This part three about Unternehmen Danzig. In the winter of 1939, a quiet airfield in Hildesheim, Germany became the unlikely birthplace of one of World War II’s most audacious and closely guarded military experiments.

Under the misleading cover name “Propaganda-Ballonzug”, a group of handpicked glider pilots — many of them civilian champions and Olympic-caliber aviators — were assembled for a mission so secret, even the men themselves weren’t told what they were training for.

Their commander: Oberleutnant Walter Kieß.
Their aircraft: the fragile, unpowered DFS 230 assault glider.
Their objective: unknown.

In this episode, we tell the full story. not of the attack, but of the formation, the friction, and the fearless innovation behind Germany’s first airborne special operations glider unit. You’ll meet pilots like Otto Bräutigam, who broke records in sport gliding before being forced into combat. You’ll hear how tensions flared between veteran Luftwaffe personnel and young civilian pilots, and how secrecy was so tight that sand tables replaced maps, and light codes guided night flights.

We’ll take you inside Braunschweig-Waggum, the glider school built in haste to train men for a mission none of them fully understood — and follow the men through bitter winter nights, forbidden contact between pilot groups, and a growing resistance to plans that many believed would cost them their lives.

By dawn on May 10, 1940, their orders were finally revealed — and history would never be the same.

This is not just a tale of training. It’s a story of secrecy, sacrifice, mistrust, and the relentless drive to master the air with nothing but canvas, wood, and courage
#WWIIPodcast #DFS230 #AirborneOperations #EbenEmael #MilitaryHistoryPodcast

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