Ever since Trump’s inauguration it has been on everyone’s lips: Fake news. They haven’t only been around since Facebook or Twitter, nor has it been invented by the infamous ‘lying press’. Time and again, fake news has influenced the course of history and has triggered events that would not have happened without manipulated news. Be it the Emser Depesche, which triggered the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71, the fake Privilegium Maius, which the Habsburgs cleverly used to gain power, or the stab-in-the-back myth which blindly led Germany into the next World War – all of them give the course of history a new direction.
WRITER: Martin Becker EDITOR: Marie Wilbers COMMISSIONING EDITOR: Johannes Geiger (ZDF), Tina Weimar (ZDF)
