Un escándalo en Königsberg: Noticias falsas el siglo XIX

Between 1835 and 1842, scandal engulfed two clergymen in the Baltic port city of Königsberg. It destroyed their reputations, cost them their jobs, landed them in jail, and banished them from public life. Their acquittal on the most serious charges came too late to undo the damage. I've been thinking about that small vortex of turmoil ever since I stumbled across the relevant files in the early 1990s. The campaign of denunciations and rumors that brought down the Lutheran preachers Johann Ebel and Heinrich Diestel belongs to an era before paparazzi, radio, television, and digital social media, but that's precisely what gives their story the power of a fable. Similarities to people and situations in the present day, although unintentional, cannot be ruled out.