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Speaker 1: Pushkin. As the night draws in and the fire blazes

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Speaker 1: on the hearth. We warn the children by telling them stories.

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Speaker 1: Rumpelstiltskin teaches them not to make promises they can't keep.

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Speaker 1: But my stories are for the education of the grown ups,

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Speaker 1: and my stories are all true. I'm Tim Harford. Gather

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Speaker 1: close and listen to my cautionary tales. There may be

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Speaker 1: times and places where it's a good idea to talk

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Speaker 1: back to a military officer, but Germany in nineteen oh

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Speaker 1: six isn't one of them, so the young corporal doesn't.

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Speaker 1: The corporal let's call him Corporal Muller, has been leading

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Speaker 1: his squad of four privates down Silter Strasse in Berlin,

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Speaker 1: only to be challenged by a captain. The captain is

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Speaker 1: about fifty, a slim fellow with sunken cheeks, the outline

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Speaker 1: of his skull prominent above a large white mustache. Truth

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Speaker 1: be told, he looks strangely down on his luck, but

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Speaker 1: Corporal Muller doesn't seem to take that in. Like any

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Speaker 1: man in uniform, the captain looks taller and broader thanks

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Speaker 1: to his boots, smart gray overcoat and Prussian blue officer's cap.

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Speaker 1: His white gloved hand rests casually on the hilt of

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Speaker 1: his rapier. Where are you taking those men back to

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Speaker 1: the barracks, sir? Turn them around and follow me. I

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Speaker 1: have an urgent mission from the all Highest, comment the

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Speaker 1: all Highest. Everyone knows that means orders from the Kaiser.

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Speaker 1: As the small group marched towards Pullitztras' station, the charismatic

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Speaker 1: captain sees another squad. You men, yes, Captain, all in behind.

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Speaker 1: The Kaiser himself has commanded it. Yes, Captain. The Captain

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Speaker 1: now commands a little army, and all ten soldiers ride

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Speaker 1: the train across Berlin towards Kirpernick, a charming little town

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Speaker 1: just southeast of the capitol. On arrival, the adventure continues.

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Speaker 1: Corporal lined his men up for inspection. Line up, men, hurry,

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Speaker 1: fix baronets. It's already been an extraordinary day for Corporal

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Speaker 1: Muller and his men, but we're just getting started. What

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Speaker 1: they are about to do is going to be the

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Speaker 1: talk of newspapers around the world. You're listening to another

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Speaker 1: cautionary tale. Cautionary tales are stories about other people's mistakes

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Speaker 1: and what we should learn from them lest we make

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Speaker 1: the same mistakes. Ourselves. Sometimes these mistakes are tragic, sometimes

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Speaker 1: they're comic. This time I present a comedy. At least

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Speaker 1: I think it's a comedy. And the Captain of Kirpernick

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Speaker 1: is going to help me. He has a name, by

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Speaker 1: the way, a name that will soon become famous. His

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Speaker 1: name is Wilhelm Voight. Remember where we left him. He's

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Speaker 1: outside the town hall of Kerpernick snapping out orders to

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Speaker 1: Corporal Muller and his men. They're lined up, their bayonets

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Speaker 1: are fixed, and now the fun is going to begin.

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Speaker 1: Captain Voight's little army bursts into Kerpennick town Hall, into

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Speaker 1: the office of the Mayor. A man named gilg langerhans,

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Speaker 1: you're under arrist The Kaiser has decreed that you are

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Speaker 1: avanted men. He's in his mid thirties, a mild looking

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Speaker 1: fellow with pastnay spectacles, a pointed goatee and a large,

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Speaker 1: well groomed mustache. He stands in astonishment. This is illegal.

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Speaker 1: There's your warrant. My warrants is the men. I command you, sir,

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Speaker 1: What is your role here? I answered, Tom Treasurer. Sir,

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Speaker 1: then opened the safe. The cash reserve is to be

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Speaker 1: confiscated for safe keeping, and we shall be exam the

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Speaker 1: accounts for fraud. Kerpennick's Municipals safe contains three thousand, five

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty seven marks forty five Phoenix. Captain Voight

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Speaker 1: is punctilious about the count. Here is your receipt. Stamp

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Speaker 1: it and keep it safe. It's nearly a quarter of

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Speaker 1: a million dollars in today's money. You too, find Frau

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Speaker 1: Lagahan's and arrestor. She will be interrogated alongside him. Treat

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Speaker 1: her this courtesy, yes, Sir. Captain Voight searches the town

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Speaker 1: hall office while his men keep the town officials under arrest.

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Speaker 1: Failing to find what he seeks, he decides to wrap

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Speaker 1: up the mission. The officials are to be driven to

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Speaker 1: a police station not far from where the day's adventure began.

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Speaker 1: There they'll be detained and interrogated. Captain Voight himself walks

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Speaker 1: to Koerpennick railway station. He collects a package from the

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Speaker 1: left luggage office and steps into a restroom stall. A

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Speaker 1: minute or two later, he steps out again, and he's

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Speaker 1: almost unrecognizable, having changed into shabby civilian clothes. He ambles

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Speaker 1: bandy legged across the station concourse, This anonymous fellow boards

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Speaker 1: the train back to Berlin with his uniform neatly folded

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Speaker 1: under one arm and a bag of money under the other.

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Speaker 1: He looks over his shoulder as he steps onto the train,

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Speaker 1: gazing out over the station. He smiles. Then he disappears

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Speaker 1: into the carriage, and just like that, the Captain of

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Speaker 1: Kirpernick is gone. Soon after, Corporal Muller presents his prisoners

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Speaker 1: at the police station in central Berlin. The situation quickly

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Speaker 1: becomes baffling to all concerned. Nobody has heard anything about

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Speaker 1: the Kaiser demanding the interrogation of the Mayor of Kirpernick

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Speaker 1: nor his wife. After a phone call to headquarters, the

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Speaker 1: head of the German General Staff himself, General Helmuth von

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Speaker 1: Moltkurther Younger, arrives to resolve the situation. But nobody has

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Speaker 1: received any orders from the all highest. Nobody can see

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Speaker 1: any reason to detain the mayor or his wife or

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Speaker 1: his treasurer, and nobody can recall ever having met a

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Speaker 1: Captain Voight. No wonder, Captain Voight never existed. They met

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Speaker 1: instead her Wilhelmvoit, an ex convict, an ex shoemaker, a

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Speaker 1: nobody who possessed nothing more than a confident and a

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Speaker 1: very nice uniform. The tale I just told you is

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Speaker 1: a famous one in Germany. When the Germans tell the story,

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Speaker 1: they tend to linger on the prelude to the highstin Kupernick.

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Speaker 1: What kind of man does this? Who was Wilhelm Voight

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Speaker 1: and what inspired his audacious confidence trick? Voit was a cook,

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Speaker 1: no doubt about it. His crimes included armed robbery, but

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Speaker 1: the judicial system treated him harshly, stuffing a legitimate appeal

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Speaker 1: into a filing cabinet to grow mildew. After he had

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Speaker 1: served his time, he was run out of town after

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Speaker 1: town by police who didn't want an ex convict around.

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Speaker 1: He had no papers. Without papers, he couldn't get a

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Speaker 1: job without a job. He couldn't get an address without

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Speaker 1: an address, how could he get papers? In this version

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Speaker 1: of the story, Voit is persecuted by a cruel bureaucracy,

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Speaker 1: driven to ransacking the office of the mayor of Kirpernick,

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Speaker 1: looking not for money, but for the paperwork he needed

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Speaker 1: to get a job. The English speaking world drew a

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Speaker 1: different lesson from the newspaper reports of the Prussian prankster

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Speaker 1: that the Germans are a sucker for a shouty man

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Speaker 1: in a uniform, the most humorous figure of the center,

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Speaker 1: it declared the Morning Post. The British writer G. K.

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Speaker 1: Chesterton could scarcely contain his glee upon reading the reports

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Speaker 1: from Kirpernick, a comic absurd fraud at least two English eyes.

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Speaker 1: One would have thought anyone would have known that no

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Speaker 1: soldier would talk like that. Yes, it's easy to laugh

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Speaker 1: when it happens to someone else. But then four years later,

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Speaker 1: a group of young upper class pranksters, including the novelist

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Speaker 1: Virginia Wolf, managed to a change for a tour of

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Speaker 1: the Royal Navy's flagship HMS Dreadnought by putting on turbans,

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Speaker 1: deep brown makeup and fake beards and claiming to be

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Speaker 1: from the royal family of Abyssinia. Yes, I know it's

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Speaker 1: not cool, but what's even more jaw dropping is that

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Speaker 1: the Royal Navy lapped it up. The pranksters pre agreed

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Speaker 1: what they were going to say in greeting Vunga Bunga.

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Speaker 1: When they had to invent further Abyssinian, they improvised by

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Speaker 1: speaking scrambled phrases from the ancient Greek poetry they'd learnt

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Speaker 1: at school, led on tools polo chiusos playeries pagete de

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Speaker 1: ac Dear, what jolly good faced with this ridiculous and,

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Speaker 1: to our modern eyes, profoundly offensive display. The Royal Navy

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Speaker 1: responded with an appropriate degree of ignorance. It treated the

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Speaker 1: visitors with all the honor it could muster, including the

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Speaker 1: flag and anthem of the nation of Zanzibar rather than Abyssinia.

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Speaker 1: That was apparently close enough to satisfy everyone. So perhaps

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Speaker 1: the lesson is that the Royal Navy will bow and

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Speaker 1: scrape for Virginia wolf in black face and a fake beard.

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Speaker 1: Or perhaps the lesson is that we're all vulnerable to

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Speaker 1: the right kind of con Look at modern America. Not

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Speaker 1: so very long ago, managers of fast food restaurants around

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Speaker 1: the United States fell prey to a hoax that was

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Speaker 1: uncannily familiar. For example, in April two thousand and four,

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Speaker 1: a man calling himself Officer Scott, phoned the McDonald's in Louisville, Kentucky,

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Speaker 1: to report that a member of staff had been suspected

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Speaker 1: of stealing a purse. He had McDonald's corporate on the

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Speaker 1: line with him, he said, and the police were on

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Speaker 1: their way to make an arrest. Yet while waiting for

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Speaker 1: the police to arrive to McDonald's, assistant managers obeyed the

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Speaker 1: increasingly appalling instructions of Officer Scott, forcing the young woman

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Speaker 1: to strip and much worse. What makes the story even

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Speaker 1: more disturbing is that there have been about seventy of

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Speaker 1: these hoax calls over the years, often with similarly traumatic results.

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Speaker 1: If Germans in nineteen o six would follow any order

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Speaker 1: from a man in uniform, a century later, assistant managers

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Speaker 1: in America would do anything to their subordinates if they

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Speaker 1: thought that the police and corporate h Q wanted them

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Speaker 1: to so. Our cautionary tale isn't about the Germans and

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Speaker 1: their love of uniforms. It's about a hard lesson faced

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Speaker 1: with the right Khan. We're all vulnerable. Any of us

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Speaker 1: could have been the hapless corporal Muller, since Wilhelm Voight

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Speaker 1: persuaded people to obey orders they shouldn't have obeyed. You

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Speaker 1: may already be thinking about Stanley Milgram. Milgram's the man

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Speaker 1: who in the nineteen sixties conducted one of the most

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Speaker 1: famous and controversial psychological experiments of all time, an experiment

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Speaker 1: that I think we tend to misunderstand. Milgram recruited unsuspecting

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Speaker 1: members of the American public, all men to participate in

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Speaker 1: what they were told was a study of memory. On

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Speaker 1: showing up at the laboratory, a basement at Yale University,

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Speaker 1: they met a man, apparently a scientist, just as Voit

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Speaker 1: had apparently been a Prussian Army captain. I should like

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Speaker 1: to tell both of you are a little about the

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Speaker 1: memory project. The man was dressed in a tie and

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Speaker 1: a gray lap coat. One theory is that people learned

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Speaker 1: things correctly whenever they get punished from it being a mistake.

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Speaker 1: The man dressed as a scientist supervised proceedings. Participants would

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Speaker 1: be assigned the role either of teacher or learner. The

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Speaker 1: learner was then strapped into an electric chair while the

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Speaker 1: teacher retreated into another room to take control of a

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Speaker 1: dangerous machine. And as electrical taste is to provide a

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Speaker 1: good contact to avoid any blister of burn. As the

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Speaker 1: learner failed to answer questions correctly, the teacher was asked

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Speaker 1: to administer steadily increasing doses of electric current. Is incorrect?

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Speaker 1: This would be a three thirty fret frame. Is rich, boy,

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Speaker 1: Let me out of here? If I had father, let

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Speaker 1: me let me out of here. Let me out of

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Speaker 1: here good next phrase is the fast many proved willing

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Speaker 1: to deliver possibly fatal jolts, despite the learner having all

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Speaker 1: the way you complained of a heart condition, despite the

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Speaker 1: screams of pain and the pleadings to be released coming

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Speaker 1: from the other side of the wall, and despite the

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Speaker 1: fact that the switches on the shock machine read danger

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Speaker 1: severe shock x x X. The ANSWER's arrow riera seventy

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Speaker 1: five hours. I think sometime haven't had a follow me,

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Speaker 1: I'll get answer. He was hard on or less volage

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Speaker 1: edge check. Please not once we've started, Please continue teacher.

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Speaker 1: Of course, there were no shocks. Both the screaming learner

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Speaker 1: and the scientific supervisor were actors. The true experiment was

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Speaker 1: studying the teachers. How far would they go when following

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Speaker 1: direct orders. In the best known study, sixty five percent

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Speaker 1: of experimental subjects went all the way to four hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty volts, applying shocks long after the man in

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Speaker 1: the other room had fallen silent. Milgram's research agenda was

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Speaker 1: influenced by the shadow of the Holocaust and a desire

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Speaker 1: to understand how it had been possible. He made the

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Speaker 1: link explicit, citing, for example, Hannah Arrant's coverage of the

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Speaker 1: trial of the prominent Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann, Arrant reminded

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Speaker 1: us had always been a law abiding citizen because Hitler's orders,

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Speaker 1: which he had certainly executed to the best of his ability,

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Speaker 1: had possessed the force of law in the Third Reich,

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Speaker 1: just following orders, yet another German, unthinkingly obeying a man

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Speaker 1: in the uniform, had the same unthinking obedience that produced

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Speaker 1: the comedy of Kirpernick in nineteen oh six, also given

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Speaker 1: us history's most famous atrocity. Stanley Milgram certainly seemed to

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Speaker 1: think his experiment was all about obedience to authority, but

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Speaker 1: modern scientists no longer see Milgram's re search in quite

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Speaker 1: that way. Alex Haslem, a psychologist who re examined the studies,

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Speaker 1: found that when the man in the lab coat gave

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Speaker 1: direct orders, they backfired. It's absolutely essential that you've continued,

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Speaker 1: Oh essential or Notarth, This program isn't quite that important

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Speaker 1: to me that I should go along doing something and

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Speaker 1: I haven't known nothing about, particularly if it's going to

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Speaker 1: injury someone, you know, other choice teacher, Oh, I am Lentially,

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Speaker 1: my number one choice said that I wouldn't go on

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Speaker 1: if I thought he was being fired. Nobody continued after

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Speaker 1: that order. People needed to be persuaded, not bullied, into participating.

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Speaker 1: So if these experiments weren't about blind obedience, what were

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Speaker 1: they about. Here's a detail that's usually overlooked. Milgram's machine

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Speaker 1: had thirty settings, fine increments of fifteen vaults. It's hard

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Speaker 1: to object to giving someone a tiny fifteen volts shock.

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Speaker 1: And if you've decided that fifteen volts is fine, then

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Speaker 1: why draw the line at thirty volts? Why draw the

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Speaker 1: line at forty five? Why draw the line anywhere? At

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Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty volts? The learner yelled out in distress.

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Speaker 1: Some people stopped at that point, but those who continued

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Speaker 1: passed one hundred and fifty volts almost always kept going

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Speaker 1: to the full four hundred and fifty volts. They were

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Speaker 1: in too deep. Perhaps Stanley Milgram's experiments weren't a study

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Speaker 1: of obedience so much as a study of our own

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Speaker 1: unwillingness to stop and to admit we've been making a

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Speaker 1: dreadful mistake. We are in too deep, We are committed

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Speaker 1: and can't turn back where are you taking those men

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Speaker 1: back to the Badgerts? Sir? Think back to that day

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Speaker 1: in Berlin in nineteen o six. Voight stops Corporal Miller

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Speaker 1: in the street and demands to know where he and

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Speaker 1: his men are going. What would you do in such

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Speaker 1: a situation? Voit looks a little old for a captain,

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Speaker 1: and there's something about his uniform that isn't quite right.

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Speaker 1: But are you really going to demand proof of identification?

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Speaker 1: Of course not. He's only asked to know where you're going.

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Speaker 1: You don't want to risk a court martial over answering

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Speaker 1: a simple question, Where are you taking those men back

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Speaker 1: to the babberts? Sir? Turn them around and follow me.

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Speaker 1: Voit wants Muller's squad to follow him. That's a bit

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Speaker 1: more of a stretch, but only a bit. After all,

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Speaker 1: Muller has already obeyed one order, already addressed this stranger

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Speaker 1: in a uniform as Sir marching down the street behind him.

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Speaker 1: Is just one small action further, and after all, Corporal

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Speaker 1: Muller marches down the street on the instructions of superior

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Speaker 1: officers every day of his life. The pattern repeats itself

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Speaker 1: for the second squad when they first see Captain Voight.

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Speaker 1: He's already at the head of half a dozen men.

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Speaker 1: That's the evidence he is who he says he is.

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Speaker 1: Why not fall in? Why not get the train to Kirpernick,

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Speaker 1: Why not fix bayonets for inspection. It's really only at

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Speaker 1: the moments that they burst into the town hall, but

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Speaker 1: the doubts might occur. But by then they'd traveled all

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Speaker 1: the way across Berlin. They'd been following Wilhelm Voight's instructions

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Speaker 1: for a couple of hours. It would have been very

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Speaker 1: late in the day for Corporal Muller or anyone else

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Speaker 1: to have the presence of mind to stop think and

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Speaker 1: challenge their own captain for the day. Notice that the

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Speaker 1: young mayor, George Lanahan's saw the situation very differently. What

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Speaker 1: is the meaning of this? Unlike Muller, he wasn't asked

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Speaker 1: to volunteer a trivial piece of information. Instead, he was

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Speaker 1: immediately arrested. It was as though Stanley Milgram asked an

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Speaker 1: experimental subjects to go straight to four hundred and fifty volts.

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Speaker 1: At first glance, then Wilhelm voids kN and Stanley Milgram's

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Speaker 1: shock experiments are evidence for the idea that we'll do

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Speaker 1: anything for a figure of authority wearing the right outfit,

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Speaker 1: but look deeper and their evidence for something else, that

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Speaker 1: we're willing to help out with reasonable requests, and that

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Speaker 1: step by step we find ourselves trapped in a web

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Speaker 1: of our own making. But I want to think bigger

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Speaker 1: than the world of the con artist. This cautionary tale

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Speaker 1: is about something much more important than that. Yes, we

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Speaker 1: fall for cons but we fall for all kinds of

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Speaker 1: other superficial things that shouldn't matter, like a nice uniform.

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Speaker 1: And those superficial things are constantly influencing our decisions, including

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Speaker 1: decisions that we may later come to regret. Almost exactly

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Speaker 1: one hundred and ten years after Wilhelm Voight's audacious heist,

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Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump squared off in one of

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Speaker 1: three televised debates you might remember it in a town

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Speaker 1: hall format. The candidates were able to roam the stage,

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Speaker 1: and Trump certainly did, rome, following Clinton around as she

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Speaker 1: answered questions looming behind her, clearly visible over the top

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Speaker 1: of Clinton's head, apologizes for anything to anyone After the debate,

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Speaker 1: that was all anyone could talk about. Wasn't an attempt

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Speaker 1: at intimidation? I will say this about Hillary. She doesn't quit,

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Speaker 1: she doesn't give up. Perhaps it was you could be

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Speaker 1: the judge of that. But there's something else about that

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Speaker 1: footage of Donald Trump stalking Hillary Clinton. He looks huge,

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Speaker 1: like Darth Vader, towering over Princess Leia. American voters were

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Speaker 1: being offered all kinds of choices in that election, but

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Speaker 1: one that was never articulated was this, would you like

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Speaker 1: to elect the third tallest president ever or the shortest

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Speaker 1: president since James Madison two centuries ago. But while it

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Speaker 1: may never have been articulated, there's not much doubt that

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Speaker 1: some voters were influenced by the disparity and height. The

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Speaker 1: US does elect a lot of tall presidents. Trump was

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Speaker 1: taller than Hillary Clinton. Obama was taller than McCain, Bush

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Speaker 1: Senior was taller than to carcass Reagan was taller than Carter,

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Speaker 1: Nixon was taller than Humphrey. Kennedy was taller than Nixon.

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Speaker 1: Truman was taller than Dewey. Lyndon Johnson was taller than

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Speaker 1: pretty much everyone. Are we electing a president here or

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Speaker 1: picking a basketball team? Of course, there are some exceptions

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Speaker 1: to the rule. When Carter beat Ford, it was a

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Speaker 1: victory for the little guy, but serious statistical analysis concludes

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Speaker 1: that taller presidential candidates are more likely to win the election,

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Speaker 1: more likely to win reelection, and more likely, unlike Donald Trump,

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Speaker 1: to win the popular vote. Hillary Clinton would have been

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Speaker 1: the first female president, true, but she would also have

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Speaker 1: been the first president to win despite a ten height

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Speaker 1: disadvantage since eighteen twelve. Americans may not have elected any

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Speaker 1: female presidents over the years, but they haven't elected any

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Speaker 1: short men either, not in a long long time. This

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Speaker 1: isn't just about presidential elections, and it isn't just about height.

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Speaker 1: Across the world, voters favor candidates based on the most

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Speaker 1: superficial characteristics imaginable. One study found that people were fairly

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Speaker 1: good at predicting the victor of an election for state

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Speaker 1: governor after being shown a brief piece of video of

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Speaker 1: a gubernatorial debate with the sound turned off. Just looking

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Speaker 1: at the candidates seemed to be enough to judge who

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Speaker 1: voters would pick. In fact, giving people audio two actually

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Speaker 1: made the predictions worse, presumably because it distracted them from

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Speaker 1: what mattered appearances. Back in Germany in nineteen oh six,

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Speaker 1: Frau Langerhans, the wife of Kirpernick's mayor, George Langerhans, was

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Speaker 1: completely taken in by Wilhelm Voight's mannerisms. She told a

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Speaker 1: reporter he was so grafted towards my husband, but extremely

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Speaker 1: polite to me. That convinced me that he was a

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Speaker 1: real officer. You really have to feel for the mayor here.

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Speaker 1: He's not fooled, but there are ten soldiers pointing their

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Speaker 1: guns at him, and his wife is falling for a

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Speaker 1: con man who charms the pants off her while yelling

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Speaker 1: at him. Frau Langerhans thought that Voit looked and acted

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Speaker 1: the part, as did Corporal Muller. But it's not just

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Speaker 1: Muller and Frau Langerhans who act like that. I'm not

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Speaker 1: a doctor, but I play one on TV. If your

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Speaker 1: child had a cough, she'd get just with the doctor

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Speaker 1: orders for your cough. An advertising classic. Even Wilhelm Voit

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Speaker 1: wouldn't have been quite as Ordain says to announce I'm

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Speaker 1: not a captain. I'm just wearing the uniform, and yet

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Speaker 1: the advertisements work. We buy the cough syrup for the

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Speaker 1: man who tells us I only look like a doctor.

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Speaker 1: That is how powerful appearances can be people suffer every

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Speaker 1: day from fraudsters, using the playbook of Wilhelm Voit. First,

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Speaker 1: these fraudsters get the appearances right. Maybe it's a text

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Speaker 1: message that looks like it's from your bank, the phone

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Speaker 1: numbers right after all. Or maybe the doorbell rings and

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Speaker 1: the man is standing there with an official looking ID.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's a smooth talking politician with a good suit.

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Speaker 1: Stanley Milgram well understood the need to get the clothes right.

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Speaker 1: In a variation where the experimenter didn't wear a lab coat,

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Speaker 1: nobody went to four hundred and fifty volts. Second, the

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Speaker 1: fraudsters put people into what psychologists call a hot state.

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Speaker 1: We don't think so clearly when we're hungry or angry

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Speaker 1: or afraid, Wilhelm Voit yelled at Corporal Muller. The man

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Speaker 1: on the phone told fast food managers that the police

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Speaker 1: were on their way, and Corporate HQ wasn't happy. A

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Speaker 1: politician who wanted to put people into a hot state

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Speaker 1: might announce that the country was being taken over by

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Speaker 1: gangs and terrorists and that his opponents should be locked up.

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Speaker 1: Whatever works. Third, they pull the heist one small step

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Speaker 1: at a time. They start with the request for information.

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Speaker 1: You are mus Jane Doe, aren't you. I'm sorry to

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Speaker 1: report that your bank account has been compromised, mus Dough.

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Speaker 1: But just enter in your password and we'll sort it

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Speaker 1: all out. Give us someone who looks or sounds the part,

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Speaker 1: apply a bit of fear, anger, lust, or greed, and

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Speaker 1: men proceed in salami slices from the reasonable to the insect,

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Speaker 1: so smoothly that we don't stop to think. At first,

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Speaker 1: it looked as though Wilhelm Voight would enjoy the fruits

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Speaker 1: of his acting skills in peace. But as he relaxed

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Speaker 1: with his bag full of money, a former criminal accomplice

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Speaker 1: of his saw the reports of the daring heist in

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Speaker 1: all the newspapers and promptly reported Voight to the authorities.

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Speaker 1: When four detectives burst into Wilhelm Voight's apartment at six

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Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning, they found him enjoying breakfast. I'm

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Speaker 1: afraid that the timing is a little inconvenient. I should

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Speaker 1: like a moment to finish my meal. They watched as

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Speaker 1: Voit broke open another crusty white roll spread on a

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Speaker 1: thick layer of butter, and washed it down with his coffee.

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Speaker 1: You can't help, but like his audacity excellent, I am

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Speaker 1: ready now, gentleman. At trial, Wilhelm Voight became a folk hero.

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Speaker 1: The judge sympathized with the way Voit had been treated

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Speaker 1: by the system. He gave him an unexpectedly short sentence.

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Speaker 1: Then he took off his judge's cap and stepped down

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Speaker 1: to clasp Voit by the hand. I visue good heads,

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Speaker 1: squild your peasant term and beyond. The German authorities felt that,

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Speaker 1: in light of the popularity of the Captain of Kirpernick,

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Speaker 1: even more ostentatious clemency was required. They pardoned him after

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Speaker 1: a few months in jail. The Kaiser himself was said

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Speaker 1: to have chuckled at the deed. Amiable scoundrel, Voight had

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Speaker 1: statues erected, and wax works were made of him, including

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Speaker 1: one in Madame Tusswords. In London, he was paid to

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Speaker 1: called his story so that people could listen to him

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Speaker 1: recount his deeds on their gramophones. He went on tour,

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Speaker 1: signing photographs of himself for money and posing in his

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Speaker 1: famous uniform. A local restaurateur begged him to come and

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Speaker 1: dine as often as he wanted, free of charge, knowing

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Speaker 1: that his presence would attract other customers. A wealthy widow

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Speaker 1: gave him a pension for life, and he lived happily

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Speaker 1: ever after. Although the more I think about how he

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Speaker 1: did what he did, and how much harm has been

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Speaker 1: done by those who followed in his footsteps, the more

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Speaker 1: I wonder whether I've succeeded in giving you the comedy

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Speaker 1: that I promised. You've been listening to Cautionary Tales If

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Speaker 1: you'd like to find out more about the ideas in

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Speaker 1: this episode, including links to our sources. The show notes

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Speaker 1: are on my website, Tim Harford dot com. Cautionary Tales

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Speaker 1: is written and presented by me, Tim Harford. Our producers

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Speaker 1: are Ryan Dilley and Marilyn Rust. The sound designer and

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Speaker 1: mixer was Pascal Wise, who also composed the amazing music.

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Speaker 1: This season stars Alan Cumming, Archie Panjabi, Toby Stephens, and

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Speaker 1: Russell Tovey, with enso Celenti, Ed Gochen, Melanie Gutteridge, Mercia Munroe,

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Speaker 1: rufus Wright and introducing Malcolm Gladwell. Thanks to the team

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Speaker 1: at Pushkin Industries, Julia Barton, Heather Faine, Mia LaBelle Carlie Migliori,

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Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg and of course the mighty Malcolm Gladwell. And

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Speaker 1: thanks to my colleagues at the Financial Times, the B