Category: Diplomatic Conspiracies

• The Bismarck "Stolen Letters"

  This theory held that Otto von Bismarck possessed or directed a “Black Room” in which diplomatic correspondence from foreign leaders was intercepted, altered, or even forged in order to shape crises and trigger war. In its strongest form, the Chancellor appears as the master of a hidden archive of counterfeit statecraft. The documented record clearly shows that European black-chamber traditions were real and that Bismarck himself deliberately edited the Ems Dispatch in 1870 to sharpen its insulting effect and help provoke war with France. What remains unproven is the larger claim that he systematically forged whole letters from other rulers in a private black room.