Plot Summary
CANNED GOODS is an extraordinary play that explores the ability to achieve grace and agency in the face of death. The play unmasks those who perpetrate cruelty, while illuminating the political proliferation of false facts to advance acts of oppression.
CANNED GOODS is about the false flag operation that proceeded the start of the Second World War. The play explores the final twenty-four hours in the lives of three men, who were code named “Canned Goods” by Himmler. The SS used these men, the Canned Goods, to provide the theatre that Hitler believed he needed to justify his invasion of Poland. The play raises clear parallels to political devices being utilized today.
The play is based on actual historical events. On August 31, 1939, SS soldiers drugged German political prisoners, and dressed them in Polish army uniforms. The SS soldiers shot and killed the men to make it appear that the Polish army had attacked a German language radio station in Gliwice, Poland, just across the border from Germany. Photographs taken of the dead men were sent to the European and American press as evidence of the invented Polish attacks and harassment of Germans living in Poland. After the world media published stories of the staged attack, Hitler announced that he had no choice but to invade Poland to protect the lives of Germans living under the yoke of Polish violence and oppression in Poland.
While the play is based on historical records, such as transcripts describing the staged attack from the Nuremberg trial, the focus of the drama is on the complex psychological entanglement between prisoners with hours left to live and the SS Major who engages and spars with the Canned Goods before they are killed.
CANNED GOODS, written by Erik Kahn
Details:
• One Act staged in 12 scenes, estimated running time: 90 minutes
• 5 Cast Members
• Unit set / minimal set requirements
Production Notes
Radio station in Gleiwitz Poland where Himmler staged a Polish attack on Germans living close to the German border. On August 31, 1939, the evening before Germany’s invasion of Poland, SS Major Alfred Naujocks and his operatives dressed political prisoners from Dachau in Polish army uniforms before shooting them.
The SS photographed the dead men in uniform as evidence of the attack on Germans by Polish troops. Photographs and the story of the staged attack were printed in Major newspapers.
The code name for the SS staged attack was Grandmother Died. The political prisoners in the photo above were drugged, dressed in Polish army uniforms and then shot. The code name for the political prisoners used in the Grandmother Died operation was CANNED GOODS.
(Left) SS Major Alfred Naujocks who’s team drugged and killed the Canned Goods – the political prisoners used in the staged attack.
(Right) Major Naujocks in a prison mug shot after the war. While he was not prosecuted at Nuremberg, he was imprisoned for three years for war crimes charges brought in Denmark.
Franciszek Honiok, a 43 year old farmer, was one of the political prisoners – one of the Canned Goods. He was considered the first person to die in WWII.