given as 111.1 metres

Material

impregnated larch, wooden dowels and some 16,000 brass screws, no steel nails

Built

1935, with the tower assembled in about five months

Record

tallest wooden tower in the world

Status

on the register of monuments since 1964, Historic Monument of Poland since 15 March 2017

Time needed

about two hours including the exhibition

Without a car

train to Gliwice, then a city bus towards Tarnogórska

Accessibility

flat grounds; the inside of the tower is closed to visitors

Current hours and tickets

official site of the Museum in Gliwice

When to go