Schleswig Turkeys

A recent conversation with Christopher Nehring made me thinking. We had been discussing the phenomenon whereby Russian narratives are disseminated across thousands of fake-news-websites. These, in turn, form the basis for research conducted by AI tools, so-called LLMs. These models crawl the web, encounter these Russian narratives, while lacking the capacity to weigh or evaluate them. Consequently, the views propagated there find their way into the answers provided to the prompted questions of Western users. The users often fail to realise how much the distilled content presented to them from thousands of websites reeks of Kremlin propaganda. Gradually, Russian narratives permeate the Western world, without the recipients even noticing. It is a particularly insidious trick of manipulation within the realm of cognitive warfare. And it is equally difficult to explain that trick to those who do not deal professionally with matters of security.

The Turkeys in Schleswig Cathedral

And for sure, I wish to warn my own family as well. This includes my very well-read and smart children whose attention, however, tends towards zero whenever their old and boring father speaks to them on such matters. This is even more the case when the story is convoluted and outside of the principal interests of my young descendants. What should I do?

Well, many ideas come while reading. Actually, I am having the book “The Rat” by Günter Grass (incidentally, a Christmas gift from one of my daughters – Thanks again, Lynn!). In the book, the author recounts a story which, upon closer investigation, turned out to be true. It happened in Schleswig – a major city in the far north of Germany. And it is about Nazis in a church. That makes it interesting, even for Russian propagandists.

There is the Schleswig Cathedral, and it is adorned with numerous Gothic frescoes. After the ravages of time had taken their toll, these were restored in 1898. Yet, this restoration was botched. The result was little more than caricatures, and even these restorations did not last long. Thus, it was decided in the midst of the 30’s to rectify that matters, and in 1938, a further restoration was undertaken. Fortunately, the inept work had been carried out on a layer of lime, which could, in most places, be removed with a simple wipe.

The originals thus revealed were then skilfully replicated and brought back to light by restorers. Among these fresques, four painted Turkeys came to light. That was a sensation. Originally, these Gothic paintings had been created in the 13th century and Turkeys are native only to America. Okay, … why the hell (and teh god, as it is a cathedral) should there be paintings of a species on the wall that during those times when the paintings were done, did not exist in the region of Norther Germany? The only logical conclusion was, that someone in 13th-century in German Schleswig could have known of Turkeys. That was nothing short of revolutionary. Knowing a bird like a Turkey in Schleswig at that time means that someone during that time in the 13th century has been in Northern America. That means, that it was not Christopher Columbus who was the first European in America. Cristal clear. It must have been the Vikings and Germanics who had crossed the Atlantic and brought back depictions of this exotic creature. Maybe, or better …. certainly, the painter himself was a Northern American from origin.

False Images Beget False Convictions

Thus, it was clear that the “true master, the Germanic race”, had “always surpassed all others in daring and spirit of conquest”. They were the true discoverers of America. Equally clear was that the Spanish, by asserting their discovery of America, had in fact produced fake news. The Schleswig Turkeys served to reinforce the Nazis’ belief in their own racial supremacy.

Schleswig Turkeys – right or wrong?

Time passed. The self-described “superior race” lost its war they once began and in 1952, only a few years after, the Germans were in the midst of rebuilding their country. That included restoring their battered churches. This was also the case in Lübeck, another northern German main city. Here, an local artist named Lothar Malskat had been commissioned to restore the frescoes of St Mary’s Church. But his imagination ran away with him. He painted images in places that had previously been blank. This drew criticism from art experts. Amid the ensuing dispute about what was historical and what was new, Malskat turned himself in to the police and accused himself as counterfeiter.

During the investigation, it emerged that the Lübeck artist was a master forger, having forged more than 600 works of famous artists. And there has been a dealer from Berlin who was responsible for selling these artworks over years. He was not less than a very famous and highly distinguished Professor of Arts from Berlin. Among other things, this Professor has also been responsible for the restoration of the Schleswig Cathedral in 1938. And here, Malskat had, alongside other embellishments, invented the four Schleswig Turkeys out of pure creativity. At that time Malskat has been a young man and he also pictured himself hided in the frescos with a cigarette behind his ear. He did not take his work very seriously, as it seems and he did not think about the fact that Turkeys weren’t known at those times he tried to believe his paintings were dated. But the Nazis had thus fallen for a second-class forgery. Their blinkered worldview had led them to accept the depicted paintings uncritically, taking them as given and even as confirmation of their deranged ideology.

Confirmation bias

The same occurs today when we place our trust in the results and news found on the internet, and also those provided by AI tools. We are presented, again and again, with Schleswig Turkeys. Someone behind the scenes has an interest in ensuring that we believe his version of the story. We then slightly adjust our narratives accordingly and come to believe in falsehoods. And it is a bit more than a pure newspaper hoax or Tatar message. There, the author wants simply to believe you in a matter of fact. The Schleswig Turkeys – and false Russian narratives – go beyond that as they are shifting your basic believes of what is the interpretation of the world.

I think that the story of the “Schleswig Turkeys” is a memorable way to illustrate the phenomenon of the gradual poisoning of our information space, even – or especially – to audiences who have no particular affinity with the specialised field of Cognitive Warfare. But it are precisely these people who are at stake – those who consume information and news indiscriminately and then accept it as a very basic interpretation of their reality.

This is well described in psychology as the confirmation bias. And this is a pivotal cornerstone of Russian Cognitive Warfare and is able to paralyze critical thinking. That’s why Ukraine is in these stories a “Nazi”-state, Covid-19 is a bioweapon by the Deep State controling the world and a bedbugs pandemic in dirty France is spreading to clean Britain and disinfected Germany. Or take the numerous polls on defence readiness. It is always told that only a small minority of people is willing to defend their own country. But that is not true on three levels. Firstly, false questions are producing fake results. Secondly, the interpretation failure. Even if only 20 percent of a population would be willing to defend, that would mean millions of soldiers in absolute numbers. The Bundeswehr will – in case of war – become an army of millions. Thirdly, these polls only include native citizens. But wouldn’t the foreigners in a country not fight for their homeland? There are alone 14 millions of foreigners in Germany and many of them would be willing to fight, too.

There are numerous examples where Western media thoughtless takes over those stories that are able to shift our basic believes. It is always the same problem. AI-Tools and journalism work with the same convictions. When two (or better more) sources independently value a news as proven, then it becomes a fact. As long as many superficially seen different and various sources are reporting the same issue – journalists and other masterminds tends to believe that it is a unbeatable truth. So do AI-tools. Congratulations! As long as there are thousands of seemingly independent online sources tell the same story – it seems to be credible. But it is not. A mass of people may define who is governing a state but it does not define what is a truth.

The Turkeys from Schleswig fit (at least for me) pretty well as a short and illustrative story about how Cognitive Warfare works. There is a source that falsly claims anything and many many repeat it – unreflected or by intention. One lie, many multipliers, a mass of followers. That’s it what we even these days take a way too often as an unbeatable truth. There are a lot of “Schleswig Turkeys” flying around.

And for sure – this text has also been translated by AI…. but I’ve checked it….

Picture: © Antje Wendt/Nordkirche