Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - The Rogue Dressed as a Captain

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

One crisp morning in Berlin, in 1906, a small group of soldiers were led on an extraordinary heist by a man they believed to be a Captain. So how did an ageing nobody in a fake uniform trick them into aiding him in the crime of the century? Some say we humans will obey orders from anyone who dresses the part... but the real reason why we fall for tricksters time and again is far more interesting. Fraudsters and charlatans reel us in slowly by using psychology against us.Read more about Tim's work at http://timharford.com/ Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin As the night draws in and the fire blazes on the hearth, we warm the children by telling them stories. Rumpel Stiltskin teaches them not to make promises they can't keep. But my stories are for the education of the grownups. And my stories are all true. I'm Tim Halford, gather close and listen to my cautionary tale. There may be times and places where it's a good idea to talk back to a military officer, but Germany, in 1906, isn't one of them. So, the young corporal doesn't. The corporal, let's call him Corporal Mulla, has been leading

his squad of four privates down Syltastrasa in Berlin, only to be challenged by a captain. The captain is about 50. A slim fellow with sunken cheeks, the outline of his skull prominent above a large white moustache. Truth be told, he looks strangely down on his luck. But Corporal Muller doesn't seem to take that in. Like any man in uniform, the captain looks taller and broader thanks to his boots, smart grey overcoat and Prussian blue officers cap, his white gloved hand rests casually on the hilt of his rapier. The all highest, everyone knows that means orders from the Kaiser.

As the small group march towards Pulitzer-Strasse station, the charismatic captain sees another squad. You men! Yes, captain? Fall in behind. The Kaiser himself has commanded it. Yes, captain. The Kaiser himself has commanded it. Yes Captain. The Captain now commands a little army, and all 10 soldiers ride the train across Berlin towards Kürpennik, a charming little town

just southeast of the capital. On arrival, the adventure continues. Corporal, line this line up for inspection. Line up men. Hurry! Fix! Burn it! It's already been an extraordinary day for Corporal Mulla and his men, but we're just

getting started. What they're about to do is going to be the talk of newspapers around the world. You're listening to another cautionary tale. Corsion retails a story about other people's mistakes and what we should learn from them less we make the same mistakes ourselves. Sometimes these mistakes are tragic. Sometimes they're comic. This time I present a comedy. At least I think it's a comedy.

And the captain of Kürpinik is going to help me. He has a name by the way, a name that will soon become famous. His name is Wilhelm Voit. Remember where we left him? He's outside the town hall of Kürpinik, snapping out orders to corporal Muller and his men. They're lined up, their bayonets are fixed, and now the fun is going to begin. Captain Voit's little army bursts into Kürpinik town hall and into the office of the mayor.

A man named Gjorg Langehans. Your under arrest. The Kaiser has decreed that you are a vunted man. He's in his mid-30s, a mild-looking fellow, with Pansney's spectacles, a pointed go-t, and a large well-groomed moustache. He stands in astonishment. This is illegal! There's your warrant! My warrant is the man I command. You! Sir? What is your role here?

I am the town Trezure, sir. Then open the safe. The cash reserve is to be confiscated for safekeeping and we shall be examining the accounts for fraud. the accounts for fraud. Copenix Municipal Safe contains 3557 marks, 45 FedEx. Captain Voit is punctilious about the count. Here is your receipt. Stamp it and keep it safe. It's nearly a quarter of a million dollars in today's money.

It's nearly a quarter of a million dollars in today's money. You two find Fraulaga Hans and Arresta, she'll be interrogated alongside him. Treat her as courtesy. Yes sir! Captain Voigt searches the town hall office while his men keep the town officials under arrest. Failing to find what he seeks, he decides to wrap up the mission. The officials are to be driven to a police station not far from where the days adventure began. There, they'll be detained and interrogated. Captain Voigt himself walks to Copenhagen Railway Station. He collects a package from the left luggage office and steps into a restroom

stored. A minute or two later, he steps out again. And he's almost unrecognizable, having changed into shabby civilian clothes. He ambles bandy-legged across the station con course. This anonymous fellow boards the train back to Berlin with his uniform neatly folded under one arm and a bag of money under the other. He looks over his shoulder as he steps onto the train, gazing out over the station. He smiles. Then he disappears into the carriage. And just like that, the captain of Karpenik is gone. Soon after, Corporal Muller presents his prisoners at the police station in central Berlin. The situation quickly becomes baffling to all concerned. Nobody has heard anything about the Kaiser demanding the interrogation of the mayor of

Kürpinik, nor his wife. After a phone call to headquarters, the head of the German general staff himself, General Helmuth von Maltkürthe Younger, arrives to resolve the situation, but nobody has received any orders from the all-highest. Nobody can see any reason to detain the mayor, or his wife, or his treasurer, and nobody can recall ever having met a Captain Voit. No wonder. Captain Voight never existed. They met instead, hair-villhelm Voight, an ex-convict, an ex-shoemaker, a nobody who possessed

nothing more than a confident manner and a very nice uniform. The tale I just told you is a famous one in Germany. When the Germans tell a story, they tend to linger on the prelude to the heist in Kürpennik. What kind of man does this? Who was Wilhelm Voit and what inspired his audacious confidence trick. Voit was a cook, no doubt about it, his crimes included armed robbery. But the judicial system treated him harshly, stuffing a legitimate appeal into a filing cabinet to grow mildew. After he had served his time, he was run out of town after town by police who didn't want an ex-convict around. He had no papers. Without papers, he couldn't get a job. Without

a job, he couldn't get an address. Without an address, how could he get papers? In this version of the story, Voight is persecuted by a cruel bureaucracy, driven to ransacking the office of the mayor of Kürpennik, looking not for money, but for the paperwork he needed to get a job. The English-speaking world drew a different lesson from the newspaper reports of the Prussian prankster that the Germans are a sucker for a shouty man in a uniform. The most humorous figure of the century declared the morning post. The British writer, G.K. Chesterton, could scarcely contain his glee upon reading the reports

from Kürpinik. A comic absurd fraud, at least to English eyes. One would have thought anyone would have known that no soldier would talk like that. Yes, it's easy to laugh when it happens to someone else, but then four years later, a group of young upper-class pranksters, including the novelist Virginia Woolf, managed to arrange for a tour of the Royal Navy's flagship, HMS Drednaught, by putting on turbans, deep brown makeup, and fake beards, and claiming to be from the Royal family of Abacinia. Yes, I know, it's not cool. But what's even more jaw-dropping is that the Royal Navy lapt it up. The pranksters pre-agreed what they were going to say in greeting. Vunga, vunga! When they had to invent further

Abbasinian, they improvised by speaking scrambled phrases from the ancient Greek poetry they'd learnt at school. Led on to, spolochusus, pleries. and to spoil Choose's playries. Faced with this ridiculous, and to our modernised, profoundly offensive display, the Royal Navy responded with an appropriate degree of ignorance. It treated the visitors with all the honour it could muster, including the flag and anthem of the nation of Zanzibar rather than Abacinia. That was apparently close enough to satisfy everyone. So perhaps the lesson is that the Royal Navy will barrow

and scrape for Virginia Woolf in blackface and a fake beard. Or perhaps the lesson is that we're all vulnerable to the right kind of con. Look at modern America. Not so very long ago, managers of fast food restaurants around the United States fell prey to a hoax that was uncannily familiar. For example, in April 2004, a man calling himself Officer Scott, phoned the McDonald's in Louisville, Kentucky, to report that a member of staff had been suspected of stealing a purse. He had McDonald's corporate on the line with him, he said, and the police were on their way to make an arrest. Yet, while waiting for the police to arrive, the McDonald's assistant managers obeyed the increasingly appalling instructions of Officer Scott, forcing the young woman to

strip and much worse. What makes the story even more disturbing is that there have been about 70 of these hoax calls over the years, often with similarly traumatic results. often with similarly traumatic results. If Germans in 1906 would follow any order from a man in uniform, a century later assistant managers in America would do anything to their subordinates if they thought the police and corporate HQ wanted them to. So our cautionary tale isn't about the Germans and their love of uniforms. It's about a hard lesson. Faced with the right con, we're all vulnerable.

Any of us could have been the hapless Corporal Mulla. Since Wilhelm Voigt persuaded people to obey orders they shouldn't have obeyed, you may already be thinking about Stanley Milgram. Milgram's the man who, in the 1960s, conducted one of the most famous and controversial psychological experiments of all time. An experiment that I think we tend to misunderstand. Melgram recruited unsuspecting members of the American public, all men, to participate in what they were told was a study of memory. On showing up at the laboratory, a basement at Yale University, they met a man, apparently,

a scientist. Just as Void had apparently been a Prussian army captain. The man was dressed in a tie and a grey lap coat. The man dressed as a scientist, supervised proceedings. Participants would be assigned the role either of teacher or learner. The learner was then strapped into an electric chair, while a teacher retreated into another room to take control of a dangerous machine. And this is electro-taste to provide a good contact to avoid any blister of burn. As the learner failed to answer questions correctly, the teacher was asked to administer steadily increasing doses of electric current. That is incorrect. This will be at 3.30.

The fract phrase is rich boy. Let me out of here. Let me out of here. The Frank Frames is rich boy. Let me out of here. Many proof-willing to deliver possibly fatal jolts, despite the learner having already complained of a heart condition, despite the screams of pain and the pleadings to be released coming from the other side of the wall and despite the fact that the switch is on the shock machine, red, danger, severe shock, X, X, X. Ancestors Arrow. 375 volts. I think something's happened to that follower there. I'm getting all the answers. He was hollering on a Les Volga.

Can you check in to see if he's alright, please? Not once we've started. Please continue to teach him. Of course, there were no shocks. Both the screaming learner and the scientific supervisor were actors. The true experiment was studying the teachers, how far would they go when following direct orders? In the best known study, 65% of experimental subjects went all the way to 450 volts, applying

shocks long after the man in the other room had fallen silent. Milgrims research agenda was influenced by the shadow of the Holocaust and a desire to understand how it had been possible. He made the link explicit, citing for example, Hannah Arrent's coverage of the trial of the prominent Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann, aren't reminded us. Had always been a law abiding citizen, because Hitler's orders, which he had certainly executed to the best of his ability, had possessed the force of law in the Third Reich.

Just following orders. Yet another German, unthinkingly obeying a man in the uniform had the same unthinking obedience that produced the comedy of Kürpennik in 1906 also given us history's most famous atrocity Stanley Milgram certainly seemed to think his experiment was all about obedience to authority. But modern scientists no longer see Mildrum's research in quite that way. Alex Haslam, a psychologist who re-examined the studies, found that when the man in the lab coat gave direct orders, they backfired. It's absolutely essential that you continue. Well, essential or not, this program isn't quite that important to me that I should go along doing something that I know nothing about, particularly if it's going to injure someone.

You got to know the choice teacher. Oh, I didn't know the choice. My number one choice is that I wouldn't go on if I thought he was being farmed. Nobody continued after that order. People needed to be persuaded, not bullied, into participating. So, if these experiments weren't about blind obedience, what were they about? Here's a detail that's usually overlooked. Milgram's shock machine had 30 settings, fine increments of 15 volts. It's hard to object to giving someone a tiny 15 volt shock, and if you've decided

that 15 volts is fine, then why draw the line at 30 volts? Why draw the line at 45? Why draw the line anywhere? At 150 volts, the learner yelled out in distress. Some people stopped at that point, but those who continued passed 150 volts almost always kept going to the full 450 volts. They were in 2D. Perhaps Stanley Milgrum's experiments weren't a study of obedience, so much as a study of our own unwillingness to stop and to admit we'd be making a dreadful mistake. We are in too deep.

We are committed. And we can't turn back. Think back to that day in Berlin in 1906. Voight stops Corporal Miller in the street and demands to know where he and his men are going. What would you do in such a situation? Voight looks a little old for a captain and there's something about his uniform that isn't quite right, but are you really going to demand proof of identification? Of course not. He's only asked to know where you're going.

You don't want to risk a court martial over answering a simple question. Where are you taking those men? Back to the barracks, sir. Turn them around and follow me. Voight wants Mulla's squad to follow him. a simple question. Void wants Muller's squad to follow him. That's a bit more of a stretch, but only a bit. After all Muller has already obeyed one order, already addressed this stranger in a uniform as Sir.

Marching down the street behind him is just one small action further. And after all, Corporal Muller marches down the street on the instructions of superior officers every day of his life. The pattern repeats itself for the second squad. When they first see Captain Void, he's already at the head of half a dozen men. That's the evidence he is who he says he is. Why not fall in? Why not get the train to Kürpennik? Why not fix bayonets for inspection? It's really only at the moment that they burst into the town hall. But the doubts might occur, but by then, they'd travelled all the way across Berlin, they'd been following Wilhelm Voitz' instructions for a couple of hours. It would have been very late in the day for Corp. Mulla, or anyone else,

to have the presence of mind, to stop, think, and challenge their own captain for the day. Notice that the young mayor, Giorg Langaam's, saw the situation very differently. What is the meaning of this? Unlike Muller, he wasn't asked to volunteer a trivial piece of information. Instead, he was immediately arrested. It was as though Stanley Milgram asked an experimental subject to go straight to 450 volts. At first glance then, Wilhelm Voitt's con and Stanley Milgrim's shock experiments

are evidence for the idea that we'll do anything for a figure of authority wearing the right outfit, but look deeper and they're evidence for something else, that we're willing to help out with reasonable requests, and that step by step, we find ourselves trapped in a web of our own making. But I want to think bigger than the world of the con artist. This cautionary tale is about something much more important than that. Yes, we fall for cons, but we fall for all kinds of other superficial things that shouldn't matter, like a nice uniform. And those superficial things are constantly influencing our decisions, including decisions that we may later come to regret.

Almost exactly 110 years after Wilhelm Voitz or Deicis Heist, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, squared off in one of three televised debates, you might remember it. In a town hall format, the candidates were able to roam the stage, and Trump certainly did roam, following Clinton around as she answered questions, looming behind her, clearly visible over the top of Clinton's head. He never apologises for anything to anyone. After the debate, that was all anyone could talk about. Was it an attempt at intimidation? Perhaps it was. You can be the judge of that. But there's something else about that footage of Donald Trump stalking Hillary Clinton. He looks huge. Like Darth

Vader towering over Princess Leia, American voters were being offered all kinds of choices in that election, but one that was never articulated was this. Would you like to elect the third tallest president ever? Or the shortest president since James Madison two centuries ago? But while it may never have been articulated, there's not much doubt that some voters were influenced by the disparity in height. The US does elect a lot of tall presidents. Trump was taller than Hillary Clinton. Obama was taller than McCain. Bush senior was taller than DeCarcus. Reagan was taller than Carter. Nixon was

taller than Humphrey. Kennedy was taller than Nixon. Truman was taller than Duey. Lyndon Johnson was taller than pretty much everyone. Are we electing a president here or picking a basketball team? Of course, there are some exceptions to the rule, when Carter beat Ford it was a victory for the little guy. But serious statistical analysis concludes that taller presidential candidates are more likely to win the election, more likely to win re-election, and more likely, unlike Donald Trump, to win the popular vote. Hillary Clinton would have been the first female president, true. But she would also have been the first president to win, despite a 10-inch height disadvantage since 1812. Americans may not have elected any female presidents over

the years, but they haven't elected any short men either, not in a long, long time. This isn't just about presidential elections, and it isn't just about height. Across the world, voters favour candidates based on the most superficial characteristics imaginable. One study found that people were fairly good at predicting the victor of an election for state governor after being shown a brief piece of video of a gubernatorial debate with the sound turned off. Just looking at the candidates seemed to be enough to judge who voters would pick. In fact, giving people audio too actually made the wife of Kürpingik's mayor, Georg Langehands, was completely taken in by Wilhelm Voitz' mannerisms.

She told a reporter, He was so graft towards my husband, but extremely polite to me. That convinced me that he was a real officer. You really have to feel for the mayor here. He's not fooled, but there are 10 soldiers pointing their guns at him, and his wife is falling for a con man who charms the pants off her while yelling at him. Frau Langhams thought that Voit looked and acted the part, as did Corporal Muller.

But it's not just Muller and and frau langa hans who act like that. I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV. If your child had a cough, she'd get just with the doctor orders. For your cough, you play doctor at home. An advertising classic, even Wilhelm Voit wouldn't have been quite as audacious as to announce, I'm not a captain, I'm just wearing the uniform, and yet the advertisements work. We buy the cough syrup for the man who tells us, I only look like a doctor. That is how powerful appearances can be. People suffer every day from fraudsters using the playbook of Wilhelm Voit. First, these fraudsters get the appearance his right. Maybe it's a text message that looks like

it's in your bank, the phone numbers right after all, or maybe the doorbell rings, and the man is standing there with an official looking ID. Maybe it's a smooth talking politician with a good suit. Stanley Milgram well understood the need to get the clothes right, in a variation where the experimenter didn't wear a lab coat, nobody went to 450 volts. Second, the fraudsters put people into what psychologists call a hot state. We don't think so clearly when we're hungry, or angry, or afraid. Wilhelm Voit yelled at Corporal Muller, the man on the phone told fast food managers that the police were on their way and corporate HQ wasn't happy. A politician who wanted to put people

into a hot state might announce that the country was being taken over by gangs and terrorists and that his opponent should be locked up. Whatever works. Third, they pull the heist one small step at a time. They start with the request for information. You are, Ms. Jane Do, aren't you? I'm sorry to report that your bank account has been compromised, Ms. Do, but just enter in your password and will sort it all out.

Give us someone who looks or sounds the part, apply a bit of fear, anger, lust or greed, and then proceed in salami slices from the reasonable to the insane, so smoothly that we don't stop to think. At first, it looked as though Wilhelm Voit would enjoy the fruits of his acting skills in peace. But as he relaxed with his bag full of money, a former criminal accomplice of his saw the reports of the daring heist in all the newspapers and promptly report invite to the authorities. When four detectives burst into Wilhelm Voitz apartment at 6 o'clock in the morning, they

found him enjoying breakfast. I'm afraid that the timing is a little inconvenient. I should like a moment to finish my meal. They watched. As Void broke open another crusty white roll, spread on a thick layer of butter and washed it down with his coffee. You can't help but like his audacity. Excellent. I am ready now gentlemen. At trial, Wilhelm Voit became a folk hero.

The judge sympathized with the way Voit had been treated by the system. He gave him an unexpectedly short sentence. Then he took off his judge's cap and stepped down to class Voight by the hand. The German authorities felt that, in light of the popularity of the captain of Kürpennik, even more ostentatious clemency was required, they pardoned him after a few months in jail. This clemency was required. They pardoned him after a few months in jail. A Kaiser himself was said to have chuckled at the deed. Emiable scoundrel! Voit had statues erected, and wax works were made of him, including one in Madame Two

Swords in London. He was paid to record his story so that people could listen to him recount his deeds on their gramophone. He went on tour, signing photographs of himself for money and posing in his famous uniform. A local restaurant tour begged him to come and die as often as he wanted, free of charge, knowing that his presence would attract other customers. A wealthy widow gave him a pension for life, and he lived happily ever after. Although the more I think about how he did what he did, and how much harm has been done by those who followed in his footsteps, the more I wonder whether I've succeeded in giving

you the comedy that I've promised. You've been listening to Corsion Retails. If you'd like to find out more about the ideas in this episode, including links to our sources, the show notes are on my website, timhalford.com. Corsion Retails is written and presented by me, Tim Halford. Our producers are Ryan Dilly and Marilyn Rust. The sound designer and mixer was Pascal Weiss, who also composed the amazing music. This season's stars Alan Cumming, Archie Panjabi, Toby Stevens and Russell Tovey, with Enso Chalenti, Ed Gochen, Melanie Guthridge, Mercyham and Ro, Rufus Wright and introducing Malcolm Gladwell.

Thanks to the team at Pushkin Industries, Julia Barton, Heather Fane, Mia LeBelle, Carly Milleori, Jacob Weisberg and of course the mighty Malcolm Gladwell. And thanks to my colleagues at the Financial Times. you