Gliwice in the context of "Oder River"

The Gleiwitz incident (German: Überfall auf den Sender Gleiwitz; Polish: prowokacja gliwicka) was a false flag attack on the radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz (then Germany and now Gliwice, Poland) staged by Nazi Germany on the night of 31 August 1939. Along with some two dozen similar incidents, the attack was manufactured by Germany as a casus belli to justify the invasion of Poland. Prior to the invasion, Adolf Hitler gave a radio address condemning the acts and announcing German plans to attack Poland, which began the next morning. Despite the German government using the attack as a justification to go to war with Poland, the Gleiwitz assailants were not Polish but were German SS officers wearing Polish uniforms.

During his declaration of war, Hitler did not mention the Gleiwitz incident but grouped all provocations staged by the SS as an alleged "Polish assault" on Germany. The Gleiwitz incident is the best-known action of Operation Himmler, a series of special operations undertaken by the Schutzstaffel (SS) to serve German propaganda at the outbreak of war. The operation was intended to create the appearance of a Polish aggression against Germany to justify the invasion of Poland. On September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and the European theatre of World War II had begun. Manufactured evidence for the Gleiwitz attack by the SS was provided by the undercover German SS officer Alfred Naujocks in 1945.

Opel Manufacturing Poland Sp. z o.o. (formerly General Motors Manufacturing Poland Sp. z o.o.) is an automobile manufacturer in Poland. It assembles light commercial vehicles in a factory in Gliwice and builds engines in Tychy. Opel Manufacturing Poland is a subsidiary of Opel Automobile GmbH in Rüsselsheim, Germany which in turn is a subsidiary of Stellantis.

This is not to be confused with the Opel sales company Opel Poland Sp. z o.o. with seat in Warsaw, appearing publicly as Opel Polska.

The Province of Upper Silesia (German: Provinz Oberschlesien; Silesian German: Provinz Oberschläsing; Silesian: Prowincyjŏ Gōrny Ślōnsk; Polish: Prowincja Górny Śląsk) was a province of the Free State of Prussia from 1919 to 1945. It comprised much of the region of Upper Silesia and was eventually divided into two government regions (Regierungsbezirke) called Kattowitz (1939–1945), and Oppeln (1819–1945). The provincial capital was Oppeln (1919–1938) and Kattowitz (1941–1945), while other major towns included Beuthen, Gleiwitz, Hindenburg O.S., Neiße, Ratibor and Auschwitz, added in 1941 (the place of future extermination of Jews in World War II). Between 1938 and 1941 it was reunited with Lower Silesia as the Province of Silesia.

Controlled-access highways in Poland are part of the national roads network and they are divided into motorways and expressways. Both types of highways feature grade-separated interchanges with all other roads, emergency lanes, feeder lanes, wildlife crossings and dedicated roadside rest areas. Motorways differ from expressways in their technical parameters like designated speed, permitted road curvature, lane widths or minimal distances between interchanges. Moreover, expressways might have single-carriageway sections in case of low traffic densities (as of 2025, such sections constitute 3% of the highway network).

The development of modern highways began in the 1970s, but proceeded very slowly under the communist rule and for the first years afterwards: between 1970 and 2000 only 434 km of highways (5% of the planned network) were constructed in total. Further 1050 km (13% of the network) were opened from 2001 to 2010, followed by 2773 km (34% of the network) constructed between 2011 and 2020. It is planned to open about 2500 km (31%) in the 2020s, while the last about 1400 km (17%) would be completed in the 2030s.