Meet the shoemaker and con artist who led an army to rob a city.
Wilhelm Voigt, from Tilsit, Prussia (now Sovetsk, Russia), was happy to find employment as a shoemaker.
He had just settled in Berlin after serving a 15-year sentence for a failed burglary attempt. It was not his first prison term, and it would not be his last.
When news of his long criminal record reached Berlin, he was labeled ‘undesirable’, sacked, and ordered to leave town. Adrift and out of money, he devised a master plan. Wearing an army captain’s uniform he managed to compose from local second-hand shops, he approached a group of grenadiers as they emerged from a shooting range.
Betting on the soldiers’ blind obedience to authority, and doing his best to sound like a true officer, he ordered them to follow him on a special mission to the neighboring town of Köpenick.
Once in town, he stormed the city hall after positioning his troops at every entrance. He instructed the local Police to suspend all incoming and outgoing calls to and from Berlin for a full hour.
On his orders, the mayor was arrested and sent under military escort to Neue Wache for interrogation, on suspicion of embezzlement. Issuing a fake receipt that he signed using his former jail director’s name, Voigt then ‘confiscated’ about 4,000 German marks from the cashier’s office.
The rest of the squad was told to stand guard for another 30 minutes, during which time he sneaked out through a service door and rushed back to the station. Changing into civilian clothes, he boarded the first passing train, with the money in a bag.
Once the humiliation sank in, an intense manhunt was launched, with Voigt eventually captured and sent back to jail.
Kaiser Wilhelm II, who couldn’t conceal some amusement at Voigt’s audacity, arranged to have Voigt’s 4-year sentence cut in half.
Once out of jail, Voigt became a legend and spent the rest of his days posing as the Captain of Köpenick and signing photographs for money. He was featured in wax museums, appeared in variety shows, and even released a book with his account of the Köpenick adventure.
That was on October 17th, 1906!
While amusing, Voigt’s story is a cautionary tale of unchecked authority. If an army squad, well versed in the art of combat and deception, can fall for a fraudster who just looked the part, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Women still struggle to have their voices heard. Planes still crash from power plays in the cockpit. Conscripts are still pushed onto the battlefront under false pretexts. And half of us still act or fail to act because somebody said so.
How can we normalize challenging unreasonable instructions? What can we do to neutralize workplace asymmetries based on seniority, gender, or power?
Would you board the next train to Köpenick?
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